22 The institutionalisation of vulnerable conditions and a case study from Germany
Introduction: positioning the argument
Vulnerability is no universal theory; it is a middle range theory attempting to integrate conceptual reasoning and empirical research with regard to specific social phenomena (e.g. the occurrence of devastating famines or floods). A meaningful application of the concept should be based on some kind of contextualisation both empirically as well as conceptually (cf. Kuhlicke et al., 2011). Against this background, the current application of the concept of vulnerability and the increasing emphasis on assessment procedures across the globe seems somewhat troubling. Particularly the strong relationship between cause and effect on which most attempts to assess and evaluate vulnerability are based is worth a moment of reflection. Many vulnerability researchers are implicitly or explicitly interested in unravelling the ‘causal forces’ at work (Watts and Bohle, 1993: 43) that define the relationship between root causes, dynamic pressures and unsafe conditions (Blaikie et al., 1994). Pursuing this view means identifying the root causes that affect the ‘allocation and distribution of resources between different groups of people’ (1994: 24) and thus shape the vulnerability of people.
While such a research design appears to be an intellectually demanding exercise that requires a thorough understanding of political, economic, and institutional context conditions, it all too often results in simplified and reductionist reasoning based on a stereotyped analysis (cf. also Hewitt, 1998: 82) that assumes that some predefined groups are more vulnerable than others (e.g. the poor, the uneducated, the elderly). However, as plausible such simple rules might appear and as often they are at the core of vulnerability, they should not be taken for granted. Empirical evidence collected in Europe, for example, suggests that such assumptions are not always helpful to understand people’s vulnerability (e.g. Kuhlicke et al., 2011; De Marchi and Scolobig, 2012).
This chapter aims to better understand how vulnerable conditions are institutionalised. It is based on research conducted on the 2002 flood affecting large parts of central and Eastern Europe. It concentrates on the city of Eilenburg, population about 17 500, located in Saxony, Germany, that was severely affected by the 2002 Mulde flood. The 2002 flood inundated the historical city centre and further residential districts. The analysis is based on results obtained from a household survey (n=327) and qualitative interviews conducted with decision-makers and affected citizens (n=21). The interview quotes presented below were translated from German into English by the author.
The institutionalisation of vulnerable conditions
This chapter takes an action theoretical approach to vulnerability. The reason for applying such an approach is that action theory makes no a priori assumptions about underlying causalities as it assumes structure and agency to be equally relevant for the analysis. In other words, there is no external reality assumed (i.e. structures), which directly influence the internal reality of actors (i.e. agency) since reality is bound to the possibilities and limitations of actors (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). In this vein, actors not only construct a reality, this reality also affects them; a process Berger and Luckmann describe with the term realization: ‘Knowledge about society is thus a realization in the double sense of the word, in the sense of apprehending the objectivated social reality, and in the sense of continually producing this reality’ (1967: 66).
Furthermore, institutionalisation is a process that establishes rules as naturally given and at the same time sanctions alternative meanings and actions and might thus be seen as a social process by which individuals develop a shared definition of social reality (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). By focusing on the process of institutionalisation, the analysis shifts the emphasis from institutions per se (understanding the consequences of a particular regulatory system for a vulnerable population, for instance) to the very process of how institutions take shape, how they are maintained and reproduced in daily life, and how they shape and regulate the interaction of people in certain situations. In this sense, institutions are constantly produced and reproduced and thus are non-static social processes that are subject to re-interpretation, (re-)negotiation and under continuous change at different scales and from different perspectives.
Although institutionalised rules are produced and re-produced in daily interactions, they are not created instantaneously; they are always built up over time. Only if they exist over a certain period of time, they gain their specific quality, that is, their objectivity. To be sure, objectivity does not mean an absolutely given, external reality, quite the contrary applies: Objectivity means a ‘relative consensus’ (Hitzler, 1999: 473) that members of a society have agreed upon over the course of time to acknowledge specific subjective interpretations of situations as generally valid interpretations. If institutions transcend the life-span of an individual and are transmitted from one generation to the next generation, they start to develop a reality of their own, a reality that seems to be external to the individual and which appears as a coercive fact. At this moment institutions gain stability that resists quick alterations: ‘the institutional world “hardens” and “thickens”’ (Berger and Luckmann, 1967: 59).
