84th Annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association January 3-5, 2013 Orlando, Florida.

An estimated $400 billion has been spent on "security" in the decade after September 11, 2001 (Trotta, 2011). Among the important changes in governmental response to these "focal events" (Birkland, 1997) is a growing interdependence that is "often mandated" (Caruson and MacManus, 2006). All of these efforts lead inevitably to the question "Is it working?" In particular, are the reforms working as they were intended? This study develops a theoretical framework to analyze institutional change among local homeland security organizations; specifically CCCs (Citizen Corps Councils) and CERTs (Community Emergency Response Teams) in Florida over the last ten years. Using Florida as a case study provides greater understanding into the implementation of Department of Homeland Security mandates. This study performs a social network analysis to evaluate institutional change among CCCs and CERTs from the years 2002 to 2011; specifically in the wake of three focal events: (1) the attacks on September 11, 2001 (2) the 2004-2005 hurricane seasons and (3) the explosion of the Macondo well platform in the Gulf of Mexico (2010). Evaluating the role of actors or nodes in the network will give insight into the interconnections present over the last ten years. The role of cohesion in the network is assessed through the amount of transitivity present. In particular, the analysis reveals that while the number and density of connections have increased, the overall centrality of the network has decreased. Results of the analysis bring to light a network of organizations that are more complex yet more decentralized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]