Defining social equity in emergency management: A critical first step in the nexus

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• Author: Jason D. Rivera,Claire Connolly Knox
• Date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13574

SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE

Defining social equity in emergency management: A critical

first step in the nexus

Jason D. Rivera

1

| Claire Connolly Knox

2

1

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York,

New York, USA

2

University of Central Florida, Orlando,

Florida, USA

Correspondence

Jason D. Rivera, John Jay College of Criminal

Justice, CUNY, 533.41 Haaren Hall, 524 West

59th Street, New York, NY 10019, USA.

Email: jarivera@jjay.cuny.edu

Abstract

The conceptualization of social equity in public administration and emergency

management has been subjective to the user of the term. While the vagueness of

the concept provides fertile grounds for intellectual debate, the failure to arrive at

a single and formal definition leads to confusion and an inability to measure it as a

programmatic or policy goal. For emergency management, how scholars define

social equity within research is profoundly important for assessing and making

recommendations related to governmental practices that have social equity as its

guiding principle. To address this detrimental definitional situation, this research

analyzes 15 years of social equity related peer-reviewed articles in highly ranked

emergency management journals. This manuscript concludes with a proposed

working definition of social equity, recommendations to measure the concept,

and a discussion of its implications for future research and practice.

Evidence for Practice

•Social vulnerability refers to the characteristics that may exhibit a negative rela-

tionship with the effects of a hazard, while social equity broadly refers to the

conceptual and holistic equalization of the effects of characteristics that make a

population socially vulnerable to a hazard.

•Public administrators must include all groups throughout each phase of emer-

gency management to help ensure a “whole community”approach.

•Social equity should be measured along a continuum to better understand the

progression toward its achievement.

INTRODUCTION

The conceptualization of social equity in public adminis-

tration and emergency management has been subjective

to the user of the term. Despite the National Academy of

Public Administration’s (NAPA) (2000) definition, which

stems from Rawls’s(

1971) notion of justice that empha-

sizes fairness in management, service provision, and pol-

icy development and implementation, Frederickson

(1990) reminds us that people are not satisfied with this

egalitarian emphasis and have subsequently expanded its

range of conceptual meaning. While the vagueness of the

concept provides fertile grounds for intellectual debate,

the failure to arrive at a single, formal definition leads to

confusion, an inability to measure it as a programmatic or

policy goal, and incremental, short-term solutions often

defined as “muddling through”(Lindblom, 1959).

Walster and Walster (1975) explained almost 50 years

ago that both the exploited and exploiters of society have

the ability and even tendency to convince themselves

that their inequitable practices are fair. Despite this,

Waldo (1972) maintains that equity, or at least the con-

cept, is central to how we understand and frame contem-

porary public administration. As a byproduct of its import,

Waldo (1972) and Frederickson (2015) would argue

that social equity is used as criteria for effectiveness in

public administration in much the same way as the

concepts of efficiency and productivity are used. How-

ever, to use the concept as an indicator of effectiveness,

one must minimally operationalize, if not preferably

define, social equity so that public administrators can

accurately assess their progression toward and achieve-

ment of socially equitable practices, policies, and pro-

grams (Guy & McCandless, 2012).

Received: 30 March 2022 Revised: 12 September 2022 Accepted: 13 September 2022

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13574

1170 © 2022 American Society for Public Administration. Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1170–1185.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar

Scholars have highlighted that “social equity”encom-

passes various definitions within acade mic research that

range from notions of straig ht-forward fairness and equ al

treatment to the redistribution of resources to reduce

standing inequalities (Gu y & McCandless, 2012;Svara&

Brunet, 2004; Wooldridge & Gooden, 2009 ). However,

Wooldridge and Gooden (2009, p. 226) maintain that

within the public adminis tration discipline, the term

social equity is “exclusively ”focused on disparities

related to race/ethnicity, gender, and inc ome. This focus

has contributed to only slig ht advances on initiatives

seeking to provide simple equa lities across groups as

opposed to advancing equity because the latter is

more concerned with adjusting po wer relations

(Gooden, 2015; Guy & McCandless, 2012). De spite these

relatively limited advance s, Lee (2021) observed the pe r-

ception of socially equitable p ractices is positively linked

to trust in government insti tutions, which is extremely

important in the context of em ergency management

(Cadwell, 2019; Miller & Rivera, 2011; Mont gomery

et al., 2008;Rivera,2019 ).

