Disaster Preparedness as Social Control

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Title: Disaster Preparedness as Social Control
Abstract
This paper discusses research on disaster management institutions, as well as members of the vulnerable public in an area of significant seismic risk. Our main theoretical conclusion is that disaster preparedness is a problem because people do not do what they are supposed to do in the ways in which they are told by authority figures. They have breached a social norm. The need for public preparedness is constructed as a fundamental part of management efforts, where the vulnerable public is thought of as both complacent and potentially threatening in post-disaster contexts. The authors find institutional perspectives idealize public preparedness as a major goal, but in doing so also emphasize social control. This is in contrast to public reflections that demonstrate the potential for collective self-organization and altruistic behavior when they imagine how they would respond in a disaster. The institutional need for compliance in acts of preparing is built on fear of the public and resonates with the growth of disaster management practices inspired by military structures (i.e. the Incident Command System). Here, we suggest the paradigm of preparedness needs to be re-framed to more accurately reflect behavior in disaster to incorporate the reality of public behavior during such events.



























Keywords: Disaster Management Policy, Preparedness, Social Control, Individualism, Compliance, Securitization, Militarization
Introduction

Natural disasters were recognized as threats decades before the Department of Homeland Security was established. In the early 1960's, noted seismologist Charles Richter, inventor of the Richter scale for measuring earthquake magnitude, pleaded with Civil Defense authorities to prepare for an earthquake which could cause infrastructure damage similar to a nuclear attack (Geschwind, 2001: 131-132). Disaster management in the federal US system thus originated in such civil defense policies created in the post-World War II context (Tierney and Bevc 2007). Cold war policy and increased knowledge of risks associated with natural disasters drove the foundation of the modern institution of emergency management.
Prior to 9-11, disasters were managed at a mostly local level. The events of September 11 2001 transformed the landscape of management wherein protection of the 'homeland' became a marked priority with some dubious implications. As Masco (2014, 1) explains:
The very real terrorist violence of September 2001 was quickly harnessed by U.S. officials to a conceptual project that mobilizes affects (fear, terror, anger) via imaginary processes (worry, precarity, threat) to constitute an unlimited space and time horizon for military state action. By amplifying official terror and public anxiety, the U.S. security apparatus powerfully remade itself in the early twenty-first century, proliferating experts, technological infrastructures, and global capacities in the name of existential defense.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created largely in response to a perceived need to improve security against terrorism. Subsequently, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was placed within DHS. The mission of DHS is stated as "preventing terrorism and enhancing security; managing our borders; administering immigration laws; securing cyberspace; and ensuring disaster resilience." (Department of Homeland Security 2015) Thus, disaster management in the post-9-11 context has become bureaucratic and hierarchical, perhaps in response to increased knowledge and fear about external and natural threats to the US.
One example is the Incident Command System (ICS), quickly becoming a popular vehicle to effect security in a hierarchical fashion. An ICS, as defined by Bigley and Roberts (2001), is "the official designation for an approach used by many public safety officials, including firefighters and police, to assemble and control the temporary systems they deploy to manage personnel and equipment at a wide range of emergencies, such as fires, multi-casualty accidents (air, rail, water, roadway), natural disasters, hazardous material spills, and so forth." (1282) This quasi-military approach to a variety of contingencies developed as a way to manage wildfires in California during the 1970's. Since then, ICS has broadened to a wide reach in emergency management and its use has gained attention due to the appeal of the organizational structure, with formalized procedures, rules, and hierarchies attributed to five major functions: command, planning, operations, logistics, and finance/administration.
Hierarchical structures such as ICS are commonplace in the increasingly militarized society of the United States. They supplant a military that can only offer ancillary support, such as search and rescue efforts, in times of disasters as dictated by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. Posse Comitatus explicitly maintains that military entities, with the exception of the Coast Guard and in some cases the National Guard, cannot serve in a law enforcement capacity during a disaster except if authorized by Congress (Greenberger and Spaccarelli 2010). This was enacted to mitigate the threat of martial law in the Confederate states during the period of post-Civil War Reconstruction, and remains law as a way to temper the military's ability to act in a policing capacity.
How federal forces are used in times of disaster is controversial, especially with regard to the reach of Posse Comitatus. Yet disaster management in the US has more militaristic, outside of the provision of law enforcement efforts, because this is ostensibly seen as the most efficient and resource-rich way to handle events. The establishment of the US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) by George W. Bush in 2002 further blurred the lines in the military's role in disaster management. The perceived breakdown of law and order during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 spurred Congress to enact the since-repealed Warner Amendment to the Insurrection Act. This granted the President authority to send federal troops to respond to a natural disaster without the consent of state government. According to Greenberger and Spaccarelli (2010, 43):
Despite the ongoing controversy about the role of the military in domestic disaster response that led to the repeal of the Warner Amendment, diverse leaders and experts have continued to emphasize the military's critical and indispensable role in responding to catastrophic events. The Department of Defense itself has acted to enhance the military's response capabilities, assigning an active duty unit as an on-call federal response force for domestic disasters for the first time in the nation's history.

