DUE 3/26.

Understanding Intergovernmental Relations, Twenty-five Years Hence

Author(s): Brendan F. Burke

Source: State & Local Government Review , March 2014, Vol. 46, No. 1 (March 2014), pp. 63-76

Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24639039

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Reviews & Essays

Understanding Intergovernmental Relations, Twenty-five Years Hence

State and Local Government Review

2014, Vol. 46(1) 63-76

© The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0160323X13520461

slgr.sagepub.com

(DSAGE

Brendan F. Burke1

Abstract

This article reviews Deil Wright's textbook, Understanding Intergovernmental Relations, and assesses its current relevance to its field of coverage. Wright's last edition of this book was published in 1988. This

article, after describing significant lessons from the textbook, summarizes Wright's related research and commentary from the following two decades, and also analyzes three current intergovernmental topics based on four of Wright's most important metaphors and historical observations. The 1988 book remains relevant to intergovernmental relations today, though it only tangentially informs the more cross-sectoral turn that the field has taken in recent years.

Keywords intergovernmental relations, collaborative public management, public administration history

Introduction: An Unfinished

Project? Deil Wright (1930-2009) was one of the great scholars, instructors, and practitioners of public administration. His research articles number

well into the triple figures, and the quantity of his output is more impressive for its high qual ity, as validated through honors such as Amer ican Society for Public Administration (ASPA's) Dwight Waldo Award for career achievement and the Herbert Kaufman Award

(three times) for the best paper in Public Administration Review. Some of his dozen

books have been central to the teaching of com parative public administration, urban politics, and intergovernmental relations (IGR) around the world. All of this output supplemented and served his teaching for nearly fifty years, most

prominently from his base at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to his training of many prominent public managers

and accomplished public administration scho lars, Deil served a president (Richard Nixon), a governor (James Holshauser of North Carolina), and agencies including the Advisory Commis sion on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR). A number of colleagues wrote in respect and admiration upon his passing (Brudney 2009; Weissert 2009; Dometrius et al. 2009). He joked, late in life, that his success came from his ability to "work like the devil."

In his scholarly work, Wright had a penchant for alliteration and metaphors, which are on display within this article. This was probably not driven by a sense of artistry, though he was

' Institute for Public Service, Suffolk University, Boston, MA, USA

Corresponding Author: Brendan F. Burke, Suffolk University, 8 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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64 State and Local Government Review 46(1)

1. Models ofIGR Name Coverage Basis

Coordinate-Authority Dual Federalism, Dillon Constitutional/Judicial Rule (conjoined nation- ruling state, local subsidiary to state)

Inclusive-Authority National contains and Traditional power captures state, state interpretation, resource contains local based influence

Overlapping-Authority Arenas for distinct domains Situational authority, driven and shared authority/ by bargaining and partnerships negotiation

2. Phases of IGR Name Description Era

Conflict Jurisdictions, legal- Up to 1930s, "layer-cake adversarial relationships federalism"

Cooperative Economic distress, national 1930s-1940s, New Deal, threat World War II

Concentrated Public works, physical 1940s-1950s, Eisenhower reconstruction years

Creative Urban malaise, needs of 1960s, Great Society disadvantaged

Competitive Program coordination, 1960s-1970s, Nixon years, citizen involvement Revenue Sharing

Calculative Administrative overload, Later 1970s, City lack of public confidence Bankruptcy, Tax Revolt

Contractive Fiscal and juridical 1980s, Reagan years, New constraints Federalism

3. Major Metaphors of Federalism and IGR Name Originator Nature

Layer Cake Morton Grodzins Dual Federalism Marble Cake Morton Grodzins Confusion/meshing of

programs and priorities Picket Fence Deil Wright Policy Communities across

levels

4. Perceptions of IGR Actors Regarding Each Other (a Sampling) Local of National; National officials are... National of Local: Local officials are...

