Policy Developments After Hurricane Katrina: A Case of Overcoming Uncertainty and Value Conflict

Abstract

This chapter examines the policymaking process after hurricane Katrina severely challenged the spatial governance strategy in US flood governance, embodied in the National Flood Insurance Program. In this process, reforms adopted in 2012 to “repair” the National Flood Insurance Program were partly repealed in 2014 because they produced very high premium increases. This pendulum policy shift raises questions about the extent to which and way in which these distributive impacts of the 2012 policy reforms were recognized and discussed in the political decision-making process. This chapter analyses this question with a focus on the role of experts. The chapter concludes that under the rational-administrative expertise of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a technical understanding of the problem emerged which created support for a policy solution that aimed to repair the financial structure underlying the insurance program. In doing so, attention was drawn away from the distributive impacts of this policy solution on the ground. Rather than explaining these policy developments from expert involvement alone, this chapter concludes that this specific problem understanding evolved through the interactions between experts and political actors in a situated context, in which strategic actions and collective sense-making went hand in hand.