While NORTHCOM was formed in response to 9-11, the abysmal response to Hurricane Katrina was used to advocate increased military involvement in disaster management.
Arguments used to justify more use of troops in disaster are founded on a belief that social chaos, or public lawlessness, is a common feature of such events. An example is the media portrayal of widespread looting in New Orleans after Katrina. Greenberger and Spaccarelli (2010, 43) argue for more military involvement in disaster response because "the complete breakdown of law and order during a catastrophic emergency was and is sufficient to authorize the president to unilaterally deploy federal troops under the Posse Comitatus Act and the Constitution". Thus, an opinion that disaster management systems should be modeled on and ultimately managed by military entities is justified by the belief that disorder, and even combat-like conditions, are characteristic of large disasters.
A call for more military models of management also reflects the socio-cultural post-9-11 securitization of the United States. This is where institutional approaches combine "the politics of threat design with that of threat management" (Balzacq, Leonard, and Ruzicka 2015, 3). Securitization has been influenced by the blending of political rhetoric that shaped the post-9-11 'War on Terror' with approaches to non-manmade disasters. Sun and Jones (2015, 200) state:
Unrecognized, but equally as damaging to democratic ideals - and potentially more devastating in practical effect - is the expansion of this trend beyond the context of terrorism to the wider field of nonwar emergencies. Although the constitutional and policy discussions have failed to acknowledge this expansion, war and national security rhetoric has in recent years come to permeate the legal, policy, and scholarly conversations on a wide variety of nonwar emergencies and disasters.

The increasingly securitized approach to disaster management that employs war-like metaphors might not seem troubling on a superficial level, but there are grave consequences to such allusions in real world situations.
Again, Hurricane Katrina shows the dangers of a securitizing culture. Rumors of mass looting, rapes, lawless gangs, and snipers perpetuated by the media (Tierney, Bevc, and Kugliowski 2006; Sun 2011) characterized most outsider perspectives on what happened in the aftermath of the storm. There was a problematic positioning of citizens, particularly Black residents of New Orleans, by media and government actors as enemy threats. References to post-storm conditions in the city as a 'war zone' (Tyson 2005) were pervasive, which resulted in combat-like tactics of holding guns on residents rather than coordinated rescue responses by military entities (Tierney and Bevc 2007). However, examples of social chaos are believed to be rare, despite widespread belief to the contrary. Such war rhetorics and practices have created spaces where core American civil liberties can be threatened in certain disaster situations (see Tushnet 2005; Kitrosser 2010; and Sun and Jones 2015 for example). In contrast, human social behavior in all types of disaster situations is mostly characterized by helping behaviors and is largely self-organizing, as demonstrated in research on improvisation and flexibility in the aftermath of such events.
A faction of disaster scholarship has documented emergent action as important to disaster response efforts since the 1960s. As described by Tierney, Bevc, and Kugliowsky (2006, 58):
By the 1960s, a body of work had accumulated indicating that panic is not a problem in disasters; that rather than helplessly awaiting outside aid, members of the public behave proactively and prosocially to assist one another; that community residents themselves perform many critical disaster tasks, such as searching for and rescuing victims; and that both social cohesiveness and informal mechanisms of social control increase during disasters, resulting in a lower incidence of deviant behavior than during non disaster times.
Other research shows that citizens threatened with an impending disaster are actively engaged in making decisions, seeking information, and determining the best course of action given their current contexts (Lasker 2004). Much of response is characterized by active engagement, when ordinary citizens often act ideally, help others, and organize citizen-based rescue efforts (Sun and Jones 2015). Work by seminal disaster scholars like Quarantelli (see his work from 1986, for example) provided the basis for more recent research on post-disaster collective action. Wachtendorf (2004) and Wachtendorf and Kendra (2006a) document the predominance of improvisation enacted by regular citizens during 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina, as opposed to public panic and disorder. Majchrzak, Jarvenpaa and Hollingshead (2007) show the importance of emergent organization in crisis situations. Similarly, Baker, Feldman, and Lowerson (2013) demonstrate that workers organized in a variety of ways to recreate practices of mental health to help patients in the absence of formal care in the shattered post-Katrina health system. Finally, Baker (2014a) argues the ability of members of the public to improvise response in disaster situations is based on their pre-crisis resources, social connections, and existing skills, which are established in normal times, then carried over into disaster contexts.
Currently, the predominant emergency management perspective is that people are best equipped to respond to disaster situations through practices of preparedness and that such efforts are fundamental to successful, orderly, and efficient response. However, research shows the importance of adaptation and improvisation. There is a disconnect between the self-organizing nature of human behavior in response, and imaginations of idealized successful disaster response that is based on past actions of preparedness. Or as Kendra and Wachtendorf (2006b, 1) suggest, "improvisation occupies a somewhat conflicted space in the realm of emergency and crisis management capacities: we plan in detail so that we don't have to improvise, knowing that we will have to improvise." Such sentiments underlie much of the institutional rhetoric surrounding both disaster response and a need for the public to prepare. Why is there such a disconnect? Why is preparedness, as part of a command and control-type system of management, emphasized over emergent behavior?
We use empirical research to show the institutional notion of disaster preparedness propagated in the emergency management field has become a social norm designed to control the behavior of the public who is perceived as complacent and potentially threatening in disaster situations. This is despite evidence the public engages in mostly helping behaviors, and remains an underutilized asset in response environments. We ask why this is the case.
An inductive, grounded theory study was conducted on staff and students within a large university in an area of seismic risk in support of this assertion. We find that elements of social control underlie the norm of disaster preparedness, including a need to: 1) control a potentially threatening public, and 2) justify the existence of disaster management institutions in a securitized culture. We explore these themes of disaster management as social control, and examine the concept of disaster preparedness as an example that addresses our concerns. Then we situate our arguments in theoretical literature that demonstrates that acts of planning and preparedness fulfill the need to control, rather than predict, human action.

