Homeland Security Preparedness: The Rebirth of Regionalism

The homeland security mission has placed many new demands onthe U.S. system of federalism. The successful implementationof homeland security policy requires cooperation among all levelsof government—federal, state, and local. Regionalism offersa powerful tool for encouraging greater intergovernmental cooperationand improved homeland security preparedness. We assess the impactof regionalism on intergovernmental cooperation and the implementationof the homeland security mission in Florida, an early proponentof the regional approach. From a regional perspective, we evaluatehow intergovernmental complexity, the quality and quantity ofintergovernmental networks, and security vulnerabilities contributeto perceived improvements in intergovernmental cooperation andhomeland security preparedness. The results of a 2004 mail surveyof city and county officials suggest that regional organizationalstructures are most effective in promoting intergovernmentalcooperation and preparedness where the intergovernmental landscapeis the most complex and where security vulnerabilities are themost intense.     

Organizing for Homeland Security after Katrina: Is Adaptive Management What’s Missing?

This article analyzes performance and organizational issues revealed by the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina. It reviews and analyzes the organizational changes made in the federal government to address homeland security and presents several proposals for reorganization suggested by policy makers in the aftermath of Katrina. A management approach rooted in adaptive management is presented for use in the ongoing process of organizing for homeland security.     

Mandates and Management Challenges in the Trenches: An Intergovernmental Perspective on Homeland Security

Scholars and practitioners agree that homeland security policy implementation is contingent on a strong system of intergovernmental relations. The responsibilities associated with the homeland security mission, often mandated, cut across federal, state, and local boundaries. Local-level stakeholders are especially important players in the implementation process. This article presents a local perspective on the way intergovernmental relations have changed—and the reasons for those changes—since 9/11. Results of a survey of county and city officials in Florida provide evidence that intergovernmental cooperation has improved as a result of federal and state mandates. These results are refined by an analysis of the effects of specific local characteristics and the quality and quantity of vertical and horizontal networks on intergovernmental cooperation and local preparedness. Homeland security appears to be a policy area in which mandated cooperation and coordination—in a time and place of urgency—have actually strengthened the intergovernmental system.     

Interstate migration,income and public school expenditures: An update of an experiment

This article re-examines the relative importance of per capita income and net out-migration (Weisbrod's welfare-maximization hypothesis) as determinants of expenditures for public primary and secondary education. A repetition of Weisbrod's experiment shows that the existence of a high correlation between per capita income and migration in the 1950s would have made it difficult to distinguish between their relative importance. An update of the experiment yields results contrary to the hypothesis that communities (states) are welfare maximizers. They support the contention that per capita income is a primary determinate of educational expenditures.     

Challenges to Federalism: Homeland Security and Disaster Response

This article examines the state of federalism in the Bush Administrationfrom the perspective of the policy area of homeland securityand disaster response. The article uses the International Cityand County Management Association homeland security survey completedin the spring and summer of 2005 as a source of data. The articleargues that while it is tempting to look for one single agencyto control homeland security and disaster response, a networkedmodel is better supported by the survey data and by recent experiencein terrorist and natural disaster response.     

Reorganizing for National Security and Homeland Security

This article considers the post–September 11 challenges faced by the U.S. national security machinery and analyzes the relationship between the new threat environment, the United States's role in the world, and decision–making structure. Homeland security is defined as a subset of national security. The threat of foreign terrorist organizations acting on U.S. soil should be seen in the political context of the pursuit of U.S. national interests in an often anarchic world. Two models for homeland security organizational structures are considered: a departmental model and an interagency model. The interagency model, embodied in the Homeland Security Council, is a better fit given the nature of the threat, the crucial need for coordination, and the realities of governmental decision making. The organizational challenges that may complicate the government's preparations, decisions, and implementation of a major homeland defense mission stem from three rivalries: executive–legislative, cabinet–staff, and Homeland Security Council–National Security Council.     

Terrorism and pork-barrel spending

The horrifying, tragic events of 9/11 made Americans aware of their vulnerability to terrorist attacks and triggered the creation of the Department of Homeland Security along with a substantial increase in federal spending to both thwart terrorist attacks and to increase our ability to respond to such emergencies. Much of this large increase in spending was in the form of direct transfers to states and cities through several grant programs. Homeland Security grants may be used for protection against terrorist activities, thereby enhancing public interests, or as wealth transfers to state and local governments, enhancing the reelection efforts of incumbents, and thus, private interests. Using 2004 per capita Homeland Security grant funding to states and their cities, we find that the funding formula used for some of the grant programs, which allocates almost 40% of the funds in some grant programs through a minimum percent to each state with the rest allocated based on population, means that per capita funding is related to electoral votes per capita, i.e., to the politics of Presidential re-election. However, the funding in other grant programs is also related to some of the dangers and vulnerabilities faced by states and their cities. Some of the variation in per capita grant allocations is also explained by the amount of airport traffic in the state and the state's population density, which are variables closely linked to the state's vulnerability to attack. Per capita Homeland Security grant allocations, however, do not seem to be related to the closeness of the 2000 presidential race.     

