Prevention strategies for emerging uncertainties

Title: Prevention strategies for emerging uncertainties In the last decades, European societies have experienced the appearance of emerging uncertainties that can be characterized as ‘wicked problems’ (Head, 2008), complicated to solve and with immense impact on modern life. Some of these dominant uncertainties are e.g. climate change, international conflicts that cause an increase in numbers of refugees and a growing concern of violent attacks from radicalized groups (be that political or religious). Though these uncertainties have not occurred suddenly, societies around in Europe still seem to work in order to make sense and figure out how to deal with the consequences of the new challenges concerning both questions of mitigation, preparedness response and recovery. They struggle to invent and adapt new modus operandi in order to manage the problems. This paper investigates ways that risk and emergency management agencies on different levels make sense and interpret their strategies for handling emerging uncertainties with a particular focus on prevention. The study’s point of departure is the ways that Danish emergency management on both local and national level have developed such prevention strategies in a period of time where they in addition have faced political requirements to carry out both economic cut backs and to reorganize and gather in new superior units. The significant reorganization of the area provides a possibility to investigate how new entities responsible for emergency management construct their organizational identities (Alvesson & Berg, 1992), and it is argued that in this sector this also done through the development of prevention strategies. Initial analyses indicate that alteration in conditions concerning new uncertainties, change in allocation of economic resources and organizational restructuring within a relatively short time span has caused proliferation and variety of different policies for prevention developed in order to meet new requirements. A striking finding in the study so far is the identification of a dominant change in definitions of the relationship and interplay between civil society and emergency management within the last years. An appearance of novel policies that appoint further responsibilities to citizens and civil society on questions concerning prevention of can be identified. The first part of the study is carried out through a study of policy documents produced in both the former local organizational units and the new ones. In addition, analysis of national laws, consolidation acts, strategies and policies are included. This is done in order to detect changes in discourse (Fairclough, 2013) References: Alvesson, M. & P.O. Berg (1992). Corporate Culture and Organizational Symbolism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical Discourse Analysis, The Critical Study of Language. 2nd edition. Old Tappan: Taylor and Francis Head B. W. (2008). Wicked Problems in Public Policy. In Public Policy, 3:2, p. 101 – 118