Stage Four: Externalizing

Abstract

Capacities and vulnerabilities determined during internalizing (stage three) become the basis for targeted action, or externalizing, in this stage. The externalizing process has two substages (1) seeking redress and (2) addressing vulnerabilities and building capacities. Post-disaster actions in this stage may vary by perceptions regarding who and what was responsible for the disaster. These in turn depend in large part on the nature of the hazard and its consequences. For example, attempts at seeking redress may be more diffuse after a natural hazard compared with a technological disaster or an act of mass violence where a central “perpetrator” is readily identified. Formal investigations and trials may be used by populations to identify and formalize redress, as well as penalize the agents of the disaster on a domestic and international scale. In disasters brought on by infectious disease outbreak, quarantine against the agent of the hazard (the visibly sick) may well be the central defense mechanism adopted by the population [1].