Although there are those who would disagree, Natural Disasters are probably not driven by politics, but nor are they immune from politics. Far from it. The actions taken by human actors undoubtedly affect the prevention, mitigation, and damage of natural disasters and their aftermath.
The ‘shock’ refers to the natural act itself e.g. the earthquake. The ‘aftershock’ comes later. Post-earthquake 2010-2012 in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Earthquake Commission, the Canterbury Earthquake Authority, the Christchurch City Council, and the Government of the day equate to the net impact of the ‘aftershock’ on the population – the physical ‘disaster’ is far from the whole event. It is also made up of those shocking post-disaster events, such as delayed insurance payouts, top-down authoritarian decisions, ineptitude of professional bodies, evidence of corruption in the post-quake city – and the list goes on…
Interesting too, is the fact that a time of crisis can increase markedly the amount of information a population has about current or incumbent politicians and their governance style and outcomes. This is because disaster produces a highly informative environment where voters are continually debating and experiencing the performance and merits of the operators in power – be that a Prime Minister or a City Council. It is in these high information environments that voters learn enough to enable them to consider taking the decision to replace the political incumbents
