Greece–Turkey disaster diplomacy from disaster risk reduction

Abstract

Disaster diplomacy examines how and why disaster-related activities do or do not reduce conflict and increase cooperation. The 1999 earthquakes in Greece and Turkey became an icon for this field of research, with numerous publications exploring how disasters might influence conflict. Fewer studies examine how disaster risk reduction might influence conflict. This paper presents a case study to explore disaster diplomacy for pre-disaster activities alongside post-disaster activities by discussing disaster risk reduction in Greece and Turkey in the context of Greek-Turkish governmental cooperation. The 1999 earthquakes are placed in context followed by an examination of disaster risk reduction in Greece and Turkey at multilateral, bilateral, and local levels. As with most disaster diplomacy case studies, disaster risk reduction for Greece and Turkey has not had a significant influence on the two countries' rapprochement.

A disaster diplomacy perspective of acute public health events

“…Hence, many conclusions here accord with those demonstrated elsewhere within the disaster diplomacy literature (Enia, ; Kelman, , ; Koukis, Kelman, and Ganapati, ). This prior work has consistently observed that, whilst disaster‐related activities often have the capacity to catalyse short‐term diplomacy, this does not translate into new, longer, more profound shifts in diplomatic relations between the involved parties unless a pre‐existing basis exists for the diplomacy.…”

“…Disaster diplomacy has been applied to a wide range of hazards, vulnerabilities, disaster-related situations, and diplomatic situations, including earthquakes and wildfires in Greece and Turkey (Koukis, Kelman, and Ganapati, 2016), the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis (Enia, 2008), and a hurricane affecting the United States (Kelman, 2007). One key conclusion emerging from this work is the importance of pre-existing factors in influencing the extent and magnitude of diplomatic outcomes occurring from disaster-related activities (Lewis, 1999;Wisner et al, 2004;Kelman, 2012.…”

Connecting theories of cascading disasters and disaster diplomacy

“…These conclusions have been corroborated through case studies covering inter-state conflict, intra-state conflict, pre-disaster activities, post-disaster activities, bilateral relations, and multilateral relations including extensions to sub-national case studies and non-state-level relations and conflicts (Glantz, 2000;Holloway, 2000;Kelman, 2012Kelman, , 2016Ker-Lindsay, 2007;Koukis et al, 2016). Thus far, the evidence shows that disaster diplomacy sometimes has the potential (but never the inevitability) for improving relations at different scales and amongst different parties, but only in the short-term and only if a non-disaster-related preexisting basis is available.…”

“…Instead, it would be more fruitful to examine how diplomacy permitted the disaster risk reduction measures to be enacted in the first place. Koukis et al (2016) provide such details for Greece and Turkey. That is, cascading disaster risk reduction does not start with the disaster-related activities, just as cascading disasters do not start with the deaths and damage (which are often labelled as being the disaster).…”

Disaster Consequence Mitigation and Evaluation of Roadside Green Spaces in Nanjing

“…Existing studies on disaster mitigation mainly focused on four aspects: classification, theoretical construction, practical application, and experience summary. Different mathematical methods and information processing techniques, such as geographic information system, virtual simulation technology, multi-level analysis, evaluation model for disaster mitigation, were introduced to make the research more scientifically accurate (Khayal, Pradhananga, Pokharel, & Mutlu, 2015;Koukis, Kelman, & Ganapati, 2016;Mohammed, 2018).…”