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Administrative Ironies in the Objectivism-Realism Crosshairs Richard J. Herzog and Cory Polk Stephen F. Austin State University [email protected] and [email protected]
Abstract
This paper seeks to build various administrative ironies that govern and dictate security policies and practices in the United States. To gain a foothold on these ironies, we pit schools of administrative thinking like bureaucratic rationality (objectivism) and anti-essentialism (realism) against each other as we lean on the philosophical works of Michael Pendlebury. We also find discourse (objectivism) with phrases like “war on drugs,” “war on terrorism,” “border security,” and “anti-terrorism” tend not to match the realities formulated by policy, management techniques, funding, and fences or walls. Part of the problem with these phrases is that they are propagated and measured prior to definition. After objectivism and realism are framed we provide a methods section where we use a recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report to review recursive practices to build the anti-objectivism case. This case is presented in our findings with a lens of realism that exposes and questions the reports that are void of the operationalization of key concepts, use percentage based measures without numeration, and provide performance measures lower than capabilities that may decrease national security. The reports, these findings, and the administrative ironies raise national security concerns not only for scholars, but for oversight bodies, managers and workers in DHS, the public, and ultimately to administrators in DHS.
Introduction
The depth of this paper seeks to thoroughly examine the misconceptions of national and border line securities and regulations. Implications of this study will expose that although security missions have been created to outcast potential threats to national security, in reality, documented practices, policies, and procedures, present ironic drawbacks that adversely expose these national concerns. This work illustrates the irony in which United States border governance invites many of the cancerous activities which we aim to deport. In this case, border security efforts have fallen short of reducing illegal immigration; but have merely redirected immigration with much success. These extreme measures of security only prompt these immigrants to become combative, formulating significantly more dangerous and innovative methods to cross border lines. Through detailed investigative research, this paper attacks theories of objectivism regarding the role that borders play in United States and perhaps other countries by revealing target objectives followed by perverse and counterproductive consequences. For example, the November 2011 ISAF/NATO cross-border attacks on Pakistani troops have not improved border security, but they have strained U.S. Pakistan relations. Accompanying this discussion of border regulations and practices is an examination of methodology error while placing theoretical perspectives into practice.
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Objectivism and Realism
This paper maintains the distinctions between objectivism and realism while exploring their combinations. Pendlebury notes that these combinations can be “realism with objectivism, realism with anti-objectivism, anti-realism with objectivism, and anti-realism with anti-objectivism” (Pendlebury, 2011, p.2). If essentialism is close to objectivism and anti-essentialism is matched with realism, this paper will approach administrative ironies related to border security from realism with anti-objectivism perspective. Objectivism, as viewed in DHS reports, “is about affirmations of a given type as the view that they are subject to adequate, non-arbitrary standards of correctness, and that there are a significant number of nontrivial affirmations of this type that can be known to be correct” (Pendlebury, 2011, p.2). The administrative ironies uncovered in this study can become the standards that question correctness in DHS reports. “The hope of suspicion that objectivity is possible in a given domain does not entitle us to help ourselves to objectivity simply by embracing realism” (Pendlebury, 2008, p. 537). We believe we are only entitled to critical evaluation of objectivity with a method grounded in documented information. We would like to determine how close the DHS reports are to the genuine Truth about homeland security. We may make an argument for simulacra to state that at some level national security is replaced or dependent on symbolic reports and documents. The overwhelming desire for transparency has pushed reality to the side through enhancements in documented reports. These enhancements are buffeted by the use of statistics. Hummel (2006) was correct: “We live in a world of numbers, but numbers have become so dominant that we consider nothing to be real unless it can be measured and mathematized” (p. 58). We conclude and agree with Hummel (2006) that the information in the DHS reports may not be knowledge and may have little value at the managerial and worker levels of the department. Is Hummel correct: “Such a system of numbers and their relations among one another may be valued as superior by executives and administrators who deal with ideas and measures unsullied by reality” (2006, p. 62). If Hummel is correct there is a need to use the theoretical lens of realism to put a better face on the numbers. As it stands, objectivism has been able to overpower realism.
