Scott E. Robinson
Associate Professor of Political Science and Henry Bellmon Chair of Public Service, University of Oklahoma
Chapter Member: Oklahoma SSN
Areas of Expertise:
Connect with Scott
About Scott
Robinson’s research and teaching focus on the management of public service organizations as they cope with various forms of disasters or extreme events. He teaches classes on grant writing and project management for charities and disaster politics – as well as more general courses on managing public service organizations. His research has focused on disaster planning and response. In particular, he has recently completed a National Science Foundation research project on the managing mass evacuations and integrating charities into evacuation support. His current projects include better models for vulnerability to tornadoes and public trust in government organizations – especially those that seek to provide advice on public safety issues.
Contributions
In the News
Scott E. Robinson's research on political action on climate change discussed by "Hurdles to U.S. Climate Change Action are in Economics and Politics, Not Divided Science," Phys.org, April 21, 2015.
Publications
"Explaining Popular Trust in the Department of Homeland Security" (with ). Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 23, no. 3 (2013): 713-733.
Investigates what factors drive trust in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This article finds that reported assessments of DHS are driven by political attitudes, policy salience, religiosity, and demographic characteristics, even when controlling for trust in government in general. These results suggest that members of the U.S. public have specific opinions related to the reputation of specific agencies – rather than only making broad assessments of government as a whole.
"The Core and Periphery of Emergency Management Networks" (with ). Public Management Review 15, no. 3 (2013): 344-362.
Assesses the evolution of emergency management over a decade in two communities. The analysis illustrates that the for-profit and nonprofit communities are active elements of each of the emergency management networks. However, nongovernmental organizations are more likely to be only temporary participants whereas the government organizations tend to participate repeatedly through the decade.
"Emergency Planning and Disabled Populations: Assessing the FNSS Approach" (with ). International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 31, no. 2 (2013): 315-329.
Assesses the Functional Need Support Services model that the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends for managing emergency shelters so as to ensure that the shelters are accessible to people with a variety of functional needs (e.g. vision impairment, mobility limitation, etc.). The assessment focuses on the challenges to the implementation of the model represented by the way that emergency managers perceive, and socially construct, the nature of accommodating people with disabilities. The article concludes with strategies to overcome these challenges through the active engagement of organization that serve people with disabilities and self-advocacy groups.
"School Districts and Disaster Expertise: What Types of School Districts Consult with Emergency Management Professionals?" Journal of Emergency Management 8, no. 1 (2012): 63-72.
Investigates the factors that distinguish the school districts that engage professional emergency managers in the development of disaster plans from those school districts that do not. While approximately half of the school districts in the study (covering all school districts in the state of Texas) report the engagement of professional emergency managers for purposes of emergency planning, there are disparities in this engagement with larger districts and those with more recent disaster experience being more likely to engage external professional assistance.
"Predicting Budgetary Punctuations: A Multivariate Test of Punctuated Equilibrium Models" (with ). American Journal of Political Science 51, no. 1 (2007): 140-150.
Assesses the role of school district structure (like school district size, affluence, growth rate, and bureaucratic centralization) on the propensity for the school district to experience large budgetary changes. The results indicate that smaller and less bureaucratized school districts are more likely to see large budgetary changes than larger and bureaucratized school districts.