Widespread Policy Disruption: Terrorism, Public Risks, and Homeland Security

Widespread Policy Disruption: Terrorism, Public Risks,and Homeland Security

Peter J. May, Joshua Sapotichne, and Samuel Workman

We address theoretical and empirical aspects of policy disruptions that affect multiple areas of policy-making. Our theorizing leads us to consider the effects of widespread disruptions in gaining theattention of elected officials, in affecting policymaking, and in reshaping the involvement of federalagencies. Our empirical analyses concern the threat of terrorism in the United States and its implica-tions for public risk subsystems over the past 25 years. Our analyses of the attention of policymakersand resultant policymaking volatility show selective patterns of subsystem disruption related to thethreat of terrorism. We show that capturing the attention of policymakers in multiple subsystems isinsufficient to motivate heightened levels of policymaking across the board. In addition, we find moremuted impacts for federal agency involvement than might have been expected from the massivereorganization that created the Department of Homeland Security. More generally, the disjunctions weobserve show the powerful influence of policy subsystems in buffering against widespread policydisruptions.

KEY WORDS: policy agendas, policy change, subsystems, homeland security, terrorism

Policy disruptions are central to the characterization of policy change in Ameri-can politics. Policy process scholars generally depict these as the introduction of newattributes of a problem or new ideas about solutions that lead to shifts in issueattention within a given area of policymaking (see Jones & Baumgartner, 2005,pp. 55–70). Policy disruptions can challenge existing arrangements and lead toa breakup or redefinition of the subsystem that constitutes a given policy area. Theclassic example is the deterioration of the dominant nuclear power subsystem thatemphasized energy production followed by the emergence of the current nuclearsafety subsystem that is focused on power plant safety (see Campbell, 1988; Temples,1980).

But, what happens when a policy disruption affects a variety of policymakingareas? The possibility that a number of subsystems can be disrupted at once is anextension of single-system policy disruption. Baumgartner and Jones (1994, p. 65)suggest that the potential for uncontrollable spillovers across areas of policymakingfor which “a large-scale issue redefinition can determine the fundamental directionof public policy for decades.” Emmett Redford (1969, p. 107) suggests that wide-

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spread disruptions engender a macropolitics that “arises when the community atlarge and the leaders of the government as a whole are brought into the discussionand determination of issues . . . [involving] matters that raise broader issues andconcern wider interests than can be determined within them.”

This type of widespread engagement arises from crises that confront actors inmultiple policy areas. At the national level, the impacts are felt as elected officialsgrapple with the policymaking implications of the crisis at hand. As officials attemptto come to grips with the situation, the volatility of policymaking increases withinand across different areas of policymaking. In turn, federal agencies grapple withtheir responses and policymakers’ demands to do things differently. For those in-stances that policymakers attempt to reshape the federal apparatus for addressingthe crisis at hand, long-standing patterns of agency involvement in different areas ofpolicymaking are altered.

The potential for widespread policy disruptions raises fundamental questions:How do these disruptions play out within and across policy subsystems? How dothese reverberate among federal agencies? How disruptive are these for policymak-ing and governing? We seek to answer these questions by theorizing about andempirically examining patterns of widespread policy disruption that affect multipleissue areas and their attendant subsystems. We draw on the literature concerningpolicy subsystems to suggest potential patterns of disruption and the resultingreverberations.

A fruitful case for examining widespread policy disruptions is provided by thethreat of terrorism. It has been a longstanding and pervasive issue, albeit one that hasonly episodically intruded on the national agenda. Potential harms from terrorismwithin the United States were acknowledged at the highest levels of governmentbeginning at least three decades before the events of September 11, 2001. Since theevents of that day, the Bush administration has characterized terrorism as a majorthreat to our society that necessitates a war on terrorism.1 The initial efforts of theWhite House Office of Homeland Security were aimed at mobilizing actions amongdifferent governmental subsystems in addressing the threat of terrorism. The cre-ation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was justified by the need for amore cohesive approach to homeland security. In creating this agency, policymakerssought to focus attention of the federal bureaucracy on the threat of terrorism and toextend existing preparedness capabilities for addressing natural and technologicaldisasters.

We examine the disruptive impact of the threat of terrorism for policymakingover the past 25 years among eight policy subsystems that constitute what today isbroadly labeled homeland security. Our theorizing leads us to consider three aspectsof widespread policy disruptions. One is the effects of disruptions in gaining theattention of elected officials. These are the obvious impacts for which widespreaddisruptions by definition garner attention. Of interest in the case of terrorism is howthat attention varied among subsystems prior to and after the events of 9/11. Asecond aspect is the effects of policymakers’ attention on policymaking itself. Con-sideration of this aspect highlights the difference between agenda change and policychange. We theorize about different patterns of policymaking engagement among

172 Policy Studies Journal, 37:2

subsystems. A third aspect is the effects of disruptions and policymakers’ responsesto them for federal agencies. This entails consideration of the extent to which thethreat of terrorism was a prominent issue for relevant agencies and the extent towhich the creation of the DHS altered other agencies’ involvement for different areasof policymaking.

The dynamics of change among multiple areas of policy remain a less studiedaspect of policy processes. The existing theorizing about this is limited to discussionof the potential for spillovers in policymaking (e.g., Baumgartner & Jones, 1994;Kingdon, 1984, pp. 200–204; Redford, 1969, p. 107) and discussion of the interplay ofideas, interests, and institutions in conditioning major changes in policy emphaseswithin individual areas of policy (e.g., Howlett & Ramesh, 1998; Lieberman, 2002;McGuinn, 2006; Wilson, 2000). The scale of disruption that affects multiple sub-systems is by definition highly destabilizing. Subsystems normally serve to addstability to policy processes, but major disruptions, as we show here, can disrupt thestabilizing forces built into subsystems. Given this, how policymaking uncertaintiesand institutional alignments sort out within and across subsystems are central ele-ments in understanding policy change. In the case of terrorism, the patterns ofpolicymaking and agency activity are highly disjunctive when viewed over timeacross multiple subsystems.

