Emergency managers as community change agents: An expanded vision of the profession

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Drabek, PhD

Reflecting the historical evolution of attack preparedness, technological failures, and so-called natural disaster events, the profession of emergency management confronts new challenges today. In part, these reflect important cultural differences among stakeholder groups, especially local emergency managers, homeland security personnel, and those focused on public health threats and business continuity. An expanded and more strategic vision of the profession is required wherein fundamental assumption sets are placed into broader contexts. Contrary to the drift experienced in the US during the past decade, a major paradigm shift is required reflecting new orientations and program priorities.

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane A. Bullock ◽  
George D. Haddow

The discipline of emergency management (EM) is at a critical crossroads. Emergency managers around the world are faced with new threats, new responsibilities, and new opportunities. This paper examines the organizational changes made by the US federal government in shaping the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and presents three key lessons learned during the past decade that could guide emergency planners as they design and manage EM organizations of the future.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heriberto Urby Jr, PhD, JD ◽  
David A. McEntire, PhD

This article discusses the influence of management theory, some principles of leadership, four strategic management considerations, that are applied to emergency management, allow emergency managers to transform their followers, organizations, and communities at large. The authors argue that in the past there has been little recognition of the value, or application, of these three areas of emphasis in the disaster profession. Using more of these principles, emergency managers may transform into transformational change agents who make a difference in their followers' lives, who themselves transform other people and improve emergency management.


Subject Deepfake technology. Significance The US Senate on October 24 passed an act that requires the Department of Homeland Security to publish a yearly report on how ‘deepfake’ technology may be used to harm national security. Deepfakes are believable digital videos, audios or photos created using artificial intelligence (AI) to portray a person saying or doing something that the person never said or did, or portraying an event as real that never took place. The level of sophistication of this technology has leapfrogged over the past two years, raising a wide spectrum of concerns. Impacts A market for anti-deepfake verification technologies will emerge. Lawmakers will need to define the lines between art/entertainment and malicious deepfakes. Upcoming elections will be impacted by the existence of this technology.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002088172110308
Author(s):  
Shailza Singh

This article attempts to understand the emergence of the idea of homeland security in the US in the recent past, the attendant security praxis, and its impact on the Third World security (predicament). It maps the journey of the idea of homeland security—from a US-specific domestic policy framework to a globalizing security framework. It is argued that in the emerging security understanding, the concerns of Third World countries, which were getting some global attention in the past few decades through the concepts like human security and societal security, have been marginalized. By referring to security-related policy changes in other countries, the article explains the US efforts to export this new understanding of security to the Third World and its long-term implications. As the homeland security paradigm and practices make their way into many developing countries, understanding the ‘homeland security moment’ from the perspective of the latter is of crucial significance to gauge their security predicament in the newer context.


Author(s):  
Rashmi Singh

This chapter assesses the US-led counter-terrorism response to the September 2001 attacks on the American homeland in order to gauge the successes and failures of the Global War on Terror. It concludes that successes against transnational terrorist threats, as represented by al-Qaida and its affiliates, have been few and far between. Instead, the past decade has been marked by a failure to meet set goals for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: the shifting character of war, the unintended fallouts of the counter-terrorism policies adopted, and an inadvertent strengthening of al-Qaida’s material and ideological capabilities through the US macro-securitisation of the Global War on Terror–all of which point to the absence of a long-term strategic vision. However, our counter-terrorism failures hold crucial lessons for the future and the chapter concludes by outlining how they can enable us to translate our past failures into future successes.


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Drabek, PhD

During the past three decades, emergency management has become more professionalized. An important part of this transformation has been the explosive growth in higher education of programs designed to provide the fundamental knowledge and skills required of emergency managers. Following the September 11, 2001, attacks, however, curricula reflecting homeland security issues and competencies also have been established. Some have proposed that these program areas should be better integrated. Following a brief summary of the historical context in which these developments occurred, key points of culture clash are identified. It is concluded that future faculty and administrative initiatives will be constrained by these cultural differences and deflected by future governmental policies, disaster events, and other external factors.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Garvey

Asthma rates in the US have risen during the past 25 years, as have asthma-related morbidity and healthcare costs. Professional organizations involved in asthma care have identified the need to assure that an advanced level of asthma knowledge and skill is available to patients with asthma, their families, and insurers. This need led to development of the certification for asthma educators. The Certified Asthma Educator (AE-C) must meet specific clinical criteria and pass a standardized examination designed to evaluate knowledge and skill for providing competent asthma education and coordination. The development and current status of the Certified Asthma Educator examination process and content are discussed, as are goals of the certification


2013 ◽  
pp. 109-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Rühl

This paper presents the highlights of the third annual edition of the BP Energy Outlook, which sets out BP’s view of the most likely developments in global energy markets to 2030, based on up-to-date analysis and taking into account developments of the past year. The Outlook’s overall expectation for growth in global energy demand is to be 36% higher in 2030 than in 2011 and almost all the growth coming from emerging economies. It also reflects shifting expectations of the pattern of supply, with unconventional sources — shale gas and tight oil together with heavy oil and biofuels — playing an increasingly important role and, in particular, transforming the energy balance of the US. While the fuel mix is evolving, fossil fuels will continue to be dominant. Oil, gas and coal are expected to converge on market shares of around 26—28% each by 2030, and non-fossil fuels — nuclear, hydro and renewables — on a share of around 6—7% each. By 2030, increasing production and moderating demand will result in the US being 99% self-sufficient in net energy. Meanwhile, with continuing steep economic growth, major emerging economies such as China and India will become increasingly reliant on energy imports. These shifts will have major impacts on trade balances.


2012 ◽  
pp. 61-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ershov

According to the latest forecasts, it will take 10 years for the world economy to get back to “decent shape”. Some more critical estimates suggest that the whole western world will have a “colossal mess” within the next 5–10 years. Regulators of some major countries significantly and over a short time‑period changed their forecasts for the worse which means that uncertainty in the outlook for the future persists. Indeed, the intensive anti‑crisis measures have reduced the severity of the past problems, however the problems themselves have not disappeared. Moreover, some of them have become more intense — the eurocrisis, excessive debts, global liquidity glut against the backdrop of its deficit in some of market segments. As was the case prior to the crisis, derivatives and high‑risk operations with “junk” bonds grow; budget problems — “fiscal cliff” in the US — and other problems worsen. All of the above forces the regulators to take unprecedented (in their scope and nature) steps. Will they be able to tackle the problems which emerge?


Author(s):  
Volker Scheid

This chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half century between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biology. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a definition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious starting point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technology studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthropologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice. This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s definition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’. If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affirming this shared objective and responsibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation.


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