7 Relating to other organizations
Jill, assistant to the city manager in charge of intergovernmental matters for a medium-sized suburb, spends nearly all day, every day, working with representatives of other governments and organizations. Her activities, mainly legislative matters, can be politically charged. Some weeks she focuses on telecommunications issues and interacts with a statewide coalition of city representatives and state legislators on relevant committees; she advocates not just for her city but for all cities in the region. She also periodically contacts administrators at the Federal Communications Commission for their interpretations of various regulations and possible advance notice of future agency policy. Other weeks find her addressing the problems of emissions and air quality. In addition to her frequent interaction with officials from the state department of environmental management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, she develops regional air quality plans in consultation with scientists, local activists, and representatives from other cities, counties, and special districts. Critical metropolitan problems such as transportation and land use can also take up much of her time, resulting in much more extragovernmental activity. She describes her various activities as taking place “merely where my desk is located.”
Jack is the director of the department of community development for a large central city. His duties require him to lead many development projects and programs that involve diverse populations. The primary responsibility of his office is to administer the various Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Planning and Development formula grant programs, including Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds and HOME Investment Partnerships. He works extensively with a nine-member citizens’ advisory committee that prepares and reviews the city’s consolidated plan, as well as with the local housing authority, builders, and groups who want to use the city’s CDBG allocation. Jack also develops and maintains links with workforce development networks, regional university and research institutes, and organizations such the city’s chamber of commerce that promote tourism. In addition, Jack’s office also oversees funding relationships with human services agencies, including an adult day care, a children’s advocacy center, and numerous charities providing emergency relief.
These examples show that governing is both a bureaucratic and a multiorganizational enterprise. It is bureaucratic in the sense that work takes place in single organizations that have defined hierarchies, clear divisions of labor, and a multitude of operating rules and procedures. It is also multiorganizational—and increasingly so. Cities, counties, special districts, and schools in metropolitan areas operate in a quasiregional conglomeration, where problems that transcend the artificial geographical boundaries of each jurisdiction are addressed through coordination, collaboration, and exchange. Even a small, remote city or rural county spends a great deal of time working with state and federal governments, rural councils, and local organizations in order to increase development, regulatory compliance, and grants-in-aid. Local governments of all kinds and sizes develop strategies and produce goods and services through contractual agreements, partnerships, alliances, task forces, coalitions, networks, and good, old-fashioned intergovernmental activity.
Local governments relate not only to other local governments; they are also embedded in a much larger and more complex multigovernmental, multiorganizational environment. The ability of local governments to accomplish goals and solve problems is linked strongly, sometimes directly, to the capacities of other organizations. Citizens vote for persons to represent them within their city and county borders, and city and county governments hire personnel to work on behalf of the citizens, but more and more of today’s governing involves extrajurisdictional relationships. That local government managers must operate across organizations as well as within hierarchies is now an accepted and expected part of public administration.
I try to spot a need and then create a mechanism to address that need.
Bryce A. Stuart
The number and variety of governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is so complex that a traditional administrative or legal focus on formal powers and constitutional structures offers an incomplete picture of the role and function of local governments. It is more appropriate today to examine the actual intergovernmental, interorganizational, and intersectoral relations that encompass all levels of government and the myriad public programs designed and administered by government agencies. Just as a local manager must be aware of the relationships prescribed by the U.S. and state constitutions, so too must the manager understand the number and variety of governmental units, the variety of public officials involved, the intensity of contacts among officials, and the importance of how relations vary across policy areas.
This chapter discusses the form and content of a local government’s external relations. It first looks at changes in society that affect how local governments operate. Second, it examines the multitude of relationships with governmental organizations and NGOs, including the activities performed in both the vertical and horizontal environments. The chapter next examines how local officials manage their jurisdiction’s external relations. It concludes with a list of suggestions for managing external relations.
The transformation of local government
Local governments have never operated in isolation. Much of the history of governing in the United States and in many other countries is rooted in citizens’ strong preference for local rather than national solutions; and these solutions have traditionally involved charities, churches, and town associations as well as the legal and financial power and framework of the national and state governments.
The pace and quality of change in government in the twenty-first century is unprecedented, however. A radical transformation in how policy preferences are determined and program outputs are delivered has been occurring throughout the world. Although the bureaucratic organization seemed to be the ideal organizational structure during the industrial age, during the twentieth century, government increased in size and scope, and now an emerging form of organization is supplementing and in some cases supplanting the work of bureaucracies.1 The new signature form—the collaborative network—is less rigid and more permeable than bureaucratic organizations. Local managers link across internal functions, jurisdictional and sectoral boundaries, and geographic boundaries. As the examples of Jill and Jack suggest, a local manager will often spend more time working externally than within the confines of the home organization.
External relations for local governments constitute a unique institutional form consisting of processes different from the spontaneous coordination of markets or the conscious management of hierarchy.2 How can we account for such an organizational transformation? Futurists, business leaders, and contemporary organization theorists argue that the emergence of multiorganizational structures and processes is merely a reflection of a much more profound social change. In the world of the twenty-first century, power is more dispersed, work is increasingly despecialized, and preferences are diverse rather than integrated. A similar explanation asserts the importance of information and knowledge as a resource in organizational performance. The most valuable worker is one who possesses skills in problem solving and strategic brokering that may not always require reliance on hierarchical forms of organization.
Citizens’ expectations of government reflect the society’s increasing individuation and diversity. The problems and issues that society seeks to address collectively are often poorly defined, with unclear goals and, thus, imperfect solutions.3 Bureaucratic agencies are best at fashioning technical and repetitious responses to emergent problems, but the “wicked” problems that are predominant in society do not lend themselves to such manipulation. Solutions to such problems typically lie outside of government, even as governments are held accountable for finding and implementing the solutions. Similarly, citizens often simultaneously—and somewhat paradoxically—demand more public action but less government.4 Citizens expect government to fix problems but with limited resources, making the involvement of nongovernmental actors necessary for effective public action. Finally, increasing demands by citizens for solutions are accompanied by greater political demands for inclusion in the problem-solving process. The blunt act of voting is no longer sufficient for exerting a democratic influence on traditional policy makers. Policies are now often planned and formulated outside of legislatures in community groups, committees, and task forces. Many intergovernmental programs even mandate multiorganizational linkages as part of the implementation process.
New management perspectives
Public policy making is not a purely bureaucratic exercise. Public policy making in the twenty-first century is affected by new forms of collaboration, blurring of jurisdictional boundaries, extragovernmental alliances, and the interactions within a loose network of many organizations and institutions.
Collaboration “The process of facilitating and operating in multiorganizational arrangements for solving problems that cannot always be achieved, or achieved easily, by single organizations” is one definition of the collaborative model of management.5 The term collaboration should not be confused with cooperation. Although both mean working jointly with others to some end, cooperation suggests that those working jointly seek to be helpful as opposed to hostile. A great deal of collaboration is cooperative, but collaborative relationships can also be tense, even combative. Some collaboration is voluntary, but other collaboration is mandated by the state and federal governments.
Administrative conjunction6 A de facto regionalism is emerging, not as a formal initiative embodied in a single government, but as a redefinition of the relationship between citizens and their government. The link between jurisdiction and public management is weakening. First, the borders of jurisdictions increasingly are porous. The problems that citizens want addressed are seldom contained in a single municipality. Because people often work in one city, shop in another city, and vote in still another, they have few social, political, and financial commitments to the jurisdictions in which they live. Second, the largest cities, which are the central cities and inner-ring suburbs of metropolitan areas, have the greatest problems but the least capacity to solve them. Third, even as jurisdictional borders are becoming less relevant in defining problems, political leadership within jurisdictions is still more important than political leadership between the jurisdictions. Citizens vote for representatives whose success may, at least in part, be determined by the actions of elected officials in other communities. Finally, settlement patterns and voting behavior show that although people prefer fragmentation and they resist consolidation, they also want their metropolitan area to work and act like a single entity. These factors contribute to a set of external relations that can supersede the actions of a single government.
Regime theory Regime theory of governing suggests that as complexity increases, nongovernmental actors become necessary components of a local delivery system. Multiple actors build long-lasting alliances to do what the government alone cannot do. Alliances or regimes do not prevent effective governing but instead provide necessary contributions to a city’s capacity to govern. Governments must blend their capacities with those of various nongovernmental actors to be effective, and “government capacity is created and maintained by bringing together coalition partners with appropriate resources, non-governmental as well as governmental.”7 In essence, regimes increase the ability of local governments to design and implement public goods and services.