Conceptual Underpinnings

Subsystems are typically conceptualized as areas of policymaking comprisedof relatively stable sets of actors (agencies, interests, and committees), more or lesscommon problems and approaches to addressing them (an ideational basis), andinstitutional ties that serve as conduits for the flow of information (see Berry, 1989;McCool, 1990, 1998; Wood, 2006). Our research is concerned with the policy func-tions of subsystems. In this respect, policy subsystems are what Burstein (1991)discusses as more or less established areas of policymaking that give meaning tocommon problems and have integrative properties. As discussed by Redford (1969,pp. 102–5), policy subsystems help to establish boundaries for policymaking (alsosee Baumgartner & Jones, 1994). The constellation of interests within a given sub-system tends to align on a relatively fixed set of issue attributes at any point in time.This, by definition, limits attention to other considerations. As such, subsystemsserve as mechanisms for focusing attention as well as for aggregating issues andinterests. As discussed by Worsham (2006, p. 438), these functions of subsystemsbring “stability to the otherwise volatile process” of policymaking.

Our investigation is concerned with how widespread policy disruptions affectthe contours of policy subsystems. As discussed by Baumgartner and Jones (1993,pp. 3–22), the introduction of new ideas or new attributes of a problem can challengeexisting arrangements and lead to a breakup or redefinition of a policy subsystem.The policy process literature is replete with examples of changes in particular sub-systems that were brought about in this fashion. These include studies of airlinetransport (Baumgartner & Jones, 1994), immigration reform (Hunt, 2002), health carereform (Wilkerson, Feeley, Schiereck, & Sue, 2002), science and technology policy

May/Sapotichne/Workman: Widespread Policy Disruption 173

(Feeley, 2002), and telecommunications regulation (MacLeod, 2002). Yet, as Worsham(1997) showed in studying the evolution of banking policies, policy disruptions maybe destabilizing for subsystems over long periods of time without leading to areconfiguration or substantial policy change. Such instability is shown in Worsham’s(1998) study of Indian affairs’ and forestry policies, Bosso’s (1987) study of pesticidespolicies, and Worsham’s (2006) analysis of the tobacco policy subsystem.

Though disruptions are typically associated with external shocks, it is importantto note that disruptions can also arise from the entry of new ideas or players, or fromchanges in power alignments within subsystems (see Cashore & Howlett, 2007;Worsham, 2006). Jones and Baumgartner (2005, p. 55) refer to agenda disruptionmore generally as the “intrusion” of information that “carries with it the potentialto shock, to disrupt, and to destabilize as it intrudes into the policy process.” Theyfurther argue that disruptions entail emergence of “a previously unappreciatedissue” as well as “[n]ew attributes that were previously ignored” (p. 68). The latterunderscores the multidimensional character of policy issues. Many of the casesnoted above entailed policy disruptions that were not propelled by external events,but by the dynamics of shifting attention over time to different issue attributes or theentry of new players.

The notion that a number of subsystems can be disrupted is an extension ofsingle-system disruption. The basic disruption is the same—an information intru-sion that shifts attention to new attributes of a problem, new solutions, or both whileintroducing uncertainty about these. But, the scale of the disruption is much broaderin that it affects multiple subsystems and in so doing heightens policymaking uncer-tainty across them. We think of the disruption—the intrusion of new informationabout an issue and demands to address it—as a catalyst for subsequent policymak-ing dynamics. As noted above, this may be a discrete focusing event or the result ofinternal dynamics of subsystem attention. By definition, the disruption draws poli-cymakers’ attention in different areas to the new concern.

But, in what ways and to what extent does that attention invoke changes inpolicy activity? Much rests on the dynamics within and patterns of engagementacross subsystems in resolving uncertainties in policymaking. Positive feedbackprocesses that invoke what Charles Jones (1974) refers to as speculative augmenta-tion or others more recently have labeled information cascades (Jones & Baumgart-ner, 2005, p. 139; Kuran & Sunstein, 1999) may lead to dramatically increased levelsof activity within and across subsystems. Policymakers in different subsystems willlikely resolve the uncertainty in different ways and at different times, leading to thedisjunctive patterns of policymaking that Worsham (1998, 2006) documents for thepolicy subsystems he studies.

A common presidential response to major policy disruptions that span substan-tive areas of policymaking is to centralize governmental efforts in order to gaingreater control of the situation and to attain a measure of coordination across func-tional realms (see Jones & Strahan, 1985). Such control is typically sought with theuse of policy czars and coordinating offices, or through governmental reorganiza-tions. Reorganizations can be thought of as second-order disruptions that lead toreconfigurations of federal agency involvement within subsystems. Of interest to us


is the extent to which this second-order disruption ripples across subsystems. Withtheir study of major governmental reorganizations, March and Olson (1983) suggestthat the impact of reorganizations is variable depending on the interplay of organi-zational attention, problem perceptions, and choice opportunities within differentpolicy areas. How this plays out likely rests on the degree of agency dominancewithin existing subsystems and the extent to which the reorganization alters this byintroducing a new bureaucratic force.

Expectations Concerning Policy Disruptions

The preceding discussion suggests a variety of potential consequences of wide-spread disruptions. One aspect to consider is the degree to which disruptions garnerthe attention of policymakers in policy subsystems that are impacted by the disrup-tion. But, policy attention in itself does not necessarily lead to policymaking activity.As such, a second aspect to consider is the degree to which policymakers in affectedsubsystems actually engage in policymaking for the disruptive issue. Finally, a thirdaspect is the way in which policy attention and policymaking activity reverberateamong federal agencies. How these play out are empirical issues. We elaborate uponour expectations concerning potential patterns in what follows.

Policy Attention

Policy disruptions by definition draw policymakers’ attention to new attributesof problems while also introducing uncertainty about the extent of the problem andthe viability of potential solutions (see Kingdon, 1984, pp. 99–105). Of interest instudying widespread disruptions is the way in which disruptions affect policyattention within multiple subsystems. Two considerations are relevant. One is thedegree of attention within subsystems that are affected by the disruption. The secondis the timing of the impact of the disruption in affecting policymakers’ attention.

By definition, widespread policy disruptions are expected to alter the attentionof policymakers in multiple subsystems. But, as we note above, the degree of thatimpact will depend upon the power of the disruption and the susceptibility ofdifferent subsystems to it. Some subsystems are directly affected given that thedisruption highlights an issue that has previously been addressed in some form bythat subsystem. Thus, for example, the domestic security subsystem had a history ofconsidering the threat posed by bombing of buildings prior to 9/11. Policymakers’attention in other subsystems is activated because of their involvement in addressingissues that are variants of the immediate disruption or because of their involvementin considering aspects of solutions to the problem. For example, the terrorist attacksof 9/11 raised the specter of catastrophic threats to public health as illustrated by theanthrax scare that came shortly thereafter—a concern of policymakers in the sub-system concerned with public health emergencies. Policymakers in the emergencypreparedness subsystem were drawn in because of their expertise in consideringresponses to natural and technological disasters.


