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In this chapter, one of the oldest challenges faced by governments is explored. Beginning with an examination of why coordination has remained such a dominant theme in public administration and management, the chapter surveys classical and more recent scholarship on the topic, and unpacks its multiple and increasingly diverse meanings and conceptualizations. As part of this study, coordination is considered in relation to process, management practice, and policy. The dominant basis mechanisms for coordination measures chosen by governments are then presented, followed by the obstacles and challenges to successful coordination within and across all levels of government. The chapter concludes with coordination considered in a multi-level EU context.

Networks can affect a group's ability to solve a coordination problem. We use laboratory experiments to study the conditions under which groups of participants can solve coordination games. We investigate a variety of different network structures, and we also investigate coordination games with symmetric and asymmetric payoffs. Our results show that network connections facilitate coordination in both symmetric and asymmetric games. Most significantly, we find that an increase in the number of connections improves coordination even when payoffs are highly asymmetric. These results shed light on the conditions that may facilitate coordination in real-world networks.

Abstract: Coordination is an important concept in both the study and the practice of public administration. Complex tasks are split up into manageable sub‐tasks with the result that the pieces need to be coordinated. Coordination is necessary and sensible, yet it is widely recognised that it can also be a facade to hide coercion and conflict.This article explores the practice of coordination in public adminstration. It develops the four models of hierarchical control, use‐of‐power, adjustment, and common purpose as forms of coordination then illustrates each from the work of the Queensland Co‐ordinator‐General. Each model is described in terms of structure, processes, outcome and values. The models help to draw out important but less visible features of central coordination.

At the heart of American campaign finance law is the distinction drawn by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo between contributions and expenditures. According to the Court, contributions may be limited because they pose the dangers of corruption and the appearance of corruption, but expenditures pose no such dangers and therefore may not be limited. The distinction between the two types of campaign spending turns not on the form-the fact that contributions proceed from a donor to a candidate, while expenditures involve direct efforts to influence the voters-but on whether the campaign practice implicates the corruption concerns that the Court has held justify campaign finance regulation. As a result, not all expenditures are exempt from restriction. Independent expenditures undertaken by an individual or group in support of a candidate or against her opponent are constitutionally protected from limitation. In the Court's view "[t]he absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate, but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate." But, as Buckley found, expenditures by supporters of a candidate that are coordinated with the candidate benefited are in reality "disguised contributions" that pose the same corruption dangers as outright contributions. Congress can regulate such coordinated expenditures as contributions, and, indeed, has done so in order to distinguish between "independent expressions of an individual's views and the use of an individual's resources to aid in a manner indistinguishable in substance from the direct payment of cash" to a candidate. As the Supreme Court has noted approvingly, "Congress drew a functional, not a formal, line between contributions and expenditures." This coordination/independence distinction is, thus, critical to maintaining the integrity of the foundational contribution/expenditure distinction.