.. .too remote to understand local .. .narrow-minded, limit their options .big-time spenders .. .want money but shirk responsibility

.. .naive, impractical, and unrealistic .. .choose to be restricted by local bylaws ...two-faced, inconsistent ...special interested, not public-interested

Figure I. Overarching contributions from Understanding Intergovernmental Relations. (Wright 1988)

an evocative and creative writer. It was more

likely a matter of issue framing. In his research and teaching on IGR, simplification and synth esis are important qualities. When it comes to the

codification of over 200 years of history, across approximately 88,000 American governments,

as delivered by over 110 agency types (at the state level alone), a summative artifact can be a useful thing. Thus, we have the "picket fence," seven "phases," and intergovernmental games like "beggar thy neighbor," "the Golden Rule," and "grantsmanship baseball." All of these are

1. Models oflGR Name Coverage Basis

Coordinate-Authority Dual Federalism, Dillon Constitutional/Judicial Rule (conjoined nation- ruling state, local subsidiary to state)

Inclusive-Authority National contains and Traditional power captures state, state interpretation, resource contains local based influence

Overlapping-Authority Arenas for distinct domains Situational authority, driven and shared authority/ by bargaining and partnerships negotiation

2. Phases of IGR Name Description Era

Conflict Jurisdictions, legal- Up to 1930s, "layer-cake adversarial relationships federalism"

Cooperative Economic distress, national 1930s-1940s, New Deal, threat World War II

Concentrated Public works, physical 1940s-1950s, Eisenhower reconstruction years

Creative Urban malaise, needs of 1960s, Great Society disadvantaged

Competitive Program coordination, 1960s-1970s, Nixon years, citizen involvement Revenue Sharing

Calculative Administrative overload, Later 1970s, City lack of public confidence Bankruptcy, Tax Revolt

Contractive Fiscal and juridical 1980s, Reagan years, New constraints Federalism

3. Major Metaphors of Federalism and IGR Name Originator Nature

Layer Cake Morton Grodzins Dual Federalism Marble Cake Morton Grodzins Confusion/meshing of

programs and priorities Picket Fence Deil Wright Policy Communities across

levels

4. Perceptions of IGR Actors Regarding Each Other (a Sampling) Local of National; National officials are... National of Local: Local officials are...

.. .too remote to understand local .. .narrow-minded, limit their options .big-time spenders .. .want money but shirk responsibility

.. .naive, impractical, and unrealistic .. .choose to be restricted by local bylaws ...two-faced, inconsistent ...special interested, not public-interested

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Burke 65

a part of his widely recognized and appreciated textbook, Understanding Intergovernmental Relations (Wright 1988). This article is largely in tribute to Wright's signature scholarly achievement, but it contains a small bone of contention corresponding to a gap in his productivity. Understanding IGR has been widely cited, quoted, and taught in its entirety since its last publication, in a third edition. But why did Wright leave off of this project after 1988? He was an extremely proli fic researcher during the last two decades of his life, but the updating of his intergovernmental textbook did not rise to the top of his project list during that time. But Wright's career and reputation do not hang on this one omission. The insignificance of this critique can be illu minated through a metaphor: Wright's career is a house of his own design, large, functional, welcoming, and well kept. To cite the absence of a fourth or other subsequent editions of Understanding IGR is akin to complaining about the lighting fixtures in the guest room. However, to close the metaphor—Wright, intentionally or unintentionally, did leave a plan for renovations, and these plans do lead to interesting (illuminating?) possibilities. This article proceeds through four sections: first, it summarizes the enduring ideas from Under standing IGR. Second, it considers Wright's continued thinking on IGR through his research and other published reflections during the 1990s and 2000s. These efforts would likely have informed a fourth and other subsequent editions of Understanding IGR. Third, through three cur rent cases, the present-day relevance of Wright's innovative thinking is assessed. Do the themes and concepts from the 1988 textbook stand up to contemporary analysis with mild revision or do we need an all-new framework? The article

closes with potential next focuses for intergo vernmental scholars in the field that Wright con structed so ably during his career.

