Ilan Kelman – författare

An earthquake shatters Haiti and a hurricane slices through Texas. We hear that nature runs rampant, seeking to destroy us through these 'natural disasters'. Science recounts a different story, however: disasters are not the consequence of natural causes; they are the consequence of human choices and decisions. We put ourselves in harm's way; we fail to take measures which we know would prevent disasters, no matter what the environment does.This can be both hard to accept, and hard to unravel. A complex of factors shape disasters. They arise from the political processes dictating where and what we build, and from social circumstances which create and perpetuate poverty and discrimination. They develop from the social preference to blame nature for the damage wrought, when in fact events such as earthquakes and storms are entirely commonplace environmental processes. We feel the need to fight natural forces, to reclaim what we assume is ours, and to protect ourselves from what we perceive to be wrath from outside our communities. This attitude distracts us from the real causes of disasters: humanity's decisions, as societies and as individuals. It stops us accepting the real solutions to disasters: making better decisions.This book explores stories of some of our worst disasters to show how we can and should act to stop people dying when nature unleashes its energies. The disaster is not the tornado, the volcanic eruption, or climate change, but the deaths and injuries, the loss of irreplaceable property, and the lack and even denial of support to affected people, so that a short-term interruption becomes a long-term recovery nightmare. But we can combat this, as Kelman shows, describing inspiring examples of effective human action that limits damage, such as managing flooding in Toronto and villages in Bangladesh, or wildfires in Colorado.Throughout, his message is clear: there is no such thing as a natural disaster. The disaster lies in our inability to deal with the environment and with ourselves.

The Routledge Handbook of Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation aims to provide an overview and critique of the current state of knowledge, policy, and practice, encouraging engagement, and reflection on bringing the two sectors together. This long-awaited and welcomed volume makes a compelling case that a common research agenda and a series of practical policies and policy recommendations can and should be put in place.Over 40 contributions explore DRR including CCA in five parts. The first part presents and interrogates much of the typical vocabulary seen in DRR including CCA, not only pointing out the useful and not-so-useful dimensions, but also providing alternatives and positive examples. The second part explains how to move forward creating and supporting positive crossovers and connections, while the third one explores some aspects of multi-dimensional approaches to knowing and understanding. The fourth part argues for a balanced approach to governance, taking both governmental and non-governmental governance, as well as different scales of governance, into consideration. The final part of the Handbook emphasises DRR including CCA as an investment, rather than a cost, and connects its further implementation with livelihoods of people around the world.This handbook highlights the connections amongst the processes of dealing with disasters and dealing with climate change. It demonstrates how little climate change brings which is new and emphasises the strengths of placing climate change within wider contexts in order to draw on all our strengths while overcoming limitations with specialities. It will prove to be a valuable guide for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, academics, policy makers, and practitioners with an interest in disaster risk reduction and climate change.

When an earthquake hits a war zone or cyclone aid is flown in by an enemy, many ask: Can catastrophe bring peace? Disaster prevention and mitigation provide similar questions. Could setting up a flood warning system bring enemy countries together? Could a regional earthquake building code set the groundwork for wider regional cooperation?This book examines how and why disaster-related activities do and do not create peace and reduce conflict. Disaster-related activities refer to actions before a disaster such as prevention and mitigation along with actions after a disaster such as emergency response, humanitarian relief, and reconstruction. This volume investigates disaster diplomacy case studies from around the world, in a variety of political and disaster circumstances, from earthquakes in Greece and Turkey affecting these neighbours’ bilateral relations to volcanoes and typhoons influencing intra-state conflict in the Philippines. Dictatorships are amongst the case studies, such as Cuba and Burma, along with democracies such as the USA and India. No evidence is found to suggest that disaster diplomacy is a prominent factor in conflict resolution. Instead, disaster-related activities often influence peace processes in the short-term—over weeks and months—provided that a non-disaster-related basis already existed for the reconciliation. That could be secret negotiations between the warring parties or strong trade or cultural links. Over the long-term, disaster-related influences disappear, succumbing to factors such as a leadership change, the usual patterns of political enmity, or belief that an historical grievance should take precedence over disaster-related bonds.This is the first book on disaster diplomacy. Disaster-politics interactions have been studied for decades, but usually from a specific political framing, covering a specific geographical area, or from a specific disaster framing. As well, plenty of quantitative work has been completed, yet the data limitations are rarely admitted openly or thoroughly analysed. Few publications bring together the topics of disasters and politics in terms of a disaster diplomacy framework, yielding a grounded, qualitative, scientific point of view on the topic.

