Blockchains for emergency and crisis management

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• Author: Wendy D. Chen,Ilia Murtazashvili
• Date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13647

VIEWPOINT

Blockchains for emergency and crisis management

Wendy D. Chen

1

| Ilia Murtazashvili

2

1

Department of Political Science, Public

Administration, Texas Tech University,

Lubbock, Texas, USA

2

Graduate School of Public and International

Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, USA

Correspondence

Wendy D. Chen, Department of Political Science,

Public Administration, Texas Tech University,

113 Holden Hall, Boston & Akron Streets,

Lubbock, TX 79409-1015, USA.

Email: wendy.chen@ttu.edu

Abstract

Public managers and administrators confront the increasing scale and prevalence

of crises. Despite some deployments, blockchain applications by governments for

emergency management and response management have only begun to scratch

the surface. To facilitate greater awareness of the promises and challenges of

blockchain applications to the public sector, we consider the ways in which distrib-

uted ledger technologies can improve emergency and crisis management across

the dimensions of transparency, public trust, and social equity. The article ends

with a call for a public administration research agenda on blockchains for emer-

gency and crisis management.

Evidence for practice

•Blockchains are increasingly used by the government and not simply as the

foundational technology for cryptocurrency.

•The unique blockchain affordances, including openness, transparency, and

immutability, are especially desirable for emergency management and crisis

response applications.

•Public sector applications of blockchains can improve emergency and crisis

management on several margins, including information transparency, trust in

government, and social equity.

•Challenges with public sector deployments of blockchain technology include

potentially steep learning curves for public administrators and managers.

•Further progress in overcoming the digital divide is critical for blockchains to

improve crisis management for historically marginalized communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought emergency and crisis

management to the forefront of public consciousness

(Thornton, Murphy-Greene, & Simon, 2021). Underserved

and marginalized communities across the globe and

within countries have suffered the most (Deslatte, Hatch, &

Stokan, 2020; Wright & Merritt, 2020). Perceptions of ineq-

uitable and ineffective government responses generated

calls for fuller inclusion of crisis response into the reper-

toire of public administration scholarship (Di Mascio,

Natalini, & Cacciatore, 2020). Beyond the current pan-

demic, public management and administration scholars

as well as practitioners continue to reflect on ways to

improve emergency management and crisis response in

the wake of government failures in responding to natural

disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

A parallel trend alongside the increasing scale and

scope of crises is the rapid development of technologies

that promise to improve public service and administrative

processes (McDonald, Bruce, Hall, O’Flynn, & van

Thiel, 2022). Increasingly, public administration scholars

are contemplating the uses and risks of Artificial Intelli-

gence by governments (Busuioc, 2021). Less attention has

been placed on blockchains, which in the simplest sense

are databases that record information in a decentralized

fashion that makes that information available to anyone

in a network. Information can be added, but once it is val-

idated through cryptography, that information is available

to anyone in the network, and it cannot be manipulated.

The result is a digital, shared, and automatically synchro-

nized ledger (Hassan & De Filippi, 2021). For crisis and

emergency management, blockchain technology has

great potential to address challenges of response, mitiga-

tion, and recovery.

The existing deployments of blockchain technology

have mostly been with humanitarian organizations

responding to crises in the Global South. For example,

Oxfam International started accepting crypto donations

and provided individuals with cellphones, digital wallets,

Received: 4 April 2022 Revised: 9 March 2023 Accepted: 6 April 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13647

Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1409–1414. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar © 2023 American Society for Public Administration. 1409