Why Public Catastrophic Events “Re-occur”—— A Theoretical Perspective based on Crisis Learning

The frequent occurrence of various types of public catastrophic events has placed higher demands on local governments crisis learning,while in practice some local governments still have an incomplete and insufficient understanding of crisis issues,resulting in the recurrence of the same type of public catastrophic events.Through the “second-order theory” of crisis learning,it can be found that one of the overlooked institutional reasons for the “recurrence” of public disasters is that crisis learning in the “first-order learning” is difficult to address the root causes of recurring public disasters in a localised way.Inadequate first-order learning and the recurrence of public disasters can easily result from crisis learning that is oriented towards avoidance of blame due to poor hierarchical interactions.The traditional crisis learning model,which relies on hierarchical interactions,could objectively pave the way for the recurrence of public disasters,and further institutionalisation,standardisation and proceduralisation of government crisis learning is needed to address this issue.