INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON COMMUNITY RESILIENCE IN THE CASE OF EMERGENCY SITUATIONS IN ROMANIA.

• Author: Radu, Bianca

1. Introduction

   The paper aims to analyze the characteristics of a community that help it recover after a major disruption, whether it is a natural disaster (such as flood, fire or earthquake) or a social upheaval (such as a terrorist attack or a major work accident). In particular, we aimed to analyze if citizens' involvement and support throughout an emergency situation makes people perceive a community as being more resilient. The paper analyzes the case of Romania, a country that faces recurrent natural hazards and other forms of disasters. A plane accident from January 2014 in which two doctors died generated lively debates about the slow and unorganized intervention of public institutions in saving the victims and highlighted the major contribution that local people had in finding and rescuing the victims. In the summer of the same year, severe floods damaged over 2,300 homes. On October 30, 2015 a deadly fire took place in the 'Colectiv' club in Bucharest, killing 26 people on site and other 38 in hospitals; it was one of the deadliest fires in the history of Romania, and it caused people up rise against the government, which generated the resignation of the prime minister and of the entire cabinet at that time. The 'Colectiv' accident showed the solidarity of people who helped rescue the victims, and who mobilized massively afterwards to donate blood and money for the victims. These examples show the diversity and the severe impact of natural or man-made hazards that took place in Romania, and that citizens' involvement in search and rescue activities was beneficial. However, the interaction between emergency personnel and unorganized volunteers is challenging and sometimes risky, as it will be later shown.

   Even though Romania has a well-functioning warning system in the case of natural and man-made hazards, local authorities are criticized for insufficient infrastructure investments that would prevent and reduce the impact of disasters. For example, the historical buildings in the downtown area of Bucharest (the capital city) have a high risk of collapsing in the case of an earthquake (Armas, 2008, 2012). Important steps were made toward building and strengthening the institutional capacity of public institutions to intervene in the case of emergency situations; for example, in 2001 a national legislation was passed requiring all local authorities to establish a Voluntary Service for Emergency Situations at the level of each community in order to prepare and organize the intervention efforts in the case of disasters or major accidents. Starting with 2008, a law requires all house owners to purchase a mandatory insurance for their properties (house and land) covering natural disaster, such as earthquake, flooding and landslide; nonetheless, the level of conformity among households is low (Hanger et al., 2018). In addition, investments were made in strengthening the intervention capacity of inspectorates for emergency situations and the reaction time in the case of hazards. However, natural disasters continue to produce major damages in Romania. In this context, we analyze the influence of social capital on the resilience of communities affected by disasters.

2. Literature review

   Community disaster resilience refers to the ability of a community 'to anticipate and reduce risks and vulnerabilities and increase the adaptive capacity and the potential for transformative learning in the face of disasters and other major changes' (Cox and Hamlen, 2015, p. 221). Orencio and Fujii (2013), Masterson et al. (2014) and Aldrich (2011) highlight that a resilient community succeeds to maintain its structure and functions after disaster, while Norris et al. (2008) argue that a resilient community might not return to the state previous to the disaster, but to a different state that it is better adapted to new conditions.

   There are two different elements that help a community overcome an emergency situation, physical and perceptual. Physical elements refer to infrastructure, economic resources, availability and access to services. Individuals' perceptions of their community include elements such as social trust, leadership and previous experiences with crises (Leykin et al., 2013, p. 314).

   Cheshire, Esparcia and Shucksmith (2015, p. 11) classified the approaches toward conceptualizing community resilience in three categories based on the perspective on the trajectory after disruption: engineering, ecological and evolutionary. From an engineering approach, a community is resilient if it returns back to its pre-crisis state. The ecological perspective views a resilient community as returning to a new equilibrium state, while the evolutionary resilience is characterized by change into a new state as response to disruption.