The 2002 summer flood affected large parts of Central and Eastern Europe and was the single most costly flood in German history. One of its decisive characteristics was that it took most villages, cities, authorities and citizens by surprise. In retrospect most citizens view it as simply impossible to have anticipated the extent of the 2002 flood. The flood was far beyond people’s and organisations’ power of imagination (Kuhlicke, 2010). Why were people and organisations so radically surprised by the flood? Interestingly, most of the study’s participants had experienced previous floods and some even considered themselves experts closely connected with the river and the surrounding environment. They furthermore felt well prepared and felt they had developed an enormous contextual knowledge about the river and adaptive routines to cope with floods. One might therefore think that they were able to prepare for the flood, since they felt they knew the river so well. Yet, as the experience of the 2002 flood revealed, they were not. People’s knowledge was hardly helpful in 2002 in anticipating and preparing for the impact and the consequences of the flood, as many citizens admitted astoundedly.
The following paragraphs attempt to explain participants’ astonishment and which consequences their astonishment had for their vulnerability. To do this, the argument is based on the assumption that it requires a stock of knowledge that is accepted and more or less taken for granted to be radically surprised. One might even say that the more knowledge is considered as valid and taken for granted, the more fundamentally surprised an actor is when this knowledge turns out to be no longer valid. In this sense, radical surprises uncover the limits of the (till then) valid knowledge (Böschen, 2002: 74). However, how is knowledge stabilised to such an extent that it prepares the ground for being radically surprised?
The process of institutionalisation and its unintended consequences
In addition to their controlling character, institutions also relieve individuals from the need to constantly make decisions. People thus save time and effort and establish certain routines eventually established as institutions and more or less taken for granted. According to Berger and Luckmann (1967), this is the background against which division of labour is possible, opening the way for innovations demanding a higher level of attention and leading to specialization and differentiation.
However, the establishment of routines goes hand in hand with unintended and mostly unacknowledged side-effects – the reduction of complexity, eventually resulting in a loss of ‘“sensibility” of the society as a whole’ (Voss, 2006: 66; translation C.K.). If a problem is sufficiently solved and the solution all-embracingly effective, a loss of social attention is an inevitable side-effect. An issue that once stood at the centre of attention is no longer of importance. Investigating the views of experts and residents on social vulnerability to flash floods in an Alpine region of Italy, De Marchi and Scolobig (2012) reveal how this process is defining the vulnerability of a region and their residents. They identify a ‘safety paradox’ as well as an ‘efficiency paradox’ that are rooted in the effectiveness of established hazard and disaster management efforts translating into a ‘lack of awareness and agency on the part of residents’ (2012: 316).
A similar process took place in the city of Eilenburg. Since the 1950s, when large-scale pumps were installed to route surface and ground water from the inner city to the river, and the city centre was systematically protected by dykes, practical knowledge about individual adaptive measures has played virtually no role in the city. Until the 1950s individual households had been trying to protect themselves against fast rising surface water. This had then been necessary as during heavy cloudbursts the surface water inundated neighbourhoods in the lower parts of the city. To prevent the water from penetrating the ground floors, all homeowners living in these areas installed iron splints on the right and left side of their entrance allowing them to fix two rows of boards in case of heavy rainfall. The interspaces were filled with sand to prevent the rising water from inundating the ground floor. An elderly person remembered: ‘If a thunderstorm was threatening on a Sunday, a family member had to stay home to install the iron splints’. This form of household adaptation survived for centuries and only became obsolete during the 1950s when a levée was constructed to surround the city and electric pumps were installed to move water from the city towards the Mulde River.
It is Timmermann’s modification of the organic-functional model that captures this loss of knowledge pointedly (1981). Generally, this model is based on the historical change from a high-frequency/low amplitude event scenario towards a low-frequency/high-amplitude environment whereas technological interventions such as dykes are the main reasons for this alteration. In the city of Eilenburg floods occur with low frequency and high amplitude and local successes, such as the protection of the city by surrounding levées, have set the stage for a major perturbation like the 2002 flood. As the river seemed to be controlled and therefore the problem of flooding appeared to be adequately solved, household adaptations such as boarding entrances were no longer viewed as necessary. Only the 2002 flood showed that the levée was inadequate as a solution because it promoted certainty and stability during an event where uncertainty and instability were dominant. This process relates to a more fundamental societal process: the uneven distribution of social knowledge by the establishment of an expert-system.