Also relevant is the timing of policymakers’ attention within different sub-systems. We theorize that this is determined by both the magnitude and common-ality of the disruption. Similar timing of attention among different subsystems isevidence of a common trigger that has sufficient magnitude to garner widespreadattention. This is more evident if the catalyst is an external shock—the 9/11 terroristattack is an exemplar—as highlighted by studies of focusing events (see Birkland,1997, pp. 21–27). Here again the timing with which a given disruption garnersattention in multiple subsystems rests on the susceptibility of the subsystems to thedisruption. Policymakers in subsystems that previously engaged in the relevantissues will react much more quickly than policymakers in more tangential sub-systems. For the latter, it takes time to recognize the policy and political implicationsof attending to the disruption.

Policy Engagement

Given the uncertainty in multiple areas of substantive policymaking that isfostered by widespread policy disruptions, we expect the governing system to moveto reduce uncertainty and to prevent further system failure or breakdown throughpolicymaking. Subsystem engagement is the degree to which policymakers grapplewith these uncertainties by holding hearings and passing laws rather than simplymaking pronouncements. The patterns of policymaking engagement for widespreaddisruptions can in principle vary greatly. These range from policymakers in someof the relevant subsystems engaging the new concern to all of them in the game. Thedegree of subsystem engagement is shaped by the prior history and susceptibility ofthe component subsystems in attending to the core attributes of the policy disruptionand the extent to which agencies and interests within relevant subsystems aremobilized to attend to the new concern (see Birkland, 1997; Wood, 2006). We mightexpect those subsystems that are closest to the disruption to be on the firing line, andthose that are relevant but less central to be less impacted. In the case of terrorism, thedomestic preparedness subsystem is an example of the former and the food safetysubsystem is an example of the latter. With respect to food safety, the threat ofterrorism introduces a new dimension for attention but does not fundamentallychallenge the basis for the subsystem. It might have been different if the 9/11 eventsinvolved mass poisoning of the food supply.

A key indicator of subsystem engagement in addressing policy disruptions is thevolatility of policymaking within and across different subsystems. Increased policy-making volatility evidences efforts to grapple with policymaking uncertainties andis reflective of the perturbations in the uneven flow of information about relevantissues and solutions following policy disruptions. Decreased policymaking volatilityevidences less engagement, and in the extreme, total disengagement.

Analyses of the patterns in policymaking volatility over time for multiplesubsystems—the EKGs of subsystem analysis—are central to our diagnosis of theextent of subsystem engagement. Because our primary interest is in widespreaddisruptions that ripple over multiple subsystems, patterns of volatility and stabili-zation across subsystems tell us a great deal about how the governing system adjusts


to large-scale departures from normal policymaking. Patterns of volatility acrosssubsystems show the differential susceptibility of subsystems to the policy disrup-tion. Similar patterns of volatility indicate subsystem susceptibility to the new infor-mation carried in the disruption. As subsystems grapple with the disruption, normalpolicymaking dynamics give way to the uncertainty wrought by previously unim-portant issue dimensions (in our case, the terrorism dimension of federal policytoward public risks). Different patterns of subsystem volatility indicate disparatesensitivity to the issue dimensions raised by the disruption.

Patterns in the stabilization of policymaking volatility among subsystems grap-pling with the uncertainty fostered by a disruption are also important. These indicatehow different subsystems are able to resolve policymaking and informational uncer-tainties, or otherwise integrate the disruptive issue into existing ways of doingbusiness. We expect differential patterns and timing of stabilization among engagedsubsystems in part because policymakers in some can more easily adapt to thedisruption than can others. For example, policymakers addressing domestic securitycan adjust to new dimensions of terrorism more readily than policymakers address-ing technological hazards. In addition, policymakers in some subsystems are moreable to cope with uncertainties given wider experience with changing problemattributes and solutions. For example, the experience of policymakers in the trans-portation safety subsystem in addressing new dimensions of risk and new technolo-gies for aircraft safety made them well placed for addressing terrorism threats toplanes.

Agency Reverberations

Analyses of how policy disruptions reverberate through government entail con-sideration of agency-level attention to the disruptive concern and of the second-order disruption associated with federal agency reorganization. While it might seemobvious that agency personnel would shift their attention, given powerful signals todo so, a variety of research suggests that federal agencies typically under-respond topolicymakers’ signals to alter course unless the signals are strongly reinforced (seeCarpenter, 1996; Katzmann, 1989; Whitford & Yates, 2003).

Subsystems, Data, and Measures

In the United States, a variety of fairly distinctive policy subsystems have existedfor decades for protecting society from different public risks. These constitute defacto components of what is now broadly labeled homeland security. Risk analystPeter Huber defines public risks as risks that are “centrally produced or mass-produced, broadly distributed, often temporally remote, and largely outside theindividual risk bearer’s direct understanding and control” (Huber, 1986, p. 90; alsosee May, 1991a). Public risks present classic collective action problems for whichthere are limited incentives for private or group action in addressing the risks.Governmental action is required to overcome these problems by calling attention tothe risks and by devising appropriate preparedness and response programs.


The federal role in addressing public risks has evolved since the 1950s when theCivil Defense Act of 1950 (P.L. 81–920) authorized a federal domestic preparednessprogram that grew into a powerful subsystem (see Wamsley & Schroeder, 1996).Since that time, a variety of different preparedness-related subsystems have evolvedto address risks associated with food safety, natural disasters, public health emer-gencies, wayward technology, cyber security, transportation safety, and other harms.Each of these reflects distinctive political and policy responses to different eventsover time that mobilized public and political attention in fostering demands toaddress them (see Birkland, 1997).

Selection of Subsystems for Study

Our foci are public risk subsystems that address aspects of preparedness foror prevention of acute harms to society, including potential terrorist incidents. Wesought to identify relevant subsystems that had long-standing involvement in poli-cymaking for different aspects of these public risks. This selection of subsystemsavoids conflating the components of an organization, the DHS, with the public risksubsystems within which officials from the DHS and other federal agencies areinstitutional players.

