Disaster Policies and Social Organisation.

DISASTER POLICIES AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION

Paper to be presented at the 5th Conference of ESA, Helsinki, August 28-September 1, 2001.

‘Disaster and Social Crisis Research Network’ sessions: ‘Deconstructing Disaster Management: Beyond the Command and Control Model’, Chaired by Maureen Fordham.

Background

Major part of this paper rests on work I undertook between 1997-1999, as a result of an officially tendered research project supported by the World Bank (1). The objective was to evaluate the ‘Development Law’ and its attendant Regulations concerning plan-making and building construction in Turkey, and together with an overview of the world experience, make recommendations and produce the necessary legislative texts for a new system aiming to reduce risks and losses in the occurence of natural hazards. The final report was submitted to the authorities in 10 August 1999, only a week before the East Marmara Earthquake.

Investigation into the structure and elements of the conventional disasters policy in Turkey, with their legal and organisational components, has been an exercise of evaluating the existing state of affairs and in the meantime formulating the rationally desirable organisation and procedures. The conventional disaster policy in Turkey has two major components: the ‘Disasters Law’ and the ‘Development Law’ and their attendant regulations (2). The exercise has focused on a number of key issues where problems seemed particularly to lie, leading to the conviction that any evaluation of progress in disasters policy, or any comparison between two systems of policy could employ these key issues as guide-lines or criteria (3). Thus with half a dozen specific lines of conduct, it could be conceivable to identify two extreme idealized conditions whereby all components of a disasters policy is rationally aligned in one advanced extreme, and alternatively, inefficiently and regressively organised in the other, as elaborated below. Current reality for any society probably lies within a spectrum between these two extreme models of disaster management, expressed graphically as in Figure 1.

The devastating earthquakes of 1999, took more than 18’000 lives, left 300’000 dwelling units and more than 50’000 business premises in debris, forcing a population of nearly 600’000 to seek emergency shelter. The estimated losses are around 7-8 billion US$, more than a third of the annual total GNP of Turkey (4). Human suffering, social and psychological impacts of these events have been deep and lasting. The respectability of the public authorities was impaired, and the interests of the industry were seriously damaged. These led to the generation of a strong national consensus and will-power to devise new and effective methods of tackling with disasters, refresh attitudes, find more powerful tools of management, clarify the structure of responsibilities, and revise the related legal framework.

Thus the research report was not allowed to slip into oblivion in this occasion, but made available to the World Bank experts arriving in Ankara, and the authors were asked to brief the experts and officials. Three significant Decrees of the Board of Ministers did follow (5). These envisaged the establishment of mechanisms related to ‘obligatory earthquake insurance’, the ‘control of construction processes’, and ‘improved proficiency in construction’ (6). For the first time in its history, the formal attitude in Turkey to disasters seemed to have been converted from conventional post-disaster activism and pretensions of preparation for emergencies, to pre-disaster mitigation regulation. A change in emphasis and a progressive step in macro-politics concerning disasters took place, which could be interpreted as a move from ‘State as Healer’ towards ‘State as Protector’ (Balamir, 1999, 2000a).

The former is related to ad hoc activities following an occurrence of each disaster, whereas the latter comprises mostly pre-disaster efforts for routinizing precautions and the strict control of all physical development, under the aegis and vision of an overall disaster policy. Rather than two ideal distinct states, I tend to view these as descriptions of two states of social organisation, whereby the former is progressively transforming in historical terms into the latter, and a process of change is witnessed during which the former is likely to fade away. Viewing these two states of organisation as descriptive models in a static or timeless context may lead to their conceptualisation as Weberian ideal types, as rightfully identified by Petropoulos (2001). However, the contention here in employing these models is to clarify the implications of historical changes taking place, half-observable, some as expectations latent in processes, which is closer to explanations of Beck (1992) and others.

Natural Hazards and Artificial Disasters

Public and individual attitudes and awareness in many societies, are not commensurate and compatible with vulnerabilities and risks involved in natural hazards. Of particular relevance is the case of earthquakes. The ordinary practices of physical development of settlements and construction of individual buildings, seldom follow the technical requirements, even if these were strictly regulated. In many cases the technical know-how is not properly contained in the regulations in relation to the risk levels earthquakes entail, in others where they are specified, the procedures may have too many weak points that keep building performance out of reach of control. The heavy costs and penalties of avoiding the technical requirements in daily practices, are distributed among those who had no part in this kind of negligence, and innocent people are bound to loose their lives and livelihood in the event of a hazard.

Formation of vulnerabilities are often human products out of anonymous social structures, rather than determined by conditions and constraints imposed by nature. Although this is not a recent revelation, vulnerabilities have historically peaked to extremes in contemporary society (Dynes, 2000). At the macro level, choice of settlement locations in Turkey for instance, have historically favoured fertile valleys that take place in between major geological formations, which are rich in accumulative organic material, but weak in structural carrying capacity, and are the worst places to be at the incidence of an earthquake. Availability of water sources and warm springs are additional attractions to these zones where major geological faults prevail. Most settlements and investments are made at such locations instead of avoiding these weak soils for construction and keeping them at agricultural production only. With the alignment of roads and public infrastructure alongside these valleys and plains, such nodes become economically more attractive, concentrating further all human and productive resources at vulnerable lands collectively generating high risks.