The establishment of an expert-system
With the establishment of an expert system, an important and far-reaching transition with regard to the social distribution of knowledge begins (cf. also Clausen, 2003). Specialists are attributed responsibility for the segment of reality; they are experts for: ‘specialist knowledge is regarded as a motive for leaving differentiated stocks of knowledge to the specialists’ (Schütz and Luckmann, 2003: 407; translation C.K.). This means on one hand that an established expert system claims to be responsible for a certain section of reality; on the other hand the system is also ascribed responsibility for this segment by people. As a consequence the uneven distribution of skills and practical knowledge begins and eventually becomes solidified. Consequently, people are dispossessed of the ‘material culture’ of coping and adaptation techniques that had been gained through immediate practical experiences (Clausen, 1994: 30; cited in: Voss, 2006: 67). The material culture is now extracted from a generally relevant stock of knowledge and converted to a specialised stock of knowledge and this opens up and widens the gap between experts and lay-people.
Prior to the 2002 flood, many residents in Eilenburg trusted the ability of experts to manage and control the river and therefore neglected other techniques and measures that constituted the material culture for protecting themselves against floods at the local level. The empirical analysis reveals that it is, above all, one expert system that people refer to – the Reservoir Administration (Landestalsperrenverwaltung, LTV). In the sense of Giddens (1990), the administration has the technical capability and professional expertise to influence large parts of the material and societal environment along the Mulde River. The administration created large retention basins in the upper part of the Mulde River and its tributaries and shaped large parts of the physical environment along the Mulde through technical flood protection measures. Many people expected the experts to be able to reduce the dangers attributed to the river and to hold ready the means for averting life-threatening situations.
This point is explicated by a participant of the study who offers a historical perspective on the development of the retention basins. He makes the case that the river is in principle uncontrollable: ‘Our Mulde is an incalculable river.’ He recollects that in his youth – that is in the 1920s and 1930s – one might have walked through the river on Wednesday and the water had only reached to the ankles, and by Friday the water would already have risen above the riverbed. He refers to a local fisherman who always told his father that three days of rain in the Ore Mountains would cause the Mulde in Eilenburg to flood. Although the participant introduces a certain regular pattern (strong rain in the mountains three days later results in a water level rise in Eilenburg), he concludes that the river had been unpredictable at that time. This passage contrasts the situation in the 1920s and 1930s with the situation after the 1950s when the expert system was institutionalised and there was large scale construction of reservoirs in the upper course of the river: ‘So the river is incalculable – why? Because in those days they had no retention basins at the source of the river’. The participant therefore has always been positive about the ability of the retention basins to help avoid floods: ‘For ten or fifteen years, I have always promised people that there will be no floods anymore’ and later in the conversation he underlines this view again: ‘I have always calmed people and told them, our dams [retention basins, C.K.] we have in the mountains, they catch the water’.
At the same time a strong feeling of dependency existed among participants. Many of them assumed that whenever a situation is not judged appropriately by the experts, they have to bear the consequences in that their properties are flooded. Therefore, many citizens did not believe in the experts’ ability to control the river and this not just since the 2002 flood; they also openly mistrusted their expertise. Some participants had expressed their concerns in one form or the other for a long time. However, the symptoms of crisis observed by the population (e.g. floods) were regarded as temporary phenomena: a person did not follow the instructions, an expert misjudged the situation, or – even more shattering – the general institutionalised instructions were simply wrong, since other issues such as the supply of drinking water or the recreational claims of the population to the retention basins are considered as more important than flood protection. This mismanagement, however, is in principle re-addressable: ‘The flood would have come in 2002, I am convinced, because of the heavy rainfall, but not in this manner if one had reacted differently’. This opinion is widely held among the affected participants and also among decision-makers.
Beliefs in the controllability of the river
Underlying this interpretation is a strong belief in the controllability of the river. While the trust in the expert system was substantially shattered by the flood, the faith in the controllability of the river was not questioned. It is only the institutionalised malfunctioning of the experts that resulted in a loss of control over the river. Therefore, paradoxically, although the institutionalised order is challenged by referring to the expert system, its underlying legitimation is maintained unquestioned, whereas the most dominant legitimation resembles what Holling describes as ‘nature tolerant’ (1978).
Prior to the flood two different beliefs existed about the states of equilibrium of the river: First, ordinary variability of the river resulted in the inundation of the area outside of the levées. This was considered as an unproblematic, ordinary equilibrium and people adapted to these fluctuations. Second, major variability resulted in the flooding of parts of the city in 1932, 1954 and 1974. These variations were considered as extraordinary equilibrium, but they were not perceived as threatening for the community; they were still within an acceptable limit for the community. It was known by most participants that the river could inundate some areas (ordinary equilibrium) and that from time to time the city would be inundated by floods similar to the ones experienced in the twentieth century (extraordinary equilibrium).