DHS openly admits that they “continue to face measurement challenges in gauging a mission focused on prevention and deterrence” (DHS 2012, p. 4). We believe DHS is following Pendlebury’s (2007) philosophy as they display “robust signs of objective commitment . . . an adequate account of the possibility of correctness and incorrectness” (p. 537)
The verification and validation of performance measure data is intended to increase the accuracy of the performance data. As such, DHS implemented a two-pronged approach to effectively mitigate risks and reinforce processes that enhance DHS’s ability to report complete and reliable data for performance measure reporting. This approach consists of: 1) the GPRA Performance Measure Checklist for Completeness and Reliability; and 2) independent assessment of the completeness and reliability of GPRA performance measures (DHS 2012, p. 5)
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DHS reporting has a heavy emphasis on numbers and the utilization which should lead the
readers of reports to a sense of national security. These readers may be members of Congress,
interest groups, scholars, the public, and executives within DHS. The key element in this study is
whether or not national security can be measured with numbers or whether the phased out
color-coded terrorism threat advisory with levels of alert (red, orange, yellow, blue, and
green)1 can be based on numbers and the evaluation of policies, programs, and practices or is
there some other more meaningful form of human knowledge.
We contrast the DHS efforts with those of the Texas Model of border security. In an article
discussing the model Operation Border Star, contracted and operated by Abrams Learning &
Information Systems (ALIS), notes that there is not “substantial documentation to back their
claims about the success of the Texas model of border security” (Simon, 2012, p. 10). The Texas
Department of Public Safety (DPS) has repeatedly rejected requests by the Center for
International Policy for various strategy statements, operations plans, and performance reports
that ALIS was contracted to produce, arguing that the information was “law enforcement
sensitive.” We argue that documentation and independent review and legislative oversight are
essential. It is not acceptable that public monies are spent without performance reporting. It is
ironic to think that performance reporting would jeopardize national or state security: when if
designed properly it should enhance state or national security. If performance is high or low in
relation to targets, suggestions can be made that the mission is being accomplished (high) or
that additional resources are needed (low) or if the performance is too low perhaps that
operations should cease to exist and the resources redeployed. Without documentation and
proper performance measures we believe Operation Border Star has been exposed to a
“legitimacy crisis.” Knowledgeable citizens and legislators should question the efficacy of the
project and the resultant interactions between federal and local national security officials.
We use realism to uncover standards labeled “administrative ironies.” These standards “of
what we could call the robust truth—which could be cashed out as descriptive adequacy, fact
fitting, of something of that ilk” (Pendlebury, 2011, p. 2). We argue that realism plays a crucial
part in explaining objectivism (Pendlebury, 2007, p. 538). At some level realism relies on values
pluralism and attempts to sort out the trivial from the nontrivial standards or administrative
ironies. We accept errors in our judgment. “Realism is a vital and useful theory of International
Relations” (Spiro, 2010, p. 2). Anti-realists would deny that the standards can “be understood
realistically as a robust factual belief” (Pendlebury 2011, p. 3). Realism is the attempt to bring
administrative ironies to the attention of executives, top administrators, and oversight bodies
1 On January 27, 2011 Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano made the announcement that color-coded
system often presented little practical information to the public and homeland security partners and that a new two level National Terrorism Advisory System will provide alerts “specific to the threat” and that “they will have a specific end date” (Mathes, 2011).
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in hopes that knowledge analytics and systems can be matched with managerial and worker
levels of knowledge.
The initial work in this paper attempts to investigate Hansen’s (2009) claim that the “rationality
project of homeland security has thus far been ineffective” (p. 351). This project must view
documented rationality along with policies, practices, and events. Perhaps building ironies from
the documented rationality will provide a framework to better understand policies, practices
and events designed to promote national security.
Garrett and Storbeck (2011) would agree that the border fence or wall along the Rio Grande
Valley, viewed as a policy and event, is seen as a failure on semiotic, space, and subjectivity
grounds. This failure would be in agreement with Carlson’s (2009) interpretation of Derrida that
“a democratic cultural politics that deconstructed national and linguistic borders [the impact of
the fence or wall] to show how they have been implicated in the construction of binary
oppositional identities, with those on one side of the border privileged and those on the other
subordinated one treated as “normal” and the other “abnormal” and deficient” (p. 260). Should
we expect states to even act as unitary rational actors? (Spiro, 2010, p. 4). States can accept
what are claimed to be rational actions that appear irrational when viewed from antiessentialist
and constructivism perspectives. At its base, realism will assume “an arational reflex, a process
that has roughly the epistemological status of digestion” (Braver, 2007, p. 3). We anticipate that
the digestion of the DHS reports combined with selected interviews will uncover a multitude of
administrative ironies. The interviews conducted by Garrett (2010) provide the need to develop
knowledge analytics at the worker level in DHS.
