Publication: Prestige y 11-M : la vertebración política de la gestión de catástrofes
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2008
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Abstract
Between 2002 and 2004 Spain was jolted by two
big crisis scenarios with a very different nature but two common
characteristics. On one hand, they required an immediate response
of some magnitude and complex management. On the other, they both caused a very deep impact on Spanish society and politics.
Such two characteristics made them especially interesting in order to
analyzed multiple aspects related to decisionmaking
and “first
response” management as a reaction against catastrophes. We can
also withdraw several lessons about which factors and criteria are
employed by critical actors to evaluate crisis management and “first
response” as successful.
This article focuses on the lessons learned by analyzing two
singular events occurred in Spain and partly associated to very
Spanish civic culture keys and political dynamics. At the same time,
both of them have similar features and iconic meaning to other more
recent crisis occurred in other places around the world.
The first case studied is the crisis provoked by the accident of
the oil ship “Prestige”, drawn in November 2002, 130 miles away
from the Spanish coast in Galicia. It poured around 64.000 tones of
oil in the Atlantic Ocean. It provoked a huge ecological disaster
mainly in Galicia though to a great extent it reached 2.500Kms of
coastal line, from the North of Portugal to the South of France.
The second one is the terrorist attack of March 11th, 2004 in
Madrid. A cell of Islamist terrorists linked to Al Qaeda made explode
simultaneously ten bombs in train stations and suburban trains in
four different locations. More than 1.600 people were injured and
191 were killed.
The analysis of crisis management success criteria and
factors is framed in two competitive research projects 1 . Three
different qualitative research techniques are employed: (a) interviews
to critical actors involved in crisis management; (b) semistructured
questionnaires addressed to key informants; and (c) four workshops,
composed by experts, managers and decisionmakers
involved in
Prestige Oil Spill and M11
crisis. The method used is an original
and renewed version of the Nominal Group Technique (NGT). The
application of these techniques was complemented with the
information obtained out of other sources such as official reports,
press releases, articles and specialized monographs and some results
of the inquiries carried out by the Spanish Center of Sociological
Research (CIS)
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Keywords
Gestión de catástrofes, Evaluación de políticas públicas, Crisis gubernamental, España, Prestige, Terrorismo