Dynamic Collaboration: The Effects of External Rules and Collaboration Scope on Interlocal Collaboration

Abstract

Governance structures such as the American system of federalism create the incentive structure and framework for collaboration between local governments. This interlocal collaboration is crucial to helping governments deal with contemporary issues such as energy efficiency and climate policy where collective action can solve problems more successfully. The goal of this study is to examine how external rules such as federal grant regulations and the current scope of interlocal collaboration affect the choice of interlocal collaboration over time. We do this in the context of energy efficiency and climate policy using the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program.

An Item Response Theory Model of Inter-Regional Collaboration for Transportation Planning in the United States

“…Collaboration risk is connected to the nature of the ICA dilemmas. The characteristics of the underlying ICA dilemma may determine how responsibility is divided or fragmented is salient [18,41,42]. The fragmentation of authority [65,66] that defines ICA dilemmas is measured by the number of member governments within the MPO.…”

“…Extant research has generally attempted to measure these latent commitments through additive indices of collaborative mechanisms used, with higher scores indicating greater collaboration. The additive indices constructed from dichotomous items that are predominant in the investigation of ICA collaborations [3,18,[53][54][55] can be problematic because they assume all actions involve similar commitments [2].…”

“…MPOs are one such mechanism [38,39]. One focus of the ICA approach is to identify factors that influence the choice of mechanisms for collaboration among local authorities [18,36].…”

“…Collaboration risk is connected to the nature of the ICA dilemmas itself [18,40]. The specific characteristics of the underlying ICA dilemma may determine how responsibility is divided or fragmented is salient [41,42].…”

“…The study of local collaboration emphasizes how the nature of collective problems shapes the extent to which cities collaborate with various other actors [10,[15][16][17][18]. Extant research generally measures regional collaboration based on counts of collaboration actions undertaken.…”