Intergovernmental transfers and fiscal equalization across the north-eastern states of India: Evidence from panel data

While numerous studies have tried to analyze the impact of intergovernmental transfers in fostering fiscal equalization in India, there need to be more studies in the context of north-eastern (NE) states. Situating in a geographically isolated and economically backward region, the states of NE India depend heavily on central fiscal transfers to meet expenditures and to promote various economic activities in the region. One of the essential objectives of these transfers is to achieve fiscal equity. Hence, the study attempts to analyze the fiscal equalizing nature of the intergovernmental transfers across NE India during 1991–2019. The coefficient of variation (CV) analysis results indicates that although fiscal transfers reduced the magnitude of disparity in the own-source revenue across the NE states, a significant amount of disparity still exists in the resource base across these states. The regression analysis findings suggest that the transfers across these states need to be more fiscal equalizing. The per capita gross state domestic product emerges as a positive and significant in predicting per capita transfers, and hence it questions the progressivity of central transfers. When assigning the interstate share of transfers, more weight should be placed on fiscal equalizing factors such as per capita income. The Finance Commission of India should emphasize fiscal equalizing criteria when allocating weights and recommending transfers to the NE States. Additionally, states with low incomes should be recognized in plan schemes.     

The Politics of Vulnerability: Constructing Local Performance Regimes for Homeland Security

Paradoxically, the greater the national security threats, the more important the role of local policy in the United States. In this article we examine homeland security initiatives—particularly the tension between risk and vulnerability—and the governance dilemmas they pose for local communities. In contrast to the usual emphasis on coordination and capacity, we argue for conceptualizing local imperatives attendant to homeland security as collective action problems requiring the construction of local performance regimes. Performance regimes must engage three challenges: (1) to enlist diverse stakeholders around a collective local security goal despite varying perceptions of its immediacy; (2) to persuade participants to sustain their involvement in the face of competing demands, and (3) to create a durable coalition around performance goals necessary for reducing local vulnerability. Using these analytic categories casts local homeland security issues in strategic terms; it also encourages comparisons of local governance arrangements to respond to risk and vulnerability.     

The Political Determinants of Federal Expenditure at the State Level

It has been shown that states with higher per capita senate representation have higher federal spending per capita (Atlas, C. M., Gilligan, T. A., Hendershott, R. J. and Zupan, M. A. (1995). American Economic Review 85: 624–629). With a more recent data sample, more highly disaggregated data and a different set of political control variables, we are able to confirm the main result of Atlas et al. that per capita senate representation is positively related to federal expenditure. This effect is strongest for procurement expenditures. By contrast, we do not find support for their result that spending increases with per capita representation in the House of Representatives. Several other political variables are found to be significant in a subset of the expenditure equations.     

The Academic Discipline of Management and Homeland Security

The aim of this article is to examine the role the academic discipline of management can play in terms of homeland security (which has emerged as a very major policy area). Specifically, this article analyzes how the accumulated research knowledge in various areas of the management discipline (for example, organizational culture studies, organizational change studies, organizational relations studies, and leadership studies) can be used (together with research knowledge from numerous other academic disciplines) to help advance homeland security as a policy area and policy phenomenon and as a field of study. In its areas shown above and other areas, this article is of the view that the academic discipline of management can make unique and important contributions to the effectiveness and efficiency of homeland security.     

Rescuing constructivism from the constructivists: a critical reading of constructivist interventions in Southeast Asian security

Abstract

Constructivist contributions to the study of Southeast Asian security raise much-needed awareness of identity concerns and introduce conceptual and methodological innovations into the study of identity. However, their shared rationalist proclivity to couple subjectivity with sovereignty revives the enduring problem of treating agency as ultimately pre-given. Contrary to their professed aim to restore to security studies an appreciation for history and practice, the contributions of many Southeast Asia constructivists are quite tellingly essentialist, particularly their concessions to state-centrism and ideational/normative determinism, both due partly to an uncritical emulation of rationalist constructivist perspectives in International Relations (IR) theory. In granting ontological priority to states, Southeast Asia constructivists cannot fully transcend reification because their denaturalizing of international anarchy or regions comes at the expense of a reified state. In reifying either the state or ideas/norms, their claim to privilege practice in their analyses of Southeast Asian security becomes suspect. But if process and practice are to be taken seriously, then Southeast Asia constructivists must avoid presuming a preordained subjectivity that invalidates their claim to study social construction.     

Non-random assignment,vehicle safety inspection laws and highway fatalities

In this study, the distribution of inspection laws across states is endogenously determined by the relative strengths of lobbying groups within states. Previous studies that treat the laws as exogenous and find a 5 to 15 percent reduction in fatalities may have produced biased results. A selection bias model is developed in which non-random assignment is taken into account. Two equations are estimated: one explaining how many inspections are required, and the other explaining the effects of the inspections on fatalities per capita. Using single-equation techniques, results are obtained that are similar to prior studies. In the two-equation model that accounts for non-random assignment, inspection laws are not found to significantly reduce fatalities per capita.     

