Administration and Governance in a Compound Republic: Martha Derthick’s Contributions to the Study of American Federalism

Martha Derthick is among the most influential scholars of American federalism, administrative behavior, and domestic policy making. Her work over a half century has pioneered the study of policy implementation, administrative and political relationships in federal grant programs, intergovernmental policy making, as well as the evolution of the federal system. This essay reviews her major intellectual contributions to the fields of federalism, public administration, and intergovernmental relations.     

Reflections on the Spirit and Work of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations

What did the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) accomplish before it was disbanded in 1996? Were its accomplishments sufficiently valuable to justify reestablishing the organization? This article reviews the commission’s origins, history, and accomplishments, and addresses future intergovernmental needs. The ACIR’s accomplishments were substantial, but are largely unavailable today. Lessons learned from the ACIR suggest the need to (1) recreate a network of intergovernmental advocates within the legislative and executive branches of the federal government; (2) restart the information flows and high‐level federal, state, and local policy dialogues that withered after the ACIR’s demise; (3) strengthen boundary‐crossing institutions capable of addressing metropolitan and multistate problems; and (4) develop new opportunities to achieve public policy outcomes that can be attained only by the cumulative efforts of federal, state, and local governments working together—often with private parties as well.     

Money and Mandates: The Politics of Intergovernmental Conflict

The federal government's relationship with the states dependsin part on the level of federal aid and the number of federalmandates. Environmental policy, with less federal aid and moremandates, differs from education policy and health policy. Thevolume of intergovernmental litigation is heavier and rhetoricalreferences to intergovernmental partnerships by agency headsare more common in environmental policy. Waivers are more commonin education policy and health policy, but that appears to bea function of congressional policies largely barring environmentalpolicy waivers. Federal judges are more supportive of the federalgovernment's position on environmental protection and educationthan its position on health care. Overall, federal funding andmandates appear to have an impact on state governments, federalbureaucrats, and federal judges.     

Comparative Climate Change Policy and Federalism: An Overview

This commentary provides an overview of the four papers in this issue of Review of Policy Research on the politics of climate change. The papers all address in one way or another aspects of how federal‐type systems are dealing with the collective action and multilevel governance issues of climate change policy. The comparative study of federal systems provides insight into how domestic authority is so often overlapping and divided when dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Federal arrangements offer a rich array of norms, institutions, and practices for tackling these problems. Federal systems grapple continuously with the kinds of issues that are the most intractable in the climate change case, such as overcoming interregional differences of interests and values. A common federal feature is competition among subnational governments and between them and national or federated governments over climate change policy, which has been especially significant in the United States and in Canada in the relative absence of national action––although soberingly, the whole is as yet nowhere near as great as the sum of the parts. More significant, but rarer is the achievement of tighter coordination in federal systems achieved through intergovernmental co‐decision, as seen in the European Community and Australia. This has been accomplished in large part due to a consensus among all intergovernmental parties on the nature of the problem and congruence with the existing international regime, characteristics missing in the North American context.     

Civil Rights,Federalism, and the Administrative Process: Favorable Outcomes by Federal,State, and Local Agencies in Housing Discrimination Complaints

Some theorists argue that cooperative intergovernmental relations are critical to policy implementation in the United States. This assertion is explored in the context of fair housing enforcement by comparing favorable administrative outcomes in fair housing complaints at the federal, state, and local levels from 1989 to 2004. What conclusions can be drawn from this systematic comparison of intergovernmental enforcement in one policy area over an extended period of time? First, cooperative federalism works well in fair housing enforcement. Second, of special significance, state civil rights agencies resolve complaints in favor of complainants nearly as often as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and localities sometimes do so even more frequently.     

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.     

Public Expenditure Management Reform in India via Intergovernmental Transfers

This paper explores the possibility of using the channel of intergovernmental transfers for Public Expenditure Management reform in India. It seeks to introduce a quantifiable measure of expenditure quality which would influence intergovernmental transfers. The central message of this study is that a Quality Control Fund should be created by the Finance Commission. Inter‐se distribution from this would be in the nature of a reward to the states for their performance in the context of expenditure quality. The funds received from this incentive fund could be tied to spending on education and health. It would be a major change of approach if the Finance Commission mandated the States to set out some realistic output targets which could be monitored (would be reviewed by the next Finance Commission). This would be a big stride toward results‐based output‐oriented transfers and could herald a sea change in the very approach of budgeting and intergovernmental relations in India!     

