Substituting Existing Federal/State/Local control and managed Homeland Security Services with Regional Governance: A Public Choice Approach

This paper suggests how to improve both the governing, and managing of natural and terrorist caused disasters, including ordinary homeland security services, by a regional competitive structure. It presents disaster experiences of failed such services, analyzes the reasons for such failures and suggests how a competitive system that relies on private and volunteer leaders, personnel and capital can improve response and recovery efforts over the existing monopolistic government system. Public Choice model is utilized to explain the reasons for failed experiences and how regional governance is socially more efficient than existing Federal and state control and locally managed disaster system. The paper suggests that the federal role changes from both funding and supplying aid to disasters to merely funding for damaged public goods. Regionally available businesses and government resources can be utilized under a competitive system instead of federal and state inventories and emergency personnel. A regionally controlled and managed entity which which develops its own financial resources is a major key for success.