Naim Kapucu is Professor of Public Policy and Administration in the School of Public Administration at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA. He has published widely in areas of public administration and emergency management, and has developed and taught emergency management and homeland security programmes at UCF. Arjen Boin is Professor of Public Institutions and Governance at the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University, The Netherlands. He has published widely on topics of crisis and disaster management. He is co-editor of Public Administration and managing partner of Crisisplan BV.