Identification of the relevant subsystems involved a two-stage process. The firststep entailed identifying public risks for which we considered a range of acutethreats that endanger everyday life for numerous citizens.2 We include both naturaland human-induced threats. We specifically excluded slow-onset events like globalclimate change and drought, and broader societal disruptions brought about byimmigration and demographic changes. Given our focus on domestic aspects ofpublic risks, we also excluded conventional war and nuclear attack. The second stepinvolved establishing whether the risks we considered constituted meaningful sub-systems. To get at this, we reviewed government documents (principally reportsby the Government Accountability Office and by individual agencies), congressionalhearings, and academic accounts in order to identify the existence of two keycharacteristics of policy subsystems—a definable institutional structure and acommon purpose (see Baumgartner & Jones, 1993, pp. 6–9; McCool, 1990).

With some recategorization, we were able to identify eight subsystems for studythat met these criteria. Table 1 summarizes these. Each has a distinctive public riskat the core, a lead or a few lead federal agencies, a history of legislative actionsurrounding the risk, and a common policy agenda. The italic entries summarize thechanges in subsystem foci, lead agencies, and policy agendas after terrorism enteredthe national agenda.

We recognize some of the subsystems that we identify can be characterized aspart of larger subsystems. Border protection, for example, is part of both immigra-tion and drug policy subsystems. Rather than addressing the larger subsystems inthese instances, we choose to work with the component subsystems that addressrelevant risks. In the case of border protection, the traditional concerns are thenegative consequences of an influx of drugs and undesired entrants, includingterrorists, to the country.


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We also recognize that the delineation of subsystems typically includes identi-fication of dominant congressional committees and a set of more or less stableinterest groups as key subsystem players. We focus on the involvement of federalagencies for two reasons. First, they are the primary source of expertise in policydebates around public risk policy. As described by May (1991b), there is a distinctlack of engagement of broader publics in debates about public risks in comparison tothe kind of involvement that is typically found for more visible and contentiousissues. Second, the federal agency focus is appropriate given that institutional reformfor homeland security has primarily occurred at the agency level rather than withinCongress. Nonetheless, the involvement of Congress is central to our discussion ofthe volatility of policymaking.

Data and Measures

Our primary data source is the content of congressional hearings for each policysubsystem for the period 1988 through 2004. Policy scholars have long used datafrom congressional hearings to characterize issue composition, involvement of dif-ferent actors, and the policy dynamics of individual subsystems (see in particularBaumgartner & Jones, 1993, pp. 39–55). Hearings are the lifeblood of subsystempolitics. As aptly described by Aberbach (1990, pp. 83–93), the hearing setting allowsthe structuring of interest alignments and representation as well as the fashioning ofcommon problem definitions. The choice of the time frame is purposeful, in keepingwith Sabatier’s (1991) admonition of the need to study policy change and policysubsystems over decades rather than a few years. The 1988 cutoff is largely a matterof convenience for which electronically accessible hearings data are available. None-theless, our starting point is before the emergent federal focus on terrorism began totake hold in the early to mid-1990s.

The frame for identifying relevant hearings for our research is a comprehensivearchive of hearings coded by substantive topic and that is available for electronicaccess at the Policy Agendas Project.3 We reviewed each of the 226 subtopics bywhich the hearings are coded in order to identify those that are within subtopics thatpertained to the eight policy subsystems we study. This yielded an initial sample of7,112 hearings from 1988 through 2004. We had research assistants examine each ofthe identified hearings in order to assess whether the hearing, in fact, addressed asubstantive topic for one of the subsystems that we study.4 Many did not as theypertained to other topics that were incorporated in the same subtopic. This selectionnarrowed our dataset to 1,651 hearings that pertained to the eight policy subsystemswe study. This set of hearings provided the dataset for four measures that enter intoour analyses. The methodological appendix contains descriptive statistics for con-gressional hearings associated with each subsystem. The relevant measures aredescribed in the following paragraphs.

Terrorism Issue Focus. This is a measure of issue attention that comprises the disrup-tive intrusion for our research. For each hearing, coders identified by looking at thetitle and summary of the hearing whether or not the hearing explicitly addressed


terrorism (terror, terrorists, or related terms) or terrorist events (such as the 1993World Trade Center attacks, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, or 9/11) as a subject.This yielded an indicator variable that takes on a value of one if terror or someterrorist event was a subject and a value of zero otherwise.5 Aggregating this by yearas a proportion of all hearings in a given subsystem provides a measure of the degreeto which each subsystem focused on an aspect of terrorism over time. We use this togauge the extent of subsystem attention to the threat of terrorism.

Policymaking Volatility. Patterns of volatility in policymaking and relative stabiliza-tion of it across subsystems tell us a great deal about how the governing systemconfronts the uncertainty fostered by widespread policy disruptions. Our measureof policymaking volatility is the annual real change in the number of hearings withineach subsystem regardless of terrorism focus. This separates the intrusion of at-tributes of terrorism (issue attention) from the effects of that intrusion (policymakingvolatility and stability). We use real change in the number of hearings because theannual counts can be quite low for a given subsystem, thereby making annualpercentage change measures misleading.

Federal Agency Attention. We measure this as the extent to which top-level federalofficials appearing at congressional hearings within each subsystem address thethreat of terrorism as part of their testimony. We collected and analyzed a total of1,173 relevant testimonies from 629 hearings made available on Lexis-Nexis from1995 through 2004.6 We include testimony of top-level federal officials who heldsenior policymaking roles (i.e., Cabinet secretaries, agency administrators, and theirdeputies) or had key line operating functions (i.e., bureau heads). Using the contentanalysis package QSR NUD*IST Version 4, we searched each testimony for variantsof the root word terror in order to identify the number of sentences in each testimonywith terrorism references. We measure the extent of attention of each federal agencyofficial to the threat of terrorism as the percentage of sentences in each testimonywith terrorism references. We aggregate these percentages to the subsystem level todetermine mean attention scores for top-level federal agency witnesses testifying athearings for each subsystem.

Federal Agency Involvement. We measure involvement of federal agencies in differentsubsystems based on the degree to which their personnel testify at congressionalhearings addressing issues of relevance to each subsystem. We identified 2,038appearances of federal-agency personnel at congressional hearings from 1995through 2004. We identified the agencies from which these individuals came using afixed list of 74 federal bureaus and offices involved in addressing one or more facetsof public risks. This list was constructed from functions identified for differentfederal offices in the U.S. Government Manual while allowing for changes in func-tion and office designation over time. By mapping the subsystem of relevance to agiven hearing and the agencies for the witnesses for that hearing, we are able to tracethe change in composition of federal agency involvement in policymaking acrosssubsystems.


