2014 年7 月31 日深夜，高雄市發生嚴重的地下石化管線氣爆事件，面對諸多批評，為什 麼「這一爆」非但不像陳菊市長自己所說的「政治生涯結束」，反而在發生如此重大意外災難 後，弔詭地成就她個人民意支持度的高峰？為了回答這個問題，本文試圖從災難政治學出發， 就尺度政治的「施為」及不均地理發展之「結構」視角，建構一個「結構化歷程」的分析架構。 研究發現，地方政府運用尺度移轉、尺度跳躍、及再尺度化等「尺度政治」策略動員的災難政治， 成功地築起防火牆，避免掉政治責難，進而在政治地位上「鞏固現況」。再者，尺度政治所支 持之社會背景，即臺灣經濟發展中「重南輕北」的不均地理發展結構，令地方政府在災難政治 中得以強化權力。結論指出，不均地理發展是這次氣爆災難中，各級政府面對臺灣發展更需要 重視的課題。

On July 31, 2014, a series of serve gas explosions occurred at the center of Kaohsiung city. Despite public rebukes for the city government’s poor performance of disaster management, the support to Mayor Chen, contrary to her own catastrophic expectation, remained strong. This study attempts to analyze the phenomenon from perspectives of disaster politics. A framework of structuration in which power is illustrated as an outcome of the interaction between the “agency” of politics of scale and the social “structure” of uneven geographic development is introduced. It is concluded that strategies of scale shifting, jumping and rescaling in politics of scale adopted by the city government to mobilize disaster politics have successfully built a firewall to avoid political culpability, and thus retained the political position of “accelerated status.” Furthermore, Taiwan’s “north-south divide” on uneven geographical development might have constituted a structural social background to enhance the power of local government in disaster politics. This explosion disaster seems to suggest that “uneven geographical development” would be a more salient issue for the government to tackle for further economic development.