Imperfect Federalism: The Intergovernmental Partnership for Homeland Security

The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, posed a set of security challenges for the nation's cities that the increasingly decentralized federal system was poorly prepared to meet. Although it was generally agreed that domestic security required a close intergovernmental partnership, strong national leadership and support were lacking in creating and guiding this partnership. To make matters more difficult, political considerations in Congress generally trumped the assessment of security risks in the distribution of federal fiscal aid. This article explores the strains in the intergovernmental homeland security partnership, their causes, and efforts to adapt and reform. Despite some progress toward a more rational public administration of homeland security, the partnership still reflects the deficiencies of imperfect federalism.     

Organizing the Federal System for Homeland Security: Problems, Issues, and Dilemmas

Improving the capacity of U.S. governments to provide greater homeland security will require numerous changes in the way federal, state, and local governments are organized and operate. It also will require significant alterations in intergovernmental relations. Changes will be required in intergovernmental dimensions, including operational, financial, legal, and political dimensions. A dual–track approach to rearranging intergovernmental relationships in order to provide a coordinated intergovernmental response to the requirements of homeland security is to be expected.     

An investigative research on the status of urban residents' psychological security

The objective of this study was to investigate the status of the psychological security of 224 urban residents by using a self‐made questionnaire. The results show that the overall psychological security of urban residents is in the medium–low level. There are significant differences among residents with education background or with household per capita monthly income (F = 4.192, F = 4.545, p < 0.05). People with high psychological security scores are highly educated or come from families with high per capita monthly income. In regards to the factors of common sense of security, the results show significant differences (F = 4.98, p < 0.01) among people with different educational background and people with bachelor's degrees or above scores higher than less‐educated people (from high school or community college). In regards to the factors of certainty feeling, there are significant variations among people with genders and economic background (F = 11.28, F = 7.75, p < 0.01), males higher than females, while people with per capita monthly income of more than 2000 RMB feel more certainty than those with less than 2000 RMB. On the sense of calmness, factors such as education and family per capita income significantly affected scores (F = 4.67, p < 0.05, F = 5.20, p < 0.01). People with high school degree feel less calm than those with college degree or above; individuals with per capita monthly income of 2000 RMB feel less calm than those with income higher than 2000 RMB of above. For another dimension, the sense of relaxation, there is a significant difference among different age groups (F = 8.92, p < 0.001, groups below 40 scoring higher than groups over 40). Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Why do States Grant Asylum?

Recent legislation introduced by European states to limit access to asylum is an attempt to reinforce the State's control of admission to its territory. However, while certain of these states have effectively ceased to permit immigration, none have indicated that asylum should cease to be granted. This paper examines the reasons why States continue to grant asylum and suggests that there are certain conditions which are necessary for granting asylum, in particular, that the benefits to the asylum granting State outweigh any costs.     

African states,global migration,and transformations in citizenship politics

Over the past three decades, relations between African emigrants and their home-states have been changing from antagonism to attempts to embrace and structure emigrant behaviors. This transformation in the conception of emigration and citizenship has hardly been interrogated by the growing scholarship on African and global migrations. Three of the most contentious strategies to extend the frontiers of loyalty of otherwise weak African states, namely dual citizenship or dual nationality, the right to vote from overseas, and the right to run for public office by emigrants from foreign locations are explored. Evidence from a wide range of African emigration states suggests that these strategies are neither an embrace of the global trend toward extra-territorialized states and shared citizenship between those at ‘home’ and others outside the state boundaries, nor are they about national development or diaspora welfare. Instead, they seem to be strategies to tap into emigrant resources to enhance weakened state power. The study interrogates the viability and advisability of emigrant voting and political participation from foreign locations, stressing their tendency to destabilize homeland political power structures, undermine the nurturing of effective diaspora mobilization platforms in both home and host states, and export homeland political practices to diaspora locations.     

Is the Department of Homeland Security an Intelligence Agency?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) applies a variation of the intelligence cycle – the process of planning, collecting, processing, analysis, and dissemination of information characteristic of intelligence agencies – to mitigate the risk of terrorist attack and respond to national security breaches. The intelligence cycle helps DHS encourage voluntary security measures, serve its customers, and avoid economic disruption, but the Department's program setbacks and failures illustrate the difficulty of applying the intelligence model to the needs of homeland security. The Department's particular means of producing intelligence and information challenge the conventional conception and definitions of the intelligence cycle.     

On “Group size and the free-rider hypothesis: Another hypothesis.” by Jody W. Lipford: Comment

This paper develops a positive approach to grant design when the central government and a lobby of local governments are the main agents. It develops the hypothesis that the regressivity or progressivity of per capita grants regarding community size is,ceteris paribus, related to the structure of the lobbying activities of local governments and is independent of hypothetical economies or diseconomies of scale in the production of local public goods. An encompassing lobby organisation using a “one mayor one vote” system of representation supports the regressivity of per capita grants while under “proportional” representation the lobby will support a design of per capita grants which is progressive towards community size. An empirical analysis of lump-sum grants in Portugal supports the politico-economic hypothesis and rejects the hypothesis that economies of scale is the main explanatory cause for the observed regressivity of per capita grants.