Purpose: This study had three principal purposes: (a) to investigate the influence of demographics and the impact of citizen participation in the Taiwanese central and local governments' accountability in emergency management operations of Typhoon Morakot, (b) to measure citizens' perceptions of the governments' responsiveness in emergency management operations of Typhoon Morakot, and (c) to examine whether citizens perceive governments' accountability and responsiveness in a different way.

Theoretical Framework: The theoretical foundation of this study includes citizen participation, accountability, and benchmarking. This research model is based on "A Ladder of Citizen Participation" (Arnstein, 1969) and Rethinking Democratic Accountability (Behn, 2001).

Methodology: A random-digit-dialing sample of 1,066 citizens of Kaohsiung City and Pingtung County through a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) was collected in this study. The Research Center for Public Opinion and Elections of National Taipei University was the associated agency for the computer-assisted telephone interview in this study.

Findings: The results revealed that citizen power level and tokenism level of citizen participation rated a higher accountability than informing and nonparticipation level of citizen participation. The results also revealed that citizens who have a master's degree or higher give a better evaluation for governments' accountability compared to citizens who have a degree lower a master's degree. Taiwanese citizens gave better evaluation for the local government than the central government.

Conclusion and Recommendations: This study showed that to the extent that the citizens of a nation feel that they are active participants in its government is likely the extent to which they will experience a concomitant sense of accountability for what the government does or does not do in response to disaster preparedness and management. A study is recommended to evaluate current civics coursework at the primary and secondary levels to identify opportunities to improve the teaching of the importance of citizenship and its relation to governmental accountability. A study is also recommended to examine best practices for disaster preparedness efforts in other countries that are routinely threatened by typhoons or hurricanes to identify opportunities for improvement in Taiwan's disaster preparedness and management practices.