A Turn to Immanuel Kant
This study may rely on Immanuel Kant’s work on transcendental idealism and epistemological
grounding for the objectivism findings to make any sense. The aim of this method is to use
unobservable explanations to explain documented observances. These explanations are
created by the unbounded power of minds that view the bounded nature of reality that is
enhanced by experiences. “The core of the Critique of Pure Reason and the linchpin of its
rationalist-empiricist synthesis: namely, the idea that the mind actively organizes experience”
(Braver, 2007, p. 5) is used in this study. The emphasis in this paper is on the “construction of
knowledge rather than passively reflecting an independent reality” (Braver, 2007, p. 3).
As Hume would maintain, “causality is a habit of the mind.” A variety of performance measures
will create national security. However, the administrative ironies that surface bring into
question that our ability to measure performance would or could cause anything including
national security; especially, if performance measures are deemed less than accurately
employed due to confliction within DHS personnel. The application of the designed hierarchical
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structure is outlined so that “managers attempt to fulfill organizational orders from above by
directing the employees of the organization as to how to do the work to meet executive
demands” (Garrett, 2010, p. 349).
A priori lenses will suggest the explanations of interest. These interests could include
humanitarian, bureaucratic, political, economic and sociological and each could be viewed as a
different lens. Ontological pluralism would recognize that each lens can only provide a portion
of the truth. If parts of the reports appear valid or we can find non trivial affirmations, this will
rule out total skepticism (Pendlebury, 2011, p. 4).
Methods
This investigation uses an anti-objectivism approach by viewing the recursive practices of the
United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). (Caution is taken against using a realism
approach that is overly pessimistic.) A combination of analytical and continental philosophies
may be beneficial to this inquiry. However, what if practices of measuring performance occur
again, and again, and do not ensure success? These practices cover the structural morass
associated with DHS and will fall short as processes, practices, and even policies will exist
outside documented rationality. Imagination may be required to move from objectivism to
realism. The foundation or burden of proof for this movement will come from objectivism.
The methodology associated with identifying DHS objectivism and realism was to extract
empirical data through a documented 2010-2012 and 2011-2013 comparison, specifically
performance measures from the department’s annual performance reports. Objectivism may
be recognized as the departmental efforts to strategically approach a specific area of
vulnerability within national security and implement a tactical line of attack or terminate any
unsuccessful efforts, in hopes of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of border security
measures. Realism may be illustrated by the potential outcomes of these adjusted measures;
realism sheds light on whether or not these DHS policy implementations are meeting their
intended objectives and if these objectives and results are properly documented for agency,
oversight, and public view. Realism essentially promotes the concept of outcome monitoring or
the deconstruction of the reports to determine whether or not national security has been
enhanced. Realism exposes the reality of border security measures, while acknowledging a
possible margin of error, undocumented occurrences or slight misrepresentation, and forces
government to adopt or consider theoretical perspectives in targeting robust objectivity.
Discussion on Findings
The findings in Table 1 can be questioned and the yellow highlighted new measures are
specifically discussed. In Table 1, the percent of inbound air cargo screened on international
passenger flights originating from outside the United States and Territories is being screened in
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fiscal year (FY) 2012 at 85 percent. It is a concern that 15 percent of those flights are not being
screened and DHS plans to move this measure to 100 percent in FY 2013. This type of
performance measure tells us about the workload at screening centers, but it does not tell us
about the outcomes or impacts of such screening. Does the screening turn back any cargo that
would be a threat? Does the screening prevent dangerous cargo from being transported on
international passenger flights? These are important questions that need to be addressed from
the information in Table 1 to properly assess national security.
Table 1: Review of New Measures to DHS Annual Performance Report Fiscal Years 2011-2013
Mission DHS 2012-2013 New Measures
Planned Targets 2012-2013
Mission 1: Prevent Terrorism and Enhancing Security
Percent of inbound air cargo screened on international passenger flights originating from outside the United States and Territories (Transportation Security Administration).
