A Delphi Assessment of Barriers to Institutional Consensus in the U.S. Homeland Security Community

Homeland security is one of the most fundamental and challenging issues in the United States. Historically, homeland security deals with the unknown and the unpredictable. The intelligence reports and alarming trends of terrorism have confirmed that terrorists have significant leverage to attack the U.S. The events of September 11, 2001 (9/ll) and subsequent investigations exposed the lack of institutional consensus as the primary weakness of the U.S. homeland security community. In the aftermath of 9/11, many scholars have researched homeland security in the context of cooperation, collaboration, and unity of effort as a proxy for consensus. However, despite public laws and national strategies, events like the December 25, 2009 attempted underwear bombing and the 2013 Boston marathon bombing continue to occur. The purpose of this qualitative study was to assess the barriers to institutional consensus among the organizations involved in homeland security. This study utilized the Delphi research technique in conjunction with three theoretical perspectives to collect, synthesize, and analyze subject matter experts' opinion, insights, and judgment on the factors that constitute barriers to consensus within the U.S. homeland security community. The 20 subject matter experts were selected from two sources located in the United States: (a) the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts; and (b) the Linkedln Professional Network. The study used eight organizational constructs to structure the Delphi iterations. The implications of the findings showed significant support in literature that factors internal and external to the U.S. homeland security community, such as bureaucratic control, unshared environment, information protection, culture, structural arrangement, politics and legislative control, legislations, Congressional oversights, authorization and appropriation practices, and political actors impede consensus among agencies. The results of the study illustrated the need for homeland security organizations to unite, the need for Congressional committees to consolidate their efforts, and the need for Congress and the President to shun partisanship and build a united capability to tackle the escalating threat of terrorism. It was further recommended that researchers employ other research instruments or other theoretical perspectives to investigate the U.S. homeland security community, based on the revealing constructs and themes associated with this study.