Changing Homeland Security: An Opportunity for Competence
Abstract
Hurricane Katrina shattered belief that the nation’s homeland security system was
ready for a major terrorist attack. Public administrators staff that system. Katrina provides
an opportunity to review the central normative premise of public administration:
competence. This article briefly reviews the changing competence frameworks that have
guided public administration since the 1880s. Over the last one hundred years, administrators
have been seen as artisans, scientists, social reformers, and managers. The ineptness
of the public sector’s response to Katrina reminds us – however briefly – that for the last 30
years, government has been seen as the enemy, the problem to be solved – not the partner
in finding solutions. The result is a demoralized and dysfunctional public workforce. The
American homeland can never be secure until the public workforce recreates the spirit of
competent service so glaringly absent in the wake of Katrina.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
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