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Work in Progress and 2006 Achievement for
Prof. Richard Sylves
Dept of Political Science and IR
University of Delaware

SYLVES’ SCHOLARSHIP

I completed more than half of the chapter work on my book, DECLARING DISASTER: THE POLITICS AND POLICIES OF PRESIDENTIAL DISASTER DECLARATIONS for CQ Press, who provided me both a contract and advance on the book last summer 2006. I had prepared a long prospectus and sample chapters for CQ. All five outside reviewers endorsed the project and CQ’s letter told me their editorial board enthusiastically approved the book project.

I also received a contract from Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann to do a book entitled Homeland Security and Emergency Management: A Public Budgeting Perspective. I have been invited by George Haddow and Jane Bullock, to author this book in their edited series for Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann. The book will have a tight production schedule and my manuscript must be completed by mid-summer 2006. I have furnished you draft work completed to date on this book for this evaluation.

I should add that I wrote in the review period a long article for the International City Management Association’s book, Emergency Management: Principles and Practice for Local Government, 2nd ed. (edited by William L. Waugh. Jr. and Kathleen Tierney.) My article is entitled, “Budgeting for Local Emergency Management and Homeland Security.” In this review period I received extensive editorial comment that required considerable revision and re-writing of the manuscript. That book should appear in 2008. The work invested in that project will be extremely helpful in preparation of my book manuscript for Elsevier.

In this period of evaluation, I completed second year work on a $50,000 research project funded by the Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI). The culmination of this work was the completion of a major website accessible by going to HYPERLINK "http://www.peripresdecusa.org/" http://www.peripresdecusa.org This work was done through the Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research, I was co-PI with with Prof. Ed Ratledge of UD School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy. Work on this project required a mammoth effort to research disasters from May 1953 through December 1964, an era when declaration records were not saved on computer files. I also had to do a tremendous amount of work adding information on the many major disasters and emergencies declared between 2003 and 2006, including the many hurricane evacuation declarations for Katrina (some 45 states). Though I was only compensated for one month of summer work on the project, I invested a very significant share of my summer and academic year research time to this project. PERI’s two-year funding support to this project totals $100,000. The second year project is complete as of March 31, 2007.

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I was able to publish two articles and a book review in the review since February 2006.
“President Bush and Hurricane Katrina: A Presidential Leadership Study,” in The Annals of Political and Social Science, March 2006.
“Presidential Disaster Declaration Decisions, 1953–2003: What Influences Odds of Approval?” with Zoltan Buzas, State and Local Government Review, winter 2007, forthcoming.
I revised in this review year two additional papers that will appear as chapters in books. One awaiting book publication has already been displayed on FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute web site. That paper is:
“U.S. Disaster Policy and Management in an Era of Homeland Security,” and this work is to be a book chapter in Prof. David McEntire’s study of disaster management. The full draft is complete and submitted in this evaluation.
I devoted several months to writing and research of an article as a chapter in Editor Claire Rubin’s History of Emergency Management book. My article is entitled, “A Political History of U.S. Emergency Management : 1979 to 2001” and that piece is done in full draft. During the review period a panel of 13 different scholars submitted 183 comments for revision, which added to the length of the paper considerably and which required an immense amount of new effort. Public Entity Risk Institute will publish this work directly and the production cycle should make the book available by fall 2007.
I invested two months of effort in preparing a preliminary proposal to NSF, which included budget, in which I and Prof. David Wilson are co-PI’s. Professor William C. Nicholson, of North Carolina Central University (a historically Black university). Our proposal is “Culture and Consensus in the Department of Homeland Security.” I have submitted the Preliminary Proposal.
I also participated in drafting a White Paper proposal to the Department of Homeland Security. Professor Biliana Cicin-Sain of Marine Policy is the PI. The work is entitled, White Paper on Center of Excellence (COE) for Maritime, Island, and Extreme/Remote Environment Security Funding Opportunity: DHS-07-ST-061-003, Gerard J. Mangone Center for Marine Policy, College of Marine and Earth Studies, University of Delaware, 28 February 2007. My name and contribution is listed on page 4 of the proposal, which is submitted in the documents of this review.

I have worked for much of the year as a symposium editor for a special issue of STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT REVIEW, winter 2007 issue dedicated to disaster research and state & local government. I have invited our colleague Jason Mycoff to prepare and article for this issue, though his article, like mine, will be subject to outside blind refereeing directed by the journal’s editor. Zoltan Buzas, one of our most talented doctoral students, and I have an article in the volume as well.