Collaborative Mechanisms among Governments in Disaster Management: Intergovernmental Communications during the Great East Japan Earthquake

Koichi Kawai
​Waseda University
Tokyo, Japan

The aim of this article is to explore how the municipalities of the areas damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake obtained the information resources required for their disaster response and restoration activities. The unprecedented scale of this catastrophe prevented the communication channels that had been hierarchically constructed between the national governments, prefectures and municipalities from functioning as planned, and the municipal governments in the damaged areas were unable to, or took time to, obtain the information resources necessary to initiate restoration activities.  Under such restricted circumstances, how did they finally collect and transmit the information required?  The article concludes that the proactive approach of each local government to tap and open what are described here as "network communication channels" made that happen.