Political Science
Steve Stehr
Victim Management in Large-scale Disasters
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Dr. Steven Stehr developed an interest in “low probability, high consequence” events while he was a graduate student in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He began working with a team of faculty members who were interested in the question of why some large-scale, complex systems, like the air traffic control system and nuclear power plants, have so few major accidents.
He moved on to more traditional political science research interests, but returned to the study of disasters when he was selected to be a National Science Foundation Faculty Fellow in Disaster Research in 1996. Since then, Dr. Stehr has focused much of his research on the political and organizational dynamics of disaster. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, he was chosen to be part of a multidisciplinary team of researchers who went to New York City to study how the city and its citizens responded to and recovered from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.
Dr. Stehr’s work focuses on an understudied aspect of large-scale disasters: victim management. This research scope was later extended to include the administration of the many victim relief programs that were instituted to help direct and indirect victims of the disaster in New York. Dr. Stehr found that the programs were administered with very little direct formal coordination, which he concludes probably led to some gaps in victim relief.
Contact
Information
Steven Stehr, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice
Washington
State University
PO Box 644880
Pullman, WA 99164-4880
Telephone:
509-335-2544
Fax: 509-335-7990
E-mail: stehr@wsu.edu
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