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Abstract
This thesis augments the extant literature into the use of knowledge and rationality in disaster decision-making practice by undertaking a systematic review of the empirical research body in the field. It provides scholars, practitioners and policymakers with a much-needed conceptual map of the key thematic and conceptual directions of research into decision-making practice in disasters. Based on an initial mapping of the thematic content of the body of research, the thesis draws out key trends within the studies in terms of the ways in which social action unfolds in specific disaster-related contexts. This structuring of social action and the influence it has on the decision-making behaviour of the social actors involved has important implications for disaster management as well as policymaking scholarship. This thesis demonstrates that competing theoretical approaches to policymaking, decision-making and disaster management are actually accounts of three different, intersecting dimensions of social action. The argument presented is not so much about the truth or correctness of these claims since they are not in simple opposition to each other. Instead, through the use of disaster management as an exemplar of the domain of public policy practice, this thesis demonstrates that these different dimensions of social action intersect to produce the dynamic, complex set of processes labelled policymaking and decision-making. Further, the thesis argues that since social actors operate within social processes that are structured in different ways, they in turn understand and respond differently to these particular contexts through the use of appropriately situated forms of rationality. In effect, the body of research into disaster decision-making practice demonstrates that social actor comprehension of how social action is structured influences their use of rationality and associated knowledge forms. These rationalities can often be highly contested during the decision-making and policymaking processes but, in fact, reflect the highly contextualised reasoning social actors use to respond to the range of contingencies and challenges they encounter during their everyday social practice.