Intergovernmental relations on immigrant integration in multi-level states. A comparative assessment

ABSTRACT

The study of intergovernmental relations (IGR) is a classical research area in scholarship on federalism and territorial politics. However, it has largely ignored the relatively new, and recently decentralized area of immigrant integration. The aim of this Special Issue is twofold. First, it aims to analyse how governments in multi-level states coordinate on immigrant integration. Second, it wishes to explain the dynamics that shape the features of intergovernmental relations. In doing so, we focus on four multi-level states; two of which are federal (Belgium and Canada) and two that are decentralized (Italy and Spain). Whilst we engage with the established literature on intergovernmental relations to formulate hypotheses about the nature and dynamics of intergovernmental relations, we also formulate less explored hypotheses. Our overarching argument is that the scholarship on IGR benefits from in-depth comparative case studies comparing IGR not just across countries, but also across policy areas and over time.     

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.     

Equity in Federal Contracting: Examining the Link between Minority Representation and Federal Procurement Decisions

The federal government increasingly relies on nongovernmental organizations for procuring goods and services. This long‐term trend presents a significant challenge for administrators because it risks the egalitarian values of democracy by further distancing administrative action from direct, participative, democratic oversight. The authors put forward a theory of representative bureaucracy as a way to reconcile democracy with the reality of the contemporary policy process in which unelected officials are the principal decision makers. The theory is tested in the domain of federal procurement, specifically within the contract award decisions of 60 federal agencies over three years. The authors argue that increased minority representation in leadership positions results in an increased proportion of federal contracts awarded to small minority‐owned firms.     

The National Renewable Energy Target: An Example of Post‐Machiavellian Policy‐Making?

Since the election of the Rudd Government in 2007 intergovernmental relations have been a major feature of the political agenda. A ‘new federalism’ approach introduced a re‐invigorated Council of Australian Governments (COAG) focused on developing national policies that reflect coordinated and cooperative policy‐making processes. The establishment of COAG working groups provided the means for developing policies that reflect new levels of agreement between jurisdictions and a common approach to reform. The development of the 20% Renewable Energy Target has been one of the first initiatives of this new approach to policy‐making. This research analyses the process behind the development of the target and places it within the context of the post‐Machiavellian approach, and looks at the implications for future intergovernmental relations.     

Financing Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness: Use of Interlocal Cost‐Sharing

Before this study, much of the research on interlocal collaboration has focused broadly on interlocal service agreements, of which interlocal cost‐sharing is but one dimension. This study is one of the first to examine the nature of interlocal cost‐sharing agreements for a specific (and critically important) functional area. A mail survey of Florida city and county finance officers finds that the most common interlocal cost‐sharing partnership is between local general purpose governments rather than with local special purpose governments. The strongest incentives for interlocal cost‐sharing are (1) inadequate funding for emergency management in a jurisdiction's capital budget, (2) the perceived inadequacy of federal and/or state homeland security funding, and (3) greater faith in horizontal (local‐to‐local) than vertical (federal‐state‐local) intergovernmental agreements. The research also highlights the importance of asking fiscal condition survey questions in a more functionally specific manner rather than as an “overall fiscal condition” question.     

Bridging the Gap between Evidence and Policy Makers: A Case Study of the Pew‐MacArthur Results First Initiative

Developing ways to bridge the long‐recognized gap between researchers and policy makers is increasingly important in this age of constrained public resources. As noted by recent scholarship, progress toward evidence‐informed policy making requires both improving the supply of research that is reliable, timely, and relevant to the policy process and promoting demand and support for this information among decision makers. This article presents a case study of the Pew‐MacArthur Results First Initiative, which is working in a growing number of state and local governments to build systems that bring rigorous evidence on “what works” into their budget processes and to support its use in resource allocation decisions. The initiative's experience to date is promising, although creating lasting and dynamic evidence‐based policy‐making systems requires a long‐term commitment by both researchers and policy makers.     

Where does learning take place? The role of intergovernmental cooperation in policy diffusion

Although it is widely accepted that a decentralised system can enhance policy learning and the spread of best practices, an under‐researched question is where that learning process takes place. Using data on the diffusion of health care policies in Switzerland, this article analyses the role of institutionalised intergovernmental cooperation and its impact on the spread of successful policies. The results show that joint membership of policy makers in health policy specific intergovernmental bodies is related to the diffusion of best practices.     

