8 - Dealing with Disaster

Summary

The study of constitutional emergency provisions remains in its infancy. We present the first overview and analysis of how specific emergency provisions vary across the fifty US state constitutions. The emergency provisions vary considerably across states with the Texan constitution exhibiting the most limited provisions and Georgia the most expansive ones. A cluster analysis shows support for dividing the US constitutions into six “families” and reveals the Texan constitution as substantially different from the rest. We explore whether these constitutional choices may have been affected by disaster risk, prevailing ideology, state wealth, and other factors for which historical data exist. We provide tentative evidence showing that emergency provisions have a significant effect on both the number of fatalities as well as on the damage suffered in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Clearly, therefore, the paper has implications for constitutional policy.