Disaster Preparedness
Scholars refer to disaster preparedness as one part of the hazards cycle developed in 1979 by the National Governor's Association. This was informed by early research on the phases of disasters (see Barton 1970; Carr 1932; Drabek 1986; and Stoddard 1968, for example). Preparedness occupies a prominent position in institutional management activities and policies. It is defined by the Department of Homeland Security as:
A continuous cycle of planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, evaluating, and taking corrective action in an effort to ensure effective coordination during incident response. This cycle is one element of a broader National Preparedness System to prevent, respond to, and recover from natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other disasters.
As such, preparedness consists of actions, such as disaster response planning, trainings, drills and exercises and the acquisition of supplies that "enable social units to respond" (Tierney, Lindell and Perry 2001, 5). This practice embodies the notion that actions taken in the present directly translate to and affect the future, and has key temporal elements.
Broadly, emergency planning efforts engaged in the past and present are designed to decrease risk of physical and economic harm, increase resilience in response to crisis (see Paton 2003 and Tierney, Lindell and Perry 2001 for example), and help people recover quickly (Diekman et al. 2007). Management institutions in developed countries advocate disaster preparedness as a fundamental way to reduce overall vulnerability (Becker et. al. 2012; 2013). Thus, the concept of preparedness embodies an assumption that the more people prepare the better able they are to respond. Perhaps this belief is less informed by the reality of disaster than the hope that practices such as creating plans, and gathering supplies translate to a successful, resilient response. For example, the DHS (2015) makes a lofty claim that, 'Planning makes it possible to manage the entire lifecycle of a potential crisis', but the literature demonstrates multiple practical and theoretical problems with planning and preparedness.
Research has documented multiple issues with preparedness efforts. Scholars such as Harding et al. (2002); Lampel, Shamsie and Shapira (2009); and Marcus and Nichols (1999) have shown preparedness for potential crises is problematic on multiple levels for a variety of reasons. As Kreps and Lovegren Bosworth (2006) state, "there are major obstacles to achieving anything more than sporadic to modest levels of preparedness at all levels of analysis" (311). The incorporation of preparedness into everyday life is a pervasive issue because it is generally difficult for people to prepare (Becker et. al. 2012; 2013; and Lindell and Perry 2000). Scholars have grappled with explaining why. Individual characteristics are thought to influence choices to prepare (Dooley et. al. 1992). Some examine how personal beliefs about the likelihood of a disaster event translated to preventative action (Burns et. al. 1993 and Lindell and Perry 2000), and it is thought that choices are based on how people perceive the risk of a disaster as real (Cigler 2007). Baker (2014b) claims the problems with disaster preparedness are more due to a belief in social continuity rather than demonstrative of personal deficits. Disaster researchers persistently struggle to identify sources of this problem and develop ways to motivate people to act. It is clear, despite uncertainty about why people do or do not prepare, that most in vulnerable areas perform minimum preparedness.
As previously discussed, some factions of institutional emergency management in the United States advocate a militaristic orientation, in part, to mitigate the public preparedness problem. This is intended to help negotiate potential threats from what is perceived as an unruly populace (Dynes 1990). As Dynes (1990) explains, such an orientation is rooted in the idea that social chaos is a fundamental characteristic of the 'emergency period', and is related to poor pre-event social organization and planning:
"While the pre-emergency period can be characterized by some notion of 'normalcy', the emergency period is marked off by social chaos. This chaos is signaled by considerable irrational social behavior – panic is a term used frequently – and such personal disorganization is manifested in the wide spread episodes of antisocial behavior. Such 'irrationality' develops because the traditional social control mechanisms have lost their effectiveness. The social disorganization is seen also as a result of the lack of effectiveness of pre-emergency social organization" (5).

