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characteristics can be identified to explain the interdependencies of the federal, state and
local public health infrastructure? What can such an examination tell us about the system
capacity to respond to threats including biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear
threats (BCRN), which may arise either through acts of nature or by acts of terrorism?
As recent history indicates, federal reorganization is a persistent tool of
government despite growing consensus about limited observed or demonstrated effects
on public administration practices. Most theoretical frameworks and empirical findings
aim to explore and to explain the effects of reorganization on shifts in U.S. federal
governance. The extant literature, as this study examines, is operationalized normatively
to account primarily for the "horizontal" relations among the executive, congressional,
and judicial branches of government. The political science and public administration
literature thus provides an inadequate consideration of the broader context of federal
reorganization namely, the implications of reorganization on intergovernmental relations.
I assert that the effect of federal reorganization on the institutional structures
within the federalist system of government as posited from the perspective of the
executive, congressional, and judicial branches, regardless of how well argued, does not
offer sufficient elucidation of national policy making.
ii
This paper aims to address this
gap by linking perspectives from political science, public administration, and sociology
theory. It provides a preliminary framework for examining intergovernmental relations
and the role of the states in particular in the broader context of federal reorganization.
Specifically, it identifies the executive proposal put forward in June 2002 and provides a
qualitative analysis and comparison of the intergovernmental relations to explain the role
Convention