应急响应中的“决策失灵”

The“Decision Failure”in Emergency Response

作为我国应急管理体系的最前端,地方政府能否在危机信号显露后及时启动应急响应,是切断风险向灾害或危机转化的关键一环。然而,随着风险社会的演化,突发事件的模糊性、复杂性和不确定性不断升高,地方政府不仅要从碎片化的信息中判断危机态势,同时面临启动响应可能产生的社会恐慌、舆情危机以及应对不力带来的追责。这些复杂的决策情境容易引发地方政府在应急响应中的迟滞,产生应急响应的“决策失灵”。针对这一现象,本文将应急响应“决策失灵”划分为三种类型:决策忽略、决策规避和决策迟疑,进而对这三类失灵现象的诱发情境和产生路径进行分析,为制定有针对性的防范与治理策略提供借鉴。

As the frontline of emergency management,local governments are at the place to make timely response decisions based on their firsthand information of crisis signals.However,because such decisions usually involve complexity and high stakes,local governments tend to become indecisive due to the anticipated regret or blame,leading to the delay or absent of the critical decisions.The existing research is limited on explaining the failures of local governments’emergency response decisions.This article proposed that there are three different types of“decision failure”in emergency response of local governments,including decision omission,decision avoidance,and decision inertia.The characteristics and the pathways that lead to each types of“decision failure”were discussed respectively.The conceptualization of“decision failure”in this paper provides a better understanding of why local governments act indecisively under emergency conditions,and implications for making effective prevention and governance strategies.