Social production A community is a loosely coupled network of institutional arrangements and, as such, is characterized by a lack of coherence or control, and government no longer plays an exclusive role in coordinating and establishing control. Social production occurs in a complex, fragmented system of governments and NGOs when enough cooperation is developed to get things done.8 Multiple institutions mean multiple, potentially conflicting preferences, but they also can lead to new possibilities and innovative solutions. The social production model reminds us that a synthesis of external resources, rather than a battle over compliance and discretion, is not only possible but also necessary for effective governing.
Local government external relations are both vertical and horizontal. Vertically, local governments deal with regulations and seek access to available resources within the legal and administrative frameworks of the national and state governments. Vertical relations are pursued to achieve local goals with state and national resources, and vice versa. In many cases, local governments must find a balance between the national or statewide purposes embodied in an intergovernmental program and the needs of the local community.
Horizontal relations involve the array of public and private interests that often participate in the production of public services. The horizontal environment of a local government includes the policy-making resources held by NGOs, private agencies, and area local governments.
A local manager may be involved in managing across governmental boundaries (vertical relations) within the context of one program or project while simultaneously managing across organizational and sectoral boundaries (horizontal relations) within the context of another program or project. Operating simultaneously in each environment can also occur within the context of the same program or project.9
The extraordinary number and types of governmental organizations and NGOs in the United States are striking.10 There are more than 87,000 units of government in the United States. In addition to the national government and the governments of the 50 states, there are 3,034 counties, 19,429 municipalities, 16,504 townships, 13,506 school districts, and 35,052 special districts. Approximately 21 million persons are employed directly by government in the United States, nearly 7 percent of the total workforce. State and local governments account for 18.3 million employees, 87 percent of the total. The number and proportion of state and local government personnel have been increasing since the middle of the twentieth century. In 1950, state and local government employees made up 54.4 percent of the public workforce; in 2002, that proportion was more than 87 percent. As if 87,000 governments are not complex enough, there were an estimated 1.2 million nonprofit organizations in the United States in 1998, with more than 7 percent of the workforce employed by these organizations. Millions more volunteer their time to nonprofit organizations such as charities and foundations. At least one-sixth of the population thus is involved in producing and delivering public goods and services to citizens.
Adding to the complexity of governing in the United States is the number of different functions performed by each type of local government. For example, counties are general-purpose governments that function on a level between the state and the municipality. One role counties play is to serve as an administrative arm of the state—managing such functions for the state as the state trial and appellate court system and the district attorney’s office, assessing property taxes, recording deeds, and providing various health and welfare services such as child welfare and mental institutions. Municipalities are also general-purpose governments, but they vary tremendously in size and scope. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, a municipal government is a political subdivision within which a municipal corporation has been established to provide general local government for a specific population concentration in a defined area. Municipalities may limit or prohibit activity and property uses in order to protect the public health, safety, and general welfare.
School districts are single-purpose jurisdictions established to administer the public education of children. In most states, school systems are run by autonomous governments that have their own taxing, spending, and borrowing authority. Often their boundaries do not coincide with the boundaries of the community they serve, which adds to the fragmentation that is the hallmark of government in the United States.
Governments similar to school districts are special district governments. When citizens of a particular place desire to provide a single function or a limited set of functions, they can create a special government that suits their purposes and needs more effectively. Special districts are used most commonly for natural resource functions such as flood control, irrigation management, and wildlife and land conservation. Other uses include fire protection, housing, transportation administration, solid-waste administration, water, and sewage.
Vertical relationships in the United States are defined in legal terms by the U.S. Constitution and the 50 state constitutions. The formal relationship between the national government and the state governments is federal, which means the exercise of power is divided between two levels of government. The U.S. Constitution grants some powers specifically to the national government (in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution) and reserves others to the states (primarily in the Tenth Amendment). Some powers—including the power to elect representatives who make laws, raise revenue, and decide the purposes for which the revenue is raised—are held by both the national and state governments. First and foremost, federalism is a structural arrangement designed to accommodate simultaneously a strong, autonomous central (national) government and a system of strong, autonomous constituent (state) governments. The boundaries of the power distribution are essentially territorial, although the constituent territories reflect cultural diversity and thus varying packages of policy preferences. Federalism is viewed by some as a means to create and foster national unity while it preserves the respective integrities of its people.11
Federalism is also a process. In the United States, the division of power between the national and state governments is not static.12 The structure provides the environment within which the power division can be debated, altered, and clarified through a continual process that involves the participation of both the national and the state levels of government.13 As a result, the actual division of power has changed over time. During the nation’s first several decades, there existed a so-called dual federalism within which each level of government claimed and maintained its own spheres of power and influence. Interaction between the levels was infrequent but competitive. Slowly since the middle of the nineteenth century and rapidly since the 1930s, a system of shared powers and a cooperative federalism has existed to varying degrees within different policy areas.
In our era of shared functions, both the national and state governments exercise significant decision-making power during the formulation of a given program, and officials from both levels of government exert significant influence over the administration and operation of that program.14 Such sharing is seen by some people as the national government exerting undue influence in local affairs, resulting in a top-heavy, nation-centered relationship and reduced power in state and city governments.
One attempt at minimizing the regulatory reaches of the national government and restoring what some perceive as a balance to federalism in the United States and also in many other countries is devolution. Devolution is a term used to describe the shifting of policy responsibilities downward from the national government to states and local governments. The argument for devolution stems from a belief in local self-governance—that power, autonomy, and flexibility should reside as far down in the governmental system as is possible in practice. Through lobbying, repeated administrative requests, and often a lack of resources or unwillingness to spend money, some policy areas have been devolved from the national to the subnational governments. However, some critics of national-government policy making argue that devolution has heretofore been more philosophy than practice in the United States.15
State-local relations
The formal relationship between state governments and the local governments within each state is unitary. Unlike the power division of federalism, a local government possesses only those powers formally granted to it by the state. A state government creates a local government, specifically grants it autonomy in various administrative and policy areas, allows it to govern, and can legally abolish it. Local governments rarely can opt out of fulfilling state objectives. States shape the activities of local governments through the use of state mandates, and they may order local units to regulate private activities, provide services, refrain from using some types of taxes, limit tax rates, and use a particular personnel system.
Although national and state courts generally view local governments as legal creatures of their states, in practice, the amount of local government discretion varies by region, type of unit, and type of function performed. Generally, local units enjoy more discretion regarding their structure and organization than they do regarding the functions they perform or the ways they raise and spend revenues. Also, local governments are not powerless and can wield significant influence in state legislatures.
The states have substantial legal, financial, and administrative powers over local governments, but a host of factors often limits the willingness of state officials to use these powers. The tradition of local self-government is, for example, stronger in New England than in the South. Municipalities, on the whole, enjoy greater self-government than do counties and other units of local government. Fear of adverse reactions by the public and by local officials and concern that state action may produce negative results serve to restrain state intervention in many instances.
State and local agencies also cooperate administratively in many different policy areas, including economic development, human services, land use, transportation, natural resources, and the environment. States are dominant—no local manager would refute that—but the extent of dominance and the concomitant level of local discretion vary across policy areas.
For the first 140 years or so of governance under the U.S. Constitution, the state-local relationship was the paramount U.S. intergovernmental connection. Then, beginning in the 1930s, federal-state programs of the New Deal and the expanded intergovernmental partnership that resulted from the Great Society programs in the 1960s reduced slightly the significance of the state-local nexus, but recent trends have restored the subnational system. States provide nearly $300 billion in aid to local governments each year, and the amount increases, on average, much faster than the national inflation rate.16 State aid accounts for more than 20 percent of all city revenues and approximately 40 percent of county revenues; and, in some states, state aid provides more revenue to school districts than the districts raise themselves through taxation and fees.17 As a proportion of total state-local activity, state government own-source revenues, expenditures, and personnel increased substantially during the twentieth century, and since the 1970s in particular. Overall, the chief source of grant aid to local governments is state government.
Local managers understand that increasing aid means greater involvement and more strings attached by state government to local affairs. In many ways, state-local relations can be defined by the extent to which states make use of mandates to influence local government activity and achieve statewide policy objectives. Many local managers have little difficulty with the goals of many state mandates. In some cases, local managers who deal with unhappy community residents during the implementation of some unpopular programs actually welcome the political cover that mandates provide. But mandates that impose costs on the local government without providing accompanying funding or that do not reflect local preferences present the most serious obstacles for local governments. Compliance can be very expensive.
