Crisis Management in Hindsight: Cognition, Communication, Coordination, and Control

This article argues that cognition is central to performance in emergency management. Cognition is defined as the capacity to recognize the degree of emerging risk to which a community is exposed and to act on that information. Using the case of Hurricane Katrina to illustrate the collapse of the standard model of emergency management without a clear focus on the role of cognition, the author reframes the concept of intergovernmental crisis management as a complex, adaptive system. That is, the system needs to adjust and adapt its performance to fit the demands of an ever-changing physical, engineered, and social environment. The terms of cognition, communication, coordination, and control are redefined in ways that fit the reality of practice in extreme events. A reframed intergovernmental crisis management system may be conceived as a dynamic interorganizational system that is characterized by four primary decision points: (1) detection of risk, (2) recognition and interpretation of risk for the immediate context, (3) communication of risk to multiple organizations in a wider region, and (4) self-organization and mobilization of a collective, community response system to reduce risk and respond to danger.     

INTERGOVERNMENTAL AND INTERSECTORAL TENSIONS IN ENVIRONMENTAL OLICY IMPLEMENTATION: THE CASE OF HAZARDOUS WASTE

Superfund—the federal government's program to clean up toxic waste sites—was designed to promote cooperative interaction between levels of government and w ith the private sector. Implementation of the program has, produced a web of tensions instead. The tensions have been intergovernmental and intersectoral. As this examination of the cleanup of four South Carolina sites reveals, these tensions have served to delay and distort the implementation process.     

A Tale of Two Disasters

The report to the U.S. president entitled The Federal Responseto Hurricane Katrina concludes that in the event of catastrophicdisasters the traditional intergovernmental response to disastershould give way to a more dominant role of the national government.This article considers whether it is possible to respond effectivelyto disaster in the traditional, intergovernmental mode by comparingthe response to Katrina with the response, which was widelyconsidered to be successful, to another disaster, in Grand Forks,North Dakota. The research suggests that an intergovernmentalresponse can be successful if those who respond to the disasterinteract in a collaborative network. The article considers whethersuch collaborative networks can be created and evaluates someof the recommendations from The Federal Response to HurricaneKatrina as potentially helping to create collaborative networks.     

Organizing the Federal System for Homeland Security: Problems, Issues, and Dilemmas

Improving the capacity of U.S. governments to provide greater homeland security will require numerous changes in the way federal, state, and local governments are organized and operate. It also will require significant alterations in intergovernmental relations. Changes will be required in intergovernmental dimensions, including operational, financial, legal, and political dimensions. A dual–track approach to rearranging intergovernmental relationships in order to provide a coordinated intergovernmental response to the requirements of homeland security is to be expected.     

The Growth and Decline of Executive-Centered Intergovernmental Management

The idea that the president should manage intergovernmentalrelationships gained credence and became more feasible as theExecutive Office of the President developed managerial capacities.Executive-centered intergovernmental management gained considerablesupport in the Kestnbaum Commission's deliberations, developedrapidly in response to Great Society coordination problems,and culminated during the Nixon administration. This perspectiverelies on the use of hierarchical management techniques to producean orderly, rational federal system. Its decline began duringthe Carter administration and accelerated during the Reaganyears. It is doubtful that this perspective will again be influential,given the erosion of professional support for and waning presidentialinterest in comprehensive, federal intergovernmental management.     

The Road to South Carolina: Intergovernmental Tax Immunity and the Constitutional Status of Federalism

In South Carolina v. Baker the Supreme Court struck a powerfulblow at constitutional federalism. As a result of this landmarkcase, the question of whether issuing tax exempt bonds is asovereign right of the states or a privilege they are accordedby the national government has been settled. Relying in parton precedent from Garcia, the Court determined that immunityis not a right under the Tenth Amendment. In addition, SouthCarolina established a new doctrine of intergovernmental taximmunity which formally accords superior powers to the nationalgovernment. Taken together, these results have implicationsfor the future course of intergovernmental fiscal policy aswell as the basic character of the relationship between thenational and state and local governments.     

A Framework for Analyzing Emergency Management with an Application to Federal Budgeting

Emergency management is a complex policy subsystem that involves an intergovernmental, multiphased effort to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. This article develops a framework for analyzing the fiscal and functional aspects of disaster policy. It uses established theories of intergovernmental relations to offer a rationale for examining the capabilities required to implement disaster policy and the behavioral incentives that drive policy formulation. In particular, the article identifies the extent to which the capabilities and political objectives characteristic of each level of government are aligned, and illustrates the interplay between incentives and competencies by reviewing the federal disaster funding process. The current rules for federal budgeting may inappropriately promote spending on disaster response and recovery, while de-emphasizing mitigation and preparedness. Various proposals for reform could establish more coherent incentives, making disaster spending more consistent with the relative functional capabilities of the various levels of government.     

