Study Of Governmental Crisis Management In Chinese Cities: Challenges And Countermeasures

After the 911 terrorist attack of America and the SARS epidemic disease of China, people are aware that various hazards are around them everyday. The governmental crisis management has become the focus of research on Public Management in China. The society is changing everyday, and there are many unstable elements. Therefore, conflicts and contradictions are everywhere, and outburst public crisis events may happen. City, as the carrier of the social life, is expanding and its population is increasing. Once the outburst public crisis event happened in the city, it may not only cause much loss in material and spirit, but also have incalculable impact due to the negative effect and the chain effect. As a result, the government, as the main handler of the crisis, should set up a fast and effective module to prevent, control and eliminate the outburst public crisis events. When the crisis happens, the government should take fast, compositive and effective measures to reduce the negative effect, and at the same time, set up a city environment of sustainable development, which is the key topic of the research on governmental crisis management. Based on the importance and urgence of urban crisis management, and foreign experience in crisis management, this thesis makes a deep research on the status of crisis management in China. Using the actual review and analysis, combined with the public management theories and methods, the thesis illustrates the module, ability and evaluation of the governmental crisis management. This thesis emphasizes the diversity of outburst urban crisis management, and that the management organization changes from just the government in the past to a combined group of the government, enterprises and social organizations to form an effective crisis forecasting and management system. This thesis also illustrates that the government should increase the governmental crisis management ability from the following aspects: united coordination organization, wholesome crisis preventing system, expedite information system, regular public response system and crisis management evaluation system. This thesis emphasizes the importance of governmental crisis management evaluation system, which can be used to find the defects, and apply the experience in actual crisis management works. Therefore, when the public crisis happened, the government can change to the crisis management status rapidly to reduce the impact of the crisis, and even to recover from the crisis.The methodology and structure of this thesis are as follows:The thesis covers four chapters. Chapter 1 is introduction to the basis theories of urban crisis management through literature analysis. It introduces the following concepts: the concept, characteristics and classification of crisis; crisis management system and procedure. It proposed a crisis management module: an interactive module that the government works as the leading part, and the society responses to the government. The analysis to the classification of crisis helps to give fast and effective response to different crisis events. It is the theoretical basis of the governmental crisis management module to understand the governmental crisis management and clarify the diversity and cooperativity of governmental crisis management. The urban crisis management module shows that only the cooperation of the government, enterprises and non-governmental organizations can solve the problems and handle the public crisis events effectively. Chapter 2 is the analysis to the current status of the governmental crisis management. It illustrates the development of governmental crisis management in Chinese cities. With the changes social production mode and life mode, the crisis happened in the Chinese cities have special characteristics. This thesis also analyzes the main elements that influence the urban crisis management. The purpose of the analysis is to find the problems and defects, and to propose practical response policies, which insures practical value of the research. Chapter 3 analyzes the foreign crisis management experience and characteristics through comparison. The foreign crisis management module includes wholesome legal system, transparent information transfer, sharing responsibilities and attaching importance to the research. On the contrary, the Chinese government lacks these crisis management abilities. This chapter also introduces the risk management experiences of several metropolises, such as: New York, Tokyo and Moscow. Their experience can be utilized as the reference. Chapter 4 illustrates the countermeasures to improve the governmental crisis management ability in Chinese cities. Through analysis to the current status of public crisis management in China, the author proposes how to set up modern crisis management system. The governmental crisis management ability should be improved from four aspects: the scientific central control organization, effective protection system, expedite and transparent information system and wholesome crisis evaluation system. The thesis emphasizes the evaluation system of governmental crisis management, because the evaluation is an essential part. Based on the evaluation, the theories and process of the crisis management can be improved.To sum up, the author proposes his main points of governmental crisis management through five parts. Based on the theories, the thesis proposes diversified sharing mode of governmental crisis management. Through analysis of the current status and foreign experience, the thesis proposes how to improve the governmental crisis management ability. The thesis emphasizes effective evaluation of crisis management ability. Therefore, the author proposes opinions about how to improve the governmental crisis management ability.