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The purpose of this chapter is to analyze disaster exceptionalism in India, focusing on the case of Kosi river floods in the State of Bihar and their impact on Dalit communities. Data were gathered through document analysis and a qualitative approach based on interviews with national and local leaders and activists of NGOs and Dalit organizations. The main finding is that there are no second-generation social movements related to disasters in India, mainly in what concerns Dalit discrimination. The Disaster Management Act of 2005 reinforced the centralized and top-down nature of the Indian state concerning disasters. On the other hand, national Dalit organizations like National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations (NACDAOR) and National Dalit Watch do not possess the expertise to alter the approach to disasters from a contingent and exceptional one to a more structured and long-term perspective.

The chapter shows how extreme events and permanent hazardous situations tend to increase the legitimacy of state intervention, often involving the suspension of social and economic norms, creating a state of exception, which indicates the inevitable presence of the state. The abyssal line that separates those individuals and groups that are integrated from those defined as disposable and invisible crosses through both the Global South and the little colonies of the North, reinforcing the logic of states that want to be bigger and stronger than their own citizens.

This chapter provides the foundation for the book. The objective of this chapter is to outline the theme of the book and to provide the context for the chapters that follow. Disaster recovery is a challenge for governments and for affected communities, families, and individuals. It is a challenge, because recovery from catastrophic disasters can be much more complicated and elusive than what can be addressed by national and international aid organizations given the time and other resources. The short literature review provides the research context, and the overview of the book describes each of the chapters briefly.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic meltdown and social unrest severely challenged most countries, their societies, economies, organizations, and individual citizens. Focusing on both more and less successful country-specific initiatives to fight the pandemic and its multitude of related consequences, this chapter explores implications for leadership and effective action at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. As international management scholars and consultants, the authors document actions taken and their wide-ranging consequences in a diverse set of countries, including countries that have been more or less successful in fighting the pandemic, are geographically larger and smaller, are located in each region of the world, are economically advanced and economically developing, and that chose unique strategies versus strategies more similar to those of their neighbors. Cultural influences on leadership, strategy, and outcomes are described for 19 countries. Informed by a cross-cultural lens, the authors explore such urgent questions as: What is most important for leaders, scholars, and organizations to learn from critical, life-threatening, society-encompassing crises and grand challenges? How do leaders build and maintain trust? What types of communication are most effective at various stages of a crisis? How can we accelerate learning processes globally? How does cultural resilience emerge within rapidly changing environments of fear, shifting cultural norms, and profound challenges to core identity and meaning? This chapter invites readers and authors alike to learn from each other and to begin to discover novel and more successful approaches to tackling grand challenges. It is not definitive; we are all still learning.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the view that America is “the land of the future”. It argues that, owing to its sponsorship of a model of development that is exploitive and unsustainable, this is no longer the case and that US futurists, in particular, need to consciously re‐evaluate their roles and work.

The paper advances a cultural critique of US hegemony. It considers background myths and their role in creating “American exceptionalism” in various fields, including futures studies. It also critiques free market ideology, the role of corporations, market failures and the economics of exploitation. This leads to issues of truth and power and the view that a continuation of an ideology of “free enterprise” leads to the collapse of the global system.

The paper suggests a number of strategies for futurists to consider as ways of opening out their vision beyond current limitations.

A rationale is outlined that can support shifts in more progressive directions and moves toward more fruitful work.

The American futures enterprise is currently at risk from its uncritical association with dysfunctions in US society, culture and economy. The paper draws attention to some of these and indicates possible ways forward.

In recent years, there have been calls on African countries to develop disaster governance system that recognises the complex nature of disaster events and reflects how their impact can prevent governments from achieving their development objectives. This chapter examines Ghana’s response to the calls by exhuming disaster management policies and the missing links in their implementation. This research was approached by comprehensively reviewing literature related to the subject. The review was supported by field-based interviews involving key stakeholders, some of whom are directly involved with disaster policy planning and implementation. The results show that even though there are several disaster management policies, they are fragmented and found within several institutions, a situation that has created some missing links in their implementation. For instance, poor collaboration and coordination among disaster management institutions hampered efforts towards disaster risk prevention, preparedness and mitigation which are viewed as cross-cutting themes in disaster management. Even more intriguing, critical stakeholders such as community groups who often play important roles in rescue and recovery operations and continue to render humanitarian services after official operations have ended are excluded from the everyday decision-making processes. Empirically, this chapter draws attention to how endogenous interventions that are deeply rooted in the culture of the people that could support well-crafted disaster legislations are often ignored. This chapter concludes that these missing links need to be addressed in order to make Ghana resilient to disaster.

Arthur Schlessinger (1983) suggested that the contradictions and paradoxes of American foreign policy reflected contradictions and paradoxes in the underlying character of the people. We would go further to suggest that the early years of colonial life, much like the early years of a person's life, had major consequences ever since. The intersection of Puritanism, available land, and eventually the rise of a commercial culture would forge a unique trajectory of what would be called “American Exceptionalism”, reflecting an “American character”, which itself is subject to three paradoxes or polarities, individualism vs. community, toughness vs. compassion, and moralism vs. pragmatism. The effect of this legacy and the dialectical aspect of American character were first evident when Winthrop proclaimed the city on the hill as the new Jerusalem. The legacy of that vision is taking place today in Iraq.

The purpose of this paper is to recover the narratives constructed by the disaster management policy network in Washington, DC, about the management of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. Recovering and analysing these narratives provides an opportunity to understand the stories constructed about these events and consider the implications of this framing for post-event learning and adaptation of government policy.

This research was conducted through an extended ethnographic study in Washington, DC, that incorporated field observation, qualitative interviews and desktop research.

The meta-narratives recovered through this research point to a collective tendency to fit the experiences of Hurricane Katrina and Sandy into a neatly constructed redemption arc. This narrative framing poses significant risk to policy learning and highlights the importance of exploring counter-narratives as part of the policy analysis process.

The narratives in this paper reflect the stories and beliefs of the participants interviewed. As such, it is inherently subjective and should not be generalised. Nonetheless, it is illustrative of how narrative framing can obscure important learnings from disasters.

The paper represents a valuable addition to the field of disaster management policy analysis. It extends the tools of narrative analysis and administrative ethnography into the disaster management policy domain and demonstrates how these techniques can be used to analyse complex historical events.

This research aims to examine the US–China policy shift from Obama to Biden emphasizing the centrality of Taiwan question in the geostrategic competition with Beijing and its prospect if the US strategy remains unchanged.

A conceptual framework is outlined, illustrating how the US grand strategy is driven by the ideological foundation of Exceptionalism. The paper highlights the associated US policy changes that evolved from Obama to Trump and then Biden to advance Washington's strategic interests in its rivalry with China over Taiwan.

Biden's policy led to an escalating geopolitical competition with Beijing over Taiwan to maintain US supremacy. The Biden administration is more stringent than the previous administrations on the Taiwan question and there is the conviction that the USA must not back down on Taiwan because the alternative will be a retraction of US world primacy to Beijing. With Washington's persistent hegemonic strategy, the US–China confrontation over Taiwan seems inevitable.

The research highlights how the Biden administration managed a perpetuated Ukraine crisis and forged unprecedented high-level ties with Taiwan, indicating the administration's determination to exacerbate contentions with Beijing over Taiwan rather than de-escalate.