Findings

Our analyses seek answers to three questions: How do disruptions play outwithin and across policy subsystems? How do these reverberate among federalagencies? How disruptive are these for policymaking and for governmental agen-cies? Our theorizing suggests that answers to these questions require considerationof the extent of policymakers’ attention to the agenda disruption, resultant volatilityin subsystem policymaking, extent of attention of relevant federal agencies, and thedominance of the new agencies in policy subsystems.

Attention among Subsystems

Concerns at the highest levels of the U.S. government about the threat of terror-ism pre-date the events of September 2001 by three decades. Attention to terrorismwas heightened following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 bomb-ing of the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Office building, and the 1995 Tokyo sub-way nerve-gas attack (see Donohue, 2001; Sylves & Cumming, 2004). The policyresponses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, followed the patterns thatscholars observe for large focusing events in leading to dramatic shifts in mediaattention, legislation, and symbolic undertakings. Birkland (2004) identifies morethan 450 bills and resolutions relating to these events that were introduced in the107th Congress. The events of 9/11 clearly propelled a heating-up of congressionalhearing activity. From January to August 2001, Congress held 54 hearings addressingpublic risks. In just four months from September to December of 2001, Congress held89 hearings addressing these topics.

Figure 1 displays the intrusion of terrorism into the individual components ofpublic risk policy. Each series in the figure shows the annual proportion of hearingsmentioning terrorism for a given subsystem. The subsystems are arrayed in ascend-ing order according to the mean proportion of attention devoted to terrorism after1995. Two patterns are especially evident in Figure 1. One is the difference in atten-tion among subsystems prior to 2001 with little to no attention to terrorism forsubsystems concerning technological hazards, natural disasters, and food safety.7

This pattern clearly indicates that the terrorism threat had not intruded into thosesubsystems prior to 9/11. The second pattern is the sharp spike in each subsystem in2001 regarding attention to terrorism that was induced by the events of 9/11.

The subsystems were heated unevenly before and after the events of 9/11.Hearings on natural disasters mentioning terrorism never comprise more than one-third of the hearings for that subsystem. Except for an anomaly in 2003, hearingsmentioning terror never comprise more than 14 percent of hearings addressing foodsafety issues.8 The intrusion of terrorism onto the public risk agenda since 2001 isstrong for the transportation safety and public health emergencies subsystems. Foreach, half or more of the hearings after 9/11 addressed terrorism issues. The stron-gest intrusion is for the domestic preparedness subsystem, arguably the most sus-ceptible subsystem to the intrusion of terrorism, for which no fewer than 74 percentof hearings for that subsystem address terrorism after 9/11.


Year

Pro

port

ion o

f H

earings M

entio

nin

g T

err

or

Technological Accident Preparedness & Responsen = 248

Natural Disaster Preparedness & Response

n = 199

Food Safetyn = 112

Information Security

n = 214

Transportation Safety

n = 286

Border Protection

n = 136

Public Health Emergencies

n = 122

Domestic Preparednessn = 332

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04

0

0.57

0

0.33

0

1

0

0.67

0

0.50

0

0.78

0

0.97

0

0.93

Figure 1. Subsystem Terrorism Intrusion.Note: Y-axes display the actual data ranges for each series. The series are arranged according to the meanproportion of attention devoted to terrorism after 1995 from lesser at the top to greater attention at thebottom.


Engagement Across Subsystems

The findings about terrorism intrusion are not surprising given that each of thesubsystems was susceptible, albeit to different degrees, to this intrusion. Of interestis the degree to which that intrusion led to policymaking engagement across sub-systems. As we note above, similarities in the patterns of volatility of policymakingare indicative of greater degrees of cross-subsystem engagement. Figure 2 addressesthe patterns in policymaking volatility. The figure displays real change in the numberof hearings for each of the eight subsystems over the time period of our study. Thesubsystems are arrayed in the figure from those with least volatility in policymakingafter 1995 at the top to those with the most volatility after 1995 at the bottom. Thep-values under the subsystem names are for one-way variance ratio F-tests. Thesereflect the significance of the hypothesis that variance increased post-1995 as terror-ism began to intrude on the subsystems comprising public risks.9

As shown in the figure, the volatility of policymaking differs across the eightsubsystems.10 The post-1995 patterns for food safety, technological hazards, andnatural disasters clearly evidence greater stability than the volatility evidenced forthe remaining subsystems after 1995 and especially after 2001. The mean coefficientof variation after 1995 for hearing volatility for the three more stable subsystems is0.44 whereas the corresponding value for the other subsystems is 0.67. While thereclearly was attention to the threat of terrorism in the three more stable subsystemsafter 9/11, the terrorism intrusion did not fundamentally disrupt policymaking inthese subsystems. Indeed, policymaking activity in the technological hazard andnatural disaster preparedness subsystems dropped off precipitously as indicated bya flat-line EKG for these subsystems after 2001.

In contrast, the substantial policymaking volatility for the other subsystems afterthe mid-1990s is suggestive of heated-up policy spaces and efforts of players in eachof the subsystems to come to grips with the uncertainty introduced by the terrorismintrusion. These subsystems are clearly engaged. The fact that the patterns are dis-similar suggests that the subsystems were dealing with the uncertainty imposed bythe intrusion in different ways without a strong external force imposing consistencyacross the engaged subsystems. In particular, we see little evidence of stabilization ofpolicymaking activity for these subsystems.

Taken together, these findings show that by 2001 the terrorism issue had clearlyinfiltrated the policy agendas of the eight subsystems. If all were not in the game bythis time, they were certainly watching the game. It would be hard to imagineotherwise. But, the level of policymaking activity clearly differs among subsystems.Activity in some subsystems atrophied (food safety, technological accidents, naturaldisasters) while policymaking volatility increased in others (border protection,transportation safety, public health emergencies, information security, domesticpreparedness).