In the current practices of town expansion, another adverse mechanism can be shown to exist in society-nature interactions that aggravate vulnerabilities. It is often the economically and politically powerful local families that would influence decisions concerning the direction and location where the town should grow next. As a rule the town will extend towards these families’ lands, to increase their wealth further. By definition, these are agriculturally fertile lands on which specific families have grown wealthier, but soils which are also relatively weaker for town development and structural purposes. Yet their social and political dominance will bring the final decision even though democratic procedures were at work, rather than a technical viewpoint in opposition, if ever existed. All urban development for poor and rich will then take place on weaker and less appropriate lands, a result for which again no single agent can be pointed or held responsible.

The recent massive shifts in land markets in Istanbul could be given as another anecdote where the anticipated earthquake caused intensive changes in property values, polarising the differences between high and low values further, and thereby between rich and poor, depending on the perceptions of safer locations and safer buildings. Planning procedures allowing formal development take place on relatively safer zones, could not restrict the development of unauthorised construction at residual areas of doubtful nature, occupied by the poor. All estimations are that with its 15 million of population, with the greatest part of its stock unauthorised, and accommodating most of the economic assets of the country, it is now the Istanbul region at stake, within the effective range of the same global fault line. This awareness has set off individuals to re-evaluate their positions in the city, the safety level of the building they live in, and seek expert advice for greater security. Business opportunities arose for hundreds of impostor experts in the metropolitan Istanbul. Shifts in property values, led to new waves of speculation. In general, property owned and used by the economically marginal factions of the metropolitan society lost value; with it, the long term expectations of the poor. Some in panic, have disposed of their property at very low prices, and many families decided to go back to their original home-city in total despair. Such depression areas, and areas that experienced real destruction in 1999 have been captured by industries at lowest prices and redeveloped with earthquake resistant buildings, now in use for production or stocking of their inputs or outputs. Similar processes are in action in areas considered to have poor subterranean conditions.

Many other cases could be accounted for as examples of nature-society relations in which risks are inexorably aggravated and further injustices generated, and in which no identifiable person or body could be held responsible. The logic of market relations, exploiting and squandering natural resources with a blind eye on the side effects, and in all speculative ruthlessness keep nature external in its equation of supply and demand. This is particularly the case with property development and building construction since these processes are irretrievable and conceal the previous steps of work realised, ‘from foundations to the last coat of paint’ (Lewis, 2001). Inspection methods are either not existing, or if they do as in the case of Turkey, authorities are not capable of maintaining control in real terms, even if they are willing to carry out the tedious task of persistent and detailed observation. Absence of detailed and strictly described liabilities of the property owner, author architect and engineers, the undertaker, clerk of works, and the municipal inspectors etc. provide an environment of ‘organised irresponsibilities’.

One of the basic facts reaffirmed in the 1999 East Marmara earthquakes in Turkey, was the deficiency of the building stock in meeting the earthquake design codes even at project stage, let alone those due to production faults and negligences (7). This observation is made for the authorised stock only, leaving aside the clandestine unauthorised other half of the total stock. As very often stated, it is this fabricated environment that kill people, not the earthquake itself. There is always some indeterminacy in the system, owing to variations in local subterranean conditions, physical designs of buildings, manner the construction work was run, choice of structural materials, methods followed in mechanical services, detailing, etc. The situation is no different therefore from what Beck (1998) identifies as ‘manufactured uncertainty’ since incalculable but fatal risks are inevitably part of our daily lives spent in such stock, a condition imposed by the modern constructional industry. Although natural forces are the source of hazards, it is the human intervention in the form of inadequate built-environment that fabricate the risks and disasters.

Evolution of the Risk Society and Implications for Building an Earthquake Resistant Society

This is a preview of the whole essay

Evolution of the Risk Society and Implications for Building an Earthquake Resistant Society

Living under the threat of natural hazards and earthquakes is not unique to this country. Yet uncontrolled construction processes resulting in a highly vulnerable building stock for which no one assumes responsibility and no one could be charged with legal liabilities (the ‘organised irresponsibility’), convert an external and natural threat into an objective material condition (the ‘manufactured uncertainty’) gives rise to an environment where all forms of social and private decisions are affected. This then assumes a universal relevance since it is exactly these circumstances for which Beck (1992) claims that the industrial society (with its modernist ideology) having come up against its own limitations, is transcending into a ‘Risk Society’, a second phase of modernity, and that a new radical (‘reflexive’) modernisation is in the making. Accordingly, the industrial society’s ever extending intrusion with its science and technology to nature and life in general, have generated more problems than it solved, and led to major blunders and disasters that affected everyone in the global system, amplifying in many cases the impacts of natural disasters (8). All of such conditions as developments of the industrial society, have been undermining the industrial society itself and its modernity ideology.

The unintended, unexpected, and adverse consequences of technological progress, as well as deliberate exploitative interventions in nature, influence us all in our ordinary decisions of where to live, what to eat and drink, how to travel, where to invest, what to learn, with whom to have intimate relations with, etc. with incalculable risks about which we have little formal information, let alone control, and for which responsibilities are structurally unclear.