The Handbook provides a comprehensive statement and reference point for hazard and disaster research, policy making, and practice in an international and multi-disciplinary context. It offers critical reviews and appraisals of current state of the art and future development of conceptual, theoretical and practical approaches as well as empirical knowledge and available tools.Organized into five inter-related sections, this Handbook contains sixty-five contributions from leading scholars. Section one situates hazards and disasters in their broad political, cultural, economic, and environmental context. Section two contains treatments of potentially damaging natural events/phenomena organized by major earth system. Section three critically reviews progress in responding to disasters including warning, relief and recovery. Section four addresses mitigation of potential loss and prevention of disasters under two sub-headings: governance, advocacy and self-help, and communication and participation. Section five ends with a concluding chapter by the editors.The engaging international contributions reflect upon the politics and policy of how we think about and practice applied hazard research and disaster risk reduction. This Handbook provides a wealth of interdisciplinary information and will appeal to students and practitioners interested in Geography, Environment Studies and Development Studies.

The Handbook provides a comprehensive statement and reference point for hazard and disaster research, policy making, and practice in an international and multi-disciplinary context. It offers critical reviews and appraisals of current state of the art and future development of conceptual, theoretical and practical approaches as well as empirical knowledge and available tools.Organized into five inter-related sections, this Handbook contains sixty-five contributions from leading scholars. Section one situates hazards and disasters in their broad political, cultural, economic, and environmental context. Section two contains treatments of potentially damaging natural events/phenomena organized by major earth system. Section three critically reviews progress in responding to disasters including warning, relief and recovery. Section four addresses mitigation of potential loss and prevention of disasters under two sub-headings: governance, advocacy and self-help, and communication and participation. Section five ends with a concluding chapter by the editors.The engaging international contributions reflect upon the politics and policy of how we think about and practice applied hazard research and disaster risk reduction. This Handbook provides a wealth of interdisciplinary information and will appeal to students and practitioners interested in Geography, Environment Studies and Development Studies.

Especially in an era of rapid global environmental change, questions and issues about and around natural hazards and disasters are dizzying in their complexity—and urgency. Answering the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of this fast-moving area, and its vast and multidisciplinary corpus of scholarly literature, Disaster Risk is a new title from the acclaimed Routledge series, Critical Concepts in the Environment. Edited by a trio of expert researchers, this new collection of major works embraces a wide variety of methodological traditions to bring together in four volumes the foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship. The collection enables users to access—and to make sense of—the most important research and practice. It provides a synoptic view of all the key issues, current debates, and controversies.Disaster Risk is fully indexed and includes comprehensive introductions, newly written by the editors, which place the collected materials in their historical and intellectual context. It is an essential reference collection and is destined to be valued by scholars and students—as well as policy-makers and practitioners—as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.œ œ œ Disaster Risk is edited by three leading scholars in the field: Ben Wisner, formerly Director of International Studies at California State University at Long Beach, with a long career before that in research and teaching. He is presently engaged in full-time research and writing and has recently completed a four-year project for the United Nations University on defining and managing urban social vulnerability to disasters in six megacities (Johannesburg, Tokyo, Manila, Mumbai, Mexico City, and Los Angeles). The other co-editors of this Routledge Major Works collection are J. C. Gaillard of the University of Auckland, New Zealand; and Ilan Kelman, based at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo, Norway.

