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Communicating Warning: The Art and Science of Threat Dissemination

Samuel Justin Sinclair and Daniel Antonius

in The Psychology of Terrorism Fears

This chapter discusses how governments and agencies communicate terrorism threat to the general public and the potential negative consequences such threat dissemination may have on individuals and ... More

This chapter discusses how governments and agencies communicate terrorism threat to the general public and the potential negative consequences such threat dissemination may have on individuals and societies. Special focus is given to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advisory System, the terrorism alert system that was implemented in the United States in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, although other international alert systems are also discussed (e.g., United Kingdom and France). Drawing on scientific research, this chapter also discusses how the Homeland Security Advisory System (as well as other similar terrorism alert systems) may actually exacerbate fears, stress, and anxiety in the general public. Further, using research as a frame, this chapter provides suggestions for how to disseminate threat information to different strata of the population, including how much information to disseminate, how specific it should be, and how to deliver it in the most effective way—to avoid frustration and fear, and promote preparedness and understanding.Less

Reforming the National Security Apparatus

Steven Hurst

in Assessing the George W. Bush Presidency: A Tale of Two Terms

Before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States's homeland defence policy focused on threats from state, rather than from non-state, actors. In December 2000, the Gilmore ... More

Before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States's homeland defence policy focused on threats from state, rather than from non-state, actors. In December 2000, the Gilmore Commission reported that ‘the organisation of the Federal Government's programs for combating terrorism is fragmented, uncoordinated, and politically unaccountable’. Despite that warning, the administration of George W. Bush paid little attention to the terrorist threat before September 11. Since that date, in contrast, the Bush administration engaged in the biggest governmental reorganisation in half a century in an effort better to protect the United States from terrorist attack. According to one official involved in homeland security, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the centrepiece of Bush's organisational reforms, is ‘so dysfunctional, and so destructive to agency functions, that it should be dismantled’. This chapter assesses the Bush administration's efforts to improve homeland security by transforming the homeland security bureaucracy. It also discusses the politics of homeland security and the organisational challenges faced by the Bush administration in trying to reform homeland security.Less

Introduction: Homeland Maternity, the New Reproductive Regime

Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz

in Homeland Maternity: US Security Culture and the New Reproductive Regime

This chapter explores how recent discourses of motherhood and nation are deeply enmeshed and mutually constitutive. I trace a brief history of reproductive politics in the United States, clarifying ... More

This chapter explores how recent discourses of motherhood and nation are deeply enmeshed and mutually constitutive. I trace a brief history of reproductive politics in the United States, clarifying how the project of nation building has consistently enlisted motherhood and worked to govern women’s reproduction through differential modes of surveillance and control. This chapter provides the historical and theoretical foundations for the book; it notes the precedents to homeland maternity while also elaborating on how contemporary alignments of motherhood and nation are distinct and specific to homeland security culture.Less

// Conceptualizing Security

in Under Construction: Making Homeland Security at the Local Level

This chapter discusses the context building aspect of homeland security work. These tasks involve defining hazards, identifying targets and vulnerabilities, meshing homeland security with existing ... More

This chapter discusses the context building aspect of homeland security work. These tasks involve defining hazards, identifying targets and vulnerabilities, meshing homeland security with existing concepts of emergency management and security, and creating a shared sense of community among the involved organizations. The chapter also explains that the business of determining the conceptual and practical boundaries is coupled with the need to build a community of people who could reliably come together to make these decisions and act on them.Less

// Finding the Community

in Under Construction: Making Homeland Security at the Local Level

This chapter discusses the process of finding the community suitable for this study of homeland security in the United States. It describes the difficulties of access and finding the community amid ... More

This chapter discusses the process of finding the community suitable for this study of homeland security in the United States. It describes the difficulties of access and finding the community amid the forest of organizations, and explores the generative properties of practice within the policy community, drawing on themes from globalization theory. The chapter also argues in support of the claim that homeland security in the greater Boston area was being practiced through a policy community.Less

