U.S. Cities and Homeland Security: Examining the Role of Financial Conditions and Administrative Capacity in Municipal Preparedness Efforts

In this paper we address a question fundamental to understanding the potential effectiveness of homeland security policy across the U.S. federal system: what explains homeland security preparedness efforts at the municipal government level? Using data gathered from a nationwide survey of municipal officials, we examine the effects of city governments’ financial and administrative resources, along with measures of broader policy context, on several attitudinal and behavioral indicators of homeland security preparedness. We find that administrative resources have consistent and relatively robust explanatory power and we lay out several policy implications from the analyses presented.