The politics of tsunami responses: comparing patterns of blame management in Scandinavia

Abstract

Introduction On Boxing day 2004, an earthquake in the Bay of Bengal triggered tsunamis that flooded the coasts of India, Indonesia, Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand, killing hundreds of thousands and leaving millions homeless and destitute. The involvement of citizens from other continents gave this crisis a truly global dimension. Governments in Europe and Australia slowly but surely realised that this catastrophe far from home required a response beyond simply expressing sympathy, collecting money and sending relief. Thailand has long been a popular tourist resort for Scandinavians, especially during Christmas. Approximately 30 000 Swedes and thousands of Norwegians and Finns were on holiday in the disaster area in the last weeks of December. Soon after the waves hit the beaches, it became clear that many Scandinavian tourists were missing, making this the worst peacetime disaster ever in all three countries. Even so, it took the three governments more than 24 hours to react to the crisis and several days to initiate rescue attempts, triggering media and political criticism at home. Interestingly, despite the similarities in context and government responses to crisis, the tsunami disaster triggered markedly different political processes in the three most affected Scandinavian countries. Some political leaders in Sweden, Finland and Norway found themselves to be the targets of intensely critical media scrutiny and political criticism left, right and centre, whereas others managed to escape this media onslaught. Why?

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