Crisis awareness and organizational response capabilities in present Japanese local governments: Crisis awareness survey findings

The crisis facing today's public administration are numerous and varied. It is now, more than ever, a necessity that municipal, prefectural and national governments deal with those crisis management issues. The major premise in being able to advance crisis management is the awareness of potential crises. If a certain situation is not considered or realized to be a potential hazard, no specific crisis management countermeasures will have been prepared, nor will any administrative measures have been taken. With that in mind, the author, created a survey focused on the 'risk awareness framework' for prefectures and cabinet ordinance-designated cities in Japan. The researchers attempted to examine the characteristics of, and problems related to, current crisis management administration by examining several factors, including organizational crisis management responses, training and education of crisis management personnel and problems in the crisis management determination system.