Understanding the Psychological and Societal Response of Individuals, Groups, Authorities, and Media to Toxic Hazards

Toxic Turmoil ◽  
2002 ◽  
pp. 39-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie G. Cwikel ◽  
Johan M. Havenaar ◽  
Evelyn J. Bromet
Keyword(s):  
Societal Response

scholarly journals The 1717 eruption of Volcán de Fuego, Guatemala: Cascading hazards and societal response

2016 ◽  
Vol 394 ◽  
pp. 69-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.A. Hutchison ◽  
K.V. Cashman ◽  
C.A. Williams ◽  
A.C. Rust
Keyword(s):  
Societal Response

Disengagement from the State in Africa: Reflections on the Experience of Ghana and Guinea

1987 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Azarya ◽  
Naomi Chazan
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Underlying Assumption ◽  
Center Stage ◽  
Societal Response ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Gain Access

Few questions have galvanized the attention of observers of African affairs in recent years as forcefully as the performance of the state on the continent. The debate on the nature of the state—its capabilities, weaknesses, external and societal connections, and impact—has come to occupy center stage in the field of African political studies. This overriding preoccupation emanates from the underlying assumption that the state constitutes a superior means for the fulfillment of economic and social aspirations; participation in its activities is deemed beneficial, and various sectors of society strive to associate with its institutions and gain access to its resources. Some recent works have cast doubt on this assumption, however, and the trend in the literature has been shifting towards an emphasis on the diminishing role of the state in African social life. However, even in these new studies the focus has been primarily on the state itself, its difficulties, incapacities, and failures, rather than on societal response to its actions.

City of Angels or Edge City?

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Elizabeth Hough ◽  
Roger G. Bilham
Keyword(s):  
Fast Moving ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Slow Motion ◽  
Property Damage ◽  
Loma Prieta Earthquake ◽  
Edge City ◽  
Societal Response ◽  
Pile Up ◽  
Be Star ◽  
Turned Parts

Although this book focuses on societal response to earthquake disasters, many common threads can be found in societal response to other types of disasters. Some regions seem especially prone to disasters of all shapes and sizes, perhaps none more so than southern California, which can be star-studded and star-crossed in equal measure. This chapter steps away from the specific responses of societies to one type of disaster to instead consider the response of one society to myriad disasters. In southern California, disasters sometimes seem to pile up like, well, cars on a southern California freeway. During one memorably miserable week in October 2003, for example, firestorms laid waste to almost 700,000 acres in the region—2,000 homes, 24 lives, and a staggering $2 billion in property damage. It was a little like an earthquake in slow motion. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake had claimed about three times more lives (63) and total property damage ($6 billion), but the number of homes rendered uninhabitable by that powerful temblor was lower (1,450) than the number destroyed by the firestorms of 2003. That the disaster played out slowly, over the span of several days rather than several tens of seconds, was a curse as well as a blessing. Advance warning kept the death toll from climbing higher; it also generated high anxiety among tens of thousands who would not lose their homes as well as the few thousand who would. Fires are less kind than earthquakes in another critical respect as well: they can reduce an entire house and its contents to ash, whereas much can often be salvaged from even a severely earthquake-ravaged home. Fires can even have their own aftershocks, after a fashion: heavy Christmas Day rains turned parts of two burn areas into torrents of fast-moving debris that swept through two campgrounds and claimed 16 lives, most of them children. Even heavier rains in early 2005 caused a more massive landslide in the coastal community of La Conchita.

scholarly journals HIV/AIDS in South Africa: an overview

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 651-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Gilbert ◽  
Liz Walker
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
Environmental Model ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Aids Epidemic ◽  
Societal Response ◽  
The Social ◽  
Hiv Aids

This paper presents an overview of the development of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, taking into consideration the social context and analyzing the factors most likely to have influenced its spread as well as the societal response to it. The authors argue that macro factors such as social and political structures, in addition to behavioral ones, have combined to shape the course of the epidemic. Since various factors linked to social inequalities have combined to shape the pattern and growth of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa, it is inappropriate to focus on only one dimension in an attempt to combat the epidemic. Following the psycho-socio- environmental model, all potential contributing elements need to be addressed simultaneously. This calls for a true interdisciplinary and multi-sectorial approach. It also requires great commitment as well as strong political will.

Risk Perception and Societal Response

2012 ◽  
pp. 661-675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lennart Sjöberg
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perception ◽  
Societal Response
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