“Dangers are being produced by industry, externalised by economics, individualized by the legal system, legitimised by the sciences, and made to appear harmless by politics” (Beck, 1998, p. 16).

This represents a ‘most tyrannical of all forms of power’. The spatial and social distribution of dangers and risks seem furthermore, to aggravate the historical patterns of inequality (within the nation and across the globe), poorer getting the brunt of it. The industrial society thus with all its components and institutions (formal organisation of mass production, social classes, science and technology, professionalisms, nuclear family, parliamentary democracy, insurance, etc.), is in conflict with its own assumptions and values (equality, democracy, freedom of expression, human rights, etc.). It is for this reason that new means and methods of maintaining such (modernist) principles are inevitable, and the processes of formulation and then institutionalisation of new regulations are taking place. The Risk Society is in its making. This is therefore a historical period of change, in which administrations and organisations (both at national and international levels) find it unavoidable to respond to demands of the vast majority of the society affected in one way or the other, and make formal moves and devise new forms of regulations and organisational improvements.

Whereas ‘the logic of wealth production’ and accumulation dominates ‘the logic of risk production’ in the former, this is inevitably to be reversed in the Risk Society. Even though the Risk Society debate points to the end of a modernist era, every material condition evolving is to serve for the shaping of a new ‘radicalised modernity’, generating its own political interactions. Societies surrounded by ‘manufactured risk’ are bound to give greater significance to political power, restructuring decision-making and legitimacy processes. Of particular relevance are the ‘Relations of Definition’ in the determination of risks, leading to new rules and institutions. Beck (1998) refers to four distinct relations of definition in appropriate forms of control and regulation: the determination of the level of harmfulness of products, the identification of relevant information and parties involved in the generation of risks, the accounting methods of producing sufficient evidence, and the procedures to be followed in the case of compensation. The recent efforts of restructuring the components of the conventional disaster and earthquake policy in Turkey, and expressions of the need for further regulation could be interpreted within this framework. The following set of issues point to the deficiencies of the conventional system and indicate the avenues to identify and evaluate the nature of moves in building a new strategy for the mitigation of earthquake losses. The following six issues although have arisen from an analysis of the conventional policy in Turkey, could be relevant for the assesment of most of the disaster policy systems with their legal and organisational set up.

Figure 1

Attributes of the Two Extreme Models of Strategy

in Disaster Policy

Disorganized vs Regulated Acquisition and Use of Information:

A fundamental attribute to differentiate the two forms of social organisation is the existence of an institutionalised system of information acquisition and data management on hazards. Observation, measurement, recording, storing and retrieval of information concerning hazards is an initial step of mitigation policy in the rationally organized society. The institutionalization of data management on disasters will secure the accuracy, systematic storing and processing, and its regular updating in standard format and procedures. Responsibilities would generally be nested in a singular body, even if observation and recording be delegated to various units. Information concerning earthquakes entails local surface and subterranean geological surveys, regional statistics of strong and weak motion seismic activities, and information provided by satellites. There is no limit to the sophistication in the coverage, method of storing and retrieving data with clever devices.

In the Risk Society, this system should be expected to have a comprehensive scope and an integral part of the global information network. More important however, is the condition that this information base would be available to everyone for scientific or political purposes, that it would be prepared in an appropriate format conducive for any individual to have easy access to and allow the individuals build up a capacity to judge how life is likely to be affected, and participate in the community political process and decision-making procedures. The second requirement is that this system of information be related to formal implementation, and that some method and official procedure exists for the operational use of this information, employing the database for the enforcement of mitigation measures as required by the local circumstances and constructional activities. Maps and tables providing performance standards in urban development planning and building design, as well as in their rigorous inspection are to be extracted from this database. Information processing could in this manner, turn into purposeful procedures for monitoring real life mitigation efforts.

The fatalist society has no concern for the institutionalisation of information. Natural hazards are external events to the functioning of society. In the conventional administrative and legal set up in Turkey, the requirement and responsibility of assembly of information on earthquakes and disasters remains unstated, and no specific agent is nominated for the task. Information available largely owes to the voluntary work of bodies involved, and are irregular piles of data. A national earthquake probability map segments the country into five macro-level regions, as determined by the statistical occurrence of seismic events. This information is then referred in a regulation of the ‘Disasters Law’ for engineering design safety of buildings (updated 1997), with variant design standards imposed in each region. On the micro end, information about natural conditions is once again formally requested at the individual building site. The Building Regulation, as part of the Development Law, demands from the individual property owner the submission of a geological survey report for the granting a building-permission. This obligation is usually fulfilled by the property owner, purchasing a superficial report from a private geological firm, based on the visual inspection of the site (if not prepared at office), rather than authentic subterranean exploration.