Other factors contribute to muddled state-local relations. The increase of federal-state programming and the concomitant de-emphasis of federal-local programs since the 1980s may have minimized the voice of local government. In addition, attempts to come to grips with the more intractable problems of modern life, greater pressure on states to deal with metropolitan problems, and the enhanced ability of states to raise greater amounts of tax money for revenue-sharing purposes have combined to put a strain on state-local partnerships.18 Improving state-local relations has thus become a strategic goal of many states.
One national model for effective state-local relations is the Wisconsin governor’s Commission on State-Local Partnerships for the Twenty-First Century (the Kettl Commission). The commission was charged with demonstrating the importance of state-local relations and devising proactive steps that can be taken to help configure a system from which each level can benefit.19 Many other states have agencies and commissions that focus on state-local relations and seek to sort out state and local responsibilities.
Improving state-local relations in Wisconsin In April 2000, the governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson, launched the Commission on State-Local Partnerships for the Twenty-First Century (also known as the Kettl Commission). His charge to the commission was to think boldly and creatively, conduct nothing less than a mini–constitutional convention, and craft solutions that would launch Wisconsin’s governments effectively into the twenty-first century. The commission was based on the idea that government leaders throughout the country recognize the central importance that state-local partnerships must play in providing an excellent quality of life for their citizens.
Although it was tempting to suggest that government boundaries needed to be redrawn or, perhaps, an entire level of government needed to be abolished, the commission concluded that those would be nineteenth-century answers to twenty-first-century problems. The problems of the information age do not call for new boundaries. Instead, they require innovative strategies to create seamless government for Wisconsin’s citizens. After fifteen commission meetings, seven town meetings throughout the state, countless discussions with citizens and government officials, and electronic forums on the Internet over a period of nine months, the commission laid out its recommendations for how best to structure the twenty-first-century state-local partnership. The first three recommendations are:
National-local relations
Although courts view local governments as legal creatures of their states, this legal condition has not prevented the establishment of direct ties between local governments and the national government. At various times in history, local governments have found the national government willing to help address problems facing local officials and willing to involve local officials in the shaping of national policies directed at these problems. The extensive contacts between the national government and local governments have grown up for a number of reasons:20
The shift in local governments’ relationship with the national government has been well documented. While the demands of coercive regulations grew larger, the incentives for local involvement in achieving national goals were lessened. National aid to state and local governments peaked in 1978, declined in real dollars in 1982, and has since grown steadily but very slowly. Most important, in the early 1980s, nearly all significant national-local grants were eliminated except for entitlement programs such as CDBGs and some transportation funds. Direct aid to local governments went from nearly 30 percent of total aid in 1978 to less than 12 percent in the late 1990s. Similarly, during the 1960s, localities increasingly became the target of national regulations; this control did not abate during the 1980s, however, and it continues today even with more restricted funding.
One result of national cutbacks and the concomitant devolution revolution is embodied in the status of the funds given to states in the form of block grants, which are then allocated (passed through) to local governments. Counties are prime recipients of such funding, especially for social welfare, corrections, and environmental protection. The relationship between the original recipient, the state agency, and the secondary recipient, the associated county agency, thus becomes more important than the national-state linkage.
In spite of the shock to the intergovernmental system that began with decreases in federal funding in the late 1970s, the national-local relationship still is important and consequential. The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st century (TEA-21) emphasizes regional governance and metropolitan planning as it provides funds to state and metropolitan bodies. In fiscal year 2002, TEA-21 provided more than $31 billion for highway work and nearly $7 billion for mass transit, which is clearly a concern for a number of local governments. To address concerns about the regulatory might of the national government, Congress passed the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act in 1995, which ostensibly prohibits Congress from enacting any mandates above $50 million (adjusted yearly for inflation) unless funding is provided. Though the intent was laudable, local officials are quick to point out that federal preemption of regulatory authority has not diminished; in the area of telecommunications, for example, the Federal Communications Commission has diminished local control of public rights of way.
Homeland security is also an important and somewhat contentious issue for the national government and local governments. Local officials need funds to help cover the costs of new, unprecedented responsibilities in the nation’s defense against terrorism, and they have turned to the national government for assistance to offset security costs incurred since September 11, 2001. Because of the planning requirements and staffing demands placed on local governments by national agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, local governments are demanding technical as well as financial assistance.
Vertical activities
Local managers undertake several different types of activity in working with higher levels of government. Good intergovernmental management can promote local, regional, and national goals.
Seeking information A primary vertical activity is contacting national and state governments for basic information. Information is an important policy-making resource when multiple participants hold other resources—finances, expertise, legal authority, and personnel. Information-seeking activities include obtaining and managing grants, but they also include transactions regarding the basic organization and operation of all intergovernmental programs. Some of this activity is conducted through official channels, but much is informal although just as significant.
Seeking funding The core of intergovernmental activity is seeking available program and funding information. The frequency and intensity of such activity with the national government has diminished greatly since the late 1970s, and fewer cities receive grants from the national government than did in the 1960s and 1970s. However, state governments continue to be the primary donors to localities. In today’s funding environment, many cities know all too well that participation in either the national- or state-level grant-in-aid system has become extremely difficult. Searching the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance is a regular activity for local managers who are adept at seeking information by increasing their contacts, improving their knowledge of the targeting of funds, garnering greater support from external groups, and paying more attention to program detail and quality.
Administering programs Local government managers also contact national and state officials to seek program guidance, clarify administrative matters, and reach mutual understandings. Local governments and higher-level donors may share the same general goals but differ over the details of local implementation. Effective managers are able to develop agreement on the nature of problems, search for and forge joint solutions, and implement decisions through joint action.21 Much of the information transacted in the vertical realm concerns basic program accommodations, adjustments, and other routine matters on specific problems that rarely cause conflict once local managers and the other government’s representatives discuss them.
Seeking technical assistance Because program operations can place demands on a jurisdiction that it might not be able to meet with its existing capabilities, local managers ask for technical assistance that enhances their ability to implement a given program. Often the activity is informal, such as when a state official explains a new geographic information system (GIS) program to a local administrator. States also provide formal technical assistance programs to communities. The Iowa Community Betterment Program, for example, provides technical assistance to community groups and local volunteers in cities to help them organize, plan, and implement a community improvement or service project. The Southwest Washington Health District provides the physical locations of existing public water supply wells in critical aquifer areas to assist cities in locating all such wells. The EPA offers a program—the agency calls it a Swiss army knife for environmental planning—that is a one-stop introduction to a wide range of environmental issues and decisions that affect small to medium-sized communities.
Vertical relations in a small town
Ithaca, Michigan, manages its regulatory framework when it can. The city regularly negotiates with federal and state officials. Although concerned and often frustrated by unfunded mandates, it takes a proactive stance on most of these issues.
For example, when officials from the public works department became concerned about health and safety regulations, the city asked the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration to carry out an inspection audit, which was discussed, negotiated, and then followed.
When the Michigan Department of Natural Resources informed the city that several city streets would have to be closed, blocking industrial and retail access, while the state repaired streets, Ithaca called in the department supervisor for a meeting. Ithaca was able to negotiate a solution: no more than two of the proposed streets would be closed at one time.
City officials also proposed to the department of natural resources an alternative storage pond for the water reservoir so the city could expand its industrial park without having to build a water tower. This action ultimately required a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency waiver of rule, which was obtained.
Another example of adjustment-seeking activity occurred in the early 1990s when EPA Superfund project officials arrived in town to test for lead on city property. The initial cost to the city would have been $2 million for mitigation, but the city negotiated with the state attorney general and department of natural resources to reduce the city’s liability to in-kind costs only.
Seeking regulatory relief Restrictions placed on local government activity and conditions attached to intergovernmental aid programs by the national and state governments are often unwieldy for cities. Such regulations and conditions may cause local agencies to calculate the project’s political and economic costs and benefits. When the calculation results in an apparent loss to the local government, managers can take steps to get relief and move a program forward. Managers may conclude that it is worthwhile to seek relief from standards that adversely affect local interests and thus request some form of asymmetrical treatment or program adjustment that is not technically within standards, rules, or guidelines but nonetheless advances the goals of both the higher governmental level and local manager. This involves the common practice of a government seeking to change the application of a regulation or standard to a particular situation if it impedes a specific project or effort.22
When rules and other mandates are impediments to achieving the aims of a program, neither the local government nor the higher-level government will benefit. Certainly conflict occurs, but a workable solution will be found not through turf battles or stalemates but through collaborative relations. In this regard, working with, rather than deferring to or acceding to, national or state officials can result in a successful adjustment for both parties. In many cases the regulating government or donor government may deny the request for an adjustment, but it is always worth the request. A mutually beneficial solution will rarely result from coercion.