Deciding to Provide: Local Decisions on Providing Social Welfare

Fiscal federalism predicts local governments will avoid social welfare expenditures, owing to capital mobility across local jurisdictions. Yet Census of Governments data consistently show that many local governments provide one or more social welfare functions, and moreover many jurisdictions provide these functions without federal or state intergovernmental support. This article finds evidence that, while local expenditures are largely driven by fiscal capacity and federal and state assistance, local decisions on providing social welfare functions and participating in intergovernmental revenues are primarily affected by degree of capital mobility and by local political factors. Consequently, local governments exercise much greater autonomy over social welfare policymaking than fiscal federalism suggests.     

The Politics of Coercive Federalism in the Bush Era

During the period of the Bush Presidency, the federal governmentproceeded to centralize and nationalize policy in major areasformerly controlled by states and localities. The extensionof federal goals and standards to such areas as education testing,sales tax collection, emergency management, infrastructure,and elections administration were among the areas of significantmandates and preemptions. The continuation of policy centralizationin areas under a conservative and unified political regime showshow strong and deep the roots are for centralizing policy actionsin our intergovernmental system.     

Learning from the States? Federalism and National Health Policy

In its 1993 report, the Winter Commission gave direction to the federal government in the area of health policy and Medicaid: lead, follow, or get out of the way. This article examines how the federal government responded to that advice, specifically asking what has happened in the allocation of responsibility in health policies between 1993 and 2006. In short, unlike the suggestion that there be a better‐defined direction in federal–state policy assignments in health, the ensuing years have resulted in more of the same. The authors examine what has happened, particularly focusing on vertical diffusion—where the states have acted first—and on the role of policy learning in federal decision making. They find little recognition of policy learning in recent federal health laws—even in areas in which state experience was extensive. The federal government is leading in some health policies—but it is leading without learning.     

Look to Sweden: The Making of a New Renewable Energy Support Scheme in Norway

Two renewable energy support schemes have spread across Europe: green certificate schemes (GCSs) and feed‐in tariffs (FITs). After a decade‐long policy‐making process, Norwegian decision makers decided in 2011 to adopt a GCS compatible with the already existing one in Sweden and thereby establish a joint Norwegian‐Swedish GCS. The article explores this process of policy transfer, and asks to what extent competition and policy learning contributed to Norway's choice of a GCS. It finds that competition was a barrier to a joint Norwegian‐Swedish GCS rather than (as predicted by some scholars) a driver of policy transfer. In terms of policy learning, it finds that Norwegian bureaucrats systematically were searching for information about renewable energy policy instruments in a process characterised by rational learning. However, this information was not taken into account by elected policy makers, whose learning was unsystematic and almost exclusively influenced by Sweden – making it a process of bounded learning. Finally, domestic factors that facilitated and constrained the policy transfer process are identified in the article. A reluctant bureaucracy defending the status quo policies constrained the policy transfer process. GCS as a market‐based instrument independent of yearly allocations over the annual national budgets facilitated the process by securing strong support in a broad coalition of stakeholder groups and thereby cross‐partisan support. The latter finding may contribute to the literature by underscoring the importance of domestic political factors.     

Differences That Matter: Overcoming Methodological Nationalism in Comparative Social Policy Research

Abstract

Welfare states are often discussed as if they were territorially homogeneous state-wide institutions measurable by state-wide expenditure averages and explained by country-level variables. It is rare in comparative policy studies to investigate the role of territorial politics in the outcomes of even federal countries. This article argues, using social policy examples in the UK and US, that the impact of intergovernmental finance and division of labour profoundly shapes social investment and redistribution – producing almost as much expenditure variance within the US as within the OECD. The findings show the importance of incorporating territorial politics and intergovernmental arrangements into comparative welfare state and policy analysis.     

“Big Questions” about Intergovernmental Relations and Management: Who Will Address Them?

Fiscal, administrative, and political tensions among the partners in the federal system have not eased, and perhaps have grown, since the demise of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in 1996. Yet no governmental organizational capacity exists to address big intergovernmental questions in an ongoing manner through nonpartisan or bipartisan research, data collection, deliberation, and policy formulation.