When an earthquake hits a war zone or cyclone aid is flown in by an enemy, many ask: Can catastrophe bring peace? Disaster prevention and mitigation provide similar questions. Could setting up a flood warning system bring enemy countries together? Could a regional earthquake building code set the groundwork for wider regional cooperation?This book examines how and why disaster-related activities do and do not create peace and reduce conflict. Disaster-related activities refer to actions before a disaster such as prevention and mitigation along with actions after a disaster such as emergency response, humanitarian relief, and reconstruction. This volume investigates disaster diplomacy case studies from around the world, in a variety of political and disaster circumstances, from earthquakes in Greece and Turkey affecting these neighbours’ bilateral relations to volcanoes and typhoons influencing intra-state conflict in the Philippines. Dictatorships are amongst the case studies, such as Cuba and Burma, along with democracies such as the USA and India. No evidence is found to suggest that disaster diplomacy is a prominent factor in conflict resolution. Instead, disaster-related activities often influence peace processes in the short-term—over weeks and months—provided that a non-disaster-related basis already existed for the reconciliation. That could be secret negotiations between the warring parties or strong trade or cultural links. Over the long-term, disaster-related influences disappear, succumbing to factors such as a leadership change, the usual patterns of political enmity, or belief that an historical grievance should take precedence over disaster-related bonds.This is the first book on disaster diplomacy. Disaster-politics interactions have been studied for decades, but usually from a specific political framing, covering a specific geographical area, or from a specific disaster framing. As well, plenty of quantitative work has been completed, yet the data limitations are rarely admitted openly or thoroughly analysed. Few publications bring together the topics of disasters and politics in terms of a disaster diplomacy framework, yielding a grounded, qualitative, scientific point of view on the topic.

There is a perennial gap between theory and practice, between academia and active professionals in the field of disaster management. This gap means that valuable lessons are not learned and people die or suffer as a result. This book opens a dialogue between theory and practice. It offers vital lessons to practitioners from scholarship on natural hazards, disaster risk management and reduction and developments studies, opening up new insights in accessible language with practical applications. It also offers to academics the insights of the enormous experience practitioners have accumulated, highlighting gaps in research and challenging assumptions and theories against the reality of experience. Disaster Management covers issues in all phases of the disaster cycle: preparedness, prevention, response and recovery. It also addresses cross-cutting issues including political, economic and social factors that influence differential vulnerability, and key areas of practice such as vulnerability mapping, early warning, infrastructure protection, emergency management, reconstruction, health care and education, and gender issues. The team of international authors combine their years of experience in research and the field to offer vital lessons for practitioners, academics and students alike.

The seventh edition of Environmental Hazards provides a much expanded and fully up-to-date overview of all the extreme environmental events that threaten people and what they value in the 21st century globally. It integrates cutting-edge materials to provide an interdisciplinary approach to environmental hazards and their management, illustrating how natural and human systems interact to place communities of all sizes, and at all stages of economic development, at risk. Part 1 defines basic concepts of hazard, risk, vulnerability and disaster and explores the evolution of hazards theory. Part 2 employs a consistent chapter structure to demonstrate how individual hazards occur, their impacts and how the risks can be assessed and managed.This extensively revised edition includes:Fresh perspectives on the reliability of disaster data, disaster risk reduction, risk and disaster perception and communication, and new technologies available to assist with environmental hazard managementThe addition of several new environmental hazards including landslide and avalanches, cryospheric hazards, karst and subsidence hazards, and hazards of the AnthropoceneMore boxed sections with a focus on both generic issues and the lessons to be learned from a carefully selected range of up-to-date extreme eventsAn annotated list of key resources, including further reading and relevant websites, for all chaptersMore colour diagrams and photographs, and more than 1,000 references to some of the most significant and recent published materialNew exercises to assist teaching in the classroom, or self-learningThis carefully structured and balanced textbook captures the complexity and dynamism of environmental hazards and is essential reading for students across many disciplines including geography, environmental science, environmental studies and natural resources.

