Investigating Cooperation Within the EU on Civil Protection and Crisis Management

In this chapter, the authors describe the units of analysis of the study, the civil protection organizations at the national and EU level, and the methodological design that has been utilized in pursuit of the stated research objectives. The authors describe how interviews were conducted in nineteen EU countries and DG ECHO and the subsequent surveys that were carried out with seventeen of the civil protection agencies that were visited. Also, in this chapter the authors discuss methodological issues and matters relating to the interpretation of the research results.