Another belief that permeates institutional dispositions about public response is a sense of helplessness in disaster situations; that the public will panic, or in the worst case, they are potentially threatening (Sun and Jones 2015). This provides justification for the need for preparedness as a way to inform the public about the risks of disaster, as well as encourage them to be more self-reliant.
The problem is, assumptions about human behavior in disasters often do not accurately reflect what happens before and after an event. The foundational institutional belief that successful disaster response is directly linked to planning efforts, is not entirely true. Quarantelli (1988, 374) explains:
"…there is often a big gap between what was planned and what actually happens in a major disaster crisis. There is, in fact, only a partial correlation between the undertaking of preparedness planning and the successful or good management of community disasters".

Despite this, preparedness remains the dominant orientation towards management of crises in the United States.
Preparedness is perceived as one way to ensure disaster risk reduction, which is intimately tied to the notion of resilience. Disaster risk reduction, according to the United Nations Office of Risk Reduction (2016) is, "the concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyse and reduce the causal factors of disasters. Reducing exposure to hazards, lessening vulnerability of people and property, wise management of land and the environment, and improving preparedness and early warning for adverse events are all examples of disaster risk reduction." Here, preparedness is a fundamental aspect of disaster risk reduction. While there is a large body of work over the years that demonstrates the importance of citizen-based collaborations, given they are experts of their own environments and understand inherent capabilities (see for example Maskrey, 1989; Dynes 1990; Quarantelli 1998), the importance of spontaneous, collective action in disaster response engaged by members of the unprepared public continues to be either ignored in management institutions, or positioned as problematic (Dynes 1990; Tierney, Bevc, Kugliowski 2006; Tierney and Bevc 2007; Galliard and Mercer 2012; Baker 2014a; Baker 2014b). Here, volunteers, and spontaneous public response efforts are positioned as problematic, and at worst, threatening.
This paper examines the institutional and public meaning of preparedness, their connections to interpretations about human action in future crisis events through value judgments, and why notions about the importance of preparedness persist despite evidence of its disconnection from the social reality of disasters. Our work is the result of a study (Baker, 2013) that produced unexpected findings designed to understand the root of issues with public preparedness efforts. We expected to develop theory that addressed preparedness questions. However, the analysis produced themes connected to values of the society in which the study site was embedded. A narrative approach was applied to these themes, as it can provide information about values, morals, and judgments people employ when faced with threats. Findings drive an empirical theory about root issues with this practice that provides a different explanation than current scholarship, but builds off conceptual critiques of plans. This theory suggests paradigms of securitization and militarization of disaster management, as well as current consideration of disaster preparedness must be challenged because they are more about social control than actual human behavior.
We address the following research questions: 1) Why is a lack of public disaster preparedness positioned as a problem? 2) What values inform the positioning of public preparedness as a problem? The methods by which we answer those questions are now discussed.