We attribute these differences to two factors. One is the greater susceptibility ofthe heated-up subsystems to the intrusion of the terrorism issue. While the case hasbeen made for a link between terrorism and natural and technological disasters, it iseasier to draw a linkage between terrorism and the engaged policy subsystems. A


Year

Real C

hange in

Hearings

Food Safety

p = 1

Technological Accident Preparedness & Response

p = 1

Natural Disaster Preparedness & Response

p = 0.99

Border Protection

p = 0.08

Transportation Safetyp = 0.05

Public Health Emergenciesp = 0.0001

Information Security

p = 0.001

Domestic Preparednessp = 0.01

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04

-10

0

16

-12

0

25

-17

0

11

-8

0

12

-14

0

19

-20

0

22

-16

0

18

-31

0

30

Figure 2. Subsystem Policymaking Volatility.Note: Y-axes display the actual data ranges for each series. P-values are for one-way variance ratio F-teststhat assess whether the ratio in variance across the two time periods, 1988–1995 and 1996–2004, is less thanone, which indicates increased volatility in the latter time period. The subsystems are arrayed by theirstandard deviations from those with least volatility in policymaking after 1996 at the top to those with themost volatility after 1996 at the bottom.


second consideration for shaping policy engagement is the broader limits of theorganizational attention within Congress. Although Congress is a massive institu-tion with 535 members and 38 standing committees, all organizations at some levelof aggregation face limits on attention. These limits are heightened by heated-uppolicy spaces that engage the competitive jurisdictional impulses of the differentcommittees in Congress (see Baumgartner, Jones, & MacLeod, 2000; King, 1997).

Federal Agency Attention and Involvement

Policy disruptions reverberate throughout government as agencies respond topolicymakers’ demands to “do things differently” and with the consequences ofgovernmental reorganizations. We expect federal agency attention to the threat ofterrorism to be strong but not uniform across subsystems even after the eventsof 9/11. We examine federal agency attention by considering the extent to whichtop-level agency officials within each subsystem refer to the threat of terrorism aspart of congressional testimonies. We measure the percentage of sentences in eachtestimony with terrorism references. We aggregate these to the subsystem level asmean scores for all relevant federal agency witnesses who testified at hearings foreach subsystem.

Table 2 shows the changes in attention by top-level federal agency witnessesbefore and after the events of 9/11 within each of the subsystems we study. Prior to9/11, attention to terrorism was noteworthy only for subsystems addressing domes-tic preparedness, public health emergencies, and border protection. As expected,federal agency personnel within each of the subsystems made more frequent refer-ences to the threat of terrorism after the events of 9/11 for which on average therewas a three-fold increase. But, also as expected, the degree of attention after 9/11differs substantially among subsystems. Though the events of 9/11 introduced per-vasive attention to terrorism among all subsystems, the attention is greatest amongagencies for those subsystems that had attended to the terror threat prior to 9/11.

As we found for the pattern among subsystems in policymaking activity, agencyattention among subsystems after 9/11 is disjunctive. Sharp increases in attention toterrorism among key bureaucratic players in subsystems for which the terrorismintrusion did not fundamentally disrupt policymaking are evident for subsystemsaddressing natural disaster preparedness, food safety (albeit not statistically signifi-cant), and technological hazards—keeping in mind the low initial levels of attentionto the threat prior to 9/11. At the same time, the post-9/11 attention to the threat ofterrorism by bureaucratic players in the transportation security and informationsecurity subsystem is considerably lower than other subsystems for which policy-making volatility is substantial (i.e., domestic preparedness, border protection,public health emergencies). All of these hint at the role of bureaucratic inertia withinsubsystems in affecting issue attention.

The second-order disruption for federal agencies was the creation of the DHSwith which policymakers sought to bring greater cohesiveness to federal homelandsecurity efforts. This reorganization fits the centralizing imperative of crisis responsediscussed by Jones and Strahan (1985). But, in what ways did this affect the sub-


systems we study? Despite the creation of a massive federal agency to addresshomeland-security issues, our theorizing suggests that powerful bureaucraticcounter weights will limit the influence of the DHS across subsystems. We get at thisby considering the degree of the DHS agency presence within each subsystem.

Table 3 shows the degree of involvement of personnel from the DHS in eachsubsystem based on our coding of participation of federal witnesses for 189 congres-sional hearings held in 2003 and 2004 after the creation of the DHS.11 The involve-ment of officials from the DHS in different subsystems varies greatly. Overall, DHSagency officials comprise 33 percent of federal witnesses. This is remarkable giventhat this entails hearings held by 25 different committees for which we identified thepresence of federal witnesses. Of the 420 federal witness appearances at these hear-ings, 139 were appearances of officials from the DHS. Yet, these officials have adominating presence for only the border protection subsystem. The strong presence

Table 2. Federal Agency Attention to Terrorism

Subsystem Pre-9/11a Post-9/11 P-valueb Relevant Agenciesc

Domestic preparedness 15.18 15.64 0.81 Justice (FBI)DHS(1.80) (0.93)

93 229Public health emergencies 6.25 8.27 0.29 HHS (CDC)

Defense(1.81) (1.00)40 82

Border protection 1.83 10.09 <0.01 Justice (INS)State (Consular Affairs)(0.78) (1.10)

75 71Natural disaster

preparedness0.12 11.75 <0.01 DHS (FEMA & Emergency

Preparedness Directorate)(0.07) (3.56)72 19

Food safety 0.98 3.24 0.20 AgricultureFDA(0.98) (1.48)

22 13Transportation security 0.69 4.39 <0.01 Transportation (FAA)

DHS (TSA)(0.23) (0.63)83 74

Information security 0.97 4.19 <0.01 Justice (FBI)FTC(0.23) (1.21)

135 53Technological accidents 0.10 1.35 <0.01 Energy

NRC(0.10) (0.42)78 34

Overall mean percentage 3.38 10.15 <0.01(0.39) (0.50)

598 575aCell entries are mean percentages of sentences per testimony of federal officials appearing in hearings fora given subsystem that contain variants of the root terror. Standard errors are in parentheses. Frequenciesof congressional testimonies are in italics. Pre-9/11 testimonies are those delivered from 1/1/1995 to9/10/2001; post-9/11 testimonies are from 9/11/2001 to 12/31/2004.bP-values for t-test of differences of proportions post-9/11 versus pre-9/11.cCell entries are the two agencies with the largest percentage of top-level federal agency witnesses withineach subsystem in the post-9/11 period. Where relevant, the dominate bureau within the agency is notedin parentheses.


of officials from the DHS within the natural disaster preparedness subsystem beliesthe demise of that subsystem after 9/11 for which in 2003 and 2004 there were onlyeight hearings involving a total of nine federal witnesses, six of whom were fromthe DHS.

