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.     

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.     

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.     

Financing Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness: Use of Interlocal Cost‐Sharing

Before this study, much of the research on interlocal collaboration has focused broadly on interlocal service agreements, of which interlocal cost‐sharing is but one dimension. This study is one of the first to examine the nature of interlocal cost‐sharing agreements for a specific (and critically important) functional area. A mail survey of Florida city and county finance officers finds that the most common interlocal cost‐sharing partnership is between local general purpose governments rather than with local special purpose governments. The strongest incentives for interlocal cost‐sharing are (1) inadequate funding for emergency management in a jurisdiction's capital budget, (2) the perceived inadequacy of federal and/or state homeland security funding, and (3) greater faith in horizontal (local‐to‐local) than vertical (federal‐state‐local) intergovernmental agreements. The research also highlights the importance of asking fiscal condition survey questions in a more functionally specific manner rather than as an “overall fiscal condition” question.     

Public Opinion on Federalism in the United States and Canada in 2002: The Aftermath of Terrorism

This research reports on a public-opinion survey on intergovernmentaland border issues in Canada and the United States conductedin mid-April 2002. In the United States, there was an upsurgein public support for the federal government in 2002 over 2001,and a slight decline in public evaluations of state and localgovernments. Increased support for the federal government wasespecially notable among whites, Republicans, and respondentswith post-undergraduate education-groups that previously registeredlow support for the federal government. Canadians reported lesssatisfaction with all governments in their federal system, lowersupport for their federal government, and much more regionaland partisan division over intergovernmental issues. On internationalborder issues, Americans and Canadians generally agreed thata common border-security policy would be a good idea, thoughCanadians were slightly more likely than Americans to preferease of cross-border trade over improved border security.     

The State of American Federalism, 2004: Is Federalism Still a Core Value?

Federalism as a political issue was conspicuously absent fromthe 2004 presidential contest. Unlike many previous campaigns,neither party's candidate made much mention of problems besettingstates and localities. The war against global terrorism andthe changing situation in Iraq shaped the election. Progresswas made on homeland security, but intergovernmental wranglingover federal grants continued unabated. Federal-state feudswere common in several policy areas, including education, environmentalprotection, and health care. State finances received a revenueboost as economic growth picked up, but rising costs for Medicaid,education, employee pensions, and prisons clouded states' financialforecasts. The U.S. Supreme Court decided several cases witha federalism dimension, and these decisions plus those of thepast several years suggest the Court has moved not so much togrant more power to the states but to prune back the power ofCongress. Much of what has happened during the first Bush administrationmust be seen against the larger background of changes in theAmerican political party system. Changes in party organizationand policy control, especially during the first Bush administration,reaffirm David Walker's assessment that over the past quartercentury American federalism has become more nationalized.     

Intergovernmental Structure and Fiscal Management Strategies: A Crossnational Analysis

Does intergovernmental structure have a systematic effect on the impacts of local governments' fiscal policy responses? Using empirical data from more than 800 local governments in five countries, the article concludes that intergovernmental structure is associated with the impact attributed to various fiscal management strategies. Such strategies have generally had greater impact in local governments in federal systems than those in unitary state systems. There are similarities between federal and unitary local governments regarding the fiscal management strategies that have least impact, and both types stress the importance of productivity gains via technology. But the differences in relative importance and level of impact are more striking than the similarities. In particular, fiscal management strategies involving the relations of the local government with other governments, such as obtaining intergovernmental revenue and shifting service provision to other governments, have greater impact in significantly more federal systems than in unitary state systems. These federal local governments also experience greater impacts from increasing user charges and raising local taxes. In contrast, local governments in unitary state systems place greater reliance on the more politically expeditious strategy of across–the–board expenditure reductions and on reductions of capital spending. These findings suggest that local governments in more decentralized systems have greater flexibility to manipulate relations with other governments in order to enhance their own fiscal situation. The data also suggest that the government's level of fiscal stress is not systematically associated with the level of impact from most fiscal management strategies, especially in the unitary state systems.     

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.     