Methods
We used a grounded theory methodology to gather and analyze data. As such, we employed a systematic and constant comparative approach in the collection and analysis of data to produce theory rather than test hypotheses (Corbin and Strauss 2008 and Glaser and Strauss 1967). Crucial is the documentation of language, practices, and norms constructed together by participants and the researcher as a participant-observer-expert in a highly interpretive process (Orlikowski & Baroudi 1991). The first author identified how preparedness was conceptualized by institutional (university staff) and public (students) actors through field research of over 100 hours of observation of relevant activities (e.g. trainings and exercise) and archival material analysis of over 500 preparedness related documents. These data were analyzed by both authors, through the construction of institutional and public narratives based on themes that evolved in the analysis. This method was then used to identify implicit values within narratives.
The study site was Earthquake University (EQU), a large college in Southern California. It was selected for two reasons. First, EQU is in an area at risk for a large earthquake which means that preparedness activities occur on a variety of organizational levels. Second, as this research was concerned with institutional and public perspectives and their differences, the university provided these through the insights of staff as representative of disaster institutions, and those of graduate students, as reflective of the general public.
The choice of participants was based on a few factors; convenience, the fact they lived and worked in a risk environment, represented either public or institutional perspectives, and were acquainted with the potential for disaster. While individual characteristics, such as demographics, the transitional nature of the student population, and experiences with disaster certainly influenced perspectives on preparedness, conclusions were not drawn based on one person's point of view. This is because the research was interested in developing theoretical perspectives on collective 'institutional' and 'public' interpretation of preparedness, and the reflections they provide on what underlies this practice, which was accomplished through the grounded theory method.
Data collection and analysis were guided by principles of theoretical sampling. In this, a researcher uses both pre-existing (e.g. current research on the subject of interest) and evolving knowledge (e.g. data produced in the study) about a phenomenon to guide selection of participants (Corbin and Strauss 1990; Glaser and Strauss 1967). The first author solicited staff members with major roles in disaster management (e.g. emergency management coordinator, or high-level administrators) at the university. The next set of staff participants were obtained through these initial contacts that referred additional relevant employees. Students were found through snowball sample (Marshall and Rossman 2011), as there were no conditions of participation other than graduate standing. This uses referrals from initial contacts to recruit the next crop of potential participants. The authors did not include undergraduates, because they are highly dependent on the university, where graduates are more reflective (although not perfectly) of public characteristics (e.g. more mature, have children, relatively diverse demographics).
In-depth, open interviews were conducted with both students and staff. There were 21 staff and 19 graduate student participants for a total of 40 interviews. While there was a general interview protocol for both groups with questions tailored by type of participant, the conversation that emerged guided its progression (Holstein and Gubrium 1995). Questions about potential responses asked of staff and students were based on the Shakeout earthquake scenario developed by Jones et. al. (2008). Staff were queried about departmental disaster plans or activities that provided detail about their work in relation to earthquake preparedness, whereas questions asked of students were more oriented to their personal lives.
Over 100 hours of observations of extensive trainings held on campus (e.g. the first author participated in a 3 month "search and rescue" training), drills, and mock events helped understand how preparedness was accomplished on an organizational/official level. This provided rich information about a variety of preparedness-oriented activities over the year of the study. During each observation, the first author took detailed field notes, recorded conversations on a digital recorder, and wrote theoretical memos about observations that were relevant to the research questions.
'Preparedness tours' of student's home were also conducted. The tours provided another resource for observational data. Each tour was held alongside interviews and lasted from 60-120 minutes. The first author walked through the home and asked questions of the student participant based on a 'Preparedness Inventory' created by the research team that helped document the following in tours: 1) materials they used, stored, and collected to prepare for an earthquake; 2) why they had these particular materials; 3) where these materials were kept; 4) rationale about the placement of materials; and 5) information about how they imagined a disaster response would unfold, and what they would do accordingly.
The last source of data was 500 pages of archival materials relevant to earthquake preparedness distributed at the university, all which reflect an institutional viewpoint. These were collected either via the Internet or at preparedness-related events and consisted of: 1) all educational materials handed out at preparedness events, 2) all major University preparedness plans available online or provided by staff, and 3) other materials relevant to disaster preparedness encountered in the study site. There were also numerous visual materials posted on-campus intended to serve as guides in response to emergency. For example, the emergency management division posted a flip-card, detailing steps to take in a variety of emergencies in the hallways and restrooms of many campus buildings.
Data collection occurred simultaneously alongside analysis in the tradition of grounded theory. Theoretical saturation was reached when no new themes came out of analysis, and at this point, data collection stopped. This is an important milestone in the production of theory and does not automatically occur when a researcher has conducted a pre-determined number of interviews and observations (Suddaby 2006). While the initial target of this research was 60 interviews and 100 hours of observation, theoretical saturation was reached around the 15th interview for both staff and students, where the themes uncovered during interviews became repetitive. However, this process continued to 40 interviews to make sure no new themes emerged.

Data Analysis
Although analysis is discussed separately from gathering, these processes occurred concurrently. First, we elicited major themes that addressed more general research questions used to explore the concept of disaster preparedness. Once data was saturated, we used themes to determine specific values connected to disaster preparedness and its meanings for both sets of participants. The larger method is discussed, with more detail provided about the creation of narratives through emergent themes in the next section.
Theoretical categories were coded through an iterative, reflexive process of theme development a la Corbin and Strauss (2008) and Glaser and Strauss (1967) in the initial analysis. These captured key concepts relevant to the more general research questions that explored what disaster preparedness meant to study participants. Multiple rounds of more refined coding were necessary to flesh out theory from data. This consisted of going line-by-line asking questions such as, "what are themes that reflect key differences in themes for both groups?" or "what are themes that represent problems for preparedness from both staff and student perspectives?"
Major themes that originated from all interview, field notes, and archival data were compared and put into more refined theoretical categories – such as 'compliance', 'social control', or 'public as a threat' through a process known as integration. This was then compared to existing theory to assess the novelty of findings (Golden-Biddle and Locke 2007). All of these steps were engaged until saturation was reached. Analytic efforts were terminated and we focused on writing up the underlying theoretical elements, drawing heavily on memos created throughout this process. In the analysis, we found the themes for each group, from which we examined emergent values, as well as differences in institutional and public perspectives.
We walk through specifics about the process of analysis and present both the themes that emerged from data and the resultant narratives we constructed in the next section. Then, we outline theory that originated from data.