Between these two extremes (the national earthquake zones and the geological survey of individual site) however, information necessary for the preparation of settlement plans remains largely unattended. Comprehensive and updated information on geological, geophysical, geo-technical, and seismic properties of total settlement and micro-zonation studies, are not formally required for the preparation of urban plans by the Development Law. Neither are the methods of avoiding risks in the preparation of local Development Plans for settlements subject to disasters explicitly identified. Yet this is where the bulk of information gathering and management has to be rigorously institutionalized, as a prerequisite of all forms of physical planning and mitigation efforts, and made available for the information and discretion of the local communities. Instead, the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement has in its recent mandates, demanded the individual municipalities carry out this kind of a task by themselves in their reviewing of urban plans, expecting municipalities find the resources and standard technical expertise in the market. This is a tactical mistake for several reasons. In the first place, the preparation of (3 Dimensional) subterranean and surface maps requires the formal identification of new methods, scientific and technical standards that are largely undefined at the moment. Secondly, such maps, reports, and other documents have to acquire a status of ‘official’ rather than private information, and multiple surveys and interpretations have to be avoided. Thirdly, it is largely true that such documents are to be produced for the first time and are likely to remain valid indefinitely and to be referred to in all future decisions of land use. Fourthly, such documents are to be publicly accessible and they have to be entrusted therefore, with a permanent and formal authority. Furthermore, the municipalities are not capable of fulfilling the obligations imposed by the mandates of ministries, and are reluctant to obtain geological information and maps, the scope and contents of which remain unknown, and have a capacity to modify such information according to their own interests (9).

The disaster information system in Turkey need to concentrate on settlements, and this system be managed by some central authority to maintain the high standards and rigour in upkeep. Settlements under high risks have to revise their development plans according to the micro-zonation information provided, and update them as new information becomes accessible and as new assessments of risks are made based on this set of data. This should necessitate minor amendments in the Law of Organization of the Ministry of Public Works and Settlements, to set up the technical unit entitled to carry out the function. ‘Integrated Disasters Maps’ need be institutionalised and incorporated in the Development Law, making such maps a prerequisite for all plan preparations and revision activities which in turn need be restructured to allow greater local community participation.

Pre-Disaster vs Post-Disaster Emphasis in Preparedness:

Societies are biased in cultural, organisational and politial terms generally for the concerns of the post-disaster period. Evidence of this could be observed within the legal framework, in the living culture, the media and citizens’ concerns, and in the political discourse related to disasters. If in any system of disaster policy, regulatory measures are distinctly focussed on crisis management and relief operations, rather than pre-disaster mitigation methods, then we are closer to a ‘fatalist’ type of a social organisation. In this model, warnings of impending disasters and remindings of the necessary precautions is considered as ‘scare-mongerism’. The behaviour of ignoring risks, as if society is free of hazard, and keeping the idea away in the daily life from public mind is considered a merit. The discourse of the politician is implicitly based on the under-estimates of risks, and are articulated in their overt declarations claiming that the state is potent and benevolent enough to compensate all losses and could ‘heal the wounds’ of every disaster victim. All attention and efforts for preparations are made therefore, to formalize relief operations to be conducted, and the compensation mechanisms.

The nature of approach is distinctly different in a ‘risk management’ based social organisation, where regular ‘development control’ is ordinarily but rigorously carried out prior to disasters. Even if individuals were allowed to compensation after disasters in this context, their eligibility would be contingent to a large extent with their compliance with existing regulations concerning mitigation. Pre-disaster conduct in locational decisions, construction processes, land and building use permissions would be regulated and inspected. Disaster preparedness in this context is part of social policy; alertness is sustained through education, frequent exercises, training and inspections. Community, home, schooling, media, and voluntary social formations are deliberately encouraged and kept active. All of this is based on the awareness that justified efforts and investments are to serve effectively reduce the losses (of life at most) at the moment of a catastrophe. More of the legal provisions, citizens’ concerns and practice, as well as obligations of administrations and politicians is related to protection and securing of life and material assets.

The conventional legal provisions and organisational habits in Turkey decisively target the post-disaster period. The ‘Disasters Law’ is a regulatory device primarily for ‘healing the wounds’. The Law assigns the local governor as the supreme authority at the moment of crisis and entrusts in this authority all responsibility of immediate emergency and relief operations to be carried out. Yet the governorate has no powers of intervening with the development activities of the municipal administration. Emergency personnel assignments are an obligation for the provincial government which is comprehensively carried out. The Law also prescribes the procedures for determining property damages, those eligible for public grants according to severity of damages, the property values, and guides the whole process of financing and distributing new accommodation to households that experienced losses. Amendments in the Law made after each major earthquake over the years have only served to extend the list of eligible parties to benefit from post-disaster relief operations. Most of the mitigation measures on the other hand, are concerns and subjects of land-use planning and building construction regulations. Yet the Development Law ignores the reality and risks of earthquakes and contains no mechanism or procedure in itself to secure environmental, building and implementation standards for mitigation control. Therefore, a double bias for post-disasters has been the dominant nature of policy in Turkey.

This attitude seems to have been reversed since December 1999, generating great hope and enthusiasm, as several organisational steps have shifted the focus of attention towards the pre-disaster period. The introduction of the obligatory building insurance, provisions for activating private building inspection firms, limitations set to professional practice to avoid the inexperienced and potential misconduct, are to change the conventional policy, even though the provisions are infested with mistakes and deficiencies at the moment (10).

Political Decision-Making as a Substitute to Technical Procedures:

To the extent political processes are adjusted to include mechanisms by means of which technical bodies as well as communities could collaborate and are effective in decision-making involving risks, and these functions are broadly distributed in the society, more likely it is that a performance attributable to the rational model could be achieved. In the Risk Society, processes of resource allocation, financial support, control procedures in physical development and land-use planning are held dependent on objective criteria and confined to a package of objective technical assessments of risks, and direct public and community responses as described formally in regulations.