The Concepts and Content of Understanding IGR Shortly after its first printing, Wright's textbook

was positively reviewed for the intelligence and

comprehensiveness of its observations (Banovetz 1979). Wright captured the breadth and the essence of IGR by using three "approaches" or frames: conceptual-historical, empirical descriptive, and policy-content. The first approach highlighted the changes across American history to our understanding of fed eralism, which has been far from a static dynamic of the American governmental sys tem. Legal opinions of the balance of power between intergovernmental participants, in tandem and at times prompted by partisan and presidential action, have swayed the balance of power from one level of government to another and back again. Banovetz highlighted Wright's observation that the states are the "linchpin" over time in this fluid intergovern mental system (Banovetz 1979, 141). The core of Wright's empirical contribution, highlighted in the textbook as well as in many articles, is the

American State Administrators Project (ASAP; Brudney and Wright 2009). Many aspects of state agency leadership are reported in Understanding IGR, including the daily work of state administrators, their perceptions of influence of the different institutional parti cipants, and their opinions on specific adminis trative actions. This is not to say that Wright neglected the national or local levels in the text

book; only that his original research especially highlighted the state level. The second and third editions of the book, published in 1982 and 1988, respectively, expanded on the policy specifics that varied across redistributive, reg ulatory, developmental, and jurisdictional areas. Each edition of the book contained four

chapters on intergovernmental finances and a number of descriptive and case-specific appen dices—as many as twelve in the 1978 edition, down to three in 1988.

Four constructs from the second and third

chapters of Understanding IGR undergird teaching and scholarship across the subfield, through their frequent repetition and citation in subsequent intergovernmental texts (see, e.g., Shafritz and Hyde 1997 ; Stephens and Wikstrom 2007; O'Toole and Christenson 2013). These major intergovernmental lessons are summarized here and will be assessed for

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66 State and Local Government Review 46( I)

their contemporary relevance in the latter sec tions of this article.

Models of IGR

Wright developed models of the relationships between intergovernmental levels, using spa tial representations to depict placement and overlap between national, state, and local gov ernments in general. Constitutional and legal bases are the foundation for the Coordinate

Authority model, with adjacent, "dual" authority between the national and state gov ernment levels, while Dillon's Rule provides the basis for state supremacy over local gov ernments. Inclusive-Authority recognizes a conventional hierarchy with national captur ing or surrounding state, and state surrounding locality for power and influence. This model recognizes the increase in national powers throughout the twentieth century, and the enhancement of state powers during the second half of the century. Any gains in local authority and capacity are still subsidiary to the other "larger" levels in this model. Less present in the framing and through the nineteenth century,

a preeminence to national power is found in this design. But Wright (1988, 40-49) points out that IGRs is fluid over time, with different forms

of power dominating at different times, and with shifting philosophies toward decentrali zation of power arising especially at the presi dential level in certain eras. The Overlapping Authority model recognizes that each level can prove to be dominant over the others on certain issues; no one level is predominant in all instances.

Intergovernmental Phases

The ongoing adjustment especially to national state relations over the course of American his

tory corresponds with the nature of changing political strengths. Up to 1988, there had been seven overlapping phases in the American his tory of IGR. Early on, constitutional and legal Conflict characterized the field, especially dur ing the Marshall Court, through the Civil War, and with the validation in 1868 of the Dillon

Rule. Starting in the 1930s, relations moved through a Cooperative period to confront eco nomic distress and war; Concentrated efforts to focus national funding on service and infra structure needs; and a Creative period to meet social and urban need. The time between the

New Deal and Great Society involved great expansions of national aid and the correspond ing system to distribute it. From the late 1960s, the phases enter a more restricted or restrictive era, as relations become more Competitive (for scarce resources), Calculative (to maximize funding opportunities and minimize internal challenges), and eventually Contractive (in keeping with a period of "Cutback Manage ment"). By 1988, Federal aid cuts are a parallel focus with national mandates for minimum

service standards and protections. Within the phases, congress and the presidents move the arrow toward more national centralization

and programming at times, and back toward devolved authority at others. This movement may hold internal inconsistencies; for example, President Nixon expanded aid to local govern ments through revenue sharing, enhancing national stature in the process, but at the same time local autonomy was enhanced by making this aid unrestricted. The contradiction within

the phases was only going to grow after the 1988 edition.

A Prevailing Metaphor

Understanding IGR offered a more contem porary metaphor for relationships between the levels, separate from Morton Grodzins' "bakery" versions (Banovetz 1979; Weissert 2011). If IGR is to be overlapping, and the phases shift power centers over time, there is a need for a stabilizing factor between the lev els, something to keep the system moving for ward despite shifting trends. The actor to carry this out is the policy-specific profes sional; and the metaphor for her work world is the "picket fence." Public managers at all three levels of government work together based on their specializations, so that there are dis tinct policy communities involving national, state, and local participants (hence, the vertical

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Burke 67

slats in the "fence") within environmental, human service, transportation, and all other policy subfields and issues. These actors will hold both a role in policy development and implementation, though not necessarily at the same level of government. Wright is also clear about the significance of interest groups, and in all editions of the book highlights the power of Public Interest Groups such as International City Management Association (ICMA), National Governors Association (NGA), and others.

