Positivism and Constructivism

Abstract

In January 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti. A little research informs us that around 300,000 people died and more than a million were left homeless. Emergency workers from around the globe raced to help the suffering nation. Two years later, in 2012, Oxfam reported that over 500,000 people were still in displaced persons camps, half of the rubble from the quake was yet to be cleared, cholera had claimed thousands of lives, and 45 per cent of the population still faced food insecurity.¹ Michaëlle Jean, the UNESCO Special Envoy for Haiti, explained to the world:

[W]hat killed them was not an earthquake. What killed them was negligence; extensive, even murderous negligence. The absence of laws and regulations to standardize construction works, for want of a provident government willing to use its authority to enforce standards, this is what made nearly 300,000 people dead. … A few weeks only after the tragedy in Haiti, an earthquake 500 times more powerful hit Chile … The comparative body count says it all: 486 dead.

The example of Peru, another country of high seismic hazard, is just as eloquent: existing solutions that are realistic and achievable, basic engineering regulations that aren’t more expensive, national laws and policies being enforced, a population mobilized, educated, forewarned and empowered …²