Emergency Situation and Emergency: Issues of Theoretical Conceptualisation

Abstract

This article raises the issue of using objective criteria as a guideline for the identification of emergencies. For this purpose, the author proposes to clarify the nature of the emergency through the comparison of the concept of “emergency situation” accepted in the Russian tradition with its Western analogue “emergency”. On this basis, the paper considers two approaches to defining an emergency. The first approach gives emergency situations a narrower content and from this point of view considers them as separate manifestations of emergency. The other approach, on the contrary, perceives emergency situations as a broader phenomenon, thereby equating them to the concept of emergency. The research unveils the main characteristics of an emergency — unpredictability, significant economic and human losses, the use of government emergency powers. This paper also forms an approach that eliminates semantic differences between Western and Russian scientific traditions and allows us to consider emergencies as events of a wide range of manifestations — humanitarian, economic, natural, etc. The vector of further research can be aimed at developing new approaches to defining and comparing an emergency situation, exception and state of emergency, developing a universal approach to defining an emergency in the context of globalisation and global emergency, proposing a new applied model of emergency management in the context of globalisation, developing a new typology of emergency situations, as well as searching for tools and determining the necessary resource base for managing new types of emergencies.