The Political Economy of Large Natural Disasters: With Special Reference to Developing Countries

This book develops a new framework to analyze disaster situations in developing countries, challenging much of the accepted wisdom of disaster theory upon which policy prescriptions are built. The author insists that although disasters are a problem of development, they are not necessarily a problem for development. The book shows that one should look at the underlying social and economic processes within developing countries which structure the impact of natural disasters, rather than disasters as unforeseen events requiring large scale intervention.