Money and Mandates: The Politics of Intergovernmental Conflict

The federal government's relationship with the states dependsin part on the level of federal aid and the number of federalmandates. Environmental policy, with less federal aid and moremandates, differs from education policy and health policy. Thevolume of intergovernmental litigation is heavier and rhetoricalreferences to intergovernmental partnerships by agency headsare more common in environmental policy. Waivers are more commonin education policy and health policy, but that appears to bea function of congressional policies largely barring environmentalpolicy waivers. Federal judges are more supportive of the federalgovernment's position on environmental protection and educationthan its position on health care. Overall, federal funding andmandates appear to have an impact on state governments, federalbureaucrats, and federal judges.     

City Managers View Intergovernmental Relations

This report presents the findings of a national survey of citymanagers concerning intergovernmental relations. Key aspectsof intergovernmental relations covered in the survey are theadministration of the grant system, effects of federal grantson local government decisionmaking, types of federal aid, imagesof federal administrators, intergovernmental service agreements,comparison of state and federal government, and city managerinvolvement in intergovernmental relations.     

Intergovernmental Management: A View from the Bottom

Intergovernmental management is more than just intergovernmental relationships involving the federal government. Though Professor McGuire agrees that the federal government has become more intrusive and opportunistic since the mid-20th century—resulting in less cooperative intergovernmental relations—he argues that collaborative management is much more prevalent than it is depicted in Dr. Conlan's analysis. A bottom-up view suggests that local and regional activity can be both opportunistic and collaborative, and such a perspective must be considered in any discussion of managing federalism.     

Goal Conflict and Fund Diversion in Federal Grants to the States

Researchers using fiscal choice models have had limited success predicting fund diversion in federal grant programs. The application of a principal-agent framework to questions of fiscal federalism offered a potentially valuable alternative approach, but the traditional model employed by Chubb (1985) neglected potential variability in the degree of goal conflict between principals and agents. This article proposes an expanded framework, which incorporates the possibility of variation in goal conflict between participants in intergovernmental aid programs. The theory suggests that the level of policy congruence between recipient jurisdictions and the national government will determine the amount of grant funding diverted away from targeted policy areas. Findings from analyses of grant programs in two distinct policy areas support the hypothesis that grant effectiveness is partially a function of goal congruence. The relationship between intergovernmental partners is interactive, with the degree of policy agreement determining fund diversion in subnational jurisdictions, as well as the effectiveness of federal oversight activities. The findings have important theoretical implications for understanding both fiscal federalism and principal-agent relationships more generally.     

Federal Budgeting After September 11th: A Whole New Ballgame,or Is It Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Federal budgeting has undergone some profound changes since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. Large surpluses that existed prior to September 11th and were forecast to continue have been replaced by equally large and intractable deficits. The consensus around a macro‐level norm for federal budgeting has completely broken down. In other ways, the federal budget process has not changed at all. Despite the emphasis on defense and homeland security, domestic discretionary spending is still continuing unabated, as it has since the late 1980s. Further, the federal government continues to have chronic difficulty adopting its budget in a timely fashion.     

Public Sector Reform, Intergovernmental Relations and the Future of Australian Federalism

Recent developments in the reform of intergovernmental relations have been influenced by contemporary models of public sector reform. Their systematic application to intergovernmental administration, in particular the manner in which jointly funded and managed programs are organised, may have profound and unanticipated effects on the federal system. When viewed in the context of a recent history of collaborative policymaking between political executives, the possibility that new forms of intergovernmental joint policy-making and program management might become the norm poses serious challenges to federal traditions of dual government. Arm's length and collaborative forms of joint decision making are contrasted as ideal types, and then used to analyse two case studies in collaborative intergovernmental decision-making — National Competition Policy and the National Training Agreement. It is concluded that the system-wide implications are profound if they are part of a broader trend, but caution is expressed about the powers of inertia and resistance in traditional forms of federal politics.     

The Growth and Decline of Executive-Centered Intergovernmental Management

The idea that the president should manage intergovernmentalrelationships gained credence and became more feasible as theExecutive Office of the President developed managerial capacities.Executive-centered intergovernmental management gained considerablesupport in the Kestnbaum Commission's deliberations, developedrapidly in response to Great Society coordination problems,and culminated during the Nixon administration. This perspectiverelies on the use of hierarchical management techniques to producean orderly, rational federal system. Its decline began duringthe Carter administration and accelerated during the Reaganyears. It is doubtful that this perspective will again be influential,given the erosion of professional support for and waning presidentialinterest in comprehensive, federal intergovernmental management.     