On the other hand, if after every disaster ‘benevolence to all’ is the standard response (without especially discriminating those who ignore the building regulations), then political judgements replace technical evaluations. This does not only lead to inefficient and unjust distribution of resources, but undermines and even discards the whole technical formal process of mitigation, alienates the individual and community efforts of reducing the impacts of disasters, and acts to encourage further negligent behaviour especially in the extension of unauthorized development. Politicians are happy to distribute public resources after the earthquake in a most conducive and docile conjunction, and collect the political credits facing almost no opposition. Households and individuals that experienced losses and considered eligible to receive public grants (even if losses occurred as a result of their own unauthorized behaviour and non-compliance with regulations) are mostly satisfied with these allocations. This conventional form of social organisation generates strong coalitions of irresponsible interests, and a society in expectation of disasters.

Governments and political bodies local or central, always retained their leading role in the conventional disaster-response performance in Turkey. Their interventions in the declarations of disasters, relief operations, the distribution of funds etc. have always been decisive. Greater and more extensive the damage, stronger has been the intervention of the governments. Political alignments determine who is to receive public funds and at what rates. ‘Disasters Law’ does not particularly contain non-discriminatory mechanisms. Performance is heavily dependent on the compatibility of political affiliations, particularly in between the central government and municipalities. A further tendency over the past decades has been the removal of many of the technical procedures and points envisaged in the ‘Disasters Law’, and their entrustment either with ministerial decisions or with the discretion of the Board of Ministers. The Law has been amended several times in this direction, especially following the urban earthquakes in 1990’s. For the sake of political popularity, new beneficiaries were introduced with every amendment made to the Law, to cover more of the factions of urban society under the umbrella of public compensation mechanisms.

Only the most recent organizational changes exhibit some potential to distance the political interests away from resources in the case of a disaster, and a more rational method of compensation for those who rightfully deserve the public support. With the establishment of ‘The Compulsory Building Insurance’, not only State’s direct involvement and resources have been detached from disaster operations, but also the unconditional commitment to help every property owner involved in a disaster seems to have been reduced to only those who have insurance for their property. To the extent full coverage could be maintained in insurance, immensely large funds will be available to compensate many through the insurance sector, and political manoeuvrability will be minimized. Much depends here on how the unauthorised stock could be taken under the umbrella of insurance.

Routinized vs Extraordinary Procedures:

Standardised methods in disaster mitigation efforts and routine procedures in both pre-disaster and post-disaster phases (rather than singular operations carried out by ad hoc organisations based on distinct instructions), is an indicator for a well-established 'self-monitoring' system of disaster policy. Introduction of new instructions, hastily issued mandates, laws and regulations, with every occurrence of disasters by some high-echelon political authority, on the other hand, are displays of a fatalist set up, largely discarding the need of a learning process.

The post-disaster operations of surveying and registration of the damaged buildings, indicating level of damage, owner, and value are the only routine procedures in Turkey. After each earthquake, the personnel of the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement carry out assessments of damage in every property. The method involves in general, the visual inspection of buildings alone and filling of the forms designed for the purpose. Personal judgements inevitably are major inputs in the process. Teams of experts working in the field are exposed to the insistent demands of the individual owners, challenging their opinion. This may be in either way; to designate a ‘semi-damaged’ building as a ‘safe’ one, or to include it in the category of the ‘severely damaged’. Individuals who have access to local or other political authorities are more likely to over-ride expert opinion and have their demands met. This is far therefore from an objective evaluation procedure.

Frequency observations in the historical profile of formal decision-making in Turkey, in laws, decrees, regulations, mandates etc. reveal significant concentrations after every incidence of disasters. This is a meaningful indicator for deficiencies, either in the scope of current legal provisions and procedures, or changes of mind and policy. Neither obviously is compatible with a ‘prepared society’. This trend is particularly explicit after the urban earthquakes of 1990’s in Turkey. The earthquakes of 1999 were no exception to the trend. In this case however, structural changes seem to have taken place both by the introduction of new ideas, and the formation of new organisations.

Operating Specialized vs Umbrella Funds and Resources:

Disaster mitigation planning and implementation, as well as post-disaster relief and compensation activities require the formation and running of significant financial resources. The way these funds are structured and operated provides another criterion to judge the stage of progress any specific practice of disaster policy is in. Reliance on funds sourced from incidental donations or singular budgetary allocations of the political body complements the ‘fatalist’ conduct. Large pools of general-purpose funds are likely to be under the prerogatives of the higher-echelon political authorities and are most likely to be used for post-disaster requirements only, providing the best opportunities for political exploitation. Distribution of large resources with political motives may at least partially represent waste.