   Kimhi (2016) has highlighted three different levels of social resilience: individual, community and national. Individual resilience refers to the capacity of individuals to cope with periods of distress. Community resilience incorporates both objective and subjective components; objective components refer to caring for physical aspects of a community, such as water, food and physical protection, while subjective components of resilience refer to the citizens' perceptions of the threats or the availability of resources, social cohesion and trust in elected officials (Kimhi, 2016, p. 166). National resilience is based on maintaining four social components (patriotism, optimism, social integration and trust in political and public institutions) during times of conflict (Kimhi, 2016, p. 166).

   In the recent years, researchers have analyzed community resilience from the perspective of the characteristics that make a community resilient (Adger, 2000; Norris et al, 2008; Meerow, Newell and Stults, 2016; Besser, 2013; Buckle, 2006; Crowe, Foley and Collier, 2016; Maguire and Cartwright, 2008); others aimed to measure community resilience by using different indexes and indicators (Leykin et al., 2013; Cox and Hamlen, 2015; Orencio and Fujii, 2013; Cutter, Burton and Emrich, 2010; Hung et al., 2016; Sherrieb, Norris and Galea, 2010).

   Communities have different types of capitals that influence their resilience to natural disasters, such as: geographic capital, economic capital, institutional capital, human capital, social capital, information and communication capital (Sherrib, Norris and Galea, 2010; Radu, 2015). There are more voices that advocate for strengthen ing the social infrastructure of a community for natural disasters mitigation (Aldrich, 2010; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015; Nakagawa and Shaw, 2004; Chamlee-Wright and Storr, 2011; Hawke, Girard and Carr, 2016). In the same vein, Chamlee-Wright (2010) urges to switch the focus on analyzing post-disaster recovery from the assistance provided by national and regional agencies to the role played by the social capital existing in the community. However, the focus on strengthening social capital is more suitable for developed countries that already have a robust emergency system, and less for developing countries.

   Researches on natural disasters have highlighted the importance of social capital for the preparedness, response and recovery (Islam and Walkerden, 2014; Bihari and Ryan, 2012; Nirupa and Maula, 2013; Storr and Haeffele-Balch, 2012). Chamlee-Wright and Storr (2011) analyzed the post-disaster recovery strategies employed by residents of St. Bernard Parish, USA after Hurricane Katrina and found that residents who returned after the hurricane embraced a self-reliant strategy on their own efforts, and they activated the net of family and neighborhood relations to rebuild the community; the residents perceived themselves as being able to recover the community. The strategy proved to be successful in a context in which state and federal assistance was slow.

   Studies have also analyzed different dimensions of social capital that manifest themselves during the period of natural disaster recovery. For example, Uphoff apud Sherrib, Norris and Galea (2010) distinguishes between structural and cognitive social capital. Structural social capital refers to different forms of community organizations and networks, while cognitive social capital refers to norms, values, attitudes and beliefs that encourage cooperation among community residents.

   Social capital refers to both received and perceived social support (Norris et al., 2008); perceived support refers to the belief that help can be received if needed, while the received support refers to actual help that a person received. Aldrich (2014) makes the distinction between financial and non-financial support that can be acquired through different networks of social capital. Financial support refers to loans that are given to families in need by their relatives, friends or other members of the community. Non-financial support refers to physical help for search and rescue, debris removal, sheltering, providing information, child or elderly care or emotional support. Similarly, Kimhi (2016) distinguishes between objective and subjective components of the social capital that strengthen the degree of community resilience during natural disasters. The author highlights the need to care for physical needs such as food, water, shelter (that he calls objective components of a community), and social cohesion, trust, personal attitudes, perceptions, feelings, that can be instrumental for faster recovery.

   Social support can come from family, friends, neighbors, agencies, public institutions, non-governmental organizations, etc. Studies have shown that the larger the number of one's social connections, the more likely to receive support. From a network perspective, Aldrich and Meyer (2015) distinguish between three types of social ties: bonding, bridging and linking. Bonding ties refer to the connections with people who are emotionally close, such as family and friends. Bridging social capital comes from the membership...