The seventh edition of Environmental Hazards provides a much expanded and fully up-to-date overview of all the extreme environmental events that threaten people and what they value in the 21st century globally. It integrates cutting-edge materials to provide an interdisciplinary approach to environmental hazards and their management, illustrating how natural and human systems interact to place communities of all sizes, and at all stages of economic development, at risk. Part 1 defines basic concepts of hazard, risk, vulnerability and disaster and explores the evolution of hazards theory. Part 2 employs a consistent chapter structure to demonstrate how individual hazards occur, their impacts and how the risks can be assessed and managed.This extensively revised edition includes:Fresh perspectives on the reliability of disaster data, disaster risk reduction, risk and disaster perception and communication, and new technologies available to assist with environmental hazard managementThe addition of several new environmental hazards including landslide and avalanches, cryospheric hazards, karst and subsidence hazards, and hazards of the AnthropoceneMore boxed sections with a focus on both generic issues and the lessons to be learned from a carefully selected range of up-to-date extreme eventsAn annotated list of key resources, including further reading and relevant websites, for all chaptersMore colour diagrams and photographs, and more than 1,000 references to some of the most significant and recent published materialNew exercises to assist teaching in the classroom, or self-learningThis carefully structured and balanced textbook captures the complexity and dynamism of environmental hazards and is essential reading for students across many disciplines including geography, environmental science, environmental studies and natural resources.

In Understanding and Addressing Disaster Risk, the authors explain how people modify the environment and exert power over each other in ways that make nature potentially harmful and put people in harm’s way. Opportunities and challenges faced by those engaging with disaster risk are explored.Across 11 chapters, the authors show that disasters are not natural, are not events, and do not happen quickly. Instead, they are the result of chronic societal processes emerging from the creation and perpetuation of vulnerabilities and limitations on people’s abilities to respond to hazards. The book also explores the environmental component of disaster risk through the lens of different natural elements and phenomena, including biological-ecological and water-weather-climate processes as well as geological and outer space dynamics. The authors explain the mutual influence of the different components of disasters in creating disaster risk across diverse regions of the world. They critique attempts to reduce disaster risk through top-down, siloed assumptions, attitudes, and values. The value of people’s knowledge of hazards – often ignored or dismissed by authorities – is a central theme. This book is original because of how it re-interprets and advances understanding of the disaster process through the study of such societal processes of vulnerability, risk creation, and power imbalances. It is also unique in diving further into “root causes” of disaster in order to place them within local histories and colonial legacies as well as contemporary, typically misdirected, agendas while upending previous “solutions” which have been shown to do more harm than good.Understanding and Addressing Disaster Risk is useful for and useable by decision-makers, policy makers, researchers, and students to shatter the vicious cycle of repeating known mistakes which compound detrimental outcomes.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

In Understanding and Addressing Disaster Risk, the authors explain how people modify the environment and exert power over each other in ways that make nature potentially harmful and put people in harm’s way. Opportunities and challenges faced by those engaging with disaster risk are explored.Across 11 chapters, the authors show that disasters are not natural, are not events, and do not happen quickly. Instead, they are the result of chronic societal processes emerging from the creation and perpetuation of vulnerabilities and limitations on people’s abilities to respond to hazards. The book also explores the environmental component of disaster risk through the lens of different natural elements and phenomena, including biological-ecological and water-weather-climate processes as well as geological and outer space dynamics. The authors explain the mutual influence of the different components of disasters in creating disaster risk across diverse regions of the world. They critique attempts to reduce disaster risk through top-down, siloed assumptions, attitudes, and values. The value of people’s knowledge of hazards – often ignored or dismissed by authorities – is a central theme. This book is original because of how it re-interprets and advances understanding of the disaster process through the study of such societal processes of vulnerability, risk creation, and power imbalances. It is also unique in diving further into “root causes” of disaster in order to place them within local histories and colonial legacies as well as contemporary, typically misdirected, agendas while upending previous “solutions” which have been shown to do more harm than good.Understanding and Addressing Disaster Risk is useful for and useable by decision-makers, policy makers, researchers, and students to shatter the vicious cycle of repeating known mistakes which compound detrimental outcomes.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

This book is a festschrift in tribute to Ben Wisner’s contributions to disaster studies and adjacent fields of scholarship such as political ecology, development and sustainability.This festschrift for Ben, and so The Benschrift, revitalises, promotes and critiques a selection of six foundational articles that span Ben’s 50-year career. Each article is reproduced integrally and followed by a commentary by an expert in the field and a response from Ben. As a result, this book not only introduces a lifetime’s work to the latest generation of researchers; it also contributes a meaningful dialogue across decades of scholarship, expressing contemporary reflections alongside the understanding of how to engage with and improve past research. Two fundamental truths stand out: the value of local knowledge and the necessity of seeking root causes and radical solutions.This book is an essential read for students, researchers, policy makers and practitioners interested in the development and evolution of disaster scholarship, political ecology, development and sustainability studies.