Perceptions of Intergovernmental Actors

Political and administrative relationships within the "picket fence" are of paramount importance. Since these relationships may move on a continuum between conflict and

cooperation, the partners must understand each other. To this end, Wright depicts the percep tions of national, state, and local actors, and their attitudes toward each other. Interactive

depictions of national-local relationships were one such concise and useful example, though this discussion derived most specifically from Pressman's implementation studies in the 1970s. Local participants perceive national actors to be high-minded, with little sense of the difficulties of implementation and a second ary concern for program costs. National offi cials renege on their word and are hampered by their own excessive "red tape." National officials see local government actors as paro chial, too concerned about the bottom line, and too aligned with local special interests rather than a broader public interest (Wright 1988, 244-5). Wright provided evidence for both of these opposing perspectives through many case studies in the book, and it is clear through most recent media coverage that these oppositional perspectives still hold. Wright's work through the American State Administrators Project filled in the intervening ground, with the bar gaining and coping mechanisms between these levels coming from state administrators (Krane and Wright 1997; Brudney and Wright 2009).

Understanding IGR provided a comprehen sive "state of the field" upon its publication. Since 1988, major developments have reshaped

the field of public administration, including Reinventing Government/New Public Manage ment, two attempts at national health care reform, the War on Terror, at least three major waves of fiscal stress, the growth of contracting

and the "third sector," and Digital Democracy, to name only a few. Could Wright's core con tributions from a simpler time still inform IGR today? Not without some bridging concepts and Wright's own observations from the interven ing decades. The next section offers Wright's ideas on the direction of IGR throughout this turbulent period.

Wright's IGR Projects and Observations in the 1990s and 2000s

Wright's prolific research agenda informs many aspects of the direction of IGR since 1988; several of these lines of research are introduced briefly here. First, it is clear that even as he was completing the 1988 edition, he was refining the concept of Intergovernmen tal Management (IGM). This term is treated in passing in the concluding chapter of the third edition of Understanding IGR. As part of his "Further Reflections," Wright indicates that the coping and problem-solving aspects of the field are crucial, but have not been explored systematically. At the time of writing, Wright (1988, 450-51) made clear that three themes needed to be fleshed out. First, where would IGM fit within constitutional questions; sec ond, how could it keep up with management issues across large public and private organiza tions; and third, what would be its place in reg ulatory policy questions.

Wright and Dale Krane endeavored to codify IGM among its closest subfields, Feder alism and IGR (Wright 1990; Krane and Wright 1997). Federalism is the theoretical base for an efficient, effective, and accountable multitiered

system; IGR is the subject of political action to validate policies and their responses across three levels; and the bargaining, coping, and problem-solving (implementation) work of IGM is the active realm of policy professionals

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68 State and Local Government Review 46( I)

and "street-level" public administrators. Private and nonprofit sectors were barely mentioned in any edition of Understanding IGR; but here IGM begins to encompass cross-sectoral relationships.

One of Wright's last publications was a collation of the historical development and con temporary status of Federalism, IGR, and IGM as viewed through publications in Public Administration Review (Wright, Stenberg, and Cho 2009). We retain focus on IGM here. There had been early writing on a "top-down" IGM perspective, about coordination across levels of government, and a more recent "bot tom-up" aspect of divining the local coping mechanisms, and finally a middle ground acknowledgment of the collaborative focus across multiple organizations and sectors. By this time, Wright and his coauthors recognized this collaborative endeavor as having the most optimism for future intergovernmental solu tions. Quoting McGuire (2006, 679), Wright and coauthors support the observation that "As collaborative intergovernmental and int erorganizational networks develop in many policy areas, the opportunities for assertive and regional actions are both prominent and encouraging." This quote was in contrast, and in response, to Conlan's criticism that national level IGR had entered a largely "Opportunistic" phase.