Managers can seek relief from regulations or statutes through lobbying and developing regional interlocal coalitions. The Texas Coalition of Cities for Utility Issues (TCCFUI) is an example of such a coalition. In the field of telecommunications policy, its board monitors legislative activity at the state government level and rule promulgation at the Federal Communications Commission and informs its members—approximately 110 cities—of the effects of these intergovernmental actions. Where possible, TCCFUI also lobbies relevant state legislative subcommittees with jurisdiction over telecommunications issues.23
In an era when performance measurement has become a valued managerial principle, recipient governments often are forced to balance an audit mentality (the donor government tries to ensure legal and procedural compliance) and an evaluation approach (the donor government focuses on performance and effectiveness). Local managers sometimes seek to trade off strict compliance in exchange for greater discretion, which allows them to achieve program goals by focusing on outcomes instead of process. For example, many national and state economic development programs award localities in terms of numbers of jobs or new investment and are flexible in the enforcement of reporting and compliance. Cities, counties, and public-private development corporations regularly seek changes in business development programs in order to attract specific types of companies.
The complexity of governance in the twenty-first century is most evident at the local level. In 2003, there were 362 metropolitan statistical areas and 560 micropolitan statistical areas in the United States.24 Approximately 83 percent of the U.S. population lived in metropolitan statistical areas in 2003, compared with less than 63 percent in 1960; and another 10 percent lived in micropolitan areas. Metropolitan areas are not only growing in number and in population, but the large metro areas are growing larger. Nearly two-thirds of the metropolitan population lives in areas that have a population of at least 1 million.
Growth in metropolitan areas has meant accelerated fragmentation of local governments. More than 40 percent of the nation’s local governments are now located in metropolitan statistical areas, a proportion that has doubled since 1972. The average metro area encompasses more than 100 local government units. For example, the Dallas-Fort Worth Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area contains 461 local governments, including 199 cities, 134 special districts, and 116 school districts—more than one government unit for every 1,000 citizens. The Cincinnati metropolitan area is even more fragmented, with 242 cities and townships, 125 special districts, and 84 school districts stretched across 15 counties in parts of three states—one local government unit exists for every 450 citizens. The Chicago metropolitan area has more than 1,200 local governments.
In highly urbanized regions, it is virtually impossible to deal with major transportation and environmental issues on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis. Rather, a coordinated and cooperative approach is required for comprehensive, effective and efficient results. Similarly, local governments are discovering that they can better utilize limited resources, in many cases, when they participate in jointly sponsored projects and programs to serve their citizens’ common needs.
Mike Eastland
The consequence is that the natural boundaries for needed services are not the same as arbitrary jurisdictional boundaries, especially in metropolitan areas. Managers have to come up with economically efficient, administratively effective, and equitable ways and means of handling the problems, programs, and processes that spill over municipal and county boundaries. Local managers have found that most of these issues can be addressed only through horizontal, multiorganizational activity.
The effect of metropolitan fragmentation is a much debated issue. Some argue that the existence of a large number of separate governments creates problems such as duplication of services, taxing and service inequities, ruinous competition resulting in giveaways to large businesses, public confusion over which government is responsible for what, and an inability to focus effectively on areawide problems. This “reform view” of metropolitan fragmentation also points to the lack of coordination among local governments. Others argue that a having a large number of local governments is desirable because it allows citizens to choose the lifestyle and level of services they want, and it keeps government more accessible and accountable to the people. Competition among local units keeps taxes low and encourages efficiency. From this perspective, the local political system is like a marketplace, where citizens can shop around for the combination of services they want.25
Horizontal relations are not just a metropolitan phenomenon. Rural communities face challenges related to structural changes in economic and social life: low skill and resource densities, lack of specialized expertise and information, isolation and limited access to urban amenities, and an overspecialization of local economies.26 These internal forces have contributed to dwindling populations, relatively low wages, above-average incidences of poverty, and a declining institutional infrastructure in cities located outside metropolitan areas. Counteracting or adapting to trends within this rapidly changing environment requires new governing relationships. For example, in the early 1990s, a series of horizontal, rural-based networks emerged in Nebraska to pull together diverse rural interests while focusing on specific projects. Networks that were formed included eight regional groups of rural service providers, a development academy that conducts educational and training programs, a computerized interactive information and communications vehicle among rural communities and service providers, and a number of working groups to explore new programs and development tools.27
The question, in administrative terms, is “how do we devise a system of local governments large enough to handle area-wide problems and small enough to remain responsive to the needs and desires of neighborhoods and other small areas?”28
Horizontal activities
Managing horizontally means working the highly interdependent local policy process, pooling resources, building bases of support, and determining feasible courses of action.29 Cities and counties operate horizontally because their capacity to make decisions is highly dependent on other organizations’ resources to achieve their goals. With the days of federal government abundance long past, key policy-making resources are increasingly held by many players, most of which are located horizontally within or apart from the city. Even within the context of a vertical program such as a grant, local government managers need to work with other local interests in developing policy strategies. Cities also engage in leveraging as they blend private nonprofit and for-profit resources with public resources.
Like vertical intergovernmental relations, horizontal activity can be formal, such as an agreement between two cities to share in the delivery of a service, or it can be more informal, such as a plan among several NGOs for a course of action and a role in decision making. Some arrangements may enable routine coordination, others provide a means of solving specific problems.
Interjurisdictional agreements Formal horizontal collaboration includes: (1) interlocal service contracts between two or more units of government in which one pays the other for the delivery of the service to the residents of the jurisdiction of the paying government, and (2) joint service agreements between two or more governments for the joint planning, financing, and delivery of a service to the residents of all participating jurisdictions. Many variations of interlocal agreements (ILAs) are used to overcome the problems of fragmentation, especially duplication of service and lack of resources. Interlocal agreements are used extensively in metropolitan and rural areas to provide police and fire protection, detention facilities, libraries, solid-waste disposal, criminal laboratory services, and joint use of facilities.
Cost savings through interlocal agreements in Utah
Localities commonly transfer service responsibilities from one local government to another—the direction is typically from cities to counties—as allowed by state law. To avoid overlap and fragmentation, counties in various parts of the country have assumed responsibility from cities for services such as jails, libraries, street repairs, and animal control. Los Angeles County promotes its services to cities on a contract basis; the most popular service is the county’s extensive crime lab.
A sample of interlocal agreements in San Antonio, Texas
Source: San Antonio Office of External Relations.
Contracts and partnerships Local governments and NGOs engage in formal partnerships and contracts. In public-private partnerships, each sector shares in planning, funding, and delivering public services. There is burgeoning interest in public-private partnerships in economic and community development projects. Other creative public-private partnerships are formed in such areas as public works and utilities, infrastructure development, environmental management, park maintenance, and libraries.
In many states, local economic development corporations combine the funding and legal authority of government with the innovation, expertise, and contacts of the private sector. Since 1987, the city of Denton, Texas, has maintained a formal partnership with the city’s chamber of commerce. The economic development staff at the chamber lead the marketing efforts, while the city department of economic development manages business retention and provides technical and advisory support. The partnership is funded partly through an annual pledge from the Public Utility Board, and the balance is raised through additional investments made by conscientious citizens, interested businesspeople, and other stakeholders. The state of Texas allows such partnerships and encourages cities to create separate organizations to plan and manage various development projects.
Throughout the latter half of the 1990s, Beloit, Wisconsin, worked in a partnership with a nonprofit redevelopment association to transform an area of blight on the Rock River, which runs through the heart of town, into a combination civic center–industry site and a moderate- to low-income housing area. The association, known as Beloit 2000, mobilized neighborhood groups, the business community, local elected officials, and the city administration for its goals. The county government contributed tax funds. Both the city and county governments used their state-authorized powers to establish tax-increment finance districts, grant tax abatements, and reduce or eliminate regulations that had thwarted development.30
Some so-called partnerships are actually contracting arrangements in which the government pays NGOs to provide a good or a service; the government then does not share the responsibilities of service provision. The primary reason for entering into contracts with NGOs is cost savings through lower labor costs and/or management innovation.31 In June 1997, Riverside County, California, entered into an agreement with a private company for the day-to-day management of its 25-branch library system. Just one year after the partnership was formed, library hours were expanded by 34 percent, staff were added, salaries were maintained, the materials budget increased by 33 percent, and circulation increased by about 10 percent—all at the same level of funding. Some cities, like Hinesville, Georgia, contract with private firms to manage nearly all local government public works and provide waste and wastewater services, garbage collection, street sweeping, and fleet vehicle maintenance.