Contrarily, funds that are structured out of continuous, even if modest flows of sustainable income (as in the case of partial property taxation), are likely to be monitored more objectively and efficiently. Special-purpose funds structured and entrusted at the discretion of lower-echelon technical committees, or communities, even if of smaller sizes, are often more efficiently and extensively used. A balanced policy between mitigation and relief is the preferred rational approach in the distribution of financial resources which is more likely to allocate them precisely to the correct addresses. In this case, it may for instance more often be possible to allow local authorities or communities with competing projects apply for funds reserved for mitigation purposes. The structure and attributes of resources used in the two models of social organisation could be described as in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Attributes of Resources Available for Disaster Policy

The source of finances for meeting the costs of disasters in Turkey has conventionally been the Disasters Fund as described in the ‘Disasters Law’. The Fund was supplemented with annual allocations from the national budget, and there was always the possibility of producing governmental decisions in the case of a major event. Expenditures made for individuals from the Fund were in the form of credits with very low interest, to be paid back in 15-30 years. The Fund was used for post-disaster relief and compensatory operations only, rather than for mitigation activities. Yet extension of the eligible groups, and frequent ‘erasing’ of the debts as part of habitual populist policies, together with high inflation rates have rapidly depleted the potential power of the Fund as envisaged in the Law. More than a decade ago, the Fund was transferred into a central pool of funds by the Government and was practically dissolved. Since then, allocations for disasters have been made either by the Board of Ministers, Prime Ministry, or the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement. Thus, lower level discretion as described in the Disasters Law was discarded, and powers on resource-use concerning disasters were firmly centralized.

The December 1999 Decree on the ‘Compulsory Earthquake Insurance’ and the establishment of an administration is one of the most significant moves towards building up of a more rational disaster policy. Accordingly, every private building in the country is to be insured; otherwise no claim could be made for compensations for damages experienced in disasters. Not only a colossal resource is generated in this manner, but also the possibility of a direct intervention on resources by the body politic is largely discarded. This practice of voluntary abstinence from enjoying direct discretion on large funds by the central authority is to rob away all potential credits to accrue politically from resource distribution in a ‘no opposition’ and ‘no political risk’ environment. Such a move could partly be explained perhaps, by a clearer vision by the current government of the long-term adverse effects of existing short-sighted policies, and the experience and serious loss of reputation suffered by the local and central administrations after the 1999 earthquakes. This change of attitude in the political circles is a promising step forward towards the Risk Society, even though much needs to be accomplished in terms of organising local community efforts, institutionalising consumer rights in buildings, enforcement of inspection mechanisms throughout the whole development process etc. One of the essential motivators of initiating and monitoring such organisations is the appropriate allocation and use of financial resources for mitigation.

The only possible base for a powerful support of mitigation efforts is the large scale insurance fund, the source of which is property owners throughout the country. No other ‘fund’ of similar magnitude and immune to political manoeuvering could be generated for financing disaster policy in Turkey, than that formed by the ‘Compulsory Earthquake Insurance’. It only remains to convince the insurance administration, to allocate some of the annual flow of income for mitigation and retrofitting projects, which should more comfortably be maintained as funds grow to a mature size in a couple of years. Funding of mitigation efforts has to be on a regular and competitive basis, based on projects prepared, and according to transparent and objective criteria. The partial funding of retrofitting investments should in the long-term returned into the finance pool. In the Risk Society this should thus be a sustainable process with the specialisation of various branches in resource use administration.

Following vs Ignoring Priorities in Risk Management:

Even if ‘risk management’ (ie. pre-disaster) rather than ‘disaster management’ (ie. post-disaster) activities dominate the mode of policy in a given rational policy context, we may still observe variations in the practice of risk management. This should allow us locate the case more precisely within the spectrum of ‘Fatalist’ to ‘Risk’ societies. For a more effective bundle of mitigation measures, it is essential that the various forms of risk management should be performed in a logical sequence. This sequence is usually identified as the ‘priorities of risk management’ in any problem context, and is currently adopted by the World Bank (Kreimer, et. al., 1999) and other authors (Burby, 1999). The order of precedence in forms of risk management are outlined here in Figure 3, and interpreted in terms of the organisational of professional services required.

Quality of life begins with safety. In the physical arrangement of life, this requires a risk management strategy with a specific set of priorities. ‘Avoidance of risks’ has the foremost priority and largely to be maintained (in the case of earthquakes) by means of renewed land-use planning practices and regulations. ‘Minimisation of risks’ is a second set of tasks to be undertaken in infrastructural networks and the design and production of buildings. Having accomplished both of the former steps of risk management, the remainder unavoidable risks are to be ‘shared’ between the members of the society by some explicitly preferred method and criteria. This set represents then the most general family of rules to follow at every scale of physical design for safe buildings and environments.

Figure 3

Priorities in Risk Management

This sequence inevitably gives the first priority to land-use planning services in the avoidance of most of the risks of natural disasters. The task requires studies of the earth scientists in the case of earthquakes, and their provision of information relevant for the evaluations of physical planners. Having taken relatively safer decisions in site selection, land-use and locations for the development of infrastructural networks and building investments, the second phase is to ensure sufficiently robust design in structures to minimize risks involved. Architectural and engineering services are to meet this second technical task of maintaining safer structures. Even if minimized with the fulfilment of these two prior phases of actions, risks can not be entirely discarded. For this reason, methods of sharing the burden of losses financially by larger groups of the society are to be devised in the form of organised donations, extra taxes, insurance, etc. In this case, it is the professional services of the experts in finance, public administration, public relations, and insurance in turn, that are to monitor the distribution of resources. Following these priorities of risk management implies also the following a set of priorities in professional services. In many cases, this may not comply with the legal and technical capacities of the existing social ordering of the professions in any given society, and institutional constraints may obstruct the achievement of the correct ordering of task priorities. The restructuring of professional responsibilities with the perception of risks is an inevitable but difficult task in the reorganisation of society.

