Politics versus Risk in Allocations of Federal Security Grants

Despite popular disparagement of homeland security policies, few have considered the question of whether our democracy has rationally protected itself against terrorism, or whether distributive politics has crowded out security imperatives. Distributive political theory is applied to the question of whether politics versus risk determines government spending across four grant programs purposed for homeland security. A model of security funding is tested using data from U.S. states from 2004-2006. Findings support politics over risk when programs are designed to award universal benefits to institutional decision makers. On the other hand, risk is predominately responsible for increasing funding for programs with narrow, particularistic benefits, even as they are strongly contested by officials in power. A key conclusion is that fair share strategies in grant politics actually produce unfair, or irrational, allocation outcomes in the area of security: the protection of status quo formulas is very much in the interest of political actors, especially if they might otherwise miss opportunities to secure fiscal resources for constituents (state and local governments) in a distressed economy – even at the expense of compromising security for all citizens.

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