Natural disasters place immense stress on governments and public resources. Following such crises, private and non-profit organizations?including the American Red Cross, food banks, businesses, and religious groups?play a crucial role in filling gaps in the ability of government to provide services. Understanding the actions of such organizations during crisis situations and recovery efforts is critical to preparing for future natural disasters. Nonetheless, there is only limited research into their role and their coordination with federal, state, and local governments. Focusing on the aftermath of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, this project will address important questions in the field of political science. In particular, it will illuminate how organizations identify gaps in government services, how they coordinate their efforts with government, and why these efforts prove effective or ineffective. The conclusions drawn from this research will contribute to improved coordination between government and private/non-profit organizations during future natural disasters.
The supplementation of state capacity by non-state actors is a recurring, although understudied, phenomenon within the United States. While scholars such as Jacob Hacker have explored the role of non-state entities in providing social welfare benefits, most research on the non-state provision of services has focused on underdeveloped states in the Global South. In this project, we redirect scholarly attention to the role of private providers by addressing two key questions: 1) During times of crisis, how do non-state entities identify and react to gaps in government capacity to respond? 2) How do non-state entities work to coordinate their efforts with those of government, and why do these efforts prove effective or ineffective? We address these questions by conducting three waves of semi- structured, elite interviews in affected areas of both Texas and Florida. Grounded in established political science methods and approaches, our analysis will rely on the coding and computational examination of interview data and the mapping of coordination patterns.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
