ABSTRACT
Disasters can overwhelm the resources of governments that are often reliant on the support from the nonprofit sector; hence there is a raised interest in evaluating how organizations from the nonprofit and public sectors engage in interorganizational collaboration during disasters and how those involved can overcome barriers to collaboration. The main aim of this chapter is to analyze the role of different local players in disaster management, and understand the relationship that develops between these different players. It argues that to have a successful disaster response strategy, there is a need to build trust between different players in disaster management, namely, public institutions and the government, disaster survivors, and nonstate actors. To do so, this chapter first analyzes the interplay of power and knowledge among different actors and how the uneven power balances lead to the development of new governance approaches to disaster response; second, it reviews the different literature and conceptual framework addressing state–nonprofit relationship and argues that the major factors determining this relationship are autonomy, partnership, and solidarity. It also expands on the importance of building mutual trust between the different players as a way of reaching success in disaster response and recovery and reviews the role of local players in disaster response in both developed and developing contexts.
