Seguimiento y control

Thus, with the legal basis affording local government, its public relief organisations and other partners great discretion in organising local CM capacities and their strong coherence, we expect voluntary regulation to address, and maybe resolve, fundamental shortcomings in terms of broad actor involvement, efficiency through pooled responsibilities as well as the ambitions of local crisis preparation efforts. The following section will discuss whether that is case and which aspects the participants deem most useful.

I believe the agreement....

10) … will improve the citizens‘ self-help capacities. 09) … stimulates the partners to share experiences with each other to learn together. 08) … makes possible future CM policy development. 07) … will lead to shared terminologies. 06) …will lead to a greater understanding of each other‘s positions 05) …will improve the partners‘ relationship. 04) …will lead to a clearer allocation of roles. 03) …will decrease the costs of acquiring resources. 02) …will increase the diversity of available resources in the network. 01) …will increase the availability of resources in the network.

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 4.1: Mean item scores operational supportive tasks (1 = strongly disagree - 5 = strongly agree) With respect to operational supportive CM tasks, the survey respondents were most positive about the agreement’s contributions to the partners’ mutual understanding (Item 6) and the use of common language (Item 7), with 7 of 8 (87,5%) respondents agreeing that it will lead to a better understanding of each other’s standpoints and the use of mutual terminologies, respectively. The remaining person (12,5%) even strongly agreed with both statements. Therefore, all participants concurred with these items. Moreover, the network agents believe the agreement will stimulate knowledge sharing among the partners (Item 9), with 2 agreeing strongly (25%), 5 agreeing (62,5%) and the other undecided (12,5%). The same holds true for the improvement of informal relationships (social capital/Item 5) and the development of future policies (org. learning/Item 8), with 1 agreeing strongly, 6 agreeing and 1 respondent undecided for both items. Finally, 7 (87,5%) of the survey participants believe that it contributes to a clearer role allocation (Item 4), too.

On the other hand, our respondents expressed lower expectations with respect to the network’s resource positions. While 50% believe the agreement will contribute to the diversity and availability of resources (Items 1 & 2), 3 (37,5%) and 2 (25%) remain undecided, whereas 1 (12.5%) and 2 (25%) even expressed slight doubts, respectively. The same holds true for their expectations with respect to community competences (Item 10), too, as 3 (37,5%) respondents agreed, another 3 remained undecided and 25% either disagreed or disagreed strongly. Lastly, only 2 respondents (25%) expect the costs of resource acquisition to depreciate (Item 3), with another 2 undecided and 50% even disagreeing.

I believe the agreement... 16) …will incre 4 15) ...will inc 4,125 14) …will cont 4,125 13) …will allow 3,375 12) …will increa 4,125 11) …will incr 3,625

16) …will increase trust in existing information sources. 15) ...will increase the amount of trusted information sources. 14) …will contribute to the network‘s information management skills. 13) …will allow partners to access additional information sources. 12) …will increase the intelligibility of shared information. 11) …will increase the frequency with which the partners share operation-relevant information.

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 4.2: Mean item scores technical supportive tasks (1 = strongly disagree - 5 = strongly agree) Concerning improvements in technical supportive tasks, the respondents expressed particularly positive views regarding the intelligibility of shared information (Item 12), with 7 (87,5%) agreeing and one person even strongly agreeing. In a similar vein, 5 (62,5%) & 2 (25%) of our respondents agreed or strongly agreed, respectively, that the covenant will increase the number of trusted information sources in the network (Item 15) with the remaining 1 undecided. Likewise, 2 participants (25%) strongly antici- pate increasing trust in existing information sources (Item 16), with 4 (50%) positive and 2 undecided. Moreover, 7 (87,5%) suspect a positive influence on the network’s ability to process information (Item 14), with one person undecided. Finally, 62,5% (5 counts) still agreed that the frequency with which mission-relevant data are shared (Item 11) will improve, whereas 3 remained undecided. Finally, our sample viewed the access to additional shared information sources (Item 15) as the least likely aspect technical supportive tasks to improve, with 50% (4 counts) remaining positive, but 3 respondents undecided and another 1 even doubting that this will materialise.

Overall, our sample of local network participants at the municipality of Gronau anticipate improvements in their mutual understanding and the use of common terminologies, in particular, with other soft operational aspects such as social capital and organisational learning expected to improve, too. However, they were less positive with respect to the availability and diversity of resources, with their scepticism regarding the efficiency of resource acquisition strongly reflecting findings from environmental gover- nance studies (Bressers et al., 2009). In spite of the agreement including a provision on mutual efforts of citizen education, strangely only few participants expect improvements in community competences. This view on the agreement’s contributions to operational supportive tasks is subsequently reflected in expectations on information management capacities, too, with the partners especially positive about the intelligibly of share information, the amount of trusted information sources and the ability to process information. Moreover, they expect trust in existing information sources and the frequency with which mission-relevant information is shared among the partners to increase, whereas fewer believe they will receive access to additional shared information systems.

CHAPTER

5

CONCLUSION

In the following and last chapter we will formulate an answer to our problem statement by summarising our results per sub-question. Our central research question was:Can a negotiated agreement enhance perceived performance of crisis preparation efforts in the relevant institutional and governance contexts of the municipality of Gronau and how (not)?. Our results indicate that this is the case, although apparently for different reasons than in environmental governance settings.

