Disaster response on September 11, 2001 through the lens of statistical network analysis

Michael Schweinberger, Miruna Petrescu-Prahova, Duy Q. Vu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

The rescue and relief operations triggered by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City demanded collaboration among hundreds of organisations. To shed light on the response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and help to plan and prepare the response to future disasters, we study the inter-organisational network that emerged in response to the attacks. Studying the inter-organisational network can help to shed light on (1) whether some organisations dominated the inter-organisational network and facilitated communication and coordination of the disaster response; (2) whether the dominating organisations were supposed to coordinate disaster response or emerged as coordinators in the wake of the disaster; and (3) the degree of network redundancy and sensitivity of the inter-organisational network to disturbances following the initial disaster. We introduce a Bayesian framework which can answer the substantive questions of interest while being as simple and parsimonious as possible. The framework allows organisations to have varying propensities to collaborate, while taking covariates into account, and allows to assess whether the inter-organisational network had network redundancy-in the form of transitivity-by using a test which may be regarded as a Bayesian score test. We discuss implications in terms of disaster management.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)42-55
Number of pages14
JournalSocial Networks
Volume37
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Anthropology
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • General Social Sciences
  • General Psychology

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