Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe present scholarship on cross‐boundary organizations of local governments often splinters its focus and investigates narrow species of organizations with specific powers or unique policy domains. However, many organizations share common governance structures and mechanisms. Investigating these commonalities from a broader perspective permits stronger cross‐pollination of knowledge and sharpens generalizable theories of governance and administration. In this article, I first provide easily and unambiguously measurable criteria capturing a genus I term Regional Public Sector Organizations (RPSOs). These criteria rely on a rescaled common definition of International Governmental Organizations (IGOs). In the United States, this broad genus includes many species of public authorities, regional councils, and policy‐specific organizations. Terminology may differ in other nations, but the underlying idea sustains. The second contribution is five research questions largely inspired by IGO scholarship. Considering the parallels of RPSOs to IGOs can chart a rigorous, empirical path toward more coherent theoretical conversations on regional governance.

While prior scholarship has investigated many tools for regional governance across the rural-to-urban spectrum, the literature on regional organizations (councils of governments, planning district commissions, etc.) has been dominated by metropolitan regions. As a result, we know very little about the plethora of these regional organizations serving rural local governments. The omission of rural regions as a control variable from this conversation limits our ability to determine what traits are truly intergovernmental across this spectrum and what traits are specific to metropolitan and rural regions. Using a new, nationwide database of Regional Intergovernmental Organizations (RIGOs) and original governance documents, I present two unexpected empirical similarities between rural and non-rural RIGOs. First, I demonstrate that the quantity and relative dominance of the local governments within the territorial footprint of rural and non-rural RIGOs are nearly identical when population is held constant. Given the smaller populations within most rural RIGOs, this finding raises serious questions about how limited capacity is diffused and the need for multijurisdictional collaboration in rural areas. Second, I demonstrate that rural and non-rural RIGOs do not substantially differ in the way representational rights are apportioned to local governments on RIGO governing boards. Both rural and non-rural RIGOs similarly balance institutional membership with population proportionality in these collective choice arrangements. This evidence supports a broader intergovernmental hypothesis that an individual local government's representational rights on a RIGO board are more likely to result from relative size differences among members than facets specific to a city–suburb dynamic.

Regionalism then and now -- Local government and the evolution of American regionalism -- State approaches to regional cross-boundary relations -- What's a RIGO? -- Rethinking regions through the lens of RIGOs -- RIGO relationships : IGOs and MPOs -- RIGOs and MSAs : spatial dissimilarity -- Measuring the jurisdictional environment of regions : the regional power diffusion index (RPDI) -- Distributing decision-making between local governments on RIGO boards -- Distributing decision-making to the civic sector on RIGO boards -- Charting the RIGO policy space -- Appendix 1. State listing of RIGOs -- Appendix 2. State listing of RMPOs