Institutional Collective Action and Local Goverance

This paper elaborates the institutional collective action framework and its applications to cooperative interlocal service agreements among governments in metropolitan areas. It begins by outlining the information, negotiation, enforcement and agency cost that pose obstacles to cooperative interlocal arrangements. Next it identifies how these transaction costs, and the ability of local actors to overcome them, depend on: 1) characteristics of services; 2) characteristics of communities; 3) political institutions; and 4) structures of policy networks. Specific propositions regarding evolution and effectiveness of interlocal cooperation are advanced and an agenda to investigate institutional collective action among local governments is presented

Interlocal Cooperation in the Supply of Local Public Goods: A Transaction Cost and Social Exchange Explanation

Although a multiplicity of local governments is often regarded as promoting efficiency in the supply of public services, political fragmentation can generate economies of scale and externality problems. Several exogenous solutions, including the creation of overlapping districts governments, consolidation of existing units and establishment of a metropolitan government, or direct state or federal intervention, have been offered. We argue that cooperative governance offers a potential endogenous solution to this dilemma. By combining transaction cost and social exchange theories within the institutional collective action framework, we investigate how local governments themselves address inefficiencies from externalities and economies of scale. An empirical analysis of Georgia cities reports that while cities’ choice of service collaboration is affected by the transaction characteristics of services, their level of service collaboration is greatly influenced by the previous exchange that builds trust and by the level of fiscal pressure they face

Competitors and Cooperators: A Micro‐Level Analysis of Regional Economic Development Collaboration Networks

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90044/1/j.1540-6210.2011.02501.x.pd

Policy Networks and Institutional Collective Action: A Research Agenda

Policy fragmentation in the American federalist system leads to inefficiencies as decisions by one authority impose positive and negative externalities on other authorities and their constituencies. We focus on the role of policy networks in shaping coordinated decisions that enhance the joint outcomes among governmental authorities. We advance two competing perspectives relating networks to collective action, one emphasizing the role of tightly-clustered strong-tie relationships capable of enhancing the credibility of commitments among network members, and the other emphasizing the role of extensive, weak-tie relationships linking diverse stakeholders in enhancing the shared information required to coordinate collective decisions. Our previous projects established the importance of local policy networks in enhancing compliance with federal regulations and developing coordinated policy agreements in local watersheds. The research provides initial evidence that extensive weak-tie networks play the most critical role in establishing joint projects, at least among specialized authorities managing an estuary\u27s natural resources. Our research agenda focuses on two critical settings, one emphasizing horizontal fragmentation (the joint provision of local services by municipalities), and the other emphasizing vertical fragmentation (the development of joint projects among federal, state, and local resource management agencies). In each setting, we will develop relevant formal models about the capabilities of different network structures and test them using an array of archival and survey data

Dealing with Missing Data: A Comparative Exploration of Approaches Using the Integrated City Sustainability Database

Studies of governments and local organizations using survey data have played a critical role in the development of urban studies and related disciplines. However, missing data pose a daunting challenge for this research. This article seeks to raise awareness about the treatment of missing data in urban studies research by comparing and evaluating three commonly used approaches to deal with missing data—listwise deletion, single imputation, and multiple imputation. Comparative analyses illustrate the relative performance of these approaches using the second-generation Integrated City Sustainability Database (ICSD). The results demonstrate the benefit of using an approach to missing data based on multiple imputation, using a theoretically informed and statistically supported set of predictor variables to develop a more complete sample that is free of issues raised by nonresponse in survey data. The results confirm the usefulness of the ICSD in the study of environmental and sustainability and other policy in U.S. cities. We conclude with a discussion of results and provide a set of recommendations for urban researcher scholars

Solving Institutional Collective Action Problems in Multiplex Networks

This essay extends theoretical arguments pertaining to single (uniplex) networks on how to solve coordination and cooperation problems associated with institutional collective action to multiplex networks constituting both formal and informal relationships formed by policy actors. While coordination problems reflect difficulties for actors in arriving at jointly desired policy outcomes, cooperation problems mean that actors have conflicting interests and, thus, face incentives to defect on each other. We propose multiplex versions of bridging and bonding networks, which have been found suitable for solving coordination and cooperation problems in single networks. Although our approach is limited to the simultaneous analysis of formal and informal relationships in policy networks, the arguments we present should aid researchers interested in analyzing policy networks beyond these manifestations of inherently complex relationships