Findings
Data for both groups reveal larger moral and societal values connected to the creation of feelings of safety and control over the unknown. As such, there were two major, albeit slightly different conceptual categories in the data. The first reflect a sense of personal responsibility related to the individualistic culture of the United States that comes out in sentiments about preparedness for both groups, although more predominantly for university staff. The second describes a need for public compliance to institutional preparedness recommendations by those who manage disasters on an institutional level.
To set the stage for the discussion of major themes, most data reflected five major assumptions intertwined with the notion of disaster preparedness for both groups of participants as demonstrated in the thematic analysis. These are rooted in fundamental disconnections in connecting past and present actions with the future. The assumptions are: 1) if people prepare in the ways they are supposed, then they are prepared. In this belief however, there is no sense of how or what actions are necessary to achieve preparedness or what a desired level might be, 2) inherent within this argument is that adherence to any one of these recommendations will increase a person's level of preparedness, 3) if a person does not engage in actions advocated by managers, they are not prepared, 4) if a person is not prepared they are dependent, lazy, obstinate, uninformed, or apathetic, and 5) if a person does not prepare for an earthquake and an event happens, they deserve what happens because they chose to ignore instructions.
The next section describes the first-level of emergent themes of personal responsibility and compliance and support these ideas with exemplary quotes. We then dig deeper into those themes in the conclusion.

Personal responsibility. A failure to prepare is connected to a level of individual responsibility. This means that preparedness for a large earthquake in the context of this study was constructed as a very personal, individual responsibility espoused by representatives of the institution, as well as all archival materials. For example, according to a staff member participant:
"The more people who are able to fend for themselves, to be self-sufficient, to take care of themselves, their families, and their co-workers, then we are all going to be in a really good position."
Staff, either in subordinate positions, or those not directly accountable for emergency management, sometimes took on disaster preparedness as a personal and departmental responsibility. Because of the university's location in an area at-risk for a major earthquake, it was believed there was an obligation to prepare, even though most participants, both staff and students, reported a gross lack of such efforts.
Prescribed actions discussed as encompassing preparedness (e.g. creating earthquake kits, making plans, and stocking up on supplies) are directly linked with future successful disaster responses, whereas a failure to do so is constructed as shameful. Consider the following quote from a staff member leading a disaster preparedness training session:
"How many of you have significant others and or kids? Many of you do. Have you talked to them about if something happens during your workday, how you are going to communicate? I don't see quite as many hands up. Shame on you, you should."
Many informants reported similar feelings of guilt or shame for not preparing, especially if they had knowledge of expectations. Thus, students often expressed preparedness was expected of them as an individual responsibility, whereas staff sentiments worked to instill shame for not preparing. This sense of shame for a lack of effort is couched in a larger value of personal responsibility, or self-centeredness, related to the individualist culture of the United States. As one staff member describes:
"The vast majority of Americans…their focus is always on how can I one-up everybody else, and make myself financially successful. They don't care about anything except where they're going in their life. That's why they don't think about it and they don't prepare…They're just oblivious to the fact that they don't have any sort of personal responsibility placed upon themselves."
According to the quote above, a lack of preparedness implies people are selfish for not engaging in such efforts. Students also reflected the individualist orientation of the concept of preparedness:
"People tend to feel that [disaster preparedness] is an individual responsibility in this part of the world."

They took this concept of individualism to a different level than staff, however. While students related both concern and fear of risks, and a lack of preparedness, they were mostly confident they could deal with complications of a major earthquake. For example, a student recounts:
I feel like I would be okay for a while…I have a kind of "let's get it done" [attitude]. I'd probably be the one to organize. I would be, like, come on, guys, let's set up our tents. I can see that being sort of okay. Although it could be devastating and horrible and there could be people who I know that have died, but I do feel like I'm pretty mentally, materially, and physically prepared about sort of immediate survival.
While some of this is attributed to factors such as positive asymmetry, or a failure to imagine the worst-case scenario (see Cerulo 2006), there is little doubt the participant has some inherent capacity because of the resources and skills she relates. By and large, every student spoke of a potential ability to deal with a disaster, alongside a lack of preparedness. As one discusses, 'I imagine that in a lot of scenarios I would be totally fine…I'm competent to just fully take care of myself…I feel like I'm going to go down with the ship kind of thing.' Another discusses the use of a form of passive information (see Becker et. al. 2013) through television programs that helps inform visions of a potential post-earthquake response:
"I like watching those survivorman shows… it's a "better drink your own piss" thing…I'll watch those shows and it gives me ideas of what I could do…People are surprisingly resourceful. They will always figure out a way to survive... having the experience helps out more so than maybe this [backpack of preparedness supplies]… This helps for a little bit."
It should be noted, that beliefs espoused by students represent theoretical themes related to values inherent to the concept of disaster preparedness, rather than give an indication of how effectively they might act if an actual disaster would occur.
All participants in interviews and observation, in addition to the archival materials, connected the concept of preparedness to a strong sense of personal responsibility. The problem, however, is that people were not complying to institutional recommendations in ways they should. This theme of compliance is discussed below.

