The Politics of Natural Disaster: The Case of the Sahel Drought

"This is one of the earlier academic attempts covering the problem of disasters and conflict, examining root causes of disaster in terms of the politics and how political approaches can and must be used to solve the disasters. It outlines myths about disasters and how those myths should be tackled. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . An example is the myth that ‘Things Will Change’ due to calamity, whereas the reality, as often seen through disaster diplomacy, is that positive ideas for moving forward succumb to the inertia of continuing without change. The myth that ‘Solutions Can Be Undertaken on a Piecemeal Basis (and Sequentially)’ is exactly the problem identified by disaster diplomacy, where people try to implement solutions to disaster and to conflict by looking at a small part, rather than considering wider perspectives and connecting areas that need to be connected to solve many problems. Finally, the myth that ‘Political Leaders Say What They Mean’ is shown by the Katrina and Iran examples we discussed earlier. In Katrina, the White House said that they would accept aid from places that they did not. For Iran, both sides claimed to want reconciliation but acted otherwise. This book is an important framing for disaster diplomacy work through the fallacies that it presents and counters – those assumptions that exist and prevail, but that are fundamentally wrong. This interview was first published in 2010."