One other of Wright's research lines from the 1990s would likely have a significant place in any subsequent edition of the Understanding IGR text: this is the extensive line of work on

state-level administrative reform, which would

continue to specify the underlying dynamics of IGM. Here, Wright and coauthors highlight public management reform tools in use among the states (Brudney, Hebert, and Wright 1999; Brudney and Wright 2002). While this work earned a PAR "best paper" award in 1999, it also generated a strong dialog about the preva lence and success of the reinventing government reforms. Were they a "tide" or a "ripple?" (Thompson 2002) The wave was large and enduring among some states, and more limited in others, befitting a federal system. But interest

ingly, the administrative reform measurement

needed some refinement after its first iteration, in 1994. At that time, state administrators were

asked about the level of implementation of several prominent reform techniques, such as outcome measurement and decontrol of person nel and budget policies; but "market-based" reforms were inadequately measured through a single question about "privatization." This was remedied in the 1998 ASAP survey, with a lon ger battery of questions about contracting out (Choi et al. 2005). This is significant because, as the 2009 "Foundations" article indicated, the

"network" direction of IGM was late in entering Wright's thinking about the IGM-IGR combina tion. Once the results were codified, the centrality

of contracting out, with as many as three-quarters of state agencies working through contracts, was

clear (Burke, Cho, and Wright 2008). The beginning of the twenty-first century

clearly provided challenges for the continuity and clarity of intergovernmental relations, and Wright was in full agreement that some new assessments were necessary. Two articles in the middle of the century's first decade highlighted the issues.

Sergio Fernandez interviewed Wright for this journal in 2004, and it was clear that large issues created new challenges for IGR. Septem ber 11, 2001, ushered in two significant new centralizing forces in American politics, the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act. Both of these enhanced national

power, but also would lead to new growth in local implementation concerns and to expanded resources. Wright also found contradictions in the No Child Left Behind Act, with its expan sion of a national emphasis on educational out comes testing, but with some additional national incentive monies to bring the priority to fruition.

Concurrent with the State & Local Govern

ment Review interview, Wright (2003) described the state of the field for Spectrum: The Journal of State Government. In addition to September 11, Wright recognized a more localized terror incident in the October 2002

sniper attacks in Washington, DC, as a salient intergovernmental challenge and response. Fis cal stress, as deep as it had been in twenty

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Burke 69

years—but only to get deeper—was a salient focus for the field at the time of the Spectrum piece. Homeland Security, with its "alert" sys tems, other security protocols, and broad fund ing base, was highlighted as a turn "toward Washington to an unprecedented degree." At least that was the case to this point in time; the various stimulus bills under Presidents Bush

and Obama would raise national prominence or preeminence even further.

Wright (2003, 12) highlighted the continua tion of the federalism trends between tension

and conflict, contrasted at times with tolerance

and cooperation. Wright recapped and updated the phases in IGR, now with a total of nine overlapping periods. The 1990s had marked the rising uncertainty in the status of national state-local relations, with Coercive and Collage components; increasing regulatory demands, now with unfunded status, were prevalent. The Collage, also considered "kaleidoscopic" by Wright (Shafritz and Hyde 1997), pertained to inconsistencies across policy areas. Soon would come a perfect example of Collage features, the lackadaisical response to Hurricane Katrina. Wright identified an emerging pattern, as of 2003, of Contingent Collaboration, the adjective based in "the uncertain, unsettled or chance nature of actions, events, or situations,"(p. 13) and the noun tied specifically to the successful sniper response of 2002, but true across much of public management effort in picket fence IGR. Wright, like most Americans, would probably have been saddened by the Boston Marathon bombing and impressed with the subsequent cross-jurisdictional public safety response in its aftermath, all in a region not pre viously known for its interlocal collaboration.

Understanding IGR Today: A Speculative Application Wright would likely have been perplexed by current political conditions and deliberations at the national level. What would he have made

of two major lawsuits by the American states against national government agencies and legis lation, the growth of the filibuster, the threat, and

then the actuality of government shutdowns

because of near-sighted fiscal policies, or the massive growth of the national debt? While there is the potential that the next phase of intergovernmental relations may have included alliterative terms such as "Cataclysmic" or "Collapsing," it is probable that his optimistic nature would focus more on positive possibili ties. The heat of current politics and sophistica tion of administrative responses do point toward

revised IGR theory, but Wright's lessons still provide a framework for the dialog. This section includes brief coverage of negative national intergovernmental trends before focusing on more positive possibilities that benefit from the broad-brush lessons of Understanding IGR.

