Community Crises: An Exploratory Comparison of the Characteristics and Consequences of Disasters and Riots

Some social science literature conceptualizes disasters and riots together, treating the two phenomena as involving but one relatively homogeneous type of social crisis. This is only valid if the pre‐, trans and post‐impact behaviours in such consensus and conflict occasions are roughly the same. This assumption is examined by comparing the similarities and differences between what occurs in community disasters and riots as these have been reported in empirical studies, looking at behaviours appearing at the individual, organizational and community levels. Significant differences have been found supporting the notion that consensus‐type crises such as disasters ought to be conceptualized as a different social category than riots.