Disaster by design: corruption, construction and catastrophe

Abstract

An underlying assumption of this paper is that many ‘natural’ disasters are the direct outcome of ‘deviant’ political and economic decisions and actions by states. While focusing on three recent major earthquakes in Turkey, the paper explores the dynamic relationship between state power, corruption, corporate power and, to a limited extent, organized crime in the context of examining responsibility for earthquake-precipitated catastrophe. It documents the ‘network of responsibilities, opportunities and pressures’ which combine as state crime to create earthquake disasters involving mass human rights violations. The paper argues for a reinterpretation of natural disasters in terms of human rights violations, while developing themes around state culpability which first emerged in an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study undertaken by the author (with Al Hussaini and Curry) on the 1999 Marmara earthquake in Turkey.