Disaster Governance in Urbanising Asia

This edited book approaches the threat and impact of environmental disasters on Asia’s urban populations from a governance perspective. It adopts a multi-sector and multi-disciplinary approach to disaster governance that emphasises the importance of multiple stakeholders in preparing for, responding to and recovering from disasters and their cascading impacts in Asia’s cities. The contributors to this volume take a broad view of the multifaceted causalities and the interconnected threats and vulnerabilities of environmental disasters in urbanising Asia. As such, the book is an invitation to advance scholarship in the search for more effective, comprehensive and inclusive disaster preparedness agendas, recovery programs and development priorities.

Michelle Ann Miller is a Senior Research Fellow in the Asian Urbanisms Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She previously taught in the Masters of International and Community Development program at Deakin University and on subjects related to participatory approaches to development at Charles Darwin University. Dr Miller’s research is geographically centered on Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and investigates the governance of environmental disasters and human conflicts. She has authored, edited or co-edited a number of books including: Rebellion and Reform in Indonesia: Jakarta’s Security and Autonomy Policies in Aceh (Routledge, 2009); Autonomy and Armed Separatism in South and Southeast Asia (ISEAS, 2012); Ethnic and Racial Minorities in Asia: Inclusion or Exclusion (Routledge, 2012); and (with Tim Bunnell) Asian Cities in an Era of Decentralisation (Routledge, 2014).

Mike Douglass is Professor and Leader of the Asian Urbanisms Cluster at the Asia Research Institute and Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, where he teaches and does research on cities, disaster governance and globalization in Asia. He was previously professor and chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Director of the Globalization Research Center at the University of Hawaii. He received his Ph.D. in Urban Planning from UCLA. He previously taught at the Institute of Social Studies (Netherlands) and at the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia (U.K.). He has also been a Visiting Scholar/Professor at Thammasat University, Tokyo University, Stanford University, UCLA, and the Korean Research Institute for Human Settlements. Recent books include: Globalization, the Rise of Civil Society and Civic Spaces in Pacific Asia Cities; Connected Cities: Histories, Hinterlands, Hierarchies and Networks; and Building Urban Communities: The Politics of Civic Space in Asia.