Interactions in hazard management policies: the case of drought in Nicaragua, 1976-2010

The literature on adaptive and multi-level governance calls for interactive hazard management to increase societies' resilience. This paper maps the hazard management policies in a poor and hazard-prone country-Nicaragua-and examines what role the government gives to interactions among different actors at different societal levels. A new analytical framework is developed that includes scope and direction to capture unidirectional or mutual interactions that are either horizontal or vertical. This enables a more complex analysis of interactions than that found in previous research. The review shows that the historical change in the role given to interactions, as a result of a focus on short-term emergency response being complemented by long-term risk management, mainly lies in how they are characterised-with more participants and other types of content categories-and the awareness that interactions other than mutual ones can be positive. This illustrates the complexity of the issue of interactions.