Other horizontal mechanisms Interlocal agreements, partnerships, and contracting are the most common horizontal activities, but jurisdictions use a variety of others as well. To assure citizens of access to a service or a good that the local government decides not to pay for, a government can award a private firm a franchise to perform a certain service or provide a good. The firm then charges citizens—customers—directly for the service or good. In return for exclusive access to customers, the franchisee will often pay a fee to the government. The price charged to the customer is typically negotiated and regulated by the local government. Examples of franchises include common utilities (electricity, natural gas, water, and sewage), mass transit, telephone service, and cable television.
In coproduction, local governments work with citizens to provide goods and services. Coproduction occurs in volunteer fire departments, primary and secondary education programs, and adopt-a-park projects sponsored by local parks and recreation departments. A growing number of community groups and neighborhood associations not only assist local government in providing traditional services, but also offer services not provided well, or at all, by government. Neighborhood crime watches are an example of such voluntary service.
About partnerships In an environment of change, partnerships are prized because they extend an organization’s capacity to marshal diverse skills and other resources to address problems that do not ordinarily fall within the organization’s scope of services. Partnerships can provide added capacity at little cost and permit an organization to add value to existing structures and people.
The challenges of partnerships are great, however:
Regionalism
As metropolitan areas grow larger, as the number of special districts increases, and as “wicked” cross-boundary problems become more prevalent, regional activity has in many cases superseded jurisdiction-based activity. Observers of intergovernmental cooperation conclude that relationships among local units of government can be improved by regional initiatives and by solutions that are formalized and institutionalized in a particular structural arrangement or agreement. Examples of regional activities include county-based solutions, councils of governments, government mergers, and tax-sharing agreements.
County solutions One commonly prescribed reform is reducing the number of special districts and authorities in favor of multipurpose and politically accountable units of government. Special districts and authorities play positive roles in providing needed environmental, transportation, housing, and other services. They make it possible for government to target costs to specific groups of people and thus avoid general increases in property taxes. At the same time, however, they add to the fragmentation of government and to problems of political accountability. Moreover, functions provided by special districts or authorities may be equally well provided by multipurpose, regional governments such as counties.
County governments provide a viable entity when the goal is a shifting of responsibilities to multipurpose, politically accountable entities with broad metropolitan or regional jurisdiction. An improved role for the county is particularly feasible in single-county metropolitan areas. The larger jurisdiction of counties, compared with municipal governments, makes them potentially better able to deal effectively with problems such as environmental protection and transportation. Compared with special authorities, counties offer well-established general-purpose governments directly accountable to the voters. Shifting responsibilities to the county may also provide economies of scale and a broader and more stable tax base.
Councils of governments In sprawling areas extending into two or more counties, councils of governments (COGs), of which counties are a part, could be more suitable than counties as units of multipurpose regional government. COGs are voluntary or state-mandated associations of governments. A majority of the regional councils in the United States serve governments in specific metropolitan areas or groups of metropolitan areas. Membership varies greatly. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments serves ten cities in seven counties and the District of Columbia. The Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana Regional Council of Governments has 198 community and 8 county members located in three different states. The Council of Fresno County Governments is composed of only the city governments located in Fresno County, California.
The role played by COGs in intergovernmental planning and the coordination of nationally aided projects varies from state to state. Most councils act as clearing-houses and are catalysts for regional problem solving. In many cases, they are the only organization that generates plans for metropolitan areas. In addition to their roles in long-range intergovernmental planning, COGs provide various types of technical assistance under contract to member governments.
Although COGs historically have been the principal instruments for addressing regional problems, most COGs play only an advisory role in regional policy making, and their decisions have little binding authority over member units. At the same time, COGs show considerable potential for comprehensive horizontal problem solving. At times, finding a solution has meant involvement of not only local government but also other actors and institutions in the community critical to the resolution of conflict. For example, in addition to serving county and city governments, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments also has eight educational members, including two community colleges.
Local government mergers One rare but available response to local fragmentation is a city-county merger. Only four such consolidations occurred during the 1990s. The most recent consolidations were the Kansas City, Kansas–Wyandotte County merger in 1998 and the Louisville–Jefferson County merger in 2003. The latter joins Lexington–Fayette County in Kentucky, the only state to have its two largest local governments exist as city-county mergers. For the most part, mergers of this type consolidate all political and administrative functions into one governing body, thereby eliminating service duplication, equalizing service provision, and providing clear accountability. Such drastic attempts at restructuring are typically opposed by communities that perceive consolidation as a loss of political power and by incumbent local officials who stand to lose their jobs. In spite of the difficulties of securing local support, city-county mergers are often proposed when a metropolitan area experiences fiscal stress.
Tax sharing Tax-sharing agreements also address regional issues. In a typical setup, two or more jurisdictions share an earmarked percentage of revenue, usually from property taxes or sales taxes. Some participants share funds from new developments, which reduces competition over economic development projects. As the administrator of tax collection and disbursement, a county government or other regional entity often takes part in tax sharing agreements.
Metropolitan districts Some regional bodies are configured as metropolitan special districts that perform diverse functions although many are established to address specific, related functions such as land use, area planning, and development. The best known district of this sort is the Metropolitan Service District in Portland, Oregon, which is a multipurpose government operated by directly elected officials. The Twin Cities Metropolitan Council in the Minneapolis–St. Paul region of Minnesota works with all area municipalities and townships. Compared with the Portland district, the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council has relatively limited administrative impact.
Tax sharing among district communities in the Meadowlands In zoning on a regional basis, the possibility of financial inequities arises. For example, if a large section of Community A is zoned for a park and a large section of Community B is zoned for a major office, residential, or warehouse project, then Community B should share some of the benefits derived from development.
A tax-sharing plan for the Meadowlands region in New Jersey was designed in 1972 to balance these inequities so that the region could be developed as a unit with town-to-town equality. Each community receives a proportionate share of the property taxes from post-1970 development, regardless of where it occurs. Essentially, communities share the benefits of development rather than have winners and losers in the competition for economic development. The commission receives no money from the fund; it serves merely as the routing agent.
Source: New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, “Tax Sharing in the Meadowlands District”.
External relations do not emerge spontaneously as self-sufficient, automated linkages. Multiorganizational activity is both operational and strategic and depends, in large part, on the actions of a local manager. Multiorganizational relationships depend on various leaders at various times performing various roles, all of which may be necessary for effective governing. In each local jurisdiction, the local manager ultimately is held accountable for the satisfactory delivery of public goods and services.
Characteristics of external relations
External relations for local managers involve interdependence, a variety of actors, a dedicated purpose, and the presence of multidimensional management.
Interdependence In multiorganizational settings, each actor is dependent on at least one other actor for key resources. When these dependent relationships multiply and are reciprocal, a shared interest in a policy solution develops. The greater the interdependence among actors, the greater the need for coordination and collaboration.32 Interdependence implies that all actors have mutual needs and each has something to gain through involvement with the others.
Variety of actors Local government managers must work productively with a variety of actors who have their own goals and strategies but who must adapt their preferences to achieve the network goal. No one actor has enough power to determine the strategic actions of the other actors (although the government manager is more equal than the others). Linkages can be created with representatives from government, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations; with administrators or other staff; with elected officials and board members; and with members of the community and interested individuals from other jurisdictions. Any organization that can help solve a pressing problem should be included. Cost savings that partnerships with private agencies can bring are widely acknowledged, and NGOs have been an integral component of service provision since President Lyndon B. Johnson expanded federal partnership during the creative federalism period of the 1960s. The George W. Bush administration has also asserted its desire to involve faith-based organizations in governing.
Dedicated purpose External networks emerge for a specific purpose. Some relationships—such as subcontracting or borrowing arrangements—are “obligational,” and some interlocal contracts and privatization efforts exist for this limited, but still multiorganizational, type of exchange. Relationships that are forged for implementing grant programs or complying with vertical mandates can also be classified as obligational.
