災難與政治：九二一地震中的集體行為與災變情境的治理

Abstract

九二一地震之後，我國救災體系的效能已引發熱烈的討論。當議論多聚焦於政府管理體系的缺失，本文嘗試以集體行為理論為架構，更深入地討論影響社會體系回應災變的深層結構性因素，並據以解釋災變治理上的問題。災變情境後同時產生災區內災民的集體行為與災區外利他性的集體行為。兩類集體行為在災區匯流，形成複雜的治理情境，超越理性官僚管理的範疇。因為治理該情境牽動既有利益的重新分配，甚至觸發社會變遷，故不只需要有效的行政管理以降低生命財產的損失，更大的挑戰乃是整個社會經濟體系的治理，以因應驟然產生的人力、物資供應與需求超載現象，以及對於政府介入分配結果的認同。在此治理工作上，以權力為核心的利益分配以及政治領導人的意圖，將無可避免地成為災變情境的活動主軸。因此，如何將救災的公益與政治人物的私利結合，遂成為有效治理的關鍵。

Following the 1999 Chi-Chi Earthquake of Taiwan there emerged two strands of collective behaviors: situation definition by victims and convergence of philanthropic assistance by non-victims. By adopting a social constructionist approach and the continuality principle, this paper examines the role of politics in governing the emergency. While a natural disaster can be understood as an extreme scenario with simultaneous demand and supply (labor and material resources) overloads in a given socio-political systems, that system needs not only an efficient administrative system to address the problems associating with the sudden external shock, but also a wise distribution of the huge resources. The latter, however, involves power and private incentives and is political by nature.