Pressure and Release/Access Models

The authors of ‘At Risk’ contend that the ‘hard’ science analysis focusing on natural processes or events is very partial and inadequate to understand how disasters occur when

natural hazards affect people. Therefore, there should be a conceptual framework which depicts how people or social groups get them in particular vulnerabilities in exposure to actual hazards⁴⁹. The authors have presented two related models to understand disaster risk in terms of vulnerability analysis in specific hazard situations. These models are not theories; rather they are research frameworks suggested for organizing empirical researches to understand disaster causation (Blaikie et al., 2004:121). The two linked disaster study models can be seen as vital in bridging a theoretical gap of a single famine theory and incorporating many dimensions.

The premise of PAR and Access Models is that disaster is primarily the result of human actions rather than the natural factors which only have a triggering role. The crux of the argument is that it is the social process that puts people or social groups at a particular vulnerability into the face of hazards. In the light of this argument Blaikie et al., (2004:11) emphasize the ‘human factor’ and ‘vulnerability’ in disaster studies via “rejecting the traditional views of ‘modernization theory’, environmental determinism, deterministic approach rooted in the political economy alone, and the notions which identify vulnerability with general poverty and definitions of vulnerability that focus exclusively on the ability of a system to cope with risks or loss”⁵⁰. In the following the two frameworks are briefly described.

i. PAR framework: Pressure and Release model (Blaikie et al., 2004:50) states that disaster is

“the intersection of two opposing processes: the processes generating vulnerability on the one side, and physical exposure to hazards on the other”. Increasing pressure arises from either side. According to the authors in order to relieve the pressure, vulnerability has to be reduced.

The PAR model suggests the progress of vulnerability at three levels (Blaikie et al., 2004:51):

1. Root causes: These entail the underlying causes and the most remote influences such as economic, demographic and political processes within a society. The processes also embrace global ones. These processes at different levels mediate and reflect the distributions of power in a society, and are associated to the functioning and power of state.

2. Dynamic pressure: It channels the root causes in particular forms of insecurity that have to be considered in relation to the types of hazards facing vulnerable people or groups. These include reduced access to resources as a result of the way regional or global pressures work through to localities. People or social groups are not equally able to access resources and opportunities. Whether or not people have enough land, access to water, or decent shelter are determined by social factors including economic and political processes at local and macro level.

3. Unsafe conditions: are specific forms in which a population’s vulnerability is expressed in time and space in conjunction with hazards. People (individuals or social groups) are not equally exposed to hazards due to social processes which play significant roles in determining who is most at risk from hazards. Thus some people are forced to live in dangerous locations;

49 In fact the authors acknowledged that vulnerability approach to disasters began in the 1970’s and 1980’s (e.g., Emel and Peet 1989; Oliver-smith, 1986a; Hewitt, 1983a as cited by Blaikie et al. (2004).

50 The authors argue that these notions lack explanations how one gets from very widespread condition (e.g.

poverty) to very particular vulnerabilities.

being unable to afford safe buildings, having engaged in dangerous livelihoods, having minimal food entitlements, etc

The above mentioned factors are very dynamic, and they interact with each other in complex ways and the outcome can also be unpredictable. According to the PAR model “disaster risk is a combination of the factors that determine the potential for people to be exposed to particular types of hazard, and it depends on how social systems and their associated power relations impact on social groups” (Blaikie et al, 2004:7). Therefore, to understand disaster we must not only to know hazards, but also socially differentiated vulnerability which is determined by social systems and power, not by natural forces.

The PAR model, however, has limitations or weaknesses as the authors themselves have acknowledged (Blaikie et al., 2004:87). First it does not provide a detail and theoretically informed analysis of precise interactions of environment and society at the ‘pressure point’

where and when the disaster starts to unfold. PAR framework separates hazards from social processes which should not be the case in practical world where nature forms a part of social framework of society in the use of natural resources for economic activities. Hazards are also intertwined with human systems in affecting the patterns of assets and livelihoods among people. Secondly the framework is static without suggesting or accounting change, either before the onset of a disaster or during and after a disaster. Therefore, the authors proposed the ‘access model’ to avoid the separation of hazards from social systems, and to account for details of the progression of vulnerability to the ‘pressure point’, and through the unfolding of the disaster. In the following this complementary model is briefly described.

ii. Access Model: The second linked framework, the ‘access model’ unpacks the principal factors given in the PAR model that relate human vulnerability and exposure to physical hazards (Blaikie et al., 2004:92). It attempts to show how vulnerability is initially generated by economic and political processes, and what then happens as a disaster unfolds. The model also provides details how conditions need to change to reduce vulnerability and thereby improve protection and the capacity to recover. In general the access model tries to depict how unsafe conditions arise in relation to the economic and political processes that allocate assets, income and other resources in society (Blaikie et al., 2004:94). Access model embraces factors like access to resources (material, human and social capitals) and opportunities, livelihood strategies (risk mitigation and survival mechanisms) and the mediating factors like social and economic relations including power relations among social groups that play a significant role in determining access and use of resources by individuals or social groups. The pattern of wealth and power are in turn the major determinants in the creation and distribution of impacts of disasters.

The access model takes livelihood strategies as the key to understand the way people cope with hazards. Access entails the ability of individuals, family, class or community to use resources to secure a livelihood. Individuals’ or social groups’ access to resources is based on social and economic relations (i.e. the social relation of production, gender, ethnicity, status and age). Access to resources varies greatly between individuals and groups and this affects their relative resilience to disasters. Those with better access to information and cash; rights to means of production, tools and equipment, and social networks to mobilize resources from

outside are less vulnerable, and are generally able to recover more quickly (Blaikie et al., 2004:93-94).

However, after the first edition of ‘At risk’ (Blaikie et al., 1994), new developments have taken place with regard to conceptual frameworks⁵¹, and scholars have made criticisms⁵² to the Access model. Limitations of the model as it appeared in the first edition include (Haghebaret, 2001, 2002 as noted in Blaikie et al., 2004:97):

i. the model appears to be designed to analyze general livelihood process than to investigate specific disaster related process, and the issues of safety are not well defined,

ii. non-tangible assets, such as creativity, experience and inventiveness (i.e. human agency) are underemphasized,

iii. the model does not link up with political and socio-economic processes.

The authors of ‘At Risk’ have accepted these criticisms and tried to incorporate the first one in their access model which appeared in the second edition (see Blaikie et al., 2004:97). On the other hand they found the rest two criticisms difficult to accommodate in the access model claiming that the model is ‘economistic’, implicitly quantitative, and thus it has been difficult to find regularities in “human agency, inventiveness and political-economy processes” to model them (Blaikie et al., 2004:97). Rather the authors suggest that human agency, inventiveness can be treated in qualitative manner, and the access model together with PAR can provide analytical link with political and socio-economic processes. And yet the Models’

data requirement is so high that it constrains their operationalization in practice. In nutshell the major gap in the frameworks is the limitation to address the Psychological and cultural aspects, and human agency.

In general terms the two models are improvements over the previous frameworks, though each has its weaknesses as mentioned above. For instance the PAR and Access model fill the gaps of HR (Hazard and Risk) model and they direct the attention on unsafe conditions leading to vulnerability and emphasize socially differentiated vulnerability. The PAR and Access model frameworks are primarily to explain vulnerability to disaster in order to identify strategies for disaster risk reduction. Therefore, depending on the context or situation, these frameworks can be employed separately or in combination to organize empirical research on vulnerability to disaster. In fact they require a great deal of data collection and analysis, since many variables are involved in the frameworks, especially in the Access Model.