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.     

Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: Coordination Failures and Fiscal Outcomes

This article estimates the fiscal impact of coordination failures in intergovernmental fiscal relations. The coordination failures considered here are due to agency problems arising from the delegation of fiscal powers to sub-national governments, and "common pool" problems associated with funding decentralised government spending through intergovernmental transfers. Particular attention is focused on the trade-off between coordination and fiscal decentralisation. Evidence provided for a sample of thirty countries suggests that coordination failures are likely to result in a deficit bias in decentralized policy making, particularly in the case of developing countries, for which the benefits of decentralization may be over-stressed. Developed countries were found to be less adversely affected by coordination failures and have therefore managed to pursue fiscal consolidation in a decentralized setup.     

An ACIR Perspective on Intergovernmental Institutional Development

This article traces the creation and demise of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) and assesses the prospects for restoring an ACIR‐like capability to the federal system. Recent initiatives by the National Academy of Public Administration, the Big 7 state and local government official associations, and Congress are summarized, and the facilitating and inhibiting factors associated with intergovernmental institutional development are examined. At least three ingredients in the formula that gave birth to the ACIR in 1959 will need to be present more than 50 years later: (1) support from congressional champions, the president, and public interest groups; (2) visibility and urgency of intergovernmental fiscal and management issues and the need for a permanent intergovernmental presence to address them; and (3) “homework and spadework” to enlist potential conservative and liberal interest group and think tank backers.     

农村剩余劳动力转移过程中政府间利益博弈探析

我国农村剩余劳动力转移是一项政府主导的社会系统工程。在当前农村劳动力转移过程中,面临着三种棘手的政府间利益博弈问题,即政府部门间利益博弈、中央与地方政府间利益博弈和劳动力输出地政府与输入地政府间利益博弈。这些利益博弈问题,增加了政府做好农村劳动力转移的工作难度,阻碍着我国农村劳动力转移就业的整体进程,应妥善加以解决。     

National Support For Regional Review: Federal Compliance and The Future of Intergovernmental Coordination

In 1969, OMB issued Circular A-95 to broaden the "confidentialexchange" between applicants and federal agencies, to providestate and local clearinghouses an opportunity to review federalassistance applications. Because President Reagan recently signedExecutive Order 12372 revoking A-95 and making states responsiblefor procedures governing regional coordination of federal programs,this is a useful time to analyze and evaluate the A-95 experience.Any review process somehow must solve the three critical, overlappingproblems which plagued A-95 from the outset: unpredictable andinsufficient funding, vague review criteria, and poor federalcompliance. This article focuses on federal noncompliance: theextent of agency violations, structural and political reasonsfor noncompliance, and the success of efforts to modify andimprove the system. The study draws on a 1981 survey of RegionV areawide clearinghouses and the author's experience as a 1980–1981NASPAA Faculty Fellow with the Chicago Federal Regional Council.     

Rural development management in Nepal,Part I: Coordination in the Rasuwa-Nuwakot Integrated Rural Development Programme

Rural development management in Nepal has been criticized for more than a decade now on the grounds of the country's weak aid-absorbing capacity, administrative slowness and poor project management. Though several reforms of the rural development planning and management systems have been staged, at present coordination in integrated rural development projects remains weak. The paper reports on the empirical findings of research on mechanisms, procedures, organizational arrangements and problems of coordination. Although the country's environment, and its socioeconomic and cultural constraints, may negatively influence smooth operations in implementing integrated programmes, several policy considerations for improvement may be formulated. Among these, organizational reform with decentralization and reduction of the number of offices involved, strengthening the resource management system, especially budget release and personnel motivation, and a more integrated method of policy, programme and project formulation are the issues considered most important by the government officers themselves. Part II will appear in vol. 7, no. 3 of this journal, and examines the implementation and management of rural development in the Karnali and Bheri districts of the Mid-Western Development Region of Nepal.     

Interstate and Intergovernmental Factors Affecting the Conditions of Rural Bridges

Many of the nation's rural highway bridges are structurallydeficient, functionally inadequate, or both. Rural bridges areparticularly likely to be in poor condition in states wherethe federal government plays a small role in the highway program,where local governments play a large role in highway financing,and where the chief state transportation agency is a highwaydepartment rather than a department of transportation. The assignmentof responsibilities, then, appears to influence program performance.     

