Cassandre Rey-Thibault: “Living with it”: the emergence and challenges of integrated approaches to managing risks and crises at local level. A study of local risk management in the Nantes and Le Havre metropolitan areas.

This thesis examines the practices involved in integrating risk prevention policies and crisis management practices at the local level. Whilst the cyclical frameworks promoted by disaster prevention encourage a coherent approach to all actions aimed at mitigating their effects, public action to ‘cope with’ risks and crises remains extremely fragmented in France. Regulations, tools and actors responsible for risk prevention coexist with those preparing for the onset of crises. By tracking the activities of the main local actors addressing these issues at the urban area level (staff of inter-municipal bodies and decentralised state services), the analysis highlights the existence of areas of shared practice, describing their emergence and effects.

Integration is first examined from the perspective of the political sociology of local authorities and organisations. These bodies envisage and practise integration in very different ways: on the one hand, through the institutionalisation of collaboration between departments, and on the other, through the development of an integrated approach based on an endo-urban definition of risks (Gralepois 2008). Integration is then examined through the interplay of public policy instruments and other local socio-technical mechanisms. These interplay, negotiated between local actors, ultimately transforms the way in which risks and crises are integrated into urban systems.

This thesis places local government officials and their actions at the heart of the analysis. However, by exploring the common ground between risk prevention and crisis management practices, the thesis also aims to highlight the continuities and overlaps between the concepts of risk and crisis.

Composition of the jury

• Olivier Borraz, Research Director, CNRS Sciences Po (Rapporteur)
• Mathilde Gralepois, Senior Lecturer, University of Tours (Rapporteur)
• Gilles Jeannot, Research Director, ENPC (Examiner)
• Andrew Lakoff, Professor, University of Southern California (Examiner)
• Valérie November, Research Director, CNRS (PhD supervisor)
• Magali Reghezza-Zitt, Senior Lecturer, École normale supérieure (Examiner)