Compliance. A fundamental problem of preparedness is nested in unspoken conflicts between those who manage disaster and the unprepared public. This issue originates in that vulnerable publics are not doing as they are supposed to with regard to preparedness efforts. A quote from a top university manager reflects this:
"You are supposed to have a gallon of water per person per day now…maybe over the course of the research you can help, but how do you make the light bulb come on?"

Staff displayed doubt in the abilities of students to respond to an earthquake. Some even expressed fear of potentially emergent behaviors students believed they would enact after an earthquake. Conversations with multiple staff members demonstrates:
Interviewer: There are a lot of students who have these existing skills and resources they feel they could use to deal with the potential risks of a disaster situation outside of sort of conscious preparedness efforts. None of the students interviewed felt they were prepared for a catastrophic earthquake. Instead, many of the students are campers. One person felt that if there were an earthquake they would organize a tent city instead of going to a shelter.
Emergency Management Staff: Oh, so that would be like an 'occupy' situation.
Police staff related a similar sentiment:
Interviewer: Many graduate students didn't have a plan… there are some people they do active preparedness-like stuff and say they would not be dependent just by virtue of who they are and what they do in their life. Even though people say, 'I'm not prepared and I don't view it as a problem', they also report having practices in their life that they could sort of use to get through.
Police Staff: One of the things that we talk about a lot in law enforcement is that there are going to be people that are going to create certain situations where there is going to be deadly force used.
Those in both direct or ancillary disaster management positions reported an emergent and non-prepared response by students would be a threat to social order, whereas those who would be compliant with institutional directives such as create a plan, stock supplies, and have earthquake kits were idealized. On one hand, the improvised organization of a tent city by students was envisioned as a protest situation that was threatening enough to warrant potential deadly force by law enforcement. On the other, students reported they would much rather use practices like camping, to increase both their individual and collective ability to respond and did not see recommendations as to how they should prepare as reasonable given their access to resources.
Disaster managers expect students to be aware of risk, seek out information about preparedness, and then act accordingly. As such, a high level of compliance to prescribed actions was directly linked to expectations of successful response. Therefore, those who are 'prepared' are armed with correct knowledge, and should engage in activities that adhere to institutional recommendations. Themes of personal responsibility and compliance inform the larger theoretical conclusions of this paper that disaster preparedness represents a norm, which is embedded with notions of social control inherent to the current emergency management system. Deviance from institutional expectations through a perception of unpreparedness represents a breach of this standard. This has implications for disaster policy and practice, as discussed in the next section.

Discussion and conclusion
The notion and practice of disaster preparedness has become an expectation for vulnerable publics and management institutions in developed societies like the US. In a sense, it is now a social norm (see Scott and Marshall 2009 for a definition) as it is a standard that intends to guides human behavior, and has a set of conditions which people are expected to fulfill. Thus, both 'unpreparedness' and the potential for emergence violate a social norm.
This contention is supported by the following three key factors determined through data that addressed the research questions: 1) disaster preparedness as it is currently understood is embedded with judgments that mirror a move towards the militarization and securitization of modern disaster management and attempts to control behavior, 2) preparedness reflects values of personal responsibility and judgments connected to a need for compliance by members of the public, and 3) the public capacity for emergence in disasters and in turn, unpreparedness, is viewed as threatening and implies a disintegration of social order that preparedness upholds. Some of the rationale for this is supported in the notion that preparedness has narrative structures that serve to reduce uncertainty that the acceptance of emergence and non-planning can't really accomplish within the current paradigm.
Institutional constructions of disaster preparedness relate visions of successful future response efforts if, and only if, sanctioned recommendations are followed. The theory articulated here is congruent with literature that shows the notion of preparedness is about the control of uncertainty in the hopes of creating a narrative of efficient disaster response. We situate these points in theoretical literature on plans and planning, and on how narratives demonstrate a need to decrease and control uncertainty.
One such line of scholarship argues that plans and acts related to preparedness satisfy a fundamental need for humans to control uncertainty. As Clarke (1999) finds, this approach produces an illusion of an institution's ability to enact successful response. Plans, as fantasy documents, "are rationality badges, symbols organizations use to signal they are in control of danger, whether they really are or not." (Clarke 1999, 16) Similarly, Turner (1976) states:
Uncertainty creates problems for action. Actors' organizations resolve these problems by following rules of thumb, using rituals, relying on habitual patterns, or, more self-consciously, by setting goals and making plans to reach them. These devices provide the determinateness and certainty needed to embark upon organizational action in the present. But since organizations are indeterminate open systems, particularly in their orientation to future events (Thompson, 1967: p.10), members of organizations can never be sure that their present actions will be adequate for the attainment of their desired goals." (p. 378)

Plans, as largely symbolic, do not dictate human action very well (Nardi 1996; Suchman 1987). Rather, actions are "taken in the context of particular concrete circumstances." (Suchman 1987: p. viii) Thus, human activity tends to grow out of the immediacy of the situation.
Not only are plans more representations of action than constitutive of them, they embody narrative structures that people use to reduce uncertainty. Throgmorton (1996) suggests:
…"Planning is an enacted and future-oriented narrative in which the participants are both characters and joint authors. Though these authors may construct their own stories, they do so as characters in their stories, and they take part of actions that are not entirely of their own making." (p. 47)

