Comparative Study on Mechanisms and Policies of Public Emergency of China and The United States

Abstract

Nowadays, the severity of public emergency causes serious harm to people’s life and property safety, which requires the government’s constant improvement of the ability to cope with public emergency incidents. The objective of the paper is to compare the policies and mechanisms of China and the US on public emergency management by collecting specific cases, analyzing the reasons behind the differences between the two countries, and providing referential value for the improvement of national policy. Comparative analysis and case analysis were the mainly applied methods in the paper. Three dimensions including the governance subject, legal documents and emergency response mechanisms were compared in the paper. Through comparison, the paper analyzes the distinctive features of the emergency response mechanisms from China and the United States. For China, the “strong government” model ensures efficiency in dealing with relevant events, while ignoring the initiative of local governments to some extent. In light of that, the legislation of emergency management ought to focus more on clarifying the rights and responsibilities of both the central state council and the local government. For the United States, given the limitation of the power of the federal government, the coordination between the two subjects is important.