Within emergency management, this range in the

conceptualization of social equity has also been problem-

atic. Although one might argue that emergency manage-

ment agencies (i.e., Federal Emergency Management

Agency [FEMA]) are socially equitable based on their

reported emphasis on fairness and a “whole community”

approach (FEMA, 2011), many continue to view FEMA and

its supplemental counterparts as needing programmatic

and structural change as a means of practicing and

achieving social equity (Ensuring Equity, 2021; Gooden

et al., 2009; Jerolleman, 2019; Leach & Rivera, 2021). More-

over, the Stafford Act, which establishes the legal and

procedural support of individuals and household assis-

tance and many other emergency management pro-

grams and activities, and its implementation has

consistently been subject to various claims that question

its equity (Olonilua, 2022; Perls, 2020; Rivera, 2016a;

Salkowe, 2014). Yet, as noted by Guy and McCandless

(2012) and witnesses of the Congressional House

Committee on Homeland Security’s hearing on Ensuring

Equity in Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery

(2021), the idiosyncratic interpretations and applications

of “social equity”has resulted in a wide range of applied

meanings and ways to achieve it. The lack of a coherent,

consistently applied definition has led to an inability to

truly measure the presence of social equity, let alone

FEMA’s ability to strategically pursue related practices. As

such, how emergency management scholars define social

equity within research is profoundly important for asses-

sing and making recommendations related to govern-

mental practices that have social equity as its guiding

principle. Subsequently, emergency management

research defaults to social vulnerability instead, which

fails to capture the underlying systemic issues impacting

social groups.

To address this detrimental definitional situation, we

seek to develop a working definition and measurable indi-

cators of social equity within emergency management. To

achieve this goal, we complete a systematic review and

analysis of articles publishedinhighlyrankedemergency

management journals between January 2006 and

December 2021 using the term “social equity”. By develop-

ing a more precise definition and measurable indicators, we

can begin to assess our progression more accurately toward

socially equitable practices in emergency management.

“SOCIAL EQUITY”WITHIN PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION

The public administration discipline draws from Rawls’s

(1971) notion of justice or fairness to conceptualize social

equity (Gooden et al., 2009; Gooden & Starke, 2021). Spe-

cifically, “each person is to have an equal right to the

most extensive basic liberty comparable with a similar lib-

erty for others”(Rawls, 1971, p. 60); social and economic

inequities should be restructured to benefit the least

advantaged, and governing offices and positions should

be open to everyone. However, Rawls (2001) also warns

that for this to occur the majority of society’s citizens

must consider themselves and others as “free and equal”,

and therefore deserving of equitable treatment by gov-

ernment institutions. But, the notion that the least advan-

taged should have relatively more benefits provided to

them due to the legacies of both deliberate structural

equities and/or institutionalized racism violates the inter-

ests of vast portions of the citizenry (Frederickson, 1990).

Moreover, the common interchangeable use of the

terms “equality”and “equity”have complicated people’s

perceptions of what each means (Lee, 2019). To achieve

social equity, framed in the context of justice, McInerney

(2014) argues that public administrators may have to

engage in actions that are counter to the citizen major-

ity’s short-term values and interests to ensure more

long-term just and socially equitable governance occurs.

However, these types of exercises in bureaucratic discre-

tion arguably violate some scholars’notions of democracy

(Rivera & Knox, 2023). As a result, the definition of social

equity referred to more consistently throughout public

administration research, and more regularly pursued, is

less contrary to the status quo because it focuses more

on procedural justice (Charbonneau & Riccucci, 2008).

Specifically, the public administration discipline com-

monly defaults to using NAPA’s(

2000, para. 3) social

equity definition:

The fair, just, and equitable management of

all institutions serving the public directly or

by contract, and the fair and equitable distri-

bution of public services, and implementa-

tion of public policy, and the commitment to

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW 1171