85% / 100%
Mission 2: Securing and Managing Our Borders
Percent of inbound high-risk cargo transported by air, land, or sea that has been screened and entry status is resolved prior to or during processing at a United States port of entry (Customs and Border Protection)
For Official Use Only FOUO / FOUO
Mission 2: Securing and Managing Our Borders
Percent of significant high-risk transnational criminal investigations that result in a disruption or dismantlement (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
16% / 16%
Mission 3: Enforcing and Administering Our Immigration Laws
Accuracy rate of USCIS's processing of manual verifications for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) referrals (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services)
98% / 98%
Mission 3: Enforcing and Administering Our Immigration Laws
Percent of Citizenship and Integration Grant Program grantees that meet annual performance plan goals (US Citizenship and Immigration Services)
90 % / 90%
Mission 4: Safeguarding and Securing Cyberspace
Percent of external traffic monitored for cyber intrusions in civilian Federal Executive Branch agencies (National Protection and Programs Directorate)
55% / 70%
Source: Department of Homeland Security, 2012
The percent of significant high-risk transnational criminal investigations that result in a
disruption or dismantlement is targeted at 16 percent for Fiscal Year 2012 and Fiscal Year 2013
leads the reader to believe that 84 percent of these investigations are nonproductive. If this is
to become an important measure for securing and managing our borders (Mission 2) then the
productivity needs to be questioned or perhaps investigation needs to be better defined. This
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definition of investigation would operationalize high risk, criminal, disruption, and
dismantlement.
The number of significant citizenship outreach events complied by the U.S. Citizen Immigration
Services (USCIS) is being retired (see Table 2), even though the 85 event target was surpassed
by 89 events in FY 2011. The measure of significant and nonsignificant events is not detailed.
There is no explanation for this retirement other than instituting the new measure that does
not appear to be related to outreach events. This performance measure will document the
“percent of Citizenship and Integration Grant Program grantees that meet annual performance
goal plans” (DHS, 2012, p. 21).
How could a measure be retired when it exceeded its target by 4,258 or 646 percent? Case in
point, is the number of visa application requests denied due to recommendations from the Visa
Security Program (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) with a Fiscal Year 2011 target of 780
and with results of 5,038 (see Table 2). This raises the question of whether Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) is abandoning the practice or the measure; we hope it is just the
latter.
Table 2: Review of Retired Measures in DHS Annual Performance Report Fiscal Years 2011-2013
Mission DHS 2012-2013 Retired Measures
Mission 3: Enforcing and Administering Our Immigration Laws
Number of significant citizenship outreach events (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services).
Mission 3: Enforcing and Administering Our Immigration Laws
Number of visa application requests denied due to recommendations from the Visa Security Program (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Mission 4: Safeguarding and Securing Cyberspace
Percent of young adults with sufficient level of cybersecurity awareness (National Protection and Programs Directorate)
Mission 5: Ensuring Resilience to Disasters
Percent of Federal Departments and Agencies that have viable continuity programs to maintain essential functions in the case of disaster (Federal Emergency Management Agency)
Source: Department of Homeland Security, 2012
The performance measure on the percent of young adults with a sufficient level of
cybersecurity awareness to be measured by the National Protection & Programs Directorate
(NPPD) in Table 2 is being retired. The collection of data for this measure was dependent on a
survey question used by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the National Cyber Security
Alliance that was discontinued (DHS, 2012, p.26). If the measure was important to NPPD the
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dependence of the measure on two other agencies becomes questionable. Now the NPPD
claims to be “working to establish an implementation plan and measurement strategy to gauge
awareness in the future” (DHS, 2012, p. 26)
The performance measures in Table 3 produce questions of error and common misconceptions
of departmental security effectiveness. Percentages are used for the four yellow highlighted
performance measures Table 3 that have planned targets for 2012-2013. The associated
performance measures signify percentages, average customer satisfaction, call completion
rates the total number of owner operators, facilities, customers, or calls are not offered in this
report.