Reversing Directions: A Ranking and Comparison of Key U.S. Intergovernmental Events, 1960-1980 and 1980-1995

Based on surveys of scholars and practitioners, this articleranks and evaluates the significance of intergovernmental eventsand trends of I980 to I995, and also compares these with similarrankings for 1960 to 1980. The most important events of the1980 to 1995 period were found to be those that generally diminished,or potentially may diminish, the role of the federal governmentin intergovernmental affairs. It was also found that the eventsand trends which scholars rated highly for 1960 to 1980 generallyremained the top events and trends of that period as viewedby current scholars. It is concluded that events and trendsthat seem important and influential at this point in lime probablywill remain comparatively significant, even when evaluated inthe context of the passage of time.     

Australian Federalism: Developments and Prospects

This article discusses the principal recent developments in,and future prospects for, constitutional change, judicial review,fiscal arrangements, local government, public policy, and intergovernmentalrelations since the 1977 Publius issue on Australian federalism,taking into account the arguments presented in the other contributionsto this volume. It highlights the continuing vertical imbalanceof Australian fiscal federalism, and the Hawke Labor government'srecent initiative for a closer working partnership with thestates for reforming intergovernmental arrangements. It arguesthat while there is scope for the latter, there is greater needfor the former. Nevertheless, the 1980s was significant as adecade of predominantly Labor governments working with the federalConstitution, while the 1990s promises to be a decade of celebratingthe centenary of the Australian Constitution and working towardimproving the functioning of its federal system.     

Preferences,Knowledge, and Citizen Probability Assessments of the Terrorism Risk of Nuclear Power

How does the American public assess risk when it comes to national security issues? This paper addresses this question by analyzing variation in citizen probability assessments of the terrorism risk of nuclear power plants. Drawing on the literature on how motivated reasoning, selective information processing, and domain‐specific knowledge influence public opinion, we argue that heterogeneous issue preferences and knowledge of nuclear energy and homeland security have important explanatory power. Using original data from a unique 2009 national survey in the United States, we show that Americans are divided in their probability assessments of the terrorism risk of nuclear power plants. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, individuals who support using nuclear power to meet rising energy demands, who are generally less concerned with terrorism, or who are more knowledgeable about terrorism and nuclear security tend to provide lower assessments of the likelihood that nuclear power plants increase terrorist attacks, and vice versa. The findings have implications for the literature on public opinion, risk assessment, energy policy and planning, and homeland security.     

From Unitary to Asymmetric Federalism in Germany: Taking Stock after 50 Years

Policymaking in the German federal system is influenced by thedynamic interplay of the institutions of cooperative federalism,of party competition in a parliamentary system, and of distributiveconflicts between governments. This is shown in an analysisof 50 years of German federalism. It is argued that while theinstitutional setting outlived most reform efforts, changingpatterns of party politics and growing distributive conflictsinduced adjustments in intergovernmental relations. Since the1980s, such adjustments have also been stimulated by Europeanpolitics. In unified Germany, intergovernmental cooperationis now burdened with asymmetries between the East and the West,which are also expressed in a more regionalized party system.However, as party political confrontations have diminished,a pragmatic revision of the federal system seems feasible.     

Deciding to Provide: Local Decisions on Providing Social Welfare

Fiscal federalism predicts local governments will avoid social welfare expenditures, owing to capital mobility across local jurisdictions. Yet Census of Governments data consistently show that many local governments provide one or more social welfare functions, and moreover many jurisdictions provide these functions without federal or state intergovernmental support. This article finds evidence that, while local expenditures are largely driven by fiscal capacity and federal and state assistance, local decisions on providing social welfare functions and participating in intergovernmental revenues are primarily affected by degree of capital mobility and by local political factors. Consequently, local governments exercise much greater autonomy over social welfare policymaking than fiscal federalism suggests.