This book is a festschrift in tribute to Ben Wisner’s contributions to disaster studies and adjacent fields of scholarship such as political ecology, development and sustainability.This festschrift for Ben, and so The Benschrift, revitalises, promotes and critiques a selection of six foundational articles that span Ben’s 50-year career. Each article is reproduced integrally and followed by a commentary by an expert in the field and a response from Ben. As a result, this book not only introduces a lifetime’s work to the latest generation of researchers; it also contributes a meaningful dialogue across decades of scholarship, expressing contemporary reflections alongside the understanding of how to engage with and improve past research. Two fundamental truths stand out: the value of local knowledge and the necessity of seeking root causes and radical solutions.This book is an essential read for students, researchers, policy makers and practitioners interested in the development and evolution of disaster scholarship, political ecology, development and sustainability studies.

Big or small, islands and their inhabitant communities have long been the focus of intellectual enquiry, but in recent years a whole host of new academic institutes, journals, and conferences have devoted themselves to their study and research. And while early scholarly work mostly originated from those working in the natural sciences, and in Physical and Human Geography, Anthropology, and Archaeology, in the last twenty years or so serious research has also burgeoned under the rubric of, for example, Cultural Geography, Regional Development, Environmental Studies, Tourism, and Identity Studies.This new four-volume collection from Routledge meets the need for a comprehensive reference work to allow users to make better sense of this voluminous scholarly and practical literature. Indeed, the sheer scale—and range—of the research output makes this title especially welcome.Island Studies is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editors, which places the material in its intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars, advanced students, and policy-makers as a vital one-stop research resource.

The Routledge Handbook of Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation aims to provide an overview and critique of the current state of knowledge, policy, and practice, encouraging engagement, and reflection on bringing the two sectors together. This long-awaited and welcomed volume makes a compelling case that a common research agenda and a series of practical policies and policy recommendations can and should be put in place.Over 40 contributions explore DRR including CCA in five parts. The first part presents and interrogates much of the typical vocabulary seen in DRR including CCA, not only pointing out the useful and not-so-useful dimensions, but also providing alternatives and positive examples. The second part explains how to move forward creating and supporting positive crossovers and connections, while the third one explores some aspects of multi-dimensional approaches to knowing and understanding. The fourth part argues for a balanced approach to governance, taking both governmental and non-governmental governance, as well as different scales of governance, into consideration. The final part of the Handbook emphasises DRR including CCA as an investment, rather than a cost, and connects its further implementation with livelihoods of people around the world.This handbook highlights the connections amongst the processes of dealing with disasters and dealing with climate change. It demonstrates how little climate change brings which is new and emphasises the strengths of placing climate change within wider contexts in order to draw on all our strengths while overcoming limitations with specialities. It will prove to be a valuable guide for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, academics, policy makers, and practitioners with an interest in disaster risk reduction and climate change.

This book presents a portrait of the social advantages and limitations of climate change related modeling in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region. Physical systems modeling - such as of climate, weather, water, and soil - can be useful planning tools, and are essential to the forecasts and projections used operationally for decisions on climate and development. However, these models and their limitations are rarely discussed in terms of how they are interpreted, misinterpreted, used, not used, needed and not needed by society at the local level for climate change adaptation. This publication addresses the implied but largely uncritiqued relationships between scientific modeling knowledge and local adaptation responses. It also presents theoretical perspectives on modeling and adaptation, supported by case studies of model use, non-use, interpretation and misinterpretation in the HKH region for application at the local level. It provides a critical angle into the value of modeling at multiple decision making scales in society, but focused on local needs. Case studies are presented from a variety of HKH countries, as defined by ICIMOD (which includes Bangladesh and Myanmar).