Mandates and Management Challenges in the Trenches: An Intergovernmental Perspective on Homeland Security

Scholars and practitioners agree that homeland security policy implementation is contingent on a strong system of intergovernmental relations. The responsibilities associated with the homeland security mission, often mandated, cut across federal, state, and local boundaries. Local-level stakeholders are especially important players in the implementation process. This article presents a local perspective on the way intergovernmental relations have changed—and the reasons for those changes—since 9/11. Results of a survey of county and city officials in Florida provide evidence that intergovernmental cooperation has improved as a result of federal and state mandates. These results are refined by an analysis of the effects of specific local characteristics and the quality and quantity of vertical and horizontal networks on intergovernmental cooperation and local preparedness. Homeland security appears to be a policy area in which mandated cooperation and coordination—in a time and place of urgency—have actually strengthened the intergovernmental system.     

Do Intergovernmental Institutions Matter? The Case of Water Diversion Regulation in the Great Lakes Basin

This article explores the role of intergovernmental institutions in domestic policy formation by investigating the extent to which these institutions substantively influence domestic policy choices. It does so by utilizing a rational choice institutionalist approach that focuses on the constraints and incentives created by intergovernmental rules and how these constraints and incentives do or do not influence eventual government policy decisions. The veto player concept is used to highlight some of the most important constraints and incentives, as well as to differentiate among various types of intergovernmental institutions. The cases examined involve water diversion regulation in the Great Lakes Basin and the three distinct intergovernmental institutions that have been created in this area: the International Boundary Waters Treaty, the Great Lakes Charter, and the Water Resources Development Act. The evidence suggests that intergovernmental institutions can matter in the development of domestic policy, but only those that include veto players as part of their institutional design.     

And the Beat Goes On: Intergovernmental Mandates and Preemption in an Era of Deregulation

For state and local governments, the 101st Congress (1989–1990)compiled a mixed record of intergovernmental regulation andpreemption. Costly and intrusive mandates were enacted to combatair pollution, protect the rights of disabled persons, and providemedical assistance to the poor. At the same time, new restrictionswere defeated in legislation affecting oil-spill liability andchild care. This article reviews the issues and politics surroundingthese enactments, and places them within the broader contextof intergovernmental regulatory trends during the 1980s. Thepast decade was characterized by increasing regulatory burdensimposed on states and localities, punctuated by occasional examplesof regulatory relief and deferral.     

Exploring State Differences in Groundwater Policy Adoptions, 1980-1989

This article explores a set of variables, based on alternativeconceptions of state policymaking, that distinguishes betweenstates adopting groundwater policy changes and states not adoptingpolicy changes during the 1980s. States adopting groundwatersupply-management policy changes used and depended on groundwatersupplies to a significantly greater extent than non-adoptingstates. States adopting groundwater quality-protection policychanges had significantly larger numbers of types of identifiedgroundwater contaminants, and were significantly more likelyto have a moralistic political culture. Results suggest differentpatterns of state policymaking with respect to these two policies,and that intergovernmental relations are affected accordingly.     

Ukrainian Local Governments’ Finance on the Threshold of a New Millenium: Will Interbudgetary Reform Meet Public Needs?

Since independence, market–oriented reforms have been undertaken in Ukraine. Yet, intergovernmental relations are obsolete, remaining as they were in the Soviet time. In fact, Ukrainian subcentral governments have no significant discretion in revenues and expenditures. First, the article delivers an overview of the current system of intergovernmental finance in Ukraine. Second, the article reveals some negative trends in Ukrainian local governments' fiscal performance through the late 1990s that made a reform of intergovernmental fiscal arrangements timely. Third, the article analyzes recent reform steps as presented by the recent Budget Code, proposing policy options that could strengthen Ukrainian intergovernmental policy.     

The European Commission and fiscal governance reform: a strategic actor?

The intensification of the financial and economic crisis in Europe has added a new impetus to the debate over the possibilities for securing supranational fiscal integration within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Since the literature on the European Union’s response to the crisis is dominated by the study of intergovernmental politics, this article considers the previously neglected role of the Commission. A framing analysis of the Commission’s crisis discourse is operationalised here, which is supplemented by interviews with senior officials located in the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) during key phases of the crisis. It is found that a supranational reform agenda was never internalised by the Commission. Instead, the Commission acted strategically by framing the crisis around intergovernmental fiscal discipline. These findings suggest that, in line with the ‘new intergovernmentalist’ thesis, supranational institutions themselves may not be as ‘hard-wired’ towards supranationalism as is often assumed.     

