Swine Flu and Decentralisation

Rhoda Klapp

Capitalized phrases like 'Post-Bureacratic Age' set off my BS alarm. As for Mr Brooks's piece, the new bits aren't good, the good bits aren't new.

nadezhda

Mr Brooks sets up a totally false dichotomy to play his ideological games. I haven't read that particular Ichenberry piece, but I've been reading him for more than a decade, and I'd be willing to wager a pretty penny that Brooks has seriously over-simplified Ichenberry's argument.

The rather obvious answer to Brooks' "false-framing" -- which we learned at our cost especially in Katrina -- is that we need both: centralized capacity and resources linked with distributed, networked capacity to rapidly identify where problems are and get (often centrally purchased and managed) resources to where they turn out to be needed.

In transnational emergencies, WHO has vital roles to play in information, analysis and coordination, and the whole SARS episode has helped to significantly improve WHO reporting, analysis and communicatoin systems. Central governments have a vital role to play in information, analysis, communication and managing and distributing the huge batches of resources that are needed where the worst of the problems emerge. And of course none of this would work if we didn't have capacity at the local government level, and "first responders," in this case our public health system, networked to each other and to the central (state and transnational) organizations.

Those lessons about the appropriate roles for central and distributed response capacity were at the heart of the totally revamped "emergency reponse" plans that the Bush Admin spent a couple of years revising after Katrina. We'll see how well their plans work, but the lessons - that we need both central and local appropriately networked - were certainly central to the redesign.

Obama gets hit from both sides of the ideological spectrum for reminding us that we frame a lot of debate unnecessarily in terms of false choices. But it somehow seems that even the "sensible" pundits like Brooks can't help themselves.

Though I do take your specific point that Labour seems especially prone to expand central bureaucracies whenever they see a problem, and the Tories aren't likely to display a dramatically different behavior pattern despite any rhetoric to the contrary.

nadezhda

LOL -- To follow up on my comments re Brooks. Here's the perfect bookend to Brooks' ideological nonsense. France's Liberation drawing its own silly lessons from (of course) the parallels between the global financial crisis and the threat of a flu pandemic.

Via Charlemagne:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2009/04/the_french_lefts_answer_to_pig.cfm

Charlemagne does make the good point that different countries have different levels of preparedness and, not surprisingy, they're generally lower in lower-income countries. Though per capital GDP levels aren't a perfect predictor of preparedness.

Since we're ultimately all in this together unless we stop all travel for a couple of years (since once a particular flu starts, it has the likelihood of showing up in waves), folks in rich countries (or states, counties, cities) have an interest in improving the response of less-prepared locations. So sharing resources -- not just within national borders -- may be required. And in those cases, some multilateral, as well as bilateral, coordination may be needed, where WHO (and the UN's tried-and-true and pretty competent aid distribution system) could indeed come in handy.

nadezhda

Hah! Dan Drezner had the same reaction I had -- "that doesn't sound like Ikenberry's stuff." So Dan went to the horse's mouth directly and got Ikenberry's response to Brooks. Which starts with precisely my point: "The problem with David’s analysis is that he thinks the two strategies – national and international – are alternatives. We need both. National governments need to strengthen their capacities to monitor and respond. International capacities – at least the sorts that I propose – are meant to reinforce and assist national governments."
See Drezner's post at:
http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/28/i_happen_to_have_mr_ikenberry_right_here