Reputation and Federal Emergency Preparedness Agencies, 1948

agencies were well funded and prominent. They slid into irrelevance until the 1980s, when
increased Cold War tensions and the threat of terrorism put FEMA on the front pages. After
September 11, FEMA was again in the news, but it resisted political pressure to change its
mission and core tasks. The FEMA of the 1990s did what the agency of the 1980s and the Cold
War could not—it resisted the attempts of political superiors to change its mission by developing
a clear central mission. With the support of an emergency management professional culture, an
enterprising director made political actors realize that the agency’s success was consonant with
their own. Politicians who threatened to dissolve the agency backed down, and FEMA had the
power to shape and preserve its all hazards approach and focus on natural disasters.
One reading of the history of FEMA might be that by defining its mission in a way that
supports politicians’ reelection chances the agency was purely an instrument of political actors
and not truly autonomous. This is the kind of explanation that emphasizes the critical role of the
median voter in Congress. But this explanation fails to take into account the degree to which
FEMA made policy and set its own course to a degree not achieved previously in the agency’s
history. While FEMA may not have gained autonomy or rejected the dictates of its political
superiors to the same degree as some of the more intransigent agencies in American history,
FEMA did manage to preserve its central mission against political pressure.
The crucial difference between FEMA before 1993 and after is the presence of a strong
reputation. That reputation emerged because of the rise of several factors. After the emergency
management profession matured, it provided expertise to the agency through reports, training
and a culture that produced knowledgeable managers at the state and local level, some of whom
eventually served in FEMA. Professional emergency managers helped to criticize and improve
the agency’s performance, largely by helping it to hone a set of achievable core tasks and a
single mission. In addition, the agency developed a connection to the president, Congress, and
the public during the 1990s. The ability of the agency to communicate and to respond to
criticism allowed it to better serve its stakeholders and to signal the agency’s responsiveness.
During the 1990s FEMA improved its public and governmental relations, which undoubtedly
aided the agency’s appearance, but experts disagree whether the improved reputation reflected
more efficient performance or whether it reflected mere marketing and greater federal spending.
Politicians came to respect FEMA because they could claim credit for its success in delivering
goods efficiently. Whether government disaster relief is more efficient than private aid is an open
question—scholars have demonstrated the political nature of disaster declarations, and Witt
admitted as much himself (Garrett and Sobel 2003).
Homeland Security and Disaster Policy
The history of federal emergency management agencies is not only of theoretical
interest—the post September 11 era presents specific substantive challenges for American
security and civil liberties. One such challenge is whether the new department should embrace
the all hazards approach to disasters. One of FEMA’s accomplishments during the 1990s was to
install a single clear mission, which is essential to the success of an agency (Wilson 1989). The
all hazards approach developed gradually as the demand for federal natural disaster assistance
surpassed the need for civil defense capacities. Witt and others used the all hazards approach to
reduce FEMA’s role in civil defense and national security to a bare minimum while increasing
its capacity to provide natural disaster assistance. There were several reasons that all hazards
worked.
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