46 K Grove
The World Bank’s country catastrophe risk management framework
exemplifies this rationality. The framework assists developing state governments’ efforts to design financial planning strategies appropriate to their
specific risk financing needs and risk profiles (Ghesquiere & Mahul 2010).
In brief, it differentiates disaster risks into three layers, ranging from low
to high impact and high to low frequency, respectively, and presents these
in relation to a ‘menu of financial instruments and mechanisms’ that ‘governments can choose from’ (World Bank 2017, p. 20). Contingency funds or
budget reallocations can finance low-impact, high-frequency events such as
localised floods. Concessional lending or contingent debt instruments can
finance medium-impact, medium-frequency events such as larger floods or
small earthquakes. Catastrophe insurance or catastrophe bonds can finance
high-impact, low-frequency events such as major hurricanes (Ghesquiere
& Mahul 2010). Each of these EARM instruments has specific functional
characteristics: budget reallocation, contingency funds and some parametric insurance products tend to be highly liquid, and are thus appropriate for meeting immediate relief needs in the first three months following
a catastrophic event. Contingent debt instruments and catastrophe bonds
have moderate liquidity, which makes them more appropriate for recovery
and reconstruction activities (three to nine months). In contrast, ex post
financing instruments, such as domestic and external credit, donor assistance, foreign aid, or tax increases, generally have low liquidity and thus
typically cannot be accessed for six to nine months. Relying on ex post
mechanisms can slow disaster relief and reconstruction, compounding a
disaster’s impacts.
‘Thinking like an insurer’ thus involves reimagining SIDS’ budgeting
practices in the terms and techniques insurers utilise to become financially self-sufficient. At first glance, this may intensify a neoliberal push
to financialise disaster management (Grove 2012). However, Collier’s
examinations of neoliberal budgetary reforms in post-Soviet Russia caution against blanket categorisations. Drawing on Rose’s (1999) emphasis
on the formal character of neoliberalism, Collier (2005, p. 375) shows how
neoliberal budgetary reforms involve an indeterminate process of formal
rationalisation, or ‘increasing… the extent of quantitative calculation that
is technically possible and actually exercised in determining the allocation
of resources in a given society or social system.’ Collier’s analysis raises
the question of how specific budgeting and financial planning strategies
manage the tensions, juxtapositions, and contradictions between the formal rationalisation of the state’s substantive goals, and the existing institutional and infrastructural arrangements that structure the particular
forms of life state biopolitics takes as its object. This is particularly salient
for Dominican disaster budgeting, where the GCD’s adoption of EARM
techniques reflects ongoing transformations in sovereignty driven by both
the problem of financial capacity in the Anthropocene and the illusory
pursuit of autonomy in the post-independent Caribbean. The next section
The World Bank’s country catastrophe risk management framework
exemplifies this rationality. The framework assists developing state governments’ efforts to design financial planning strategies appropriate to their
specific risk financing needs and risk profiles (Ghesquiere & Mahul 2010).
In brief, it differentiates disaster risks into three layers, ranging from low
to high impact and high to low frequency, respectively, and presents these
in relation to a ‘menu of financial instruments and mechanisms’ that ‘governments can choose from’ (World Bank 2017, p. 20). Contingency funds or
budget reallocations can finance low-impact, high-frequency events such as
localised floods. Concessional lending or contingent debt instruments can
finance medium-impact, medium-frequency events such as larger floods or
small earthquakes. Catastrophe insurance or catastrophe bonds can finance
high-impact, low-frequency events such as major hurricanes (Ghesquiere
& Mahul 2010). Each of these EARM instruments has specific functional
characteristics: budget reallocation, contingency funds and some parametric insurance products tend to be highly liquid, and are thus appropriate for meeting immediate relief needs in the first three months following
a catastrophic event. Contingent debt instruments and catastrophe bonds
have moderate liquidity, which makes them more appropriate for recovery
and reconstruction activities (three to nine months). In contrast, ex post
financing instruments, such as domestic and external credit, donor assistance, foreign aid, or tax increases, generally have low liquidity and thus
typically cannot be accessed for six to nine months. Relying on ex post
mechanisms can slow disaster relief and reconstruction, compounding a
disaster’s impacts.
‘Thinking like an insurer’ thus involves reimagining SIDS’ budgeting
practices in the terms and techniques insurers utilise to become financially self-sufficient. At first glance, this may intensify a neoliberal push
to financialise disaster management (Grove 2012). However, Collier’s
examinations of neoliberal budgetary reforms in post-Soviet Russia caution against blanket categorisations. Drawing on Rose’s (1999) emphasis
on the formal character of neoliberalism, Collier (2005, p. 375) shows how
neoliberal budgetary reforms involve an indeterminate process of formal
rationalisation, or ‘increasing… the extent of quantitative calculation that
is technically possible and actually exercised in determining the allocation
of resources in a given society or social system.’ Collier’s analysis raises
the question of how specific budgeting and financial planning strategies
manage the tensions, juxtapositions, and contradictions between the formal rationalisation of the state’s substantive goals, and the existing institutional and infrastructural arrangements that structure the particular
forms of life state biopolitics takes as its object. This is particularly salient
for Dominican disaster budgeting, where the GCD’s adoption of EARM
techniques reflects ongoing transformations in sovereignty driven by both
the problem of financial capacity in the Anthropocene and the illusory
pursuit of autonomy in the post-independent Caribbean. The next section