Suchergebnisse

Climate change has been seen as a crisis looming in the future, and has therefore not reached the top of the political agenda. This no longer holds true when looking at Australia, where climate change has become high politics. In this paper we examine the Australian electoral debate in terms of accountability framing, where the Government and Opposition were involved in a 'framing contest'. We argue that theories on accountability framing in crisis need to be modified in order to capture the complex dynamics of climate change due to its inherent scientific uncertainty and global nature. After conducting an inductive analysis of Australian Broadcasting Corporation‐reporting we found three themes to be of importance for accountability framing in the 'risk society': labeling, linking and coping.

This article probes the warning‐response failures that left the city of New Orleans vulnerable to catastrophic hurricanes and the inability of local, state, and federal authorities to mount an adequate response to the consequences unleashed by Hurricane Katrina. Through an empirical exploration with the help of three broad explanatory 'cuts' derived from the relevant interdisciplinary literature – psychological, bureau‐organizational, and agenda‐political – the authors seek to shed light on the sources of failure that contributed to the various levels of governments' lack of preparedness and the inadequate collective response to a long‐predicted, upper‐category hurricane. The article concludes by addressing the question of whether the vulnerabilities and problems that contributed to the Katrina failure are amenable to reform.