Learning from the Katrina crisis: A global and international perspective with implications for future crisis management
Abstract
The study of crisis and emergency management—or mismanagement—during Hurricane Katrina will continue to proliferate in the near future. This article presents a global and international perspective on Katrina as a case of “grand failure” in crisis and emergency management, with lessons and implications for future crisis management. Benefiting from empirical data collected from international interviews, the essay presents a theoretical analysis of emergency governance and crisis management, discusses a detailed global perspective on Katrina crisis management as “management and leadership crisis,” offers a number of key lessons learned from Katrina, and draws policy and administrative recommendations for future crisis and emergency management through a theory of “surprise management” that is adaptive, collaborative, and citizen engaging and draws on chaos and complexity theories to cope with hyper‐uncertainties and unknowns.
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Three key components of state capacity for crisis governance are cognition, coordination, and capacity to implement.
“Kwon et al, (2023), drawing on Comfort (2007) and Farazmand (2007) have highlighted three key components of state capacity for crisis governance -cognition, co-ordination, and capacity to implement (see Figure 1).”
From Risk Governance, State Capacity, and Critical Human Security: Evolution of Risk Governance in Response to Systemic Risk in the UK and South Korea (2025) · cites this paper as Farazmand (2007)
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“Kwon et al, (2023), drawing on Comfort (2007) and Farazmand (2007) have highlighted three key components of state capacity for crisis governance – cognition, co-ordination, and capacity to implement (see Figure 1).”
- Authors
- Farazmand, A.
- Venue
- Public Administration Review
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2007-12
- Volume
- 67
- Issue
- s1
- Pages
- 149-159
- ISSN
- 0033-3352 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-6210
- OpenAlex
- W2023501570
- Cited by
- 214
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 21.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Administration Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Disaster Management and Resilience
- Social Sciences › Communication › Public Relations and Crisis Communication
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Political Analysis
- Keywords
- Hurricane Katrina, crisis management, emergency management, emergency governance, lessons learned, chaos theory, complexity theory, citizen participation
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