Reinventing Federalism: The Clinton/Gore Program for a New Partnership Among the Federal, State, Local, and Tribal Governments

This article presents the Clinton/Gore administration's philosophyon federalism and details specific improvements for servicesto citizens through strengthened intergovernmental partnershipsamong the federal, state, tribal, and local governments. Thearticle defines accomplishments toward achieving the NationalPerformance Review recommendations for new intergovernmentalpartnerships in delivering services to the public, and it providesa direction for federalism in the 104th Congress and beyond.     

A Difficult Compromise: British and American Plans for a Common Anti-Communist Propaganda Response in Western Europe, 1948–58

The launch of the Western Union in 1948 and the creation of the NATO Information Service in 1950 were important steps in the coordination of the Western response to Soviet and Soviet-inspired propaganda campaigns. By examining how the British Information Research Department worked closely with the International Organizations Division of the CIA in shaping the foundation and early activities of these intergovernmental agencies, this article offers new insight into the role of national information agencies within international organizations and contributes to explaining why, in the early Cold War, the West struggled to produce a coherent and fully coordinated propaganda response to communism.     

Clinton's Education Policy and Intergovernmental Relations in the 1990s

This article describes key Clinton administration initiativesin education and the framework that underlies them. It thenaddresses four aspects of intergovernmental relationships highlightedby current federal policy: an emphasis on policy coherence withinand across governments; the emerging importance of "national,"as opposed to federal, policy leadership; the acceptance ofthe key role of states in education policy; and, perhaps, morestability in the federal system related to the convergence ofpolicy at all levels around results or outcomes.     

ISTEA and the Role of MPOs in the New Transportation Environment: A Midterm Assessment

This article undertakes a modest midterm assessment of MetropolitanPlanning Organizations (MPOs) under the Intermodal Surface TransportationEfficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). The focus is on the role ofthe MPO, emphasizing its intergovernmental context. Two major sources of primary data are used: (])a national surveyof MPOs, completed in March 1994, and (2) an ACIR study of eighteenMPOs in twelve U.S. regions. The article addresses decentralization of transportation policyto regional MPOs, local policymaking and decision authority,intergovernmental issues under ISTEA, and what lies ahead forMPOs. The article concludes that ISTEA has brought a great dealof change to MPOs. The data suggest that ISTEA is having somesuccess: decentralization is taking place; more stakeholdersare getting involved; public involvement programs are becomingmore common; and greater attention is being given to air quality,intermodal issues, long-range planning, and intergovernmentalcoordination. However, most MPOs are encountering difficulties in implementingISTEA. They do not know how to do many of the new tasks assignedto them, and the intergovernmental links that ISTEA dependson are not yet forged solidly.     

转移支付对地方财政收入稳定效应的实证分析——基于中国省市县三级面板数据

从理论上讲,政府间转移支付可以作为稳定政策工具发挥作用。尤其自1994年以来,中央对地方的转移支付已成为地方各级政府重要的财政收入来源,然而,对于转移支付在财政收入稳定性方面发挥的作用,无论是政策制定者和学术研究者均没有注意到。为此,本文利用1993-2005年中国7个省861个县（区）的财政面板数据,把偏离趋势值变动的比率作为因变量,运用固定效应模型和Prais-Winsten模型或者Cochrane-Oreutt模型,实证分析了转移支付对省、市、县（区）财政收入稳定效应。实证结果表明转移支付对省、市、县（区）财政收入有较大的拉动作用,而且当财政收入处于下降阶段时,转移支付的稳定效应更加明显。所以,有必要重新反思政府间转移支付的目标,将其稳定作用纳入政策制订目标和实施效果的考虑范围,并考虑把转移支付作为稳定地方财政的一种政策工具。     

Deregulating Federalism? The Politics of Mandate Reform in the 104th Congress

This article examines the politics and substance of mandatereform in the 104th Congress. It briefly describes the evolutionof the mandate issue, examines the process by which the issuewas placed on the national agenda, and traces the formulationof a legislative response. It analyzes in detail the politicsof enacting mandate-reform legislation, paying particular attentionto patterns of support and opposition and to changes in thesepatterns over time. It concludes by examining the prospectsfor successful implementation of the legislation and its likelyconsequences for the intergovernmental system.     

INTERGOVERNMENTAL ROLES IN LOCAL ENERGY CONSERVATION: A RESEARCH FRONTIER

This article examines a frontier research area: local energy conservation and intergovernmental relations. The vast potential for financial and energy savings by local governments through energy conservation is contrasted to a significant lack of meaningful programs by reviewing current local programs through examination of research efforts, intergovernmental trends in assistance and the legal foundation for local energy roles. Several items for the energy conservation research agenda are offered, especially a call for more research on the relationship between rising energy prices and development of energy programs. Other research foci are the impacts of intergovernmental technical assistance, organizational structures for incorporating energy conservation concerns into local government, state-local program coordination, citizen demand for conservation programs and the information dissemination networks in energy policy.