Other external relations are “promotional”; interests can be pursued through political alliances like the Texas Coalition of Cities for Utility Issues or through marketing alliances and research consortia like the city of Denton–Denton chamber of commerce partnership (described earlier in this chapter).
The most complex types of external relationships are systemic production networks, “clusters of organizations that make decisions jointly and integrate their efforts to produce a product or service.”33 A systemic production network must develop strategy, mechanisms for operation and implementation, and some means for determining whether expected results are being accomplished.34 A great deal of local management occurs in such networks for programs in areas such as community and economic development, social services, land use, transportation, and emergency management. Examples of systemic production networks are collaborative efforts like the State Rural Development Councils35 that are organized around federal, state, and local governments, tribal councils, and NGOs, and the more complex implementation structures such as those in the mental health field.
Multidimensional management Although some perceive multiorganizational networks as being so decentralized that management happens by accident rather than by intent, the truth is quite the opposite. Because of the number of actors dedicated to a defined purpose, networks can be considered “leaderful.”36 Multiorganizational relations typically exhibit multiple power centers with reciprocal relationships, many suppliers of resources, diffused responsibility for actions, massive information exchanges among actors, and the need for information input from all actors.37 Coordinating these persons and activities requires management of legal, political, technical, and financial issues.38
A local government operates within a legal framework, and laws—for example, contracts or interlocal agreements—govern the formal structure of multiorganizational activity. Federal and state regulations, the formal distribution of funds across actors, or national grant program mandates may control multiorganizational activity.
In many contexts, external management involves the political skills of conflict resolution, diplomacy, negotiation, and consensus building. Local managers must strike political bargains with network members, some of whom may have only limited support from their citizens. For example, a proposal for a child care center created by a partnership of three local nonprofit agencies in North Texas met with opposition from a neighborhood association. If the city council had allowed the center to be built and had granted all the necessary permits, city administrators would have needed to build bridges between the partnership and the neighborhood. Local managers may also have to expend political capital on maintaining support for a network operation within the home organization.
Managing external relations often has a technical dimension, and it is necessary to continually update information and collect data on key developments in relevant subjects. Negotiating interlocal agreements for fire protection, for example, requires knowledge of firefighting capacity, equipment needs, response time, and many other factors. Establishing provider networks for health services requires knowledge of medical needs and the administrative capacity of potential providers. In addition to such specialized knowledge, managers working in multiorganizational settings must know how to conduct needs assessments, develop strategic plans, write budgets, and evaluate outcomes, and they must possess strong programming and implementation skills.
Managing external relations also has a cost dimension. Operating in multiorganizational settings takes considerable time and effort, and good managers will reduce the costs of collaboration as much as possible. The lower the predicted costs for a potential actor, the greater the probability of cooperation. Any manager who has participated in multiorganizational arrangements understands that collaborative decisions are usually the most effective, making the effort worth the cost.
Community collaboration in rural France A human services volunteer group active in six rural communities in central France operates a mobile day care center featuring a ludothèque, a lending library for games. A van loaded with games, driven alternately by two nursery school teachers, stops for at least one afternoon a week in each of the six participating communities. The modest budget of the mobile game room is funded by member families as well as a prorated subsidy from the welfare fund of the six participating communities. Each of the six communities in the Ille-et-Vilaine district makes available a school or community center facility where the van pulls up to accommodate the local children. A total of some 200 children now participate. The ludothèque has become a convivial weekly meeting place for both mothers and their children.
The key for the local government manager is to understand how and why each organization contributes to the network effort. The key questions are managerial and strategic in nature: How does a local official make sure the right people are involved? How is it possible for a network to work jointly to fashion the best solution?
Strategic approaches to external relations
Managing across governments and organizations involves operating in a complex system of rules, regulations, and standards—and taking advantage of opportunities. The local manager must mobilize forces within and outside of the community, acquire the resources needed to carry out a program or project, access information about external opportunities and constraints, and work with persons over whom they have no formal authority. To achieve success, a manager can choose among three primary management approaches: compliance, bargaining and negotiation, and networking.
Compliance As the previous analysis of national-local and state-local relations suggests, a considerable amount of managerial time is spent meeting program intent and expectations. A primary aspect of multiorganizational governing is local compliance. Clearly, local governments have a large incentive to comply when implementation of vertical programs is based largely on reporting, review, and audit. Many local governments seek financial resources to subsidize or create new programs. Given the limits on the availability of resources, need and fierce competition can result in a grab-the-money mentality, and maximum local discretion is not a priority.
Administrative rule making and regulatory programs are similarly designed with the expectation of full compliance. Often the benefits of compliance, measured in terms of political capital or simply time, far outweigh the costs of negotiation and bargaining. Sometimes local governments do not have the organizational capacity for negotiation and bargaining. Furthermore, many national programs are forged in the midst of conflicting goals and unclear intent, resulting in initial administrative confusion and overlapping program authority. Top-down management through centralized decision making and mandated local actions sometimes is the most efficient way of dealing with such problems.
Top-down compliance approaches rarely involve horizontal relations unless national or state programs mandate such relations. Empirical research has shown that when local governments pursue grants from higher levels of government, they interact far less with other jurisdictions and community organizations. However, many state requirements force local governments into interlocal agreements.
In many programs, any action beyond total compliance is unacceptable. National policies exist to achieve national goals, just as state policies exist to achieve regional goals. The more than 75 conditions attached to all national aid are nonnegotiable, as are direct orders or mandates by the national government that are designed to protect the rights of citizens. Hundreds of state mandates require administrative compliance, leaving local governments with little more than the political arena in which to seek local discretion. Although debates rage about whether federalism should include top-down mandates, in practice the local manager is wise in some instances to simply follow orders. Compliance is a legitimate multiorganizational management approach.
Bargaining and negotiation Compliance management is the appropriate local government approach when the national or state government possesses the information, expertise, finances, and capacity to control policy output. In many program areas, however, governments depend on each other for effective governance instead of on remote control from the top of the system. State governments often depend on the actions of the local government to achieve state objectives. A local government needs financial or other resources and may look to the state for assistance, but the state cannot always hold that need over the head of the locality and demand conformity. The granting state agency needs solid applications that reflect good planning and demonstrate administrative capacity. Similarly, local governments may have leverage over state actions in some areas because the latter simply may not have the time, the inclination, or the legal authority to intervene in local operations.
Locally initiated, jurisdiction-based management sets the scene for bargaining, negotiation, and mutually beneficial solutions. Grant programs may come with conditions, but the local manager may also view programs as opportunities to bargain with the donors.39 If a local government desires some type of relief from a higher government’s conditions or rules, it can take one of two actions: either ignore the standards and defy the granting government, thus risking penalties; or constructively engage the grantor to make special accommodations. Because both local and higher-level program managers understand that action ultimately must conform to the goals of the higher-level program at the same time that higher-level managers depend on local managers to achieve conformity, a negotiated approach to management is the most effective.
If a local government desires some type of relief from a higher government’s conditions or rules, it can take one of two actions: either ignore the standards and defy the granting government, thus risking penalties; or constructively engage the grantor to make special accommodations. Because both local and higher-level program managers understand that action ultimately must conform to the goals of the higher-level program at the same time that higher-level managers depend on local managers to achieve conformity, a negotiated approach to management is the most effective.
Bargaining and negotiation lead to a solution that is multilateral, not command and control. Thus, although the critical measure of policy success in compliance management is the extent to which managers carry out the demands of the granting government, a negotiated-management approach is judged successful when local managers are provided with sufficient policy discretion, resources, and autonomy to concurrently meet these demands and fulfill local needs. When a local manager calculates the planned benefits and potential costs of each available program and resource, the manager can negotiate and bargain rather than accommodate and acclimate.
Managers who adopt the bargaining mentality not only for grants and regulations but also for other vertical and horizontal relationships must pursue the needs of their jurisdiction first. External demands by outside vertical agencies can be only a secondary concern for them. For such jurisdiction-based management, the achievement of a local goal and the completion of a particular task are paramount.40 Instead of attempting to go it alone in the face of potentially debilitating mandates, the local manager will strategically involve other jurisdictions and other key actors as a means of achieving the goals of each.
Networking Many external linkages among local governments take place in network-like arrangements of various players, within which no player possesses the power to determine the strategies of the other actors but where the local manager is held accountable for the network solutions that emerge. Although each actor comes to the network with different types and levels of technology and resources and with individual operational goals and policy strategies, all focus on mutual strategic goals.
