1. GRF Davos 2012
Dealing with Disaster in
Transitional Democracies
Fredrik Bynander
Research Director
CRISMART – Center for Crisis
Management Research and
Training

2. The Center for Natural Disaster Science
Strategic Research Area Application 16 March 2009
Swedish Government Decision 15 September 2009
Main ideas:
• Five strong disciplinary units producing high-class research in their
own fields
• In-depth collaboration to solve problems of hazard management,
risk reduction, and disaster response
• Started with new, open-minded research students in the form of a
research school (or actually, two)

3. The Centre today
26 PhD students and 6 post-docs are one year into their projects

4. Disaster management in
transitional democracies
• Regimes in flux are per definition unstable, but what
about the societies?
• Constitutional compromises feed power struggles and
inertia
• Transitions breed replacement strategies across the
institutional spectrum, which cause a lack of modus
• New democratic principles are pitted against the
”authoritarian kneejerk” embedded in prevailing
structures

5. Democratic Efficiency
Source: Bäck & Hadenius 2008

6. Mechanisms of State
Response to Disaster
Institutional vulnerabilities: understanding crisis
occurrence
• institutional erosion
• institutional rigidity
• underinstitutionalization

7. Mechanisms of State
Response to Disaster
Institutional resilience: understanding crisis response
• authoritarian reflex
• situational leadership
• bureaucratic politics
• transnational influence
• media agenda
• experiential learning

8. WWW.CNDS.SE
fredrik.bynander@fhs.se