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The thesis details the course of the civil defence debate in Britain, assesses the value of civil defence against nuclear attack and investigates other issues of concern to those involved in the debate. The thesis is divided into three parts. Part one deals with the course of the debate, the issues raised and the methods used to propogate them. The role of activists, academics and professionals is given particular emphasis. The period is charaterised as seeing the decline of civil defence, in many peoples' eyes, from a sine qua non of British defence to becoming almost an irrelevance to nuclear war. Part two, by means of the use of a reference scenario, looks in detail at the organisation and effectiveness of British civil defence against nuclear attack. It is concluded that civil defence in the long term, is unlikely to make any significant difference to the number of survivors of nuclear war. The developing knowledge and debate about the Nuclear Winter is also discussed. Part three deals with important issues in the debate which are not directly related to the effectiveness of civil defence in nuclear war. The issues, dealt with in turn, are: the current and potential effect of civil defence on civil liberties; the possible effect of civil defence on crisis stability in times of acute international tensions and the possible effectiveness of civil defence against non-nuclear attack. The conclusion offers a number of explanations as to why, given the apparent ineffectiveness of civil defence, successive governments have continued to develop it. This question is also looked at with reference to Kuhn's theory of scientific revolution and suggests that the understanding of civil defence is at present undergoing a paradigm shift. / Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust

Trata-se de uma análise sócio-ambiental do fenômeno de enchentes, recorrente no município de Santo André/SP, permitindo identificar, de um lado, um esforço contínuo do poder público para combater esse fator de ameaça relacionado às chuvas. E, de outro, a persistência da vulnerabilidade espacial de populações de baixa renda na localidade, em especial, em áreas marginais. A dissertação levanta problemas que estão na área do gerenciamento do desastre de enchentes, descreve os processos sociais e urbanos, demonstra as vulnerabilidades e as ações tomadas para minimizálas, verificar quais são as perspectivas futuras para as vulnerabilidades e qual é o discurso coletivo das representações sociais dos afetados para as questões do risco, dos danos imateriais, o entendimento da política aplicada para as áreas de enchente, buscando a dimensão do desastre nas percepções dos atingidos pelas enchentes e inundações. Apresenta-se, daí, uma compreensão sociológica baseada no Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo (DSC) do relato padrão dos afetados na convivência com as enchentes. A pesquisa qualitativa, realizada através de entrevista, identifica um discurso coletivo de sofrimento que, ao lado das perdas materiais, revelam a ausência de cidadania para levar adiante alternativas para a segurança do lugar frente às enchentes. A dissertação visa destacar seu valor informativo para balizar as ações de gerenciamento de risco através das ações integradas de prevenção, preparação, resposta e recuperação mais eficazes no futuro. / This dissertation is about a social-environmental analysis of the floods phenomenon in Santo André city/SP, which, on one hand, allows us to identify a non-stop effort of the public power to beat this threat related to rain and, on the other hand, the spatial vulnerability persistence of the low-income population in the region, especially, on river banks. This dissertation brings up problems that are in the area of the flood disaster management, describes the social and urban processes, shows the vulnerability factors and the actions taken to minimize them. It verifies which the future prospects for the vulnerability factors are and which the collective speech of the social representatives of the affected people is, concerning the risk and immaterial damage issues. This dissertation also verifies the understanding of the policy applied to the flood areas, analysing the disaster dimension from the point of view of the ones affected by floods. Thus we have a sociological comprehension - based on Collective Subject Speech - of the standard-report of people affected by floods. The qualitative survey identifies a collective speech of pain that, besides the material loss, reveals lack of citizenship to carry on alternatives for the local safety against floods. This dissertation aims to highlight its information value to delimit the risk management actions through more efficatious integrated actions of prevention, preparation, response and recuperation in the future.

Previous disaster management studies allude to the problems of coordination and the difficulties that may be associated with the implementation of recovery programmes in New Zealand. These studies have also indicated opportunities for improving the current recovery and reconstruction framework in advance of a major disaster. They have shown that much existing legislation were not drafted to cope with wide-scale devastations and were not developed to operate under the conditions that will inevitably prevail in the aftermath of a severe disaster. This thesis therefore explores improvements that could be made to legislative provisions so that they facilitate large-scale recovery management in New Zealand. Three legislative documents are in view: Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Act, Resource Management Act (RMA) and Building Act (BA). The research investigations involved qualitative research methodology using multi-methods to determine the practical implication of implementing current reconstruction arrangement under these legislative documents. The methods employed include: interviews, document analysis, focus group study, surveys, and the use of subject matter experts for research verification. Results show that the three legislative documents may become sources of vulnerability in post disaster reconstruction because of their influence on the timely achievement of recovery objectives. The impediments posed by these legislative documents are mainly in the form of procedural constraints; ambiguities in rights and responsibilities for recovery management; and deficiencies in the intents and purposes of the legislative documents. More general results show that pre-planning the management of disaster resources; and collaborative arrangements for response and recovery programmes are a pre-cursor to effective and efficient management of reconstruction in New Zealand. The research concludes by providing useful recommendations that are specific to the three legislative documents and other general recommendations. It is hoped the implementation of these recommendations could improve the robustness of the current reconstruction framework so that it is able to cater for the complex needs of rebuilding for resilience in New Zealand.