Conventionally, the first priority is not met in Turkey, in any effective manner, since the Development Law and attendant regulations ignore the problem of earthquake and disasters. It is only by one of the regulations of the ‘Disasters Law’ that the second priority is attended. This regulation describes the standards and rules for safety design in buildings for the various earthquake regions of the country. There remains a whole family of regulations necessary for safer standards in environmental development and management, apart from buildings. In the case of the third priority, since the ‘Disaster Fund’ is no longer operative, no formal provision was available other than the relief operations of the Red Crescent, random allocations of national and international donations, and the ad hoc funds provided by the Board of Ministers until the most recent provision of establishing the insurance administration.

The conventional disaster policy has been significantly modified by the recent governmental decrees. So have the relative position and dominance of the policy components in relation to these priorities changed. Yet changes accomplished do not necessarily pay due respect to the rationale of priorities given above. Although revisions in the Development Law stands as a top priority policy issue, the subject has not been taken into consideration, despite the research report (1999) submitted at governmental discretion. This has not stopped the Ministry act to serve for the second priority of ‘risk minimization’, which was promoted by two Decrees; related to ‘Building Inspection Firms and Procedures’, and ‘Professional Proficiency’. These aim to maintain higher standards in the formation of the future building stock. The policy of ‘risk sharing’ on the other hand, was attended earliest and most directly, with the ‘Compulsory Building Insurance’, even though the subject stood as a third priority.

The changes taking place in Turkey after the great shock of 1999 are in the direction of restructuring a more rational disaster policy, despite all shortcomings in measures taken and the continuing debates and struggles. The rise of public awareness concerning the extent of ‘manufactured uncertainties’ in the building stock and the state of ‘organised irresponsibility’, and the limitations of the administrative and political organisations have been entirely new experiences in the country. These have extensively led to individualised civil voluntary activism during the emergency period and afterwards, the growth and collaborative work of the non-governmental organisations. The risk generating processes have been under scrutiny by the public and media, and risks have become a determining factor of change in indiviuals’ lives. The issue has been an unavoidable topic by the political bodies. All indications are that improvements and expansion of environmental laws and regulations in Turkey are to accelerate in the near future and the previously depoliticised areas of decision-making be opened to public scrutiny and debate with the better perception of risks and ‘manufactured uncertainties’. This should be considered as an inclination to move towards ‘radicalised modernity’ if sufficiently operable forms of organisation for direct and continuous dialogue between public, experts and politicians, and possibilities for positive political engagement are made available through supplementary regulation. It is necessary that politics must give more permanent institutional form to this engagement and new methods and organs of enforcement be devised. Based on the generation of new politics, restructuring of social organisation as a concomitant of becoming ‘reflexive’ should be expected, on the way to Risk Society.

Alternative professional practices are likely to develop in efforts to avoid and reduce risks in the art and science of environment and buildings, observing the intensive and unexpected inter-connectedness of contemporary hazards and forms of development of crises with the built-environment. Of particular relevance are the development of inter-feeding between practice, research, and training. Professional activity will inevitably be extended to the assessment of self-produced risks, and overt mechanisms to bear the responsibilities, and discard the conventional ‘organised irresponsibility’. The promotion of long-term task-programming of research and design work should be expected to acquire an institutional basis. The cases of contingencies, the disaster eventualities, will ormally be incorporated in design processes. This is to take place specifically in the case of earthquakes as: industrial design of emergency shelter components, solutions to temporary versus permanent accommodation conflicts, the cases of re-usable temporary units, extendable minimal permanent core-housing, pre-disaster experimental implementations for housing etc. which build up a special know-how. This could be maintained through organized research and experimentation as well as through competitions involving all specialisms in design (city planners, architects, landscape designers, industrial product designers, etc.), and their cooperative efforts with engineers and experts in natural and social sciences.

* Professor M. Balamir is affiliated with the City and Regional Planning Department of the Middle East Technical University, has degrees in Architecture (METU and Architectural Association, London), Town Planning (University College London), and Political Sciences and Public Administration (Ankara University). He is a founder-member of the ‘METU Disaster Management and Research Centre’, and member of the National Earthquake Council.

Notes

1. The full title of the World Bank research was ‘Revision of the Turkish Development Law No. 3194 and Its Attendant Regulations with the Objective of Establishing a New Building Construction Supervision System Inclusive of Incorporating Technical Disaster Resistance-Enhancing Measures’, and was monitored by the Housing Development Administration under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement. The research was carried out in the context of METU Earthquake Research Centre by a group of engineers, urban planners and architects, mostly academic members of the Middle East Technical University to include P. Gülkan, H. Sucuoğlu, M. Ersoy, R. Bademli, R. Keleş, G. Tankut, and A. R. Aydın secretarial member to the Court of Constitution. I was the writer and editor of the chapters on the planning system covering the major part of the research. The final report of the research contained the totally renewed Development Law together with 13 Regulations, new or substantially revised. Although the original terms of reference covered only minor revisions of the Urban Development Law and its four major Regulations, the work demanded a more extensive survey, and the revision of the total regulatory systems concerning both ‘Disasters’ and ‘Development’ was an inevitable output.