There is a perennial gap between theory and practice, between academia and active professionals in the field of disaster management. This gap means that valuable lessons are not learned and people die or suffer as a result. This book opens a dialogue between theory and practice. It offers vital lessons to practitioners from scholarship on natural hazards, disaster risk management and reduction and developments studies, opening up new insights in accessible language with practical applications. It also offers to academics the insights of the enormous experience practitioners have accumulated, highlighting gaps in research and challenging assumptions and theories against the reality of experience. Disaster Management covers issues in all phases of the disaster cycle: preparedness, prevention, response and recovery. It also addresses cross-cutting issues including political, economic and social factors that influence differential vulnerability, and key areas of practice such as vulnerability mapping, early warning, infrastructure protection, emergency management, reconstruction, health care and education, and gender issues. The team of international authors combine their years of experience in research and the field to offer vital lessons for practitioners, academics and students alike.

This book approaches the challenges the Arctic has faced and is facing through a lens of opportunity. Through pinpointed examples from and dealing with the Circumpolar North, the Arctic is depicted as a region where people and peoples have managed to endure despite significant challenges at hand. This book treats the ‘Arctic of disasters’ as an innovated narrative and asks how the ‘disaster pieces’ of Arctic discourse interact with the ability of Arctic peoples, communities and regions to counter disaster, adversity, and doom. While not neglecting the scientifically established challenges associated with climate change and other (potentially) disastrous processes in the north, this book calls for a paradigm shift from perceiving the ‘Arctic of disasters’ to an ‘Arctic of triumph’. Particular attention is therefore given to selected Arctic achievements that underline ‘triumphant’ developments in the north, even when Arctic triumph and disaster intersect.

This book explores how vulnerable and resilient communities from SIDS are affected by climate change;

This book explores how vulnerable and resilient communities from SIDS are affected by climate change;

Ein Erdbeben erschüttert Haiti und ein Hurrikan wütet in Texas. Wir hören, dass die Natur wütet und versucht, uns durch diese "Naturkatastrophen" zu zerstören. Die Wissenschaft erzählt eine andere Geschichte: die unbequeme Wahrheit, dass Katastrophen nicht die Folge von natürlichen Ursachen sind, sondern die meisten "Naturkatastrophen" durch menschliche Entscheidungen verursacht werden.​In diesem Buch erfahren Sie, wie Katastrophen vermieden werden können und sollten. Menschen mit politischer Macht, Geld und Möglichkeiten, allen zu helfen, vermeiden aktiv, Katastrophen zu verhindern, wenn die Natur ihre Kräfte und Energien entfesselt. Sie werden von Beispielen für schreckliche Katastrophen wie Erdbeben und Hurrikane in Haiti lesen, neben inspirierenden Erfolgen im Umgang mit Waldbränden in Colorado und Überschwemmungen in Toronto und Bangladesch. Die Geschichten nehmen Sie mit auf eine Reise um die Welt und in die Vergangenheit, um die komplexen Faktoren zu erkunden, die Katastrophen verursachen. Die Politik diktiert, wo und was wir bauen, während sie Armut, Marginalisierung und Diskriminierung schafft und aufrechterhält. Wir sollten die Menschen, die diese Entscheidungen treffen, für Katastrophen verantwortlich machen. Doch stattdessen konzentrieren wir uns auf Umweltfaktoren oder Gottheiten, die Todesfälle, Schäden und Störungen "verursachen".Die Politik diktiert, wo und was wir bauen, während sie Armut, Marginalisierung und Diskriminierung schafft und aufrechterhält und wir konzentrieren uns auf Umweltfaktoren oder Gottheiten, die Todesfälle oder Schäden "verursachen". Dieses Buch handelt von der Unfähigkeit der Menschheit, mit der Umwelt und mit uns selbst, kollektiv und individuell, umzugehen. Es wird Sie dabei unterstützen, bessere Entscheidungen zu treffen, um zukünftig dazu beizutragen Katastrophen zu verhindern.

Catastrophe and Conflict: Disaster Diplomacy and Its Foreign Policy Implications examines how and why disaster-related activities (disaster response and disaster risk reduction) do and do not lead to diplomatic endeavours. With respect to foreign policy implications, the main question examined here is: Under what circumstances could disaster diplomacy be actively made to succeed or not to succeed? Previous case studies are summarised followed by new case studies of disease diplomacy and climate change diplomacy. From the case studies, disaster diplomacy could succeed when those in power decide that they want it to succeed and then use their power for that goal. This situation is not likely to arise because of only disaster-related activities. Instead, pre-existing interests supporting diplomacy are needed.