Trata-se de uma análise sócio-ambiental do fenômeno de enchentes, recorrente no município de Santo André/SP, permitindo identificar, de um lado, um esforço contínuo do poder público para combater esse fator de ameaça relacionado às chuvas. E, de outro, a persistência da vulnerabilidade espacial de populações de baixa renda na localidade, em especial, em áreas marginais. A dissertação levanta problemas que estão na área do gerenciamento do desastre de enchentes, descreve os processos sociais e urbanos, demonstra as vulnerabilidades e as ações tomadas para minimizálas, verificar quais são as perspectivas futuras para as vulnerabilidades e qual é o discurso coletivo das representações sociais dos afetados para as questões do risco, dos danos imateriais, o entendimento da política aplicada para as áreas de enchente, buscando a dimensão do desastre nas percepções dos atingidos pelas enchentes e inundações. Apresenta-se, daí, uma compreensão sociológica baseada no Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo (DSC) do relato padrão dos afetados na convivência com as enchentes. A pesquisa qualitativa, realizada através de entrevista, identifica um discurso coletivo de sofrimento que, ao lado das perdas materiais, revelam a ausência de cidadania para levar adiante alternativas para a segurança do lugar frente às enchentes. A dissertação visa destacar seu valor informativo para balizar as ações de gerenciamento de risco através das ações integradas de prevenção, preparação, resposta e recuperação mais eficazes no futuro. / This dissertation is about a social-environmental analysis of the floods phenomenon in Santo André city/SP, which, on one hand, allows us to identify a non-stop effort of the public power to beat this threat related to rain and, on the other hand, the spatial vulnerability persistence of the low-income population in the region, especially, on river banks. This dissertation brings up problems that are in the area of the flood disaster management, describes the social and urban processes, shows the vulnerability factors and the actions taken to minimize them. It verifies which the future prospects for the vulnerability factors are and which the collective speech of the social representatives of the affected people is, concerning the risk and immaterial damage issues. This dissertation also verifies the understanding of the policy applied to the flood areas, analysing the disaster dimension from the point of view of the ones affected by floods. Thus we have a sociological comprehension - based on Collective Subject Speech - of the standard-report of people affected by floods. The qualitative survey identifies a collective speech of pain that, besides the material loss, reveals lack of citizenship to carry on alternatives for the local safety against floods. This dissertation aims to highlight its information value to delimit the risk management actions through more efficatious integrated actions of prevention, preparation, response and recuperation in the future.

Europe’s and the world’s security has worsened in the last couple years, and with that the possibility of war became a reality. Because of that Sweden’s civil defence system is going through a revival for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The civil defence system is tasked with making sure that societally important functions keep operating even in disasters and war. One of these is the healthcare system, which includes care in hospitals, at primary care facilities, and ambulances. The Swedish Emergency Medical Services are included in the civil defence system and thus their organisations need to work on contingency planning and preparedness efforts. In order to get an understanding of where this process is at the moment, a case study is conducted by interviewing personnel working within the EMS in Sweden. Themes are identified to showcase the level of preparedness and competency the Swedish EMS has now. The study is grounded in previous research and has identified significant topics like the low level of disaster preparedness among nurses, the long- and short-term consequences of working in dangerous conditions, and that training is possibly the most important when it comes to preparations. The interview materials are analysed by abductive thematic analysis and the results show that the Swedish EMS is not prepared to deal with war, and more resources and training is needed in order to achieve a desired level of preparedness.