Firstly, local CM in Germany and at the municipality of Gronau, accordingly, relies heavily on its legally institutionalised core actors, while the decentralisation of CM’s administrative and operational competences has burdened local governments with far-reaching provisions requiring coordination of a multitude of public services in multi-level structures and increased financial burdens. This reflects diverse research findings from other settings, which have demonstrated the benefits of broad actor involvement. The structure of Gronau’s CM network merely reflects the legal institutional framework, however, as it consists of, but does not represent all, these legally commissioned entities, with other possible contributors to CM preparations largely excluded or only involved externally. Due to the strong public mandate and the actor’s subsequent perceived legitimacy, this network of core actors is strongly coherent and afforded sufficient financial resources, but lacks ambitious goals as the partners focus on the delivery of traditional community-level goals rather than incorporating network-level goals, too. Their publicly mandated positions furthermore bear impediments to the efficient pooling of resources which can be seen as one of the substantial strength of environmental governance processes.

Consequently, with the partners anticipating particularly strong improvements to the network’s ability to learn together, to produce future joint policy measures, and to manage shared information, we believe that the agreement will ultimately lead to more ambitious goal propositions in the future according to Bressers et al. (2009). The respondents’ expectations on advances to soft operational factors such as mutual understanding, shared common language, and social capital in terms of clear role allocations and informal relationships, indicate the initiation of an underlying process to tackle difficult coordinative issues with respect to the network’s efficiency in the future, too.

While our results indicate the possible functioning of negotiated agreements in CM settings, they remain case-specific results and need to be considered within their specific context at hand. However, they point to significant similarities between CM and environmental management settings, but also their differences as CM actors experience few legitimacy struggles as expected, but measures to improve the network’s efficiency are more difficult to implement. Moreover, while relevant legal provisions certainly afford the actors with sufficient discretion in their execution of the public mandate, we do not know to

which extent the agreement’s effectiveness can be explained by case-specific weaknesses of Gronau’s network rather than wider organisational structures of local CM in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany in general. In the end, it remains to be seen whether or not the agreement does indeed tackle these local weaknesses of network governance and in which ways that materialises.

Accordingly, a more structural comparison of supportive CM capacities according to our theory between municipalities with and without agreement to establish the agreements’ factual effect size among other process-related factors could prove an interesting next step in this line of inquiry. Similarly, testing the strength of correlation between individual structural or case-specific factors should provide more compelling insights into the workings of covenants in disaster governance settings, too. For this to happen however, researchers first need to provide conceptual clarity on the interrelations between tactical-operational CM capacities according to Stolk et al. (2011) and strategic-cooperative disaster governance capacities according to Norris et al. (2007), Kapucu (2008), Kapucu et al. (2010), Tierney (2012) and Aysan and Lavell (2014), as while they appear to overlap significantly, they do not combine well conceptually on the whole. In a similar vein, while our research has provided a preliminary framework for performance measurement of administrative CM preparations, future research needs to clarify the inter-relation between policy-making and other fundamental preparatory tasks (e.g. awareness raising, training/exercises, evaluation and doctrine development, maintenance and warehousing) with supportive and ultimately also operative CM capacities. With specific regard to the difficulties of developing effi- cient processes without compromising transparency and legitimacy, it would be interesting to compare German disaster governance networks who are heavily organised in inter-communal unions as opposed to independent local networks such as the one in Gronau.

Overall, we believe our research has demonstrated the applicability of CIT framework to the field of local disaster governance fairly well. However, our research should only be seen as the theoretical foundation for further application of the model, as research on decentralised disaster governance point to the fact that ”problems with promoting changes in structures stem from a fear of loss of power in status quo contexts” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.20), and that failings often ”reflect [...] inequities in local power structures (Williams, 2011)” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.22). Accordingly, application of the theory’s actor interaction model based on the characteristics of motivation, power, and information could prove an interesting solution to such problems in disaster governance practice. Moreover, the model could form a substantial basis for a deeper look into the functioning of NAs in CM settings, too. That this is the case, is further underlined by Aysan & Lavell’s (2014, p.41) finding that CM policy studies ”often fail to move beyond notions of correlation and regression and are unable to capture the true reasons as to why apparently similar conditions are in fact causally and process-wise very different (for example, the lack of progress from laws and policies to real implementation; the difficulties in achieving decentralization and participation; the lack of adequate financial resources).”

As we applied a Dutch theoretical approach towards policy implementation processes to a German practical context, the role of cultural dimensions (as incorporated in the CIT model as a wider context) in

explaining differences in governance cooperation and, thus, varying NA performance levels serves as a last interesting point of departure for future research. Whereas we have not gathered any specific data on this topic, we share the CIT model’s view that the way how case-specific network processes take shape are structurally determined by, amongst other wider context factors, cultural characteristics. Even though the GAT’s issue statements were deduced from Dutch governance contexts, they epitomise many issues of German local CM cooperation fairly well, with our workshop participants acknowledging all questions as relevant.. This is in line with other studies successfully applying and testing the framework in American and other Europeans settings, too. In our German setting, this is especially true for concerns over transparency and accountability with respect to flexible governance processes. During the workshop for example, the partners exhibited a strong concern for complying to formal procedures over adequate actor involvement. Whereas the relevant administrative structures (Dutch centralised unity state and German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia) are actually comparable, therefore, German operative units’ extent regulatory competences vis- `a-vis citizens in close proximity indicate that culture does indeed play a fundamental role in how governance processes take shape, with the Dutch and German cultures mainly differing in terms of masculinity and uncertainty avoidance according to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Finally, we hope to have incentivised readers and peer-researchers alike, to invest future efforts and time into the more structural linkages between the two fields to qualitatively further the field of policy research in CM settings.

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Appendix A - Disaster specific GAT

Dimension

Quality of governance regime

Extent Coherence Flexibility Intensity