In the Twilight Zone of Collaborative Disaster Prevention? The Experience of Flood Control in Different Levels of Government in Taiwan

Abstract

With the coming of risk society, natural and human-made disasters have challenged the capacity of governance in both national and local government. Although decentralization is an obvious trend applied to various fields for governance throughout the world, little is known about the appropriate mode and crucial factors influencing its capacity for disaster management. The purpose of this study is to clarify different modes of decentralization and summarize the crucial aspects influencing decentralization on flood control issues in Taiwan. By conducting in-depth interviews among several related principals of Taiwan branches of flood control in central and local governments, we analyzed the existing conflicts of power and responsibility between centralization and decentralization and defined the factors with a significant influence on building good partnership across levels of governments. Based on empirical findings, this study ultimately makes policy suggestions to facilitate the establishment of mechanisms for good governance.