Networks enable joint decisions and collective actions to some degree.41 The solutions that result from network management benefit not only the local government but other parties as well.
Joint decision making is not particularly efficient, but a network of participants may produce better decisions because of the larger supply of information and a new commitment and interaction as they are stimulated by alternatives they would not have considered otherwise. If the basic challenge of making policy and strategy in the twenty-first century is to deliver policy outputs that are consistent with all societal interests, then a policy decision that emerges from a network process may provide the best possible route to success.
Management tasks
Involving the right people, framing the rules of engagement for the relationship, mobilizing the support of participants, and facilitating an effective process for productive relations are four primary tasks of managing a local government’s relationships with other governments and organizations.
Creating multiorganizational relationships The most important management task in external relations is getting the right collection of persons and resources to achieve the goal.42 Including the correct number of persons as well as all relevant interests is integral in determining the effectiveness of external relations. The manager must identify participants for the network and include key stakeholders in the process. Effective managers know the important contacts, the linkages that make them important, and the dimensions of various arrangements within which governing can occur. The skills, knowledge, and resources of potential participants must be assessed and engaged. Removing persons who are not performing as desired also appears to be an important component of management; introducing new actors in order to shift the operating dynamic of the multiorganizational arrangement is a common prescription.
The numbers and types of multiorganizational relationships depend on the purpose of the policy. The manager must constantly bear in mind the lineup of potential collaborators, even when the number actually engaged is small. The manager who sits on community boards, volunteers, inventories local government resources, and attends and holds workshops and informational meetings on relevant issues will automatically know who has which resources. Simply put, the manager must know something about the work of different professions and occupations and be ready to use this knowledge.
When appropriate, local managers can invite national and state officials to meetings, provide them with updates on progress, and report successes. Also when appropriate, local managers can include representatives of professional and technical associations or solicit technical assistance and advice from specialists.
Establishing rules of engagement Managing external relations also requires establishing the structure of the network, the formal roles of the participants, and the ground rules for participation.43 Local managers arrange, stabilize, nurture, and integrate the multiorganizational structure to aid in the formation of linkages and in the management of the network when effectiveness diminishes or is suboptimal. Establishing the rules of engagement involves facilitating the internal structure and position of the participants, influencing the prevailing norms of the network, and altering the perceptions of the network participants.
The manager might suggest viewing a problem differently or recommend an alternative decision-making mechanism. A manager cannot draw up an organizational chart for a network, but a manager can help establish the roles of each participant at any given time. Clarifying various actors’ roles, responsibilities, and boundaries is not the same as asking “Who’s in charge?” A useful approach is to identify which actors have primary responsibility for the tasks required for a joint solution to a problem.
A manager can introduce new ideas to the network and thereby create (or celebrate) a shared purpose or vision.44 A manager can also frame and champion an explicit shared purpose or program rationale that provides the motivational glue that secures the network and helps people who would otherwise not work together find mutual understanding. Similarly, developing explicit criteria the network can use to evaluate its work facilitates mutual understanding of operating and performance guidelines. Participants should draft plans within the multiorganizational arrangement, not beforehand; plans should not be predetermined instructions for activity.
Mobilizing support In addition to selecting the right persons and establishing the rules of engagement, managing external relations often requires inducing individuals to commit to the joint undertaking—and to keep that commitment.45 A manager must be able and ready to sell an idea, project, or a set of ideas or projects to representatives of other organizations. Collaboration does not come automatically, and the more the potential collaborators perceive demands on agency autonomy, power, and resources, the more resistant they may be. The decision in favor of a joint effort requires persuasion that participation or partnering will be of mutual benefit.
Motivated people are the key to organizational success. The ability of organizational actors to operate together within a single network depends less on a shared belief system, an ideology, or a common world view than it does on a shared motivation embodied in the project or program itself. Reminding network members and external stakeholders of the purpose of the activity and broadcasting network success are common and sometimes ongoing tasks for achieving motivation and thus building support for the activity. Inducing a sense of urgency is another way to develop support. Public opinion and organized-group pressure can help demonstrate the urgency of a problem and thereby enhance the possibility of concerted action toward a solution. In addition, the ability to manage networks is related to the internal support and cooperation of the manager’s primary organization. A manager in city government, for example, should have the cooperation of the city council and the government’s chief executive.
Facilitating interaction Managing external relations also requires creating the environment and enhancing the conditions for favorable, productive, and purposeful interaction among all actors in the partnership.46 It is important to help the various participants—who can have conflicting goals and different perceptions or dissimilar values—to fulfill the strategic purpose of the relationship. The strategies of each participant and the outcomes of those strategies are influenced by the patterns of interactions that have been developed. Establishing relationships that result in achieving the network’s purpose is the aim of the manager. Effective behaviors to accomplish this include facilitating and furthering interaction among participants, reducing complexity and uncertainty by promoting information exchange, providing incentives for cooperation, developing helpful rules and procedures of interaction, helping the network to be self-organizing, and engendering effective communication among participants. The effective manager seeks to lower the cost of interaction, which can be substantial in network settings.
The manager should communicate freely and openly with all actors. All information should be read, digested, circulated, and explained to all actors. Exchanges of information and expressions of interest are prerequisites for establishing trust and respect, which are the lifeblood of effective multiorganizational settings. In many local governments, top administrators and elected officials have to make considerable efforts to gain the trust of officials from other jurisdictions who possess needed resources. Trust may not necessarily require a harmony of beliefs, but it does depend on mutual obligation and expectation.47 Synthesizing the relationship to achieve a collective goal depends on it.
Guidelines for managing external relations Know who the important contacts are and the linkages that make them important. The list can and will change as the scope of the relationships changes.
When applicable, involve officials from other governments. At the very least, invite these officials to attend meetings and provide updates on progress.
When applicable, involve participants from professional and/or technical associations.
Seek expertise from external sources as much as possible.
Expand external relations to foster innovation and gain more information.
Reduce the costs of collaboration. The lower the costs affecting the collaborative players, the greater the probability of cooperation.
Demonstrate the urgency of solving the problem.
Clarify roles and responsibilities for all linkages among the players. Identify which participants have primary responsibility for which part of the tasks required to solve a particular problem.
Build an effective administrative structure into every collaborative arrangement.
Develop operating standards, guidelines, and plans within the collaborative structure, not before it is convened.
Create a unified program rationale to act as the motivational glue for the participants.
Establish a strong linkage between what the network intends to do and what actually occurs.
Clearly link program objectives to strategies and action steps.
Develop short- and intermediate-term systems for monitoring and evaluation.
Promote long-term solutions.
Communicate openly and frequently. Exchanges of information and expressions of interest across governmental and organizational boundaries are prerequisites for establishing trust and respect.
Read, explain, and circulate information to all network members.
Ensure that all correspondence is well written. Write in clear concise sentences and make all correspondence appealing.
Continually update information on key developments and changes in your program area. Share data, studies, and articles related to changes in the program area and the possible resources available to the network.
Allow the network to serve as a resource center and information resource on program information.
Emergency management in the suburbs
The city of Outer Ring is seeking to turn crisis into opportunity. Recent terrorist attacks and threats, a tornado that destroyed two neighborhoods in a nearby town, and the recent retirement of the veteran fire chief has forced Outer Ring to address a great concern of its citizens: disaster and emergency management. This city of 45,000, located at the periphery of a rapidly expanding metropolitan area of 1.6 million people, has always been satisfied with its police and fire operations. Response times for 911 calls are outstanding, and citizens view the very capable staff of firefighters and police officers as highly valued members of city government. The city’s admiration is demonstrated each year when the city celebrates the anniversary of the heroism displayed during the Great Package Warehouse fire of 1983.
But the world is not the same in the twenty-first century. City council members have recently pressured the city manager and the manager’s emergency staff to assume a greater role is planning for emergencies. They ask: Would Outer Ring be prepared to deal with a tornado or other natural disaster? A terrorist attack? Would city staff be in a position to assist other communities? Does the community have the capacity to make sure that a troubled teen cannot inflict violence in a public school? As city staff honestly and soberly answered “no” to each of these questions, the city manager knew what needed to be done. It wasn’t clear how to accomplish the task, however, and the manager turns to you to help make it happen.
