Homeland Security Preparedness: The Rebirth of Regionalism

The homeland security mission has placed many new demands onthe U.S. system of federalism. The successful implementationof homeland security policy requires cooperation among all levelsof government—federal, state, and local. Regionalism offersa powerful tool for encouraging greater intergovernmental cooperationand improved homeland security preparedness. We assess the impactof regionalism on intergovernmental cooperation and the implementationof the homeland security mission in Florida, an early proponentof the regional approach. From a regional perspective, we evaluatehow intergovernmental complexity, the quality and quantity ofintergovernmental networks, and security vulnerabilities contributeto perceived improvements in intergovernmental cooperation andhomeland security preparedness. The results of a 2004 mail surveyof city and county officials suggest that regional organizationalstructures are most effective in promoting intergovernmentalcooperation and preparedness where the intergovernmental landscapeis the most complex and where security vulnerabilities are themost intense.     

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.     

From Unitary to Asymmetric Federalism in Germany: Taking Stock after 50 Years

Policymaking in the German federal system is influenced by thedynamic interplay of the institutions of cooperative federalism,of party competition in a parliamentary system, and of distributiveconflicts between governments. This is shown in an analysisof 50 years of German federalism. It is argued that while theinstitutional setting outlived most reform efforts, changingpatterns of party politics and growing distributive conflictsinduced adjustments in intergovernmental relations. Since the1980s, such adjustments have also been stimulated by Europeanpolitics. In unified Germany, intergovernmental cooperationis now burdened with asymmetries between the East and the West,which are also expressed in a more regionalized party system.However, as party political confrontations have diminished,a pragmatic revision of the federal system seems feasible.     

The United Kingdom: Federalism in Denial?

In May 1999, the United Kingdom took an historic step towardbecoming a regionalized state with the creation of the NationalAssembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament. This articleoutlines the historical background and new government architectureof the UK. This new architecture must be understood within afederal model and as a possible step toward federalism, despiteofficial aversion to the term. Serious questions must be raisedabout whether the new intergovernmental mechanisms, such asthe Joint Ministerial Committee, will be effective, given thesevere asymmetries in the new system. Instead of a multilateralintergovernmental system, such as characterizes most federalsystems, three very different, bilateral intergovernmental arrangementsare developing between each territory and London.     

City Managers View Intergovernmental Relations

This report presents the findings of a national survey of citymanagers concerning intergovernmental relations. Key aspectsof intergovernmental relations covered in the survey are theadministration of the grant system, effects of federal grantson local government decisionmaking, types of federal aid, imagesof federal administrators, intergovernmental service agreements,comparison of state and federal government, and city managerinvolvement in intergovernmental relations.     

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.     

服务型政府建设与政府间纵向关系调整

服务型政府建设对政府间纵向关系这一中国政府体制重要方面的调整和改革提出了迫切要求。中国的政府间的纵向关系在结构性要素上具有权力较为集中的特点,在体制性要素上也有一系列独特性。这样的政府间纵向关系有其优势,也有其不足。建设服务型政府对政府间纵向关系调整提出的基本要求是:使各级政府能够有效回应和满足公民日益增长的公共服务需求,实现基本公共服务均等化,有效推进行政管理改革和政府职能转变;进一步保持与提升政府间纵向关系的优势并克服其不足。     

Begrenzte Rationalität und regulatives Lernen in der EG: die Liberalisierung der Elektrizitätsversorgung

The article analyses the liberalization of the EC electricity supply industry. Confronting the intergovernmental approach, the case study is based on the premise that the member state executives act within the limits of a bounded rationality and do therefore not always represent clear and fixed interests in EU negotiations. Taking the examples of France and Germany, it shows that the national positions and preferences may change greatly during the course of the decision making process. While the French positional changes may be reasonably well explained by the intergovernmental approach, the German preference changes are attributed to effects of the EC institutions and negotiations. Institutional principles, policy-concepts and fairness criteria guide member state orientations and behavior and hinder the pursuit of unilateral advantages. Incremental negotiation techniques within the Council induce learning processes and cause reassessments of the domestic situations. Furthermore, the EC decisions may cause behavioral changes which clearly surpass their regulatory content even if they contain extensive flexibilisation mechanisms.     

French Center-Periphery Relations and Science Park Development: Local Policy Initiatives and Intergovernmental Policymaking

This article focuses on new patterns of territorial governance in the aftermath of the 1982 decentralization reforms in France. The traditional "cross regulation" model developed by the Crozier school is wrong to assume culturally grounded stalemate and to suggest that local political power is nothing more than the informal access of local elites to national policymaking. Analyzing the policy of technopoles or science park development, both nationally and by way of detailed local case studies of Montpellier and Rennes, we demonstrate that, on the contray, French local and regional authorities have risen progressively to independent loci of governmental power and policymaking. Local policy initiatives are, however, embedded in a multi-level institutional fabric ranging from the local to the European level. These developments in center-periphery relations need to be placed into the context of the general decline of the traditional French public policy model, which has been stiffly challenged by the norms of market, Europe and subsidiarity. In conclusion, a comparative and interorganizational perspective suggests that France is moving toward a territorial system increasingly characterized by the dynamics of intergovernmental conflict and cooperation and best described as "quasi-federalism in unitary disguise."     

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.     

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.     

Fiscal decentralization and government size: An extension

This paper analyzes one method governments employ to circumvent the discipline of a competitive system of fiscal federalism — intergovernmental collusion in the form of intergovernmental grants. Grants, it is argued, serve to encourage the expansion of the public sector by concentrating taxing powers in the hands of the central government and by weakening the fiscal discipline imposed on governments forced to self-finance their expenditures. The results reported suggest that intergovernmental grants do encourage growth in the public sector. The results offer further support for the use of monopoly government assumptions in public sector modeling.     