Table 3: Review of Changes to DHS Annual Performance Report Fiscal Years 2011-2013
Mission DHS 2011-2013 Performance Measures
Planned Targets 2012-2013
Mission 1: Prevent Terrorism and Enhancing Security
Percent of owner/operators of critical infrastructure and key resources who report that the products provided by Infrastructure Protection enhance their understanding of the greatest risks to their infrastructure (National Programs and Programs Directorate)
75% / 80%
Mission 1: Prevent Terrorism and Enhancing Security
Percent of facilities that have implemented at least one security enhancement that raises the facility’s protective measure index score after receiving an Infrastructure Protection vulnerability assessment or survey (National Programs and Programs Directorate)
50% / 55%
Mission 2: Securing and Managing Our Borders
Number of apprehensions on the Southwest Border between ports of entry (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
≤ 371,000 / ≤ 352,000
Mission 2: Securing and Managing Our Borders
Number of weapons seized on exit from the United States (CBP) 2,100 / 2,000
Mission 3: Enforcing and Administering Our Immigration Laws
Average customer satisfaction rating with information provided about legal immigration pathways from USCIS call centers (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service)
80 % / 80%
Mission 3: Enforcing and Administering Our Immigration Laws
Number of employees arrested or sanctioned for criminally hiring illegal labor (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
478 / 501
Mission 5: Ensuring Resilience to Disasters
Government Emergency Telecommunications Service call completion rate during emergency communication periods (National Programs and Programs Directorate)
90 % / 90 %
Source: Department of Homeland Security, 2012
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There is a 5 percent target goal increase of owner/operators of critical infrastructure and key
resources for FY 2013 (yellow highlighted in Table 3). Yet, there is no representative value for
the total number of owner/operators, which this performance measure seeks to assess. This
raises the question of significance; how significant is 80 percent when an informational gap
exists regarding where this percent originated. A performance target of 80 percent of
owner/operators means very little when you are not aware of how many owner/operators
were measured. For example, 80 percent of ten significantly differs from 80 percent of one
thousand. This lack of information creates a concern that an insufficient amount of
owners/operators are being measured, this lack of substance offers a possible lack of security.
We are more comfortable with the number of apprehensions on the Southwest Border
between ports of entry, the number of weapons seized on exit from the United States and the
number of employees arrested or sanctioned for criminally hiring illegal labor listed in Table 3.
Table 4: Review of Changes to DHS Annual Performance Report Fiscal Years 2011-2013
Performance Measure
DHS: FY 2011-2012 Target / Results
Planned Targets 2012 / 2013
Percent of facilities that have implemented at least one security enhancement that raises the facility’s protective measure index score after receiving an Infrastructure Protection vulnerability assessment or survey (National Programs and Programs Directorate)
15% / 61% 50% / 50%
Average customer satisfaction rating with information provided about legal immigration pathways from USCIS call centers (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service)
70% / 84% 80% / 80%
Number of employers arrested or sanctioned for criminally hiring illegal labor (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
455 / 624 478 / 501
Government Emergency Telecommunications Service call completion rate during emergency communication periods (National Protection and Programs Directorate)
90% / 97.8% 90% / 90%
Source: Department of Homeland Security, 2012
Year to year, DHS adjusts their security targets for each performance measure. Unfortunately,
many of these adjustments are inconsistent with higher performance and targets, and perhaps
bigger budgets and mission accomplishment. Concerns arise regarding why specific security
measures would lower their target goal when the prior year exemplified greater security
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potential and capabilities. For instance, the target goal for the number of employers arrested or
sanctioned for criminally hiring illegal labor was 445 during FY 2011 (yellow highlighted in Table
4). Surprisingly, the target goal was vastly exceeded and resulted in 624 employers arrested or
sanctioned. With quantitative evidence of the capabilities of this security measure, DHS lowers
the FY 2012 and FY 2013 target goals for the same performance measures. It is a concern that a
lack of security and accountability is in place. Why lessen the target goal of a security measure
when it is evident that security tactics have the capability to excel further? However, the
heightened awareness of this program may lessen the need to arrest or sanction employers?
Grounded Research
“It would be a mistake to take the statements of government officials at face value when they
argue that policies regarding our borders are motivated by the national interest. The character
of our borders, the enforcement of our borders, and the social construction of our borders are
heavily invested with a history or overt racism and xenophobia” (Spiro, 2010, pp. 24-25). In
addition, we are aware that our national security is heavily invested in performance reporting.