Brexit,Fisheries and Scottish Devolution: An Intergovernmental Disruption

With the UK set to leave the EU, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) will no longer apply and an alternative legislative framework will need to be put in place, simultaneously navigating the devolved settlement. However, aspects of fisheries management fall under the area of international negotiation which is reserved to the UK government. Disagreements between the UK and Scottish governments over where the line between devolved and reserved lies in this matter has led to difficulties in formulating a post‐Brexit fisheries framework. This dispute has exposed weaknesses in relations between the two governments.     

An Implicit Contract Theory of Intergovernmental Grants

A central puzzle in the economic analysis of intergovernmentalgrants in a federal polity is the conflict between the predictionsof the standard theory and empirical observation. Standard theoryhas no explanation for the widely observed fact that "moneysticks where it hits," that is, for the "flypaper effect" fromspecific, non-matching grants. This effect is observed whengrants that apparently are the economic equivalents of generalrevenue grants have the consequences to be expected from matchingspecific grants. We propose a resolution. Most grants are accompaniedby an implicit as well as an explicit contract between grantorand recipient. The purpose of these contracts is to influencethe behavior of the recipient, by making the size of the streamof grants conditional upon the recipient's responses to thewishes of the donor.     

Intergovernmental Relations: Ensuring Informed Cooperation in Strategic Policy Development

COAG was formed out of a concern by commonwealth, state and territory governments to improve intergovernmental cooperation. In particular, COAG allowed leaders and central agencies to discuss and coordinate policy frameworks from a whole-of-government perspective. It also has increased the prospects of further reform to Australia's political system in the areas of financial arrangements, international treaties and constitutional reform.     

超越税务:乌海联合办税对中国"府际关系"发展的启示

"府际关系"是政府过程研究中一个非常重要的领域.内蒙古乌海市在实践中探索出的国、地税联合办税模式,虽然只是发生在一个地方,仅涉及国税、地税两个部门的制度创新,但其在理论探索上的贡献,已经超越了税务行政本身的变革.乌海联合办税模式在构建"伙伴型府际关系"方面的主动探索,从纵横两个维度上,不仅为在实践中逐步化解条块矛盾,构建新型的横向"府际关系"和调整政府横向间的职能配置等提供了新的思路,同时也为在理论上深化中国的"府际关系"理论研究提供了一个新的方向.     

Toward Federal Democracy in Spain: An Examination of Intergovernmental Relations

Intergovernmental relations is playing a key role in the emergenceof federal arrangements in post-Franco Spain. The transitionto democracy included the building of a state made up of autonomouscommunities, which is transforming the regime into one withmany centers of power, in both the historic regions and therest of the country. Intergovernmental institutional, political,and fiscal patterns demonstrate the evolving nature of self-ruleand shared rule, moving Spain closer into the orbit of otherfederal systems.     

The Medicaid Mandates of the 1980s: An Intergovernmental Perspective

Medicaid, the health care program for the poor, has undergone significant changes in the last fifteen years. Many of those changes relate to the intergovernmental nature of the program. Medicaid is jointly operated, with the federal and state governments sharing program costs. Despite a set of program guidelines dictated by the federal government, states have traditionally had substantial latitude in Medicaid decisions. However, a series of developments in the 1980s led to increasing constraints on state Medicaid discretion, including federal mandates to expand Medicaid coverage. This article examines the inception and effectiveness of the Medicaid mandates from the perspective of interstate equity of health care services for poor families.     

Intergovernmental Conflict and Indian Water Rights: An Assessment of Negotiated Settlements

The states and Indian tribes have fought bitterly over waterrights for nearly a century. Most of this conflict took placein courtrooms, but in recent years, states and tribes have beenattempting to resolve their differences through negotiated watersettlements. This article utilizes the literature and theoryon alternative dispute resolution to identify six advantagesthat are expected to accrue from negotiations. It then assessesthe extent to which Indian water settlements have produced theseresults.     

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."     

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.