The Intergovernmental Regime and Public Policy in Hartford, Connecticut

Abstract

Regime theorists have not included state government as a member of urban governing coalitions even though governors and state legislatures have the constitutional authority and fiscal resources that can facilitate local governance. In this research, I analyze economic development and education policies in Hartford, Connecticut to illustrate that the governor is a leader of Hartford's regime. Like other regime actors, the governor provides selective inducements to other coalition members to gain support for his policies. The Hartford regime came to include the governor because the city lost much of its business and political leadership, and management and accountability problems crippled public policy. Because governors have the capacity to act as a powerful regime partner, it is important to study the effect they have on urban governance. "Has anyone done more for [this city] than I have?"

“Re-Stating” Theories of Urban Development: The Politics of Authority Creation and Intergovernmental Triads in Postindustrial Chicago

“…State government involvement in the three cases is characterized by both gubernatorial lobbying for Chicago development projects and legislative approval for the creation of special‐purpose authorities to manage development. In previous efforts to explain state interaction in downtown development (Burns, 2002; Burns & Thomas, 2004), the governor has been characterized as a member of a governing regime. In the Chicago case, the Illinois governor does not fit this characterization.…”

“…Rather than emphasize the role of the state government in local affairs, however, they argue that urban regime theory should be retooled in order to consider nonlocal actors such as governors or national‐level politicians. Elsewhere, Burns (2002, 2003) has argued that state government has the “capacity” to act as a member in the local regime—especially in the case of education policy—while noting that “regime theory does not include governors, state legislatures, state departments of education, and other state‐level actors as education regime members” (Burns, 2003, p. 285) 2 . Burns argues that regime theory must be expanded to account for such actors.…”

“…The cases from Chicago examined below also reflect a governor‐brokered coalition, but suggest that the arguments of Burns (2002, 2003) and Burns and Thomas (2004) need to be taken one step further by leaving the regime framework behind and focusing on a more broadly based, and formal, intergovernmental partnership. In Chicago, these partnerships center on a special‐purpose authority and bring together progrowth actors from the state and local levels, and the private sector, with the aim of completing large development projects.…”

El papel de las capitales en la construcción de la identidad territorial en las naciones sin estado

“…Tampoco los estudios sobre la construcción de la gobernanza urbana (Mossberger y Stoker, 2001;Stone, 1989o Pierre, 1999 o referidos a las relaciones intergubernamentales (Burns, 2002o Keating, 1991 han definido indicadores de centralidad a la hora de analizar como ciudades capitales han conseguido implementar su agenda política en el marco de sus relaciones con el poder central.…”

“…Por su parte cada una de las entidades que conforman el estado nacional no reparten de forma similar el poder político (Agranoff y Mcguire, 2001: 672) al contrario en este nivel la capital regional adquiere el mismo peso que una capital en un país unitario puesto que se convierten en la sede exclusiva del conjunto de instituciones regionales que no comparten el poder con ningún otro centro y además porque en las relaciones hacia los gobiernos locales, las entidades territoriales tienen la tendencia de actuar como estados fuertemente unitarios (Collin, 2010;López, 2005o Stone, 1989) y entienden el nivel local como una extensión de su nivel gubernamental (Burns, 2002).…”