Statements found in the DHS reports claim competence and should not be taken at face value
and they are not universals. The reports are discursive practices as they cover all five missions:
preventing terrorism and enhancing security, securing and managing our borders, enforcing
and administering our immigration laws, safeguarding and securing cyberspace, and ensuring
resilience to disasters. Although we may not find overt racism and xenophobia, we do question
the methodologies used to collect the data, data entry practices, failures to collect information,
and statistical analysis behind the reports. The reports do contain discussions of methodological
rigor. The book How to Lie with Statistics needs to be reviewed.
“Security agencies [like DHS] do not simply respond to threats; they take part in creating them
by objectifying them in their routine work, in the way they put their statistics together, in the
hierarchy given to different dangers, in the priorities they set, in the technical solutions
available, in the know-how they think they possess” (Bigo, 1994, p. 165). With grounded
research in this study the administrative ironies are based on the information in DHS
documents or what could be considered the data. Since the ironies are generated from the
documents they will be considered to be grounded.
Do the measures address threats to homeland security? For example, how does the number of
weapons seized exiting the United States relate to homeland security? If the weapons are
leaving the country would that not make the country more secure (see Table 3)? It is
documented that the number of apprehensions by the Border Patrol has decreased on the
Southwest Border between ports of entry from 705,022 in FY 2008 to 327,577 in FY 2011—a
53.5 percent decline (see Table 3). How can this decrease be explained? We find both
bureaucratic and political explanations. The DHS report notes this result due to “unprecedented
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deployments of personnel, technology, and infrastructure, historic partnerships with law
enforcement partners on both sides of the border, and increasing consequences for repeat
offenders” (DHS, 2012, p. 14). President Obama, in his 2012 State of the Union Message, notes
“That’s why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why
there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office” (Obama, 2012). The president
provides an interesting take on causality and militarization of the Southwest border. The
reports and the president are suggesting a security surplus. When is the goal for border
apprehensions going to be obtained, is there a number? What if the number of illegal
immigrants coming into the country is actually going up? If the answer to this question is
affirmative, than we would have a security deficit. Are policy responses advocated by the
president based on objectivism and DHS reporting? Both the president and DHS appear to be
promoting a hard Southwestern border. How does this promotion match the knowledge
analytics at managerial and workers levels in DHS (Garrett, 2010)? This paper attempts to
move the discussion to a constructed nature of the border that combines the cultural, social,
economic, and political features to uncover administrative ironies related to security.
Security is a subjective not objective dynamic. Security is argued to be a “speech act” (Buzan, 1998, pp. 23-24). As a speech act, the perceptions, feelings, and beliefs about security can “change-on-a-dime” with one terrorist attack. Without a changing/crisis event, like 9/11, change in U.S. security policy and procedures tends to follow the normal political procedures that are heavily influenced by electoral cycles of the presidency. Policy change needs to look ahead to implementation and evaluation and bureaucratic structures may or may not be supportive/capable of the change. “Security is constructed through language; the way an issue is framed determines the structure of the discourse, which potentially can affect reality” (Bigo, 1994, p. 165). Security is heavily dependent on the concept of “border.”
Border Construction a Governable Space Borders are determined by social construction and may only hold objective or neutral facts in geographic (e.g. boundary lines) and statistical senses. The construction of borders changes with time and perspective such as cultural, social, economic, and national security. These constructions can be top-down (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) or bottom-up (Fox & Miller, 1996). The type of construction has impacts on administrative practices. In this study we view the identity of the border and its impact on national security (Robertson, 2008). Top-down approaches will influence laws and policies where as bottom-up approaches will influence practices and techniques. Different sets of values are associated with different types of construction. Egalitarian values are associated with bottom-up approaches.
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What is an Irony? An irony occurs when there is an incongruity or discordance between what is said and what is done. It can be similar to the disconnect between espoused theories and theories-in-use when administrators may say, “Do as say, not as I act.” An administrative irony occurs when a practice, technique, policy, or action is opposed to the
mission. Or a particular situation makes it difficult to reach a mission. It becomes a situational
irony: “when you are up to your ass in alligators; it is difficult to remember that your initial
objective was to drain the swamp.” A situational irony provides a strong hint of goal
displacement.
In order to have national security must produce reports that suggest we have national security.