The State-level War on National Initiatives:

Inclusive-authority Turned Upside-down

While Wright characterized the 2000s as a phase of Contingent Collaboration, Conlan (2006) held that this period was Opportunistic. These terms, underlying an inconsistent and potentially self-interested nature to the politics of federalism also describe a new trend in inter

governmental jurisprudence wherein a large number of states bring suit against the national government. In the upcoming Supreme Court case, Utility Air Group v. EPA, thirteen states are suing the national regulatory agency for treating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Two states, Massachusetts and California, initiated court deliberations in the past decade to enhance the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA's) role and powers in regulating climate change inducing pollutants; the pendulum swings back through the judiciary, as several businesses and states currently bring suit to block EPA action. Twenty-six states also sued against the national government's efforts to create a national health care policy. In National Federation of Indepen dent Business v. Sebelius (2012), the plaintiff states lost on the central Commerce Clause ques tion, under their contention that the national

government cannot force individuals to purchase

insurance, but they won a split decision regard ing revisions to Medicaid policy (Rosenbaum 2013). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, while unwieldy and generally

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70 State and Local Government Review 46( I)

considered a large expansion of national author ity, retained significant decentralizing features upon its passage, including the intention for states to form their own health care exchanges. Thirty-six states opted out of creating their own exchanges despite significant grant resources to do so. The reasons for opting out of the creation of state exchanges, thus placing the burden back on the national government, vary. But current state avoidance of implementation parallels ear lier state antagonism toward the bill at the time of its passage. We are well ensconced in a Con tingent and Opportunistic period.

How relevant are the 1988 models of IGR in

these state-national fights? Wright's Inclusive Authority model of IGR showed national power as supreme over states and localities; but recent state actions show a growing partisan align ment attempting to overwhelm national action. The Contingency phase would appear to rewrite the national-state-local relationship; if a coalition of conservative states can over

power national efforts, it will attempt to do so. State opposition to national policies is not new; one of the well-developed state-national cases in Wright's third edition involved the "sagebrush rebellion" by Western states against national ownership of wide swaths of grazing land within their boundaries. But this was one small and localized conflict, where President Obama's health care reform initiative

involves a large percentage of the national economy. From these partisan and judicial con flicts against the national government, we see a new need for coping among the states on the nation-supporting side of the partisan divide, and among all local governments seeking stabi lity in their administration of policy initiatives that originate at the national level. Wright and coauthors (2009) did recognize that research in Federalism was the growth segment of the IGR field during the 2000s; the philosophical base underlying national and state relations has been at the center of prominent questions since at least 9/11, and is in an increasing need of clarification.

The perceptions of national actors versus lower-tier participants seem as conflicted now as they were in the 1970s and 1980s.

Collaborative solutions on climate change and health care reform cannot overcome the paro chial concerns of the lower level of government (the states in this case); the national level seems out of touch with its complicated, high-minded, and exceedingly expensive policy responses. But the divide is deeper now, and the desire among national leadership to negotiate is scant. Even in recent times, Wright never recognized a policy theory that underlies paralysis on these and other highly adversarial, "wicked" policy problems (Rittel and Webber 1973). These are policies that prevailing public management rea soning cannot solve in conventional ways. The traditional policy process fails at all steps when confronting "wickedness:" (1) Wicked prob lems are difficult to define; they are in fact mul tiple problems with no effective consensus definition. (2) If policy actors cannot arrive at one definition, action is diffuse at best. (3) Def inition falls afoul of moral rather than rational

discourse; good and bad are substituted with "right' and "wrong" options. (4) When action is finally taken, because the problems and solu tions are new, there is a greater risk of unin tended consequences. (5) "Wicked" problems tend not to have stopping rules; they are never fully solved to the satisfaction of all participants (Horiuchi 2007). Perhaps the largest, "super wicked" (Lazarus 2009) problems are health care and climate change, which explains the heat of the dialogue, the push for inaction among opponents, and the abuse of previous under standings of the rules of the game (including any loose respect for an "Inclusive-Authority" model). Effective discourse is the key to "tam ing" wicked problems (Roberts 2000); but this possibility only arises in willing collaborators. A decentralized federal system can provide a more encouraging response with regard to state-level intervention on climate change.

