On The Emergency Management Of County Government

For over 30 years of the reform and opening up, China has witnessed a significant high-speed development in both economic and social undertakings. Well, at the same time, unexpected incidents including natural disasters, severe accidents, public health events, and social security incidents occur on an increasingly frequent basis, which shows that Chinese society has turned into a risk society. In the face of unexpected incidents, county-level governments are usually on the front line of emergency response actions and are more familiar with the situations on the spot, more quick in response, and is more directly affected by the incident than governments of higher levels, therefore, county-level governments play a vital role in dealing with unexpected incidents. However, despite significant progress, China’s emergency response system (characterized by "contingency plans, emergency-response mechanisms, systems and legal systems") still has a lot of room for improvement compared with developed countries because China started to develop its emergency response system quite recently. China’s weaknesses in the emergency response chain lie especially in the fact that in county-level governments’ emergency response systems, there are still many problems in notions, mechanisms and systems, so counties are relatively less able in dealing with the challenges posed by unexpected incidents. Therefore, we study the emergency response systems of country-level governments in a bid to analyze existing problems and weaknesses, which is very meaningful in perfecting response measures.This paper based on previous studies, by means of risk society and emergency management analysis, theoretical and empirical analysis, literature and cases research method, emphatically discusses the existing problems of county-level governments’emergency response systems.Then puts forward the countermeasures of enhancing the emergency management of county-level governments.This paper analyzes and explains county-level government emergency response systems in four parts. The first part is a systematic introduction of the background, purpose and significance of the study, profile of the study abroad and in China as well as the theories the study is based upon, the study methods, and innovative areas, in order to specify the background of the study and to provide theoretical support for the following discussions of the current emergency response mechanisms in county-level governments and measures to deal with the existing problems in the mechanisms. The second part starts with an introduction of China’s development in emergency response mechanisms in different stages, which is then . followed by an analysis of the features of emergency response in county-level governments, namely grass root level, complexity, diversity, and direct contact with the mass, and an analysis of the existing problems including lack in notions and concepts, low-level of contingency plan development, emergency repsonse systems and mechanisms waiting to be perfected and weak social participation. The third part draws lessons on how to strengthen current emergency response system in county-level governments from three typical county-level government emergency-handling cases in Jiangsu province through comparing and analyzing, and finally highlights the author’s opinion. The fourth part proposes countermeasures in response to problems existing in the emergency response system of county-level governments. Firstly, they should stick to the idea of putting people first, take the initiave to satisfy people’s demands and ensure the well-being of the mass. Secondly, they should optimize the management of contingency plans through improving the plan-making process, drills, assessments and revisions. Thirdly, they should perfect the emergency response system by specifying the powers and responsibilities of county-level governments in their response to emergencies, strengthening emergency-response institutions, and establishing appropriate emergency-response teams. Finally, they should step up in developing a good emergency-response mechanism. Mechanisms of goods reserve, education and training, monitoring and predicting, as well as information management should be the focus of our improvement efforts. The last part of the paper is a summary of the previous points and offers suggestions on how to improve the emergency response management in county-level governments.