The institutionalisation of vulnerable conditions: outline of a framework
This chapter presents some of the findings within an overall framework for better understanding how vulnerable conditions are institutionalised. Being inspired by Blaikie and his colleagues’ Pressure and Release (PAR) Model (1994), Figure 22.1 outlines how in a specific location the material culture of handling risks and disasters is shaped by and interdependent with the distribution of knowledge between experts and citizens as well as by underlying myths and legitimations. Before giving a more detailed account on the single components presented in Figure 22.1, a difference to the PAR-model needs to be highlighted. While the PAR-model assumes a causal progression from root causes towards dynamic pressures resulting in specific unsafe conditions (cf. 1994), this study does not assume such a strong relationship between causes and effects. By applying action theory, it is rather interested in how actors assess, take up, reinterpret and hence maintain their reality and therefore does not assume a pre-analytical difference between causes and effects. This is also reflected in Figure 22.1 which emphasizes the interrelation between the different components of the framework.
Many citizens in Eilenburg learnt to live with the risk of flooding and developed adaptive routines to cope with flood events, at least in relation to regular, smaller annual floods. They felt quite well prepared for floods and had developed an enormous contextual knowledge about the river. However, many citizens were still radically surprised by the 2002 flood. How to explain this surprise? Paradoxically, many citizens emphasised that because they thought they understand the river and because they had adapted to its annual variations, they could not envision the 2002 flood, since their personally acquired and tested knowledge about the river did not consider the possibility that the 2002 flood would significantly deviate from previous historical flood levels.
At the same time, a deeply seated belief exists in the ‘promise of security’ attributed to the dikes surrounding Eilenburg. A dominant finding was that citizens as well as decision-makers trust in the ability of dykes to prevent flooding of the city. This view is closely linked to questions of responsibility. Most actors do not consider themselves responsible for flood protection. Rather, certain areas of knowledge are left to experts whilst participants simultaneously feel dependent on the abilities of these experts to regulate the river. Although many citizens mistrust the capabilities of the LTV, because they believe it is engaged in too many contradicting tasks (e.g. supply of drinking water), the underlying faith in the controllability of the river remains unaffected by such doubts. Both developments, a loss of sensitivity on the one hand as well as the delegation of responsibility to an expert system on the other, result in a loss of the ‘material culture’ in Eilenburg in the long-run.
This process is embedded in a widely shared belief centred on ideas of equilibrium. In Eilenburg, probably similarly to other cities and communities along the Mulde River, knowledge about the river was based on two states of equilibriums of the Mulde. That is, an ordinary equilibrium (considering the annual inundation of the areas located outside the levées), as well as an extraordinary equilibrium (represented by the three historical floods of 1932, 1954 and 1974). Only the 2002 flood demonstrated quite radically that the river is also able to deviate from previous flood levels. This widely held and apparently unquestioned stock of knowledge helps explain the vulnerability of the city: it did not consider the possibility that the river could exceed both equilibriums. However, why did this belief become so powerful? Most importantly, it is not an abstract belief; it is rather based on everyday experiences. The river – apart from single exceptions – appears mostly as controlled and the levées and other technical devices offer a strong sense of security that is deeply interwoven with the reality of everyday life. This experience has been produced and reproduced in the daily interactions with the immediate social and physical environment and was hardly questioned. It was thus, paradoxically, the effective control of the river that prepared the ground for experiencing the 2002 flood as a radical surprise.
The institutionalisation of vulnerability discussed in this chapter presents some challenges to the idea of transformation. The latter aims at going beyond incremental changes that remain within an institutionalised environment; transformation rather aims at fundamentally altering institutionalised characteristics of a society including underlying norms, rules and value systems as well as their specifications in regulatory, legislative, and bureaucratic regimes (IPCC, 2012: 5). As the IPCC SREX report states: ‘transformational strategies place emphasis on addressing risk that stems from social structures as well as social behaviour and have a broader scope extending the immediate field of disaster risk management or climate change adaptation’ (IPCC, 2012: 37). Any attempt to develop such transformational strategies thus needs to engage with patterns of how institutionalised rules shape practices and interpretations of everyday life and vice versa.
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