In pursuit of a taxonomical definition of disaster diplomacy—An empirical scientometric analysis

Abstract Disaster diplomacy is a fairly new academic field that deals with the impact of disasters on international relations. This paper examines the academic embeddedness of disaster diplomacy as an evolving discipline based on the empirical scientometric analysis. The content analysis of about 54 journal papers and 135 citing items appeared for the key term disaster diplomacy are analyzed by document type, year of publication, discipline, author, journal, type of analysis, the articles’ focus by continent, reasons for diplomatic activity, and the used key terms. The study examines the profile of journals and the academic field of papers to contextualize disaster diplomacy. Findings of the study show that disaster diplomacy discourse is mainly published in journal articles after 2010, except very few occasional publications in this academic field. The scientometric analysis of disaster diplomacy shows a multidisciplinary pattern in terms of cross-cutting three main disciplines, namely, social sciences (multidisciplinary social sciences, political science, international studies, and environmental management), natural sciences (earth sciences and environmental science), and medicine (environmental health).