Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

State Antifragility: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach To Understanding State Behavior, Rebecca Lee Law

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding what makes states antifragile and why this matters by constructing a parsimonious, first of its kind agent-based model. The model focuses on the key elements of state antifragility that reside along a spectrum of fragility and transverse bidirectionally from fragile to resilient to antifragile given a certain set of environmental conditions.

First coined by Nicholas Nassim Taleb and applied to economics, antifragility is a nascent concept. In 2015, Nassim Taleb and Gregory Treverton’s article in Foreign Affairs outlined five characteristics of state antifragility. This project aims to advance the study of anti-fragility …

Leadership In Collaborative Emergency Management And Resilience, Norah Alshayhan, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf

College of Business (Strome) Posters

Emergency management and resilience are key concepts and functions that are vital for mitigating risks of hazards and reducing the impacts of disasters. Public sector leaders within the emergency management and resilience domains play a critical role in leading the organization and its staff and partners in achieving these goals of risk mitigation and disaster impact reduction. This research investigates the skills and competencies that emergency management and resilience leaders need to be successful in collaborations to deal with emergencies and disasters today and in a post-COVID world. The study will employ a postpositivist case study design using interviews as …

Nonprofit Capacity To Manage Hurricane-Pandemic Threat: Local And National Perspectives On Resilience During Covid-19, Nicole S. Hutton, Steven W. Mumford, Marina Saitgalina, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Joshua G. Behr, Rafael Diaz, John J. Kiefer

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

This paper examines nonprofits' capacity for responding to simultaneous hurricane-pandemic threat, addressing: (1) strategies nonprofits use to deliver services during the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) how natural hazards may affect nonprofit roles in emergency service delivery during a pandemic. Data come from a survey of New Orleans-based nonprofits demonstrating effects of pandemic on local nonprofit service delivery, and workshops with U.S. coastal community stakeholders exploring expectations for nonprofit roles in emergency operations nationwide. Nonprofits have applied resilient strategies including virtual operations, staff reductions, and funding diversification, but vulnerabilities remain. Findings guide a research agenda for building nonprofit and community resilience.