The modest presence of DHS officials in the information security, domesticpreparedness, and transportation safety subsystems might seem anomalous giventhe strong emphasis of the DHS on each of these functions. But, the presence ofstrong bureaucratic counterweights—the Federal Trade Commission, Justice, andTransportation respectively—limits DHS involvement. The agencies that were domi-nant prior to the creation of the DHS for subsystems concerning food safety, tech-nological accidents, and public health preparedness continue their dominance, eventaking into account the low level of activity in these subsystems.

Simply put, powerful institutional forces act as constraints upon the influence ofthe DHS. One constraint is bureaucratic competition for dominance of terrorism-related issues and funding, as especially evident in the transportation safety, domes-tic preparedness, and information security subsystems. Nicholson-Crotty (2005)highlights the role of this kind of bureaucratic competition in subsystems, notingthat this competition is particularly strong for functional rivalries as is the case forthe more fractured subsystems that we study (also see Downs, 1967, pp. 9–10). Putdifferently, the turf issues that affected the composition of the DHS are also evidentin the composition of the public risk subsystems.

Conclusions

Our analysis of widespread policy disruption extends the understanding ofpolicy dynamics for single subsystems to those among multiple subsystems. Dis-ruptions of this scale are relatively rare for which the threat of terrorism offers apreeminent example. The potential for widespread policy disruptions raises funda-

Table 3. Department of Homeland Security Subsystem Intrusion

Subsystem PercentDHSa

NumberWitnessesb

NumberHearingsc

Main non-DHSAgenciesd

Natural disaster preparedness 67 9 8 AgricultureBorder protection 60 72 22 State (Consular Affairs)Transportation security 38 58 28 Transportation (FAA)Domestic preparedness 34 140 68 Justice (FBI)Information security 24 35 20 FTCFood safety 9 22 10 AgriculturePublic health emergencies 8 50 20 HHS (CDC)Technological accidents 8 24 13 NRC

Total 33 420 189aPercentage of federal witnesses for each subsystem that are from the Department of Homeland Securityat congressional hearings conducted in 2003 and 2004.bTotal number of federal agency witnesses.cNumber of hearings.dCell entries are the agencies with the largest percentage of non-DHS federal agency witnesses. Whererelevant the dominant bureau within each agency is noted in parentheses.


mental questions: How do these disruptions play out within and across policysubsystems? How do these reverberate among federal agencies? How disruptive arethese for policymaking and for governing? In answering these questions, we haveconsidered three aspects of policy disruptions. One is the effects of disruptions ingaining the attention of elected officials. A second aspect is the effects of policymak-ers’ attention on policymaking itself. A third aspect is the effects of disruptions andpolicymakers’ responses to them for federal agencies.

Our analyses of the attention of policymakers and resultant volatility in policy-making show selective patterns for subsystem disruption related to the threatof terrorism. As terrorism emerged as a threat in the mid-1990s, severalsubsystems—border protection, domestic preparedness, public health emergencies,and transportation safety—attended to the concern. With the events of 9/11, spikesin attention are evident across the eight subsystems that we study although thesedo not occur simultaneously. Despite this widespread attention, the concerns aboutterrorism reverberated within subsystems in different ways leading to differentpatterns of volatility in policymaking. In particular, policymaking for subsystemsaddressing food safety, natural disaster preparedness, and technological hazardswaned as Congress and players in other subsystems grappled with the threat ofterrorism. Some subsystems were in the game while others were not, even after theevents of 9/11.

Much of the existing literature addressing policy agenda setting at least implic-itly conflates policy change with agenda change. Our findings show that capturingthe attention of policymakers in affected subsystems is insufficient to motivateheightened levels of policymaking across the board. While policymakers in each ofthe subsystems we study show heightened attention to the threat of terrorism, onlythose subsystems with greater susceptibility to the intrusion of the terrorism showincreased policymaking activity. Subsystems addressing food safety, technologicalhazards, and natural disasters were not disrupted to the extent of the disruption forsubsystems addressing (in order of increasing volatility) border protection, trans-portation safety, public health emergencies, information security, and domesticpreparedness.

The threat of terrorism and especially the events of 9/11 fostered a crisis thatcould have involved “paradigmatic policy change” (Howlett & Ramesh, 1998, p. 475)leading to substantial alteration of federal agency involvement across subsystems.Yet, we show more muted impacts in reshaping the influence of federal agencieswithin the subsystems we study than might have been expected from the massivereorganization that created the DHS. These findings underscore the difficulty ofaltering institutional relationships within subsystems. Players within subsystemsproactively guard their turf and the privileges of dispensing the benefits of policy-making in given issue areas. As noted by Worsham (1997, 1998), the subsystemdynamic over time is characterized as a “wavering equilibrium” that can be desta-bilized with new entrants of players or issues, but for which established powercenters provide a formidable defense against substantial change.

The net result of the increased policymaking volatility within key subsystemsand powerful organizational counterweights to the massive DHS is a set of sub-


systems under stress—to paraphrase Donald Kettl’s (2007) characterization of thepolitics of homeland security. The policymaking instability we document is an indi-cator of this stress. The instability that we observe might be chalked up as a shake-out period for the DHS for which greater stability will come once the reforms increating the DHS take hold. However, our findings suggest otherwise given thelimited impact of DHS in a number of subsystems that relate to homelandsecurity—especially food safety, information security, and public health emergencies.

These findings about widespread policy disruptions have implications for policyprocesses that are far more general than the case of terrorism. The dynamics ofwidespread change remain a less studied aspect of policy processes. The scale ofdisruption that affects multiple subsystems by definition attracts policymakingattention. But, capturing the attention of elected officials and key bureaucratic poli-cymakers in affected subsystems is insufficient to motivate heightened levels ofpolicymaking across the board. Instead, the dynamics of individual subsystems andtheir susceptibility to the disruption govern the extent to which policymakersbecome engaged. The result is a heated-up policy space for which the policymakingresponses are highly disjunctive given that policymakers in different subsystemswork through their sense of the problem and viable solutions in a seemingly dis-connected fashion.

These patterns are both reassuring to students of the policy process and trou-bling to those who seek unified responses to crises. Even a powerful disruption likethe terrorist attacks of 9/11 did not fundamentally alter subsystem functioning for arange of affected subsystems. Attention was garnered, policymaking took place, andagencies responded. These basic facts underscore the stabilizing aspects of sub-systems, recognizing that some of the subsystems we study were more disruptedthan others. The more troubling aspect is the evident difficulty of coordinatingactions among multiple subsystems that have different agendas, constituencies, andpolitical concerns. Though governmental reorganizations seek to achieve such coor-dination, our findings about the impacts of the DHS underscore the limits of struc-tural reforms as mechanisms for altering institutional alignments within disparatesubsystems.