Epilogue: From Bush to Bush: Final Gasp to Phoenix Rising

Dee Garrison

in Bracing for Armageddon: Why Civil Defense Never Worked

This epilogue discusses the death of civil defense proclaimed by President George H. W. Bush and then by President Bill Clinton, followed by its resurrection in 2001. The current Homeland Security ... More

This epilogue discusses the death of civil defense proclaimed by President George H. W. Bush and then by President Bill Clinton, followed by its resurrection in 2001. The current Homeland Security provisions are compared to previous civil defense measures. The emergence of a large grassroots resistance movement against the Patriot Act is described.Less

Security, Resilience and Preparedness

Jon Coaffee

in Futureproof: How to Build Resilience in an Uncertain World

This chapter explores resilience in international security. The concepts and practices of resilience have become a staple of international security discussions over recent years and are now firmly ... More

This chapter explores resilience in international security. The concepts and practices of resilience have become a staple of international security discussions over recent years and are now firmly embedded within numerous government documents, replacing, and updating policy ideas based on risk. As in many policy arenas where it has taken hold, in relation to international security, resilience has metamorphosed out of a fixation with future security challenges and a focus on pre-emption and risk scanning. Policies of resilience have led to a reappraisal of who, what, and where is vulnerable to terrorism and how people, places, and processes can be made more resilient. The upsurge in terrorist attacks over the last few years has led to further proclamations that enhanced resilience is an antidote to the impact of such assaults, both in terms of how our cities look and feel, but also in terms of how society can cope with terrorism as well as assist with broader national or homeland security.Less

Evaluating Increases in Homeland Security Spending

John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart

in Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security

This chapter examines the costs and benefits of increases in homeland security spending since 2001 in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. It concludes that increases in American homeland security ... More

This chapter examines the costs and benefits of increases in homeland security spending since 2001 in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. It concludes that increases in American homeland security expenditures have been wildly inefficient. To be considered cost-effective in analyses that substantially bias the consideration toward the opposite conclusion, the enhanced expenditures each year would have had to have deterred, foiled, or protected against as many as 1,667 otherwise successful terrorist acts, roughly like the one intended on Times Square in 2010, or more than four per day. While increases in overall security spending have been much lower in the UK, Canada, and Australia, they still fail a cost-benefit evaluation.Less

The Goals of Deportation: Border Control, Social Control, or “Out of Sight Out of Mind”?

Daniel Kanstroom

in Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora

The chapter considers the goals of the deportation system in light of U.S. immigration history, policies, and self-definition as a ‘nation of immigrants.’ It offers a functional definition of ... More

The chapter considers the goals of the deportation system in light of U.S. immigration history, policies, and self-definition as a ‘nation of immigrants.’ It offers a functional definition of deportation and distinguishes extended border control (aimed at illegal immigration) from post-entry social control. It also notes the ethnic and racial aspects of the system and how it relates to crime and national security goals. It examines the culture of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security and examines such programs as the Secure Borders Initiative and Secure Communities.Less

// Maintaining Flexibility: How the Work Gets Done

in Under Construction: Making Homeland Security at the Local Level

This chapter addresses how the work of homeland security gets done. It identifies the key roles and categories of individual innovators who were able to stretch or step outside normal boundaries to ... More

This chapter addresses how the work of homeland security gets done. It identifies the key roles and categories of individual innovators who were able to stretch or step outside normal boundaries to suggest and teach and learn, and explores the tension between the desire for local autonomy and flexibility and the pressures to codify practice and institutionalize relationships. The chapter analyzes the role of affiliations, relationships, and community channels in practice, and considers the role of temporary, task-based organization as a means of resisting the institutionalization of community relationships.Less

Weapons of Mass Destruction: Are Our Political Institutions Adapting?