Fire incidents are a central issue in Saudi civil defence. Despite detailed regulation concerning firefighting equipment dealing with dwelling fires, fires occur frequently. Globally, research on dwelling fire safety is relatively new. Most studies focus on human factors, incidence and causal issues. Few studies examine management or policy-making perspectives towards managing these individual agents. Thus, a detailed study on understanding the management of these factors for dwelling fires is long overdue. The study uses an inductive approach to investigate key management issues in reducing dwelling fires in Saudi Arabia. This qualitative study consisted of twelve indepth semi-structured interviews and four focus groups with senior managers of the Civil Defence Division dealing with fire safety. A sustainability-based framework is developed to map the critical issues in generating a long-term planning solution to policy and management of fire hazard and risk in Saudi Arabia. Critical drivers of this sustainability approach are good management, regulation, governance practices: especially accountability and transparency; reduction of tribalism, bureaucracy, and burns unit efficiency. However, given the modern environment of communications, information technology and communications, and in particular public education, are viewed as important mediators between drivers and sustainability. The critical role of knowledge generation is also positioned as a mediator. The framework proposed is a paradigm shift from merely managing fire incidents on a case by case basis to a proactive risk reduction strategy. This represents an original solution to managing fire hazards at a national level and an important contribution to the fire management literature.

The thesis analyses how the system of oil and fuel storage was created, and applied in Sweden during the Cold War. The investigation focuses on the period 1938-1998 and considers the vital role of fossil fuel during a period when Sweden declared neutrality and independence. This period also includes a phase of divestment of some of the state-owned stores. The project is partly based on original research in several archives including the Swedish Geological Survey, the War Archives of Sweden, the archive of the city of Stockholm, and relevant state agencies. Fuel was a means to security of supply, and how current policies interacted, as well as the extent to which it was perceived as a vital part of the nation’s current security politics. In particular, how the storage of oil, on a large scale, demanded adjustments of the physical Scandinavian bedrock, which in turn required new technology is examined. The study follows the forthcoming of both an organisation and a new set of knowledge illustrating how the practice of storing oil, in itself an unstable fluid changing characteristics over time, created a surrounding social network. The thesis also reviews the environmental awareness and ensuing concerns relating to the stores. The oil storage created a whole range of new specialists and experts, as well as academic fields, which all converged around the storage of oil. The long-term storage required regulations and monitoring, resulting in creation of new areas of expertise both within the companies obliged to store oil, and also within relevant state agencies. In addition, supervising authorities developed, typically governmental agencies, of which one was also assigned to dismantling the stores. The thesis discusses the political climate motivating the dismantling of the stores relating to contingency planning and civil defence, tracing the discourse until today when stores are now being re-activated.