2. The actual title of the ‘Disaster Law’ is lengthy and cumbersome: ‘Law Concerning the Precautions and Help to be Maintained Against Disasters Effective on Public Life’. Severn (1995) gives a short history of the preceding regulations.

3. These however, do not take place in the discourse, structure or contents of the official report itself. Rather, they only represent my personal convictions, overview and interpretation, of the work undertaken.

4. An inventory of the damages experienced in the East Marmara Earthquake is available at the appendices of the World Bank report no. 19844-TU (1999).

5. Willingness of the administration, in the adoption of many of the proposals made in our research report, owes extensively to the impact of the WB report (19844-TU, 1999) to the Turkish Government, recommending the implementation of the findings in full of our report. The Decrees of the Board of Ministers was based on a law (4452) that empowered them ten days after the event, providing the prerogatives of issuing ‘decrees as law’ to the Government.

6. ‘Obligatory earthquake insurance’(Decree 587; 27.12.1999), the ‘control of construction processes’ (Decree 595; 10.4.2000), and ‘proficiency issues in constructional professions’ (Decree 601; 28.6.2000). The provisions of these Decrees were neither absolutely compatible in themselves, nor constituted a comprehensive new strategy. They did not only cover the minority of the issues proposed in the research report, but also deviated in many ways from those recommended.

7. This was confirmed again in another field-work I undertook with my post-graduate students in the town of Gerede (30’000). Aligned further east of the global fault line that was activated in 1999, Gerede with all of its schools, hospital, municipal building, prison, the town centre, the industrial quarters is on the very fault, identical to living on a volcano. Almost of all of its building were destroyed in 1944 with a 7.4 magnitude earthquake killing 69 (CP501-2, 2000). This is a very low casualty figure however, owing to the traditional timber-framed recyclable buildings of the period. The current stock of buildings with reinforced concrete frames are seriously deficient according to our calculations on the projects of a sample of better buildings, implying a very high casualty rate in the event of an earthquake of similar magnitude.

8. BSE, Chernobyl, global warming, increasing magnitudes in cycles of flood and drought, together with economic globalisation that accelerate ‘primary-resource’ exploitation, extraction of oil and depletion of forest-cover, termination of traditional forms of life and sustainable ecologies, wiped-out species, concentrations of population in urban centres without adequate resources and engulfed in environmental degradation, extensive use of pesticides and toxins, male infertility, incurable illnesses that may spread through sexual relations, individualization, denser and denser electro-magnetic fields we are faced with, etc., all have their contributions to the distributions of risks in our planet.

9. Great difficulty was encountered to convince the municipality of Gerede for instance, to find and allocate funds necessary to prepare a comprehensive geological survey that costs around 30 000 US$ (only 1$/citizen), a once for all task to be fulfilled.

10. This is despite the most recent legal battle between the Constitutional Court and government on the functioning of private inspection firms. Upon the application of opposition party in the Parliament, the Court has annulled the Decree on Building Control, on the basis that inspection prerogatives could not be delegated to private practice. The government in retaliation, has produced a law restating the same functions which is narrow-minded and inferior than the previous decree. This debate obviously is to last until a progressive framework within Development Law is achieved.

References

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Balamir, M. (2000b) İmar ve İnşaat İşlerinde Mesleki Kurumlaşmanın Değişen Yapısı ve Mimarlık (Organisational Changes of Professional Practice in the Building Sector) Arredamento Mimarlık (6) 107-111.

Balamir, M. (2000a) Türkiye Yeni Bir Deprem Stratejisi mi Geliştiriyor? (Is Turkey in the Process of Restructuring its Earthquake Strategy?) Mimarlık (295, October) 44-47.

Balamir, M. (1999) Reproducing the Fatalist Society: An Evaluation of the Disasters and Development Laws and Regulations in Turkey’, in Urban Settlements and Natural Disasters, ed. Emine Komut, International Union of Architects and Chamber of Architects of Turkey, 96-107.

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Gülkan, P., Balamir, M., Sucuoğlu, H. et.al. (1999) ‘Revision of the Turkish Development Law No. 3194 and Its Attendant Regulations with the Objective of Establishing a New Building Construction Supervision System Inclusive of Incorporating Technical Disaster Resistance-Enhancing Measures’, 3 volumes of reproduced research report supported by the World Bank and submitted to the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement.

Kreimer, A., et. al. (1999) Managing Disaster Risk in Mexico: Market Incentives for Mitigation Investment, The World Bank, Washington D.C.

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Petropoulos, N. (2001) ‘New Provisions in Turkish Disaster Policy: Do They Represent Relevant and Sufficient Determination?’ and ‘Evaluation of Disaster Policies as an Indicator of Social Organisation’ by M. Balamir, Overview of Materials Received by ERC,

www.anglia.ac.uk/geography/d&scrn/newsletter/newsletter4/report.htm.

Severn, R. T. (1995) Disaster Preparedness in Turkey and Recent Earthquakes, in Erzincan, in D. Key editor, ‘Structures to Withstand Disaster’, The Institution of Civil Engineers, Thomas Telford, London.