Understanding Personnel Allocations in Response to 9/11

• In Event: Proactive Responses and Historical Accounts of Disasters

Abstract

In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States government reorganized how it defended itself. A new cabinet department was created (the Department of Homeland Security - DHS) as well as the intelligence community being restructured to eliminate the siloing of intelligence information. All these efforts sought to prevent another terrorist attack from disrupting the American way of life again. Ultimately, the people in these agencies handled the policy implementation of the newly created DHS. We use complete civilian personnel records from the Office of Personnel Management from 2000 to 2016 to describe the choices made in staffing and adjusting the new post-9/11 Homeland defense environment. Because the data is personnel data and not an organization chart, we can assess details about the type of people placed in these roles, to include any previous government experience, age, and education level. We can also assess the internal shuffling of personnel to staff these new agencies and any cross-government moves of personnel. Moreover, the data has individual identification numbers, which enables us to see the types of career pathways people in the new agencies undertook. Because we have all civilian employment records, not just DHS, we benchmark these trends against established departments, like Agriculture, to see if the similarities and differences of career professionals working in these newly established agencies vary. These comparisons will allow for an understanding of if these newly formed agencies behaved in novel ways in the wake of a terrorist attack or if they borrowed isomorphic similarities from existing cabinet level departments. We conclude with a discussion about what the findings imply for any future reorganization that would come in response to a massive exogenous shock to the federal government in the United States.

Author

• Scott Limbocker, United States Military Academy
  Presenting Author