How Can The Government Learn From Crisis?

In a risk society,because risks stem from the “side effects” of modernity,crises caused by technological innovation and institutional development are emerging one after another.And they are increasingly uncertain,complex,and ambiguous,making it difficult to eliminate them fundamentally.The constant occurrence of crises has a serious impact on China's development and social life,and it also challenges the governance of our governments.So how to learn from crisis has become an important practical problem,and also a theoretical issue that needs to be studied urgently.This article believes that crisis learning is the integration of crisis management and organizational learning.The basic meaning refers to the dynamic process in which organizations learn lessons from crisis to improve their response capabilities.According to the relationship between crisis and learning,combined with the threestage theory of crisis management,this article divided the process of crisis learning into three stages: learning for crisis,learning as crisis,and learning from crisis.Combining with the actual development of China's emergency management,this paper built an analysis framework of the critical process of crisis learning.And discussed this process in three key stages: emergency plan,emergency response,incident investigation and accountability.Based on the richness of the data and the degree of matching,this paper selected the "Tianjin Harbor Explosion" and "Xiangshui Explosion" as cases.Then conducted empirical analysis on the process of crisis learning in the Chinese context.First,this paper analyzed the learning process of the government before crisis by the comparison of emergency plans at different levels and the revision between plans.Secondly,focusing on the 20 specific measures of five links of graded response,early disposal,command coordination,detection and crisis communication,the learning process of government in crisis was discussed.Finally,starting from the mechanism of the incident investigation,the investigation report and the administrative accountability,it compared the learning process of government after crisis.The results of this research show that:(1)The formulation of emergency plans increasingly emphasizes “according to local conditions” and “advancing with the times”,but there are still problems of poor pertinence,poor adaptability and insufficient coordination.(2)In terms of emergency response,with the determination and refinement of this processes,the ability of government to complete these tasks has been continuously improved.And this capability can be further internalized into the adjustment of emergency plans.(3)The incident investigation mechanism lacks independent investigating subject,and the technical investigation and the judicial investigation are not separated.The survey reports have a situation where the basic content is too high,and the experience and lessons are small.Also the experience and lessons are based on macro guidance.The issuance and sharing of investigation reports have the problems of single form and low reprint volume.Finally the accountability can relieve social pressure to a certain extent,but this study cannot judge its specific impact on the learning process of government after the crisis.Based on the above findings,this article proposed three countermeasures.First,to improve the“localization”,adaptability and coordination of emergency plans,and update the plans in time to improve the crisis management capabilities of government.Secondly,enhance the pertinence and flexibility of emergency response,and further clarify and refine the process of this response.Finally,on the mechanism of incident investigation,to establish an independent investigation agency and separate technical investigation and judicial investigation to ensure the objective and neutrality of the investigation process and results.Increase the proportion of experience and preventive measures in the investigation report and improve its pertinence and operability.The government should adopt a classified management method to balance the time of report issuance,continuously optimize the report form and strengthen the sharing among various organizations.Finally continuously reform the responsibilities of various departments in terms of accountability and improve the work of crisis management.