HOMELAND SECURITY

Homeland Security

Abstract

Though the policy science, movement was born with the purpose of counseling the Department of Defense on a plethora of security matters, modern research within the field of public policy has tended to neglect issues of defense and security focusing instead on a wide variety of domestic problems. This nearly individual focus on domestic issues remained largely intact until September 11, 2001, when the threat of terrorism propelled defense and security back onto the disciplinary research agenda. Though exceptionally slow to adjust, policy scholars are gradually coming to terms with this new reality and are beginning to focus on security and defense in a way that informs policymakers and advances policy theory.

Homeland Security

Introduction

On September 11, 2001, a group of 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed them into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, VA, and into the ground outside of Shanksville, PA. When the dust settled, 2,976 people had died and more than 6,000 others were injured. Since then, the US government has launched an international war against terrorism and dedicated an enormous amount of resources towards protecting the domestic front from another catastrophic attack.

For example, as the centerpiece of this effort, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spends more than $50 billion a year to identify, defeat, and mitigate threats to the safety of the American people. Like most public policies, the goal of defending the homeland from another terrorist attack is laudable yet more complex than any one person can imagine. The Department of Homeland Security U.S. (United States Department of Homeland Security) is a department of the federal U.S. created in November 2002 on the initiative of President George W. Bush, in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Its purpose is to organize and ensure the internal security of the country.

After September 11th, how did the state arrange its homeland security policy making system and its vital administrative agency in charge of implementing policy?

After September 11th, the State arranges its Homeland Security policy by highlighting few thinks. First and foremost, coordination during a security crisis is highly desirable, but it is not automatic. Second, increasing security funding does not necessarily induce coordination, nor does it solve the collective action problem associated with emergency response. Third, local governance and institutional context are fundamental considerations when thinking policy-making system and its vital administrative agency in charge of implementing policy. In responding to this pressure, policymakers demanded that federal agencies “do much more” and “do things differently” to protect the homeland. In reacting to these demands, the federal bureaucracy was forced to choose between two organizational strategies. On the one hand, the bureaucracy could have gone down the traditional path of delegating authority and creating formal routines to deal with the terrorism threat (Baumgartner, 1993).

Describe briefly where the state placed homeland security in relation to its existing emergency-management entity. (That is, did the state establish a new office of homeland security within, ...