Public Sector Reform, Intergovernmental Relations and the Future of Australian Federalism

Recent developments in the reform of intergovernmental relations have been influenced by contemporary models of public sector reform. Their systematic application to intergovernmental administration, in particular the manner in which jointly funded and managed programs are organised, may have profound and unanticipated effects on the federal system. When viewed in the context of a recent history of collaborative policymaking between political executives, the possibility that new forms of intergovernmental joint policy-making and program management might become the norm poses serious challenges to federal traditions of dual government. Arm's length and collaborative forms of joint decision making are contrasted as ideal types, and then used to analyse two case studies in collaborative intergovernmental decision-making — National Competition Policy and the National Training Agreement. It is concluded that the system-wide implications are profound if they are part of a broader trend, but caution is expressed about the powers of inertia and resistance in traditional forms of federal politics.     

AFTER REAGAN'S DEREGULATION: STATE-FEDERAL CONFLICT OVER ENERGY POLICY

President Reagan's New Federalism has promised to redistribute the political power within the fcdcral system through a concerted program of deregulation and decentralization. Through such an approach, the Administration holds that intergovernmental policy making will reap the benefits of increased cooperation, efficiency, and effectiveness. This paper examines Reagan's New Federalism in energy policy, finding a continued presence of state-federal conflict in intergovernmental implementation decisions. This conflict emerges as the President's priorities of deregula- tion and decentralization often combat one another. This analysis, then, suggests that New Federalism's emphasis on deregulation, rather than decentralization, carries the greatest weight in explaining the politics on intergovernmental energy policy implementation in the 1980s.     

American Federalism and the Search for Models of Management

Changes in the United States federal system mean that managers must operate by taking into account multiple interacting governments and nongovernmental organizations; dealing with numerous programs emanating from Washington and state capitols; and engaging in multiple intergovernmental transactions with an expanding number of intergovernmental instruments. Four models of management within this changing system are identified. The top-down model emphasizes executive-branch control and is embedded in enforcement and exchange related to the laws, regulations, funding rules, program standards, and guidelines associated with federal/state grant, procurement, and regulation programs. The donor-recipient model emphasizes mutual dependence or shared program administration, where two-party bargaining or reciprocal interactions among government officials is the norm. The jurisdiction-based model is defined by the initiated actions of local officials and managers who seek out program adjustments and other actors and resources to serve the strategic aims of their governments. The network model highlights the actions of multiple interdependent government and nongovernmental organizations pursuing joint action and intergovernmental adjustment. Although the first two models are long-standing and the latter two are emergent, all appear to be alive and well on the intergovernmental scene, posing complex challenges for public managers.     

Intergovernmental relations on immigrant integration in Spain: The case of Catalonia

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the nature of intergovernmental relations (IGR) on immigrant integration in Spain, a relatively recent immigration country, with a focus on Catalonia. By means of qualitative document analysis and semi-structured interviews at both levels of government, the paper demonstrates that despite the formal existence of multilateral and institutionalized fora for intergovernmental relations, most intergovernmental relations on immigrant integration tend to be informal and bilateral. The paper also highlights that the conflictual nature of IGR on integration varies across sub-policy areas and over time. The paper contributes to strengthen existing hypotheses regarding institutional features (the distribution of competencies and the territorial organization of power) and party politics for explaining the patterns of IGR.     

FEMA, Federalism, Hugo, and 'Frisco

This article examines intergovernmental performance during naturaldisasters. The United States has an ongoing response systemwhich requires the cooperation of national, state, and localgovernments. This system was severely tested during the fallof 1989 by four major crises: Hurricane Hugo in the Caribbean,South Carolina, and North Carolina, and the Loma Prieta earthquakein San Francisco. The intergovernmental response functionedvery differently in the four situations. Three patterns emergeto describe the intergovernmental dynamics of disaster relief.The article discusses the causes and consequences of these differentpatterns.     

府际管理理论与长株潭城市群政府合作机制

城市群政府间合作困境是困扰城市群一体化的主要问题.长株潭(长沙、株洲、湘潭)城市群在一体化过程中,政府间合作受到政治绩效竞争、政府"经济人"部门、经济社会发展差距、府际协调与合作落后等诸多因素制约.但是,经济一体化、上级战略和惠民效应等因素又将继续形成动力,客观上要求政府间形成可行的合作机制,破解当前困境以带来城市一体化的共惠共利.运用府际管理的基本理论,结合中国政治行政体制的特点,提出以构建政务环境、经济环境、生态环境和信息环境为基础平台的网状政府合作模式,其中特别强调从制度设计的角度来制约政府的毁约和不合作行为,要求政府间合作项目必须由以"法规、监督、激励"思想为核心的制约制度来保证实施.这种合作机制是解决当前省域内城市群政府间合作问题的一种新思路,在不实行政治和行政一体化的前提下,可以有效地实现城市群公共事务的合作,并且降低不履行契约和不合作的风险.     

Accountability Expectations in an Intergovernmental Arena: The National Rural Development Partnership

This article explores the expectations and accountability relationshipspresent in an intergovernmental experiment known as the NationalRural Development Partnership (NRDP). As such, this study extendsearlier analyses of accountability dynamics beyond the boundsof a single agency into the organizationally less tidy realmof intergovernmental relations. This research focuses on theunique expectations and accountability dynamics facing participantsin the NRDP and identifies gaps between expectations at thecorporate (agency) and individual levels and between arenasin the intergovernmental system. These gaps complicate the accountabilitydynamics for NRDP participants and contribute to the challengesof operating within the rural development policy arena. TheNRDP is designed to emphasize the relationship between processesand substantive outcomes. It has developed a tendency to relyon professional and political accountability relationships thathave little to do with formal responsibilities.