Patrick S. Roberts

Patrick Roberts has a lifelong fascination with how governments manage emergencies. He’s also interested in how sometimes, when the wheels fall off, bureaucrats speak back to politicians. This began when he grew up along the Texas gulf coast and helped protect homes against hurricane winds and rain. After disaster struck, he noticed how mayors always seemed to blame the state and federal government. The federal government, in turn, pointed the finger at localities, and everyone blamed bureaucrats. Somehow, the president was assumed to be the responder-in-chief. Roberts wondered why.

His first career was an Associated Press reporter, where he covered ice storms, floods, and New York state politics. Reporting on day-to-day events stoked his curiosity about why emergencies unfold, and why disaster and crisis policies always seem to respond to events rather than anticipate them.

Roberts’ research traces the development of disaster and security organizations and their capacity, performance and especially their degree of autonomy, or ability to develop and pursue a perspective independent of the will of elected politicians and interests. Organizational autonomy is particularly important given the thickening layers of bureaucracy and increasingly coordinated agendas in contemporary politics. The idea also complements the emerging literature on networks.

Patrick’s book, Disasters and the American State, provides the only single-volume history of the development of federal government disaster management in the United States. The contents range from the origins of the disaster state between 1789 and 1914 to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security between 1993 and 2003 and include details behind the rise of emergency management, the formation of FEMA, and the rising expectations of government in disaster politics.

Official Bio: Patrick S. Roberts is associate professor in the Center for Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech's School of Public and International Affairs in Alexandria, Va. He received his doctorate in government from the University of Virginia. He earned his master's degree from Claremont Graduate University and his bachelor's degree from the University of Dallas. During 2010-11, he was the Ghaemian Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Heidelberg Center for American Studies in Germany. He has also held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and Stanford Universities, and he has worked as a reporter for the Associated Press.

A webpage with more information about the book and with resources about the history of emergency management can be found here:

www.disasterpolitics.com