Combining structural forms in the search for policy tools: Incident command systems in US crisis management

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Moynihan, Donald P.
• 署名单位: University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0491.2008.00395.x
• 发表日期: 2008
• 关键词: NETWORKS; trust

摘要

As governments search for policy tools to deliver public services, two choices-hierarchy or network-are portrayed as stark alternatives. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has adopted a practitioner-based innovation known as the Incident Command System (ICS) that assumes that crises require a network of responders, but that these networks should be managed by a hierarchy. While the ICS illustrates the potential for mixing hierarchies and networks, it was mandated by policymakers willing to make broad assumptions about the applicability of the ICS on limited evidence. An overdependence on practitioner claims displaced careful analysis of the underlying logics vital to understanding the operation of the policy tool. A case study of the ICS in managing an exotic animal disease outbreak points to the importance of crisis characteristics and management factors as contingencies affecting the operation of the ICS.