Vi vill med denna studie skapa en förståelse för hur förnödenhetsförsörjningen inom hälso- och sjukvården hanteras med ett fokus på hur människorna som arbetar inom funktionen upplever det. Människor tolkar verkligheten och ger den en mening. Genom att tolka uppfattningar i stället för att mäta data vill vi skapa en ny djupare förståelse för komplexiteten inom förnödenhetsförsörjningen och därmed bidra till en positiv utveckling för det militära och civila försvaret. Denna studie bygger på en kvalitativ och en induktiv ansats där vi genom intervjuer och gruppintervjuer samlat in vår empiri. Empirin är strukturerad med hjälp av Grounded Theory. Efter struktureringen av empirin har en bild framträtt som beskriver komplexiteten i hur sektorn hälsa, vård och omsorg är organiserad. Detta har lett oss till att använda Mintzbergs strukturella konfigurationer som perspektiv i vår referensram. Med anledning av omvärldsutvecklingen de senaste åren har medvetenheten ökat kring behovet av ett fungerande totalförsvar. Arbetet med förnödenhetsförsörjningen försvåras på grund av regelverk och organisationsstukturer som inte anses vara anpassade för att effektivt stödja förnödenhetsförsörjning inom hälso- och sjukvården i ett totalförsvarsperspektiv. De organisationsstrukturer som finns idag saknar en tydlig förmåga till ledning och samordning ur ett nationellt perspektiv. Lagar, avtal och koncept för upphandling är inte anpassade för en fungerande förnödenhetsförsörjning ur ett beredskapsperspektiv och Sverige har idag en för liten egen produktion av läkemedel och sjukvårdsprodukter. Förnödenhetsförsörjningen inom detta område är beroende av en fungerande global värdekedja. De rekommendationer som vi vill lämna till riksdagen och regeringen är att klargöra mandaten för hur området förnödenhetsförsörjning inom hälsa och sjukvård i totalförsvaret ska ledas. Detta genom att skapa en centraliserad ledningsfunktion. En översyn av lagar bör ske så att de bättre harmonierar med totalförsvarets behov. Vi rekommenderar även att riksdagen beslutar om egen tillverkning av prioriterade läkemedel inom landets gränser och utökar samarbetet inom området med EU. Socialstyrelsen bör fastställa vilken förmåga myndigheter och aktörer inom sektorn ska uppnå samt vilket typ av vård som vårdgivare ska kunna leverera, för att möjliggöra deras planering, upprättande av lager, egen träning och utbildning. Slutligen bör Socialstyrelsen leda scenarioträning med myndigheter och aktörer inom sektorn hälsa, vård och omsorg i syfte att skapa en bättre förståelse för vad totalförsvaret och sektorn ska klara av i händelse av kris eller krig, mot fastslagna målsättningar. Regioner bör i samråd med Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner (SKR) se över möjligheten att frivilligt överlämna en del av sitt självbestämmande till en överordnad ledning samt överse utbudet av sjukvårdsprodukter. Försvarsmakten bör se över hur militärregionerna är tänkt att utgöra länken mellan det militära och det civila försvaret för att stärka interoperabiliteten inom totalförsvaret samt tydliggöra sina egna målsättningar i syfte att skapa en fungerande förnödenhetsförsörjning. / With this thesis, we want to create an understanding of how the chain of supplies in health and medical care is handled within the civilian and military defence. We have a focus on how the individuals who work in the function experience it. People interpret their reality and gives it a meaning. By interpreting perceptions instead of measuring data, we want to create a new, deeper understanding of the complexity of the chain of supplies and thereby contribute to a positive development for military and civil defence. This study is based on a qualitative and an inductive approach where we collect our empirical data through interviews and group interviews. The empirical data is structured using Grounded Theory. After structuring the empirical data, a picture emerges that deals with the complexity of how the national system of emergency management concerning health and welfare is organized. This leads us to use Mintzberg's structural configurations as perspectives in our frame of reference.  Due to developments in the world in recent years, awareness has increased for the need of a functioning civilian and military defence. The work with the chain of supplies is made more difficult due to regulations and organizational structures that are not considered to be adapted to effectively support the chain of supplies in health care in a military and civilian defense perspective. The organizational structures that exist today lack a clear ability for management and coordination from a national perspective. Laws, agreements and procurement concepts are not adapted for supporting chain of supplies from a readiness perspective and Sweden currently has too little of its own production of pharmaceuticals and healthcare products. The chain of supplies in this area is dependent on a functioning global market. The recommendations we want to submit to the Swedish government are to clarify the mandates for how the area of chain of supplies in health and medical care in the civilian and military defence is to be managed. This by creating a centralized management function. A review of laws should take place so that they are more harmonized with the needs of civilian and military defence. We also recommend that the government decide on its own production of basic medicines within the country's borders, in association with EU. The National Board of Health and Welfare should determine what capacity authorities and actors in the sector should achieve and what type of care providers should be able to deliver. Finally, they should lead scenario training with authorities and actors in the sector in order to create a better understanding of what the civilian and military defence and the sector should be able to manage in the event of crisis or war. Regions should, in consultation with the The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR), review the possibility of voluntarily handing over part of their right of self-determination to a superior management and overseeing the range of healthcare products. The Armed Forces should review how the military regions are intended to be the link between military and civil defence, to strengthen interoperability in total defence and clarify their own objectives so they can create a functioning chain of supplies.

Fire incidents are a central issue in Saudi civil defence. Despite detailed regulation concerning firefighting equipment dealing with dwelling fires, fires occur frequently. Globally, research on dwelling fire safety is relatively new. Most studies focus on human factors, incidence and causal issues. Few studies examine management or policy-making perspectives towards managing these individual agents. Thus, a detailed study on understanding the management of these factors for dwelling fires is long overdue. The study uses an inductive approach to investigate key management issues in reducing dwelling fires in Saudi Arabia. This qualitative study consisted of twelve indepth semi-structured interviews and four focus groups with senior managers of the Civil Defence Division dealing with fire safety. A sustainability-based framework is developed to map the critical issues in generating a long-term planning solution to policy and management of fire hazard and risk in Saudi Arabia. Critical drivers of this sustainability approach are good management, regulation, governance practices: especially accountability and transparency; reduction of tribalism, bureaucracy, and burns unit efficiency. However, given the modern environment of communications, information technology and communications, and in particular public education, are viewed as important mediators between drivers and sustainability. The critical role of knowledge generation is also positioned as a mediator. The framework proposed is a paradigm shift from merely managing fire incidents on a case by case basis to a proactive risk reduction strategy. This represents an original solution to managing fire hazards at a national level and an important contribution to the fire management literature.