The December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami wrecked thousands of lives, homes, and livelihoods - losses that could have been avoided with timely and better information. A resource such as information is needed at a fundamental level much like water, food, medicine, or shelter. This dissertation examines the development of the Thai information society, in terms of the share of information workforce and the level of diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT), as well as, the role of the Thai information society in response to the tsunami disaster. The study combined the historical and political economy analyses in explaining factors influencing the growth of information workforce and the development of ICT in Thailand. Interviews conducted in 2007-08 revealed the Thai information society responded to the 2004 Tsunami - the first global internet-mediated natural disaster - in two areas: on-site assistance in collecting and recording identification information of tsunami disaster victims and on-line dissemination of disaster relief information. The effectiveness of ICT institutions in providing the tsunami disaster relief efforts and increasing the development of the information society were assessed using statistical procedures analyzing the perceptions of the Internet-based survey respondents. The disaster effects on survey respondents were also assessed. The study's findings include: (1) the Thai information sector development pattern confirmed a key difference between development patterns of information sectors in developed and developing countries, (2) the increasing number of Thai information workers was due more to the expansion of government than the expansion in the manufacturing and service sectors during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, (3) Thailand's expansion of ICT infrastructure was influenced not only on the basis of economic profitability but also by political desirability, and (4) volunteers were crucial in humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Superficial information of the civil wars in Aceh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka creates the idea that both conflicts were in similar situations when they were hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. It thus seems surprising that in the wake of the tsunami, the Free Aceh Movement and the Government of Indonesia signed a peace agreement, while the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Government of Sri Lanka returned to war. This thesis aims to explore what factors related to the tsunami contributed to this difference and whether rational choice theory can serve as an explanation for this difference. In order to find out, I conducted a qualitative comparative case study though the analysis of secondary documents. The results suggest that the factors that contributed to the difference can be divided into four broad themes: (1) the timing of the tsunami and thus the pre-disaster context; (2) the geographical situation and with that, the military impact; (3) the types of guerilla groups, including their abilities to rule, their access to financial capital and their strategic; (4) the role of the international community, which can be further divided into firstly, the geopolitical relevance of these countries, and secondly, internationalization, community engagement and separating the tsunami and conflict. I believe that rational choice theory explains the difference in outcome between the two conflicts very well. This theory assumes that people, given the circumstances, and in view of all the possible options, will act in line with the option that is expected to satisfy them most and minimize their losses. Applying this theory to the case studies of Aceh and Sri Lanka following the tsunami, it was appealing for the Free Aceh Movement to settle, but this was not the case for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. As a result, the former chose to sign a peace agreement with the Government of Indonesia, whereas the latter chose to continue its fight against the Government of Sri Lanka.

根據世界銀行的資料顯示，佔全球面積約19%的2500萬平方公里之地球表面，及佔全球一半以上人口的34億人是相對的暴露在一個以上天然災害之威脅下。隨著全球化的來臨，我們居住在一個風險共享的社會中，而在全球環境安全被視為全球公共財的同時，如何在集體行動的邏輯下進行全球危機管理，已成為全球行動者的主要課題。例如如何透過國際合作來對抗SARS，禽流感等危機，皆是當前全球行動者關注的議題。值得注意的是，儘管近二十年來國際社會對於減災所做的承諾與投入的資源日益增加，災害所造成的經濟損失及受到災害影響之人口卻也逐漸上升。面對這些現象，本研究最主要想要探究的研究問題即在於什麼樣的因素影響著全球減災合作。 本研究主要的研究問題，係探求在全球行動者為何要參與減災合作，而此全球減災合作又如何運作的呢？全球減災合作、理性選擇與全球社會資本的分析架構將被運用。從理論上粹取的因素，例如風險意識、能力素養、偏好、制度限制、資訊、可信的承諾與信任等，被用來分析行動者如何決定參與合作，以及此合作如何運作。鑑於2004年印度洋海嘯所造成的重大傷亡以及後續國際社會對救災及減災的承諾，本研究將以印度洋海嘯預警系統的個案為例，並透過在4個國家共計22人次對參與此系統的國際行動者之訪談資料，以及對參與印度洋海嘯預警系統之人員發放共計591份問卷進行調查及分析，回收問卷目前共計61份，然進行論文分析時為59份。換言之，實際上的回收率為10.66%，而本研究用以分析之問卷回收率為10.32%。本研究最主要的發現為風險意識及能力素養的提升，結合理性選擇與社會資本的不同因素作用下，將對全球減災合作的結果有正面的影響。最後，本研究也對未來國際減災合作提出相關之建議。 / Writing on the issue of global environmental security, the World Bank has noted that approximately “25 million square kilometers (about 19 percent of the Earth’s land area) and 3.4 billion people (more than half of the world’s population) are relatively highly exposed to at least one hazard.” With the coming of the globalization era, we .also live in a shared risk society. Since global environmental security is seen as a global public good, how to act for global crisis management under the logic of collective action has become a primary subject for global actors. Coping with the crises of SARS or Bird Flu through international cooperation has become a significant issue for these global actors. One of the main dilemmas of international cooperation for disaster reduction is the reconciliation of different individual actions. Interestingly, in spite of two decades efforts of international cooperation, the amount of damage caused by natural disasters and the total number if people affected have gradually increased since the 1960s. This research focuses on two questions in the present research: why do global actors cooperate in disaster reduction, and how does this cooperation operate? The frameworks of international cooperation in disaster reduction, rational choice and global social capital are employed here, to explore the issue of international cooperation. Several factors, such as awareness of risk, capacity, preferences, institutional constraints, information, credible commitment, and trust, are used to examine how an actor engages in decision-making and how cooperation occurs. Because of the tremendous damage that resulted from the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and the engagement of the global society in disaster recovery and reduction, the above issues will be explored through a case study of the development of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS). Twenty-two interviews were conducted in four countries and these constitute the qualitative data for this analysis. 591 questionnaires also have been sent to the participants in the IOTWS to collect the quantitative data. I analyzed the quantitative data from 59 returned questionnaires (10.32% returning rate) and the qualitative data from 22 interviewees in four countries. These analyses resulted in several suggestions to facilitate international cooperation for disaster reduction.