Richard T. Sylves

President Bush and Hurricane Katrina: A Presidential Leadership Study

Hurricane Katrina raised many concerns about presidential management of megadisasters. President George W. Bush has been criticized, and has personally accepted blame, for the failures and shortcomings of governmental response to this disaster. This work draws from government documents and public affairs information to analyze the facts of the event, the policies and organizational alignments in place before the disaster, and the president’s performance. This study concludes that how presidents lead, manage federal officials, cope with the news media, address federal-state relations, set the boundaries of civil-military relations, define their policy agendas, and choose political appointees for responsible posts all contribute to their ability, or inability, to address the demands imposed by disasters and catastrophes. In some respects, political, policy, and managerial decisions made by the president and his administration before the disaster seriously impeded the federal government’s ability to mitigate, prepare for, and respond to the catastrophe.

U.S. Presidents and Their Roles in Emergency Management and Disaster Policy 1950‐2009

This paper attempts both to rate the quality and breadth of presidential involvement in emergency management, as well as to examine the possible reasons for the differing quality. Using three major factors for evaluation, it is possible to review the presidential records from the second half of the twentieth century to today, and derive broad categorical assessments using a holistic methodology. The major factors are the ability and willingness to appropriately distinguish the needs and priorities of disaster management apart from civil defense needs and priorities, the selection of well-qualified disaster management leaders with a background in natural and accidental disasters, and the quality of implementation of programs including administrative execution, number and level of presidential disaster declarations, and timely presidential involvement in catastrophes. Using this framework, two presidents emerged as excellent, three as good, four as average, and two as poor. Interestingly, while some presidents learned from previous executive types of experiences, others did not. While some presidents learned from major catastrophes (focusing events) that occurred just before or during their administrations, others were hard-pressed simply to recover from especially disruptive or new disasters and failed to improve the system as a result. A consistent finding is that the performance of presidents in emergency management has had a growing effect on their overall reputations by the public and experts. Before 1950, presidential roles were extremely modest and expectations almost nonexistent. After Truman and through Regan, roles increased substantially and expectations were modest. From Clinton through Obama, the roles have continued to increase and expectations have become exceedingly high.

System Under Stress: Homeland Security and American Politics

System Under Stress: Homeland Security and American Politics by Donal F. Kettl examines the development of homeland security policy and administration. Creation of the Department of Homeland Security has brought together disparate fields with a new common goal. Kettl synthesizes policy from these fields while examining how federal, state, and local government officials responded to the 9/11 disaster and the anthrax letter incident.