Suchergebnisse

At times, local politicians are described as barriers to interlocal cooperation; however, recent studies show elected officials are active in interlocal networks and harbour diverse motivations for their involvement in interlocal politics. This research introduces institutional role theory to the study of interlocal politics. Using a survey of elected officials in the San Francisco Bay Area, support for various roles in interlocal politics are assessed in relation to the scope of elected officials' concerns about the use of interlocal agreements, as well as variables related to institutional context. Exploring elected officials' concerns about interlocal agreements and the roles they undertake in interlocal politics sheds light on the democratic underpinning of metropolitan civil society and highlights new research opportunities at the intersection of public administration, political science and urban studies.

Baltimore, like many other cities around the globe, is redesigning local government policy and programs in order to become a more sustainable city. Sustainability, as a concept guiding public action, encourages city officials to integrate policy and programs addressing the economic, environmental, and social health of the community. City governments, including Baltimore, have adopted plans to integrate this new priority into local policy and program management. Reorienting city policy and programs to address an emergent concern like sustainability requires collaboration between city government.

As neighboring federal systems, Canada and the United States provide an opportunity to compare institutional collective action (ICA) by proximate local governments. After explaining the importance of understanding local governance in Canada and the United States in comparative context, the ICA framework is used to highlight propositions along two paths of inquiry. First, the ICA framework can be used to compare responses to ICA dilemmas in two distinct systems of local governance, focusing on the comparative instance of use and performance of ICA mechanisms. Second, the ICA framework can be used to analyze collaboration and paradiplomacy across the international border. Deploying the ICA framework for comparative research can improve our understanding of local governance and local government reform in both countries.

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With the recent growth in interlocal contracts for municipal service delivery, insufficient attention has been given to city governments that choose to terminate interlocal contracts. The termination of interlocal contracts deserves scrutiny because theory points to multiple possible explanations for service change. This research examines the termination of interlocal contracts for police service delivery by California cities between 2001 and 2010. Public documents from the nine cities that terminated interlocal contracts are analyzed to assess rationale for termination. The stated reasons for termination include problems related to community responsiveness, the contract relationship, local control, service cost, service levels, and staffing. Grounded theory is advanced through analysis of the nine cities. The research refines our understanding of how cities weigh the costs and benefits of in-house production versus production through interlocal contract. While contract failure is evident in some cities, termination may also be explained as a process of vertical integration and service expansion. The research refines theories about local government service delivery and informs the practice of interlocal contract management.