Eugene Bardach

in WMD Terrorism: Science and Policy Choices

This chapter examines the capacity of policy institutions to respond to the WMD threat. It considers five elements of adaptive capacity in the institutional system, and asks whether these are ... More

This chapter examines the capacity of policy institutions to respond to the WMD threat. It considers five elements of adaptive capacity in the institutional system, and asks whether these are currently effective and cost-efficient or are moving on a reasonable trajectory in these directions. They are (i) mobilizing sufficient resources; (ii) expending resources wisely; (iii) involving the private sector; (iv) creating and improving institutional capacity; and (v) governmental learning. The mainstream consensus among experts is that the mobilization of resources falls short, though probably not disastrously so. Such resources as we deploy are targeted about as well as government does such targeting generally. But spending and targeting money appears to be easier than building the needed institutional capacity — that is, fixing our public bureaucracies and getting them to work together — and in this regard homeland security resembles government generally.Less

Introduction

John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart

in Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security

This introductory chapter assesses the massive increase in homeland security expenditures in the wake of 9/11. It suggests that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) focuses all or almost all of ... More

This introductory chapter assesses the massive increase in homeland security expenditures in the wake of 9/11. It suggests that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) focuses all or almost all of its analyses on the contemplation of the consequences of a terrorist attack while substantially ignoring the equally important likelihood component of risk assessment, as well as the key issue of risk reduction. In general, risk assessment seems to be simply a process of identifying a potential source of harm and then trying to do something about it without evaluating whether the new measures reduce risk sufficiently to justify their costs. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Imaginary Homeland Security: The Internalization of Terror

Simon Ortiz and Gabriele Schwab (eds)

in America and the Misshaping of a New World Order

This chapter takes the historical event of September 11, 2001 out of its context and traces aspects of its idiosyncratic, scattered, and emotionally charged experience, which resulted in the ... More

This chapter takes the historical event of September 11, 2001 out of its context and traces aspects of its idiosyncratic, scattered, and emotionally charged experience, which resulted in the militarization of America in the name of homeland security. Rather than offering a political analysis, the chapter presents a sequence of personal responses that try to retain, even emphasize, the messiness, ambiguity, and the contradictory nature of remembered immediacy. It is composed of dialogical encounters of memory pieces that reveal incidents related to World War 2 and the postwar generations and their effects on the psyche of people who encountered those events. A faint synopsis is drawn from past events of the American approach and how it shaped the world, for better or for worse.Less

// Context: Policy and Geography

in Under Construction: Making Homeland Security at the Local Level

This chapter examines the policy context of homeland security in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. It describes some of the features of the Boston ... More

This chapter examines the policy context of homeland security in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. It describes some of the features of the Boston area that created a special context for homeland security operations, particularly the inconsistent patterns of regionalization and the impact of the Big Dig highway construction project. The chapter also provides an overview of the federal policies that influenced local action from civil defense to the present.Less

// Opportunities and Problems: Final Comments

in Under Construction: Making Homeland Security at the Local Level

This chapter sums up the key findings about this study on homeland security work and comments on the implications of homeland security practice. It highlights the concrete policy opportunities ... More

This chapter sums up the key findings about this study on homeland security work and comments on the implications of homeland security practice. It highlights the concrete policy opportunities available to anthropologists who chose to engage with this aspect of national security and describes some of the “ugly secrets” of subfederal homeland security. The chapter also discusses the need for disciplinary discussions on the realities of contemporary fieldwork and the importance of practice research for understanding complex, powerful institutions.Less

Securitization after 9/11

Ariane Chebel d’Appollonia

in Frontiers of Fear: Immigration and Insecurity in the United States and Europe

This chapter examines the “security packages” adopted by the U.S. and European governments in the aftermath of 9/11. The terrorism–immigration nexus was solidly consolidated by the events of 9/11 in ... More

This chapter examines the “security packages” adopted by the U.S. and European governments in the aftermath of 9/11. The terrorism–immigration nexus was solidly consolidated by the events of 9/11 in two ways. First, the belief that foreigners were more liable than citizens to commit terrorist attacks was used to justify a zero-tolerance approach to immigration offenses, tougher controls on borders, and even extraterritorial controls beyond borders. Second, the notion of the “war on terror” implied that the scope of U.S. counterterrorism policy should be expanded in order to respond to the global nature of the threat. This chapter first discusses U.S. and European security-driven immigration policies before considering how Europe and the United States subscribed to the “emergency times” doctrine and thus adopted “exceptional” measures designed to enhance homeland security. It argues that security concerns allowed the U.S. and European governments to circumvent both constitutional rules and international conventions.Less