Short Attention Spans and the Public Safety

Christopher Bellavita at the Naval Postgraduate School pens a short article (PDF link) on homeland security and the "issue attention cycle," a public policy phenomenon that will be instantly familiar to anyone engaged in long-term crisis management:

More than 30 years ago, Anthony Downs wrote about a cycle that affects many domestic public policy problems. Downs argued that certain issues follow a predictable five stage process: pre-problem, alarmed discovery, awareness of the costs of making significant progress, gradual decline of intense public interest, and the post problem stage. Before the [July 2005] London attacks, homeland security was on the cusp of Stage Five. After the attacks, it revisited Stage Two. Before too many months pass, it is likely to recall the difficulties of Stage Three, make a brief return trip through Stage Four, and – if there are no more attacks – settle into Stage Five.

Stage Five, of course, is when the whole business is left to the professionals, and leaves the center stage of public discourse. As frustrating as this may be for those professionals, Bellavita argues that this "diminished public interest in homeland security" actually may not be a serious problem. True, one imagines, if the proper resources have been allocated and the necessary specialists deployed, freeing the general public to focus on other things. But can we really say that we're there yet?