Challenges in coordination: differences in perception of civil and military organizations by comparing international scientific literature and field experiences

The extreme pressure resulting from modern-day disasters in terms of severe shortages of resources, mass casualties, infrastructure breakdown, large-scale damage and their impact necessitate coordination between all the agencies involved in disaster response. Better coordination in international disaster response operations will make them more effective in organizing the different phases of relief, rehabilitation and recovery. Recent disasters such as the hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the earthquake in Haiti have seen multiple civil agencies and the military working together. However, challenges have been identified in civil-military coordination. Differences in working procedures and a lack of knowledge on the other's organizational identities resulted in stereotyping and prejudices, which are root obstacles to coordination. The aim of this study was to identify the perception-related challenges in civil-military coordination, and how they are perceived in the field by civil and military teams, and to investigate whether perception-related challenges and their implications have been reported in the international literature. A systematic literature review and 12 semi-structured interviews were carried out to answer these questions. Nine out of the 12 respondents were practitioners from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) and the Swedish military, with experience of international disaster response missions that involved civil-military interactions, and 3 were trainees from Karlberg Military Academy, Stockholm, who were expected to participate in similar operations in the near future. The questions asked during the interviews were based on the systematic literature review. National backgrounds, attitudes and perceptions of the professionals towards the other organization were found to be key factors influencing civil-military coordination. This indicates that comparisons between the perceptions of professionals from both civil and military teams with different nationalities and different political histories should be carried out in future research.