As such, plans and their intended outcomes can be thought of as narratives. Like other stories, they are composed of sequences of events with a plot that ties together different temporal fragments of experience into a meaningful whole (Barry and Elmes 1997; Czarniawska 1997; Czarniawska-Joerges 1998; and MacIntyre 1981). They are also used to symbolize potential future action (Polkinghorne 1988), make sense of social environments (Abolafia 2010; Bruner 1991; Currie and Brown 2003; Czarniawska 2004; and Feldman et. al. 2004), and reduce tension (Bruner 1990). Narratives transform both normal and extraordinary experiences in ways that make sense of unusual events to engender a sense of safety.
While stories, and in this case, constructions of preparedness, make sense of uncertainty, they also appeal to moral and social values. March (1994) shows narratives invoke aspects such as religion and ideology that help people make practical judgments in deciding courses of action. Similarly, narratives were used to frame calls to action in response to majorly disruptive events such as 9-11 and the War on Terror (Callahan, Dubnic & Olshfski 2004). Quinn and Worline (2008) put forward how people on United Airlines flight 93 that was flown into the ground on September 11, 2001 motivated courageous collective action by operating within a larger narrative framework of utilitarianism and courage.
Preparedness, as a projection of disaster success narratives based on specific actions, controls a future situation through a good (being prepared) versus bad (unpreparedness) orientation. This conceptualization represents a struggle for control over unpredictable risks. To those whose jobs it is to manage risk, preparedness is about insuring compliance from potential victims who are personally responsible for themselves, as much as it is about achieving successful response. Those who do not prepare are painted as apathetic, complacent, or even threatening. Disaster scholars confirm these sentiments that persist despite evidence to the contrary:
"Using inept analogies from the past, national planning is often predicated on a model of "enemy" attack and considers local communities as fragile and disorganized. Disaster "victims" are seen as either passive or paralyzed by fear. Based on those assumptions, nation-states often plan to supplement or replace local decision-making, using the rationale of patriotic paternalism (Rodriguez, Quarantelli and Dynes, 2006, xix)."

But, as Mamula-Seadon, Selway, and Paton, (2012) state in their study of response to the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake, "there were indications that those who liked to be 'in control' or had 'strict routines' found themselves less able to cope than the more flexible, adaptable types." (p. 7) Within the archaic, national planning approach, in preparing one is assured of strength and survival and an ability to go-on. In not preparing, one invokes sentiments expected from norm breaching, such as that of a belief of non-compliance tied to personal characteristics such as irresponsibility or ignorance. Judgments placed on the unprepared public are particularly harsh. Unfortunately, the values espoused within the current social construction of disaster preparedness go unquestioned in many institutional and organizational practices as the rigid preparedness-orientation is almost universally accepted.
Our main theoretical conclusion is that disaster preparedness is a problem because people do not do what they are supposed to do in the ways in which they are told by authority figures. They have breached a social norm, in line with Kendra and Wachtendorf (2006b,1) when they argue "planning encompasses the normative "what ought to be done"..." This is especially exacerbated because the public, at least in the context of earthquake-prone southern California, has extensive knowledge of risk.
Lack of action is constructed as non-compliance to the institutional way of enacting preparedness. This perceived defiance exacerbates the belief that social chaos is a key feature of disaster situations that is really a product of a militarized (see Tierney, Bevc, and Kugliowski 2006 for example) and ultimately, securitizing society where social control becomes crucial. Mainly, there is a major gap between the way institutions conceive of publics when planning for disaster, and how they actually behave when faced with events. Institutions both judge and idealize public behavior in their plans and then, when that behavior fails to match, it is used to justify the conception of publics as threatening.
Rather than a failure of the public, a lack of disaster preparedness is an institutional problem. In essence, much of what management institutions do in advancement of the preparedness norm is antithetical to public behavior as documented in disaster contexts. We know publics are generally predisposed to self-organization in disasters, and this emerges naturally from disruptive contexts. While we do not argue that disaster institutions are unnecessary, we propose that understandings of altruism as described in this paper, or the helping behavior we see in the midst of disruption, could be incorporated into the institutional approach. Here, institutional theory (see Scott 2001; Dacin, Goodstein, and Scott 2002, for example) might become relevant in the application of this research to future studies on why this divide continues, as it attempts to describe how structures, like norms and rules, are legitimized and imposed as standard prescriptions for social relationships (Scott, 2004). Management institutions could look much different if they took the altruism of the populace as a premise, rather than a continued focus on the need for social control. We suggest that a revised orientation might be the answer to the preparedness problem, and make room for altruistic, collective action crucial in response contexts.

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