The State of Emergency Management 2000: The Process of Emergency Management Professionalizaiton in the United States and Florida
This dissertation analyzes the current status of emergency
management professionalization in the United States and Florida
using a qualitative case study. I investigate the efforts of
various organizations at the national and state levels in the
private and public sectors to organize emergency management as a
profession. I conceptualize emergency management
professionalization as occurring in two phases: the indirect
institutionalization of the occupation of emergency management and
the formal advancement toward an emergency management profession.
The legislative, organizational, and procedural developments that
occurred between approximately 1900 and the late 1970s became the
indirect institutionalization of the occupation of emergency
management. Over time, as our society developed and became
increasingly complex, more disasters affect the security of the
population. In order to adapt to increasing risks and
vulnerabilities the emergency management system emerged and with it
the necessary elements upon which a future profession could be
established providing the basis for the formal advancement toward
an emergency management profession.The purpose of this research is
to provide a frame of reference for whether or not the field of
emergency management is a profession. Based on sociology of
professions literature, emergency management can be considered to
be professionalizing. The current emergency management
professionalization efforts may or may not be sufficient to achieve
the ultimate goal of becoming a legitimate profession based on
legal and public support for the exclusive right to perform
emergency management tasks (monopoly) as well as self-regulation of
those tasks (autonomy).