These reports are required by the Government Performance Results Modernization Act of
2010, signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. This law requires the
Department of Homeland Security to set performance goals that can be accurately measured
and publically reported in a transparent way. After 9/11, “border arrest and seizures also
provided border enforcers with ready-made (if highly imperfect and misleading) visible
indicators of government progress and commitment to creating a more orderly border. This
helped win votes for politicians and secure higher budgets for enforcement bureaucracies”
(Andreas, 2003, p. 4).
There will be a bias to report that security measures have been met. If DHS produced reports
where objectives were not met, we would need to question national security and this may
enhance attempts to disrupt national security. The irony occurs if the reports state the country
is secure when in fact it is not.
Administrative Ironies within Border Securities Each of the ironies bulleted below deserve further discussion. Some of the ironies are supported in the findings section of this paper.
Many border security measures are operating at 100 percent, yet the Obama administration continues to put “more boots on the borders than ever” (Why the need for more border security personnel and hiring peaks?)
It is ironic that FY 2011 results are greater than targets for certain performance measures in FY 2012 and FY 2013. This brings into question the value of the performance measures in helping to provide additional national security.
The border ports and walls of entry are designed to keep illegal immigrants out yet they actually shelter and constrain illegal immigrants within the U.S., in which makes it difficult for them to leave.
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Border security is designed to protect the U.S and keep foes and potential threats out yet DHS takes a great interest in deadly firearms leaving the country rather than interdicting or disrupting the flow of weapons into the country.
An objective of all agencies within DHS is to ensure effective and efficient border security measures are carried out to defend national security yet specific agency policies and procedures conflict with other agencies making their practices ineffective and inefficient.
For example, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has no authority to
handle situations at the airports dealing with firearms that are undeclared or stored
improperly. Due to jurisdiction and TSA rules that only agents can detain a suspect and
must call upon the local law enforcement to take further action. This is very ineffective
and time consuming; a federal agency may not take action against a security breach and
is required to wait on local law enforcement. Problematic discourse by DHS as a
bureaucratic institution with “local government agencies, nonprofits, businesses, and
private citizens” has been researched and discussed with other security issues like wall
construction (Garrett & Storbeck, 2011, p. 544).
Texas officials, including Governor Perry, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Chief,
attorney general, and agricultural commissioner frequently charge the federal
government with the inability to control the Texas-Mexico border, but fail to
acknowledge that state operations are dependent on federal funding.
Texas officials claim that they can maintain border security without federal intervention
when half of the Texas Department of Public Safety budget is from federal funding.
“One of the most striking central ironies of border control (as of many other security
and police measures) is that they may have the greatest impact there where they are
needed least” (Shutt and Deflem, 2008, p.101).
Macroculture versus Internal Order
This investigation may reveal a documented trend to minimize efforts to address macrocultural
and “globalization” issues with policies, structures, and management techniques that favor the
internal order of bureaucratic agencies and the territoriality treatment of borders. Realism will
suggest that internalization efforts may fall short on a variety of fronts which include national
security, humane treatment, and bureaucratic rationality. Applications of theory cannot use the
state as the unit of analysis and must view the macroculture to better understand
administrative ironies. The way the borders are constructed becomes important where we
could have top-down and bottom-up approaches. This study uses a top-down approach as
recursive practices are discovered and knowledge analytics are discussed at the executive level.
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A performance measure in the DHS 2011-2013 report shows the retiring of a joint operation
along the Southwest Border by Border Patrol Agents and Mexican law enforcement partners as
being terminated. Even though there were only 12 operations in FY 2011, this measure is now
going to be maintained internally with no indication of the number of continued operations, or
their outcome or impact (DHS, 2012, p.15)
Conclusions
This research has questioned objectivism: statistics, the use to mathematics, and performance
measures found in recent DHS reports. Other documented research has assisted in authors in
the development of a set of preliminary administrative ironies based in part on realism. These
ironies do not bode well for a sense of national security in the U.S. To enhance credibility and
confidence in national security, DHS reports should operationalize performance measures and
provide actual numbers when reporting percentages. This operationalization would follow the
advice of Hummel (2006): that we must continually put defining before counting (p. 74). These
minor changes would enhance the sense of national security in the U.S. Major changes are
needed to document the outcomes and impacts of performance measures. In addition, these
changes may have some impact at the managerial and worker levels of DHS, as they would
begin to coordinate activities under the same knowledge systems.
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