Date of Award

5-2018

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Political Science

Advisor/Committee Chair

Victor Asal

Abstract

Why do some U.S. states allocate so much more money to their homeland security/emergency management budgets than others states do? This paper looks at multiple possible claims as to why this might be, including the political party control of the state, the state’s location to another country or body of water, the history of terrorist attacks in the state since September 11th, 2001, and the amount of money that is allocated to the state from the federal Homeland Security Grant Program. Budget information on each state’s homeland security/emergency management budget as well as the state’s overall FY 17 budget was collected and compared to the rest of the states. The states (excluding Missouri and Oklahoma due to lack of information) were all ranked in order from largest to smallest in terms of the percentage of how much the state allocates from its total budget to the homeland security/emergency management part of it. After conducting lots of research, it is still hard to tell which, if any, of these claims best answers the question at hand. Nevertheless, it is important to research and analyze this information as homeland security and emergency management are pressing issues in the ever-changing world we live in, filled with numerous different kinds of threats.

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