Notes

1. President Bush first formally used the term “war on terrorism” in an executive order issued Novem-ber 9, 2001 that established a task force on citizen preparedness in that war (EO 13234). The symbolismof the war terminology was reinforced in an executive order of March 23, 2003, that established the“Global War on Terrorism” expeditionary and service medals (EO 13289).

2. There is no list per se of public risks, which meant we had to identify a range of potential risks. We didthis broadly at first by considering various threats from natural events (e.g., natural disasters), social-related threats (e.g., civil unrest, immigration), and human-induced events (e.g., nuclear attack,terrorism, wayward technology). We then considered more specific acute threats within each, recom-bining them as we became more familiar with subsystems that addressed the various risks.

3. See http://www.policyagendas.org. The data used here were originally collected by Frank R. Baum-gartner and Bryan D. Jones, with the support of National Science Foundation (NSF) grant number SBR9320922. Neither NSF nor the original collectors of the data bear any responsibility for the analysisreported here.


http://www.policyagendas.org

4. The potentially relevant topics for each subsystem were identified in advance from our investigationof the history of each subsystem. Our coding of the minimum threshold for entry of a hearing into ourdataset yielded an inter-coder agreement of 83 percent based on dual coding of 607 hearings (37percent of the total). Inter-coder agreement for the coding of policy domains was 85 percent based ondual coding 150 hearings (9 percent of the total).

5. Inter-coder agreement for the coding of terrorism focus was 100 percent based on dual coding of 122hearings.

6. Lexis-Nexis, the only electronic clearinghouse of congressional testimony, makes digital testimonyavailable beginning in 1995. A total of 2,038 witness testimonies were identified for 825 hearings forwhich at least one federal agency witness appeared during this period. We excluded federal witnesseswho were merely adding a symbolic element (e.g., individual border guards, FBI agents, or militarypersonnel), reducing the totals to 1,773 testimonies of top-level officials. Electronic transcription isonly available for 66 percent of these.

7. The technological hazards subsystem includes hearings devoted to the structural integrity of build-ings as part of the World Trade Center attacks in 1993.

8. Because there is only one hearing for the food safety subsystem in 2003 and it addressed terrorism-related issues, the proportion that made mention of terrorism for that year has an anomalous valueof one.

9. Rather than rely on conventional levels of statistical significance, we chose to report the actualp-values. We do so because the data are annual, leaving a small sample size and traditional notions ofstatistical significance must be adjusted accordingly. We chose the comparison periods of pre- andpost-1995 because Congress first moved to address the threat of terrorism through major legislation in1996 with the enactment of the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act (P.L. 104–201Section 14; the “Nunn-Lugar-Domenici amendment”) and the Anti-terrorism and Effective DeathPenalty Act of 1996 (PL 104–132).

10. This is confirmed by a Bartlett’s k test of variance homogeneity, which yields a test statistic of 40.40 thatis statistically significant at the P < 0.01 level.

11. The participation of representatives of the relevant agencies was coded from witness lists for congres-sional hearings. All witnesses, regardless of rank, were included in these tabulations.

Valuable assistance with the collection and coding of the data for this research has been provided by SteveBaxter, Kyle Dunning, Darrell Kelly, Jami Larson, and Sophia Le. We thank Chris Koski of James MadisonUniversity; Betsi Beem, Graeme Gill, and Allan McConnell of Sydney University; Andy Whitford of theUniversity of Georgia; Robert Wood of the University of North Dakota; and Jeff Worsham of the WestVirginia University for comments on earlier versions of this research. We also thank Bryan D. Jones for hiscomments and participation in the broader research project. Financial support for this research wasprovided by National Science Foundation grant number SES-0623900. Neither the NSF nor those whohave offered insights are responsible for the content of this manuscript.

Peter J. May is a professor of Political Science, at the Center for American Politics andPublic Policy of the University of Washington, 101 Gowen Hall, Campus Box 353530,Seattle, WA 98195-3530 USA. Email: [email protected] Sapotichne and Samuel Workman are graduate fellows at the Center forAmerican Politics and Public Policy at the University of Washington.

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Methodological Appendix

Our primary data source is the content of congressional hearings for each policysubsystem for the period 1988 through 2004. We employed coders to classify relevanthearings within the eight policy subsystems we consider and to identify relevantfederal witnesses at each hearing. These classifications are relevant to our analyses ofthe involvement of different federal agencies within subsystems and of the use of


http://www.bepress.com/jhsem

http://www.bepress.com/jhsem

terrorism-related language. Table A1 shows the number of hearings that were iden-tified as relevant to each of the subsystems we consider.

Table A2 shows the distributions of federal agency witnesses and testimony ofkey federal agency players across subsystems for the period 1995 through 2004.Witnesses were identified by title and assigned to different subsystems according tothe coding of the dominant issue addressed in each hearing.

Table A1. Hearings 1988–2004

Subsystem Frequencya Percent Annual Mean SDb

Border protection 136 8.24 8.00 4.68Domestic preparedness 334 20.23 19.53 18.36Food safety 112 6.78 6.59 4.84Information security 214 12.96 12.59 12.71Natural disaster preparedness 199 12.05 11.71 6.43Public health emergencies 122 7.39 7.18 6.8Technological accident preparedness 248 15.02 14.59 9.66Transportation safety 286 17.32 16.82 5.93

Totals 1,651 100 29.13aNumber of hearings identified from the relevant categories of the Policy Agendas Project dataset that metthe minimum threshold to be included in the designated subsystem.bStandard deviations calculated for annual data.

Table A2. Federal Agency Witnesses 1995–2004

Subsystem Witnessesa Testimoniesb

Frequency Percent Frequency Percent

Border protection 249 12.22 146 12.45Domestic preparedness 519 25.47 322 27.45Food safety 88 4.32 35 2.98Information security 307 15.06 188 16.03Natural disaster preparedness 144 7.07 91 7.76Public health emergencies 192 9.42 122 10.40Technological accident preparedness 209 10.26 112 9.55Transportation safety 330 16.19 157 13.38

Totals 2,038 100 1,173 100aWitnesses from federal agencies appearing at congressional hearings from 1995–2004.bTop-level officials for whom electronic testimony is available.


Documents

Widespread Policy Disruption: Terrorism, Public Risks, and Homeland Security