A new position of emergency management coordinator is created, and you are hired for the job. Similar positions are being created in the small and large cities that border yours, each of which is facing the same need for planning and management of disasters and other emergencies. You are armed with a strong mandate from the city manager and the explicit support of the city council, but you are faced with the pressure that such support can impose. You have been promised adequate staff to implement your plans, but you also understand that a focus purely on internal management concerns may be insufficient for the task at hand. Your actions during the first 30 days will be critical to your success.
Questions
1 Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps, The Age of the Network (New York: Wiley, 1994).
2 Walter W. Powell, “Neither Market nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization,” in Research in Organizational Behavior, ed. Barry Staw and Larry L. Cummings (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1990), 295–336.
3 Laurence J. O’Toole, “Treating Networks Seriously: Practical and Research-Based Agendas in Public Administration,” Public Administration Review 57 (January–February 1997): 45–52.
4 Joseph W. Whorton and John A. Worthley, “A Perspective on the Challenge of Public Management: Environmental Paradox and Organizational Culture,” Academy of Management Review 6 (1981) 357–361; Charles T. Goodsell, The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic, 3rd ed. (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1994).
5 Robert Agranoff and Michael McGuire, Collaborative Public Management: New Strategies for Local Governments (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2003).
6 H. George Frederickson, “The Repositioning of American Public Administration,” PS: Political Science and Politics 32 (1999): 701–711.
7 Clarence Stone, “Urban Regimes and the Capacity to Govern: A Political Economy Approach,” Journal of Urban Affairs 15 (1993): 1–28.
8 Clarence Stone, Kathryn Doherty, Cheryl Jones, and Timothy Ross, “Schools and Disadvantaged Neighborhoods: The Community Development Challenge,” in Urban Problems and Community Development, ed. Ronald F. Ferguson and William T. Dickens, 339–380 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1999).
9 Agranoff and McGuire, Collaborative Public Management.
10 All government data are from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2002 Census of Governments 1, no. 1, “Government Organization,” GC02(1)-1, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2002). All nonprofit sector data are from The New Nonprofit Almanac in Brief (Washington, D.C.: Independent Sector, 2001).
11 Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, 3rd ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1984).
12 Russell L. Hanson, Governing Partners: State-Local Relations in the United States (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998).
13 Deil S. Wright, Understanding Intergovernmental Relations, 3rd ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1988).
14 Morton Grodzins, The American System: A New View of Government in the United States, ed. Daniel J. Elazar (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966).
15 Alan Ehrenhalt, “Devolution’s Double Standard,” Governing 16 (April 2003): 6.
16 Virginia Gray and Peter Eisinger, American States and Cities (New York: Longman, 1997).
17 David B. Walker, Rebirth of Federalism: Slouching toward Washington, 2nd ed. (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000).
18 Joseph F. Zimmerman, State-Local Relations: A Partnership Approach (New York: Praeger, 1983).
19 See Wisconsin Blue-Ribbon Commission on State-Local Partnerships for the 21st Century (January 2001), www.lafollette.wisc.edu/reform/report011001.pdf.
20 David C. Nice and Patricia Fredericksen, The Politics of Intergovernmental Relations, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1995).
21 Robert Agranoff, Intergovernmental Management: Human Services Problem Solving in Six Metropolitan Areas (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1986).
22 Agranoff and McGuire, Collaborative Public Management.
23 See Texas Coalition of Cities for Utility Issues, www.tccfui.org/.
24 The Office of Management and Budget (part of the Executive Office of the President) defines an official metropolitan statistical area in terms of population size and commuting patterns, with such an area having “at least one urbanized area of 50,000 or more population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of economic and social integration with that core as measured by communities ties.” A micropolitan statistical area is based in the same principle of population and integration, but it is centered on an urban cluster of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 population. All figures for metropolitan and micropolitan areas are from “Revised Definitions of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, New Definitions of Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Combined Statistical Areas, and Guidance on Uses of the Statistical Definitions of These Areas,” OMB Bulletin no. 03-04 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Management and Budget, June 6, 2003), www.whitehouse.gov/omb/bulletins/b03-04.html.
25 Charles M. Tiebout, “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures,” Journal of Political Economy 64 (October 1956): 416–424.
26 Robert Agranoff and Michael McGuire, “The Administration of State Government Rural Development Policy,” in Handbook of State Government Administration, ed. John J. Gargan, 385–420 (New York: Marcel Dekker, 2000).
27 Corporation for Enterprise Development, Rethinking Rural Development (Washington, D.C.: Corporation for Enterprise Development, 1993).
28 Nice and Fredericksen, The Politics of Intergovernmental Relations.
29 Agranoff and McGuire, Collaborative Public Management.
30 Ibid.
31 Donald Kettl, Sharing Power: Public Governance and Private Markets (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993).
32 Donald Chisholm, Coordination without Hierarchy: Informal Structures in Multiorganizational Systems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
33 Catherine Alter and Jerald Hage, Organizations Working Together (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993).
34 Robert Agranoff, “Human Services Integration: Past and Present Challenges in Public Administration,” Public Administration Review 51 (1991): 533–542.
35 Beryl A. Radin, Robert Agranoff, Ann O’M. Bowman, Gregory C. Buntz, Steven J. Ott, Barbara S. Romzek, and Robert H. Wilson, New Governance for Rural America: Creating Intergovernmental Partnerships (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996).
36 Lipnack and Stamps, The Age of the Network.
37 Kenneth Hanf, Benny Hjern, and David O. Porter, “Local Networks of Manpower Training in the Federal Republic of Germany and Sweden,” in Interorganizational Policy Making: Limits to Coordination and Central Control, ed. Kenneth Hanf and Fritz W. Scharpf, 303–341 (London: Sage Publications, 1978).
38 Robert Agranoff and Michael McGuire, “Managing in Network Settings,” Policy Studies Review 16 (1999): 18–41.
39 Helen Ingram, “Policy Implementation through Bargaining: The Case of Federal Grants-in-Aid,” Public Policy 25 (1977): 499–526.
40 Agranoff and McGuire, Collaborative Public Management.
41 Catherine Alter and Jerald Hage, Organizations Working Together (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993).
42 Michael McGuire, “Propositions about What Networks Do and Why They Do It,” Public Administration Review 62 (September–October 2002): 599–609; Barbara Gray, Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989); Erik-Hans Klijn, “Analyzing and Managing Policy Processes in Complex Networks,” Administration and Society 28 (1996): 90–119.
43 Walter J. M. Kickert, Erik-Hans Klijn, and Joop F. M. Koppenjan, “Introduction: A Management Perspective on Policy Networks,” in Managing Complex Networks, ed. Walter J. M. Kickert, Erik-Hans Klijn, and Joop F. M. Koppenjan (London: Sage Publications, 1997), 1–13; Myrna P. Mandell, “Network Management: Strategic Behavior in the Public Sector,” in Strategies for Managing Intergovernmental Policies and Networks, ed. Robert W. Gage and Myrna P. Mandell, 29–54 (New York: Praeger, 1990); O’Toole, “Treating Networks Seriously.”
44 Myrna P. Mandell, “Intergovernmental Management in Interorganizational Networks: A Revised Perspective,” International Journal of Public Administration 11 (1988): 393–416; David O. Porter, “Accounting for Discretion in Social Experimentation and Program Administration,” in Do Housing Allowances Work?, ed. Katherine L. Bradbury and Anthony Downs, 110–137 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1981).
45 Judith E. Innes and David E. Booher, “Consensus Building and Complex Adaptive Systems: A Framework for Evaluating Collaborative Planning,” Journal of the American Planning Association 65 (Autumn 1999): 412–423.
46 Robert Agranoff and Michael McGuire, “After the Network is Formed,” in Getting Results through Collaboration: Network and Network Structures for Public Policy and Management, ed. Myrna P. Mandell, 129–153 (Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 2001); Karen Mossberger and Kathleen Hale, “Information Diffusion in an Intergovernmental Network: The Implementation of School-to-Work Programs” (paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia, September 2–5, 1999); Laurence J. O’Toole, “Strategies for Inter-governmental Management: Implementing Programs in Intergovernmental Management,” International Journal of Public Administration 11 (1988): 181–210.
47 Charles F. Sabel, “Studied Trust: Building New Forms of Cooperation in a Volatile Economy,” in Industrial Districts and Local Economic Regeneration, ed. Werner Sengenberger and Frank Pyke, 228–262 (Geneva: International Institute for Labor Studies, 1992).