The States' 'Stealth" War on Climate Change: Collaboration within the Picket Fence

Rabe (2004) specifies a more encouraging case of Contingent Collaboration in the fight against climate change. While the national government is resistant to act upon this issue, despite our

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Burke 71

unchallenged status as the most active producer of greenhouse gases, some states step up in a variety of active and productive ways. This would appear on its face to be an effective example of the "picket fence" metaphor, as environmental, natural resource, and even some

economic development policy communities at all three levels provide expertise toward devel oping state and local responses. These states engage the administrative reform techniques that Wright, Stenberg, and Cho studied in the 1990s, as strategic planning, outcome orienta tion, and negotiated rulemaking are all parts of the IGM toolkit in the environmental policy arena (Brudney, Hebert, and Wright 1999; Scheberle 2004). One of the most interesting dynamics across the states, however, is their varied political engagement of climate change. As seen previously, some states in our system are "hostile" to climate change policy. A dif ferent set engage in "prime time" strategies, where the political culture in the state is suppor tive of state action (California and Washington are among the leaders). But the other two fram ing strategies are indirect. Some governors and state bureaucracies engage the climate change issue through "stealth" policy, using different justifications such as energy conservation rather than greenhouse gas reduction as their prompt. Finally, some states provide an "opportunistic" rationale as addressing climate change can help them enter new economic development markets, such as alternative energy provision or carbon sequestration (Burke and Ferguson 2010; Rabe 2010).

This climate change example is consistent with Wright's description of the coping nature of IGM; it may in fact be anti-democratic to frame, and advertise, climate change policy in the "stealth" manner, but it is one way to over come the higher-level political paralysis that arises within this "wicked" problem. State activism on this issue has developed into a cross-jurisdictional collaboration via the green house gas compacts. Thirteen Northeastern states and the eastern provinces of Canada formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initia tive, which constitutes an extra-territorial agreement between the states to trade carbon

reductions and collaborate outside of national

policy inaction (Rabe 2010). Two other multi state (and province) compacts in the West and Midwest are in less developed stages, but bode well for large-scale "bottom-up," locally moti vated confrontation of issues where the national

level shows paralysis. One of the major differences between

national level intransigence and stronger state-level engagement on climate change is the contrast between political control of the national agenda and policy specialist control of state initiatives. Wright's "picket fence" metaphor is still effective here, as policy com munities create positive responses on this issue. The fence may either be "taller" or have differ ent boundaries though, as Wright gave only passing acknowledgment to the inclusion of foreign participants in intergovernmental net works back in 1988 (in economic develop ment policy). Here in North America, we see that the "middle-tier" of Canadian provinces and American states can operate through their internal policy communities in similar ways, despite institutional differences between the parliamentary and separation of powers sys tems (Burke and Ferguson 2010). The quiet state-to-state and state-to-province interaction on climate change bears close kinship to the teachings of the 1988 version of Understand ing IGR because of the commonality of pro fessional public management capacity, then and now. The next case, residing within the growing topic of "collaborative public man agement," stretches Wright's lessons the furthest.

"Collaborative Public Management"

in Boston: Retooling or Reinventing

Wright's Textbook?

The history of IGR, as presented in three edi tions of Wright's textbook, includes many examples of conflict between governments, as new mandates and programmatic and fiscal reductions were proposed or carried out. Colla boration is a prominent theme as well, as juris dictions creatively respond to social and

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72 State and Local Government Review 46( I )

community need with multiple intergovern mental partners (especially including financial sponsors). But the nature of these cases was intergovernmental; since the 1990s, the need to highlight and inform intersectoral activity has risen exponentially. In addition to the over 88,000 American governments, we must add between 200,000 and 700,000 nonprofit partici pants (depending on the definition) and count less private sector participants (Salamon 2003; Stephens and Wikstrom 2007). Recapping Wright's lessons, with regard to the contempo rary expansion of IGR into collaborative public management: The Overlapping-Authority model may have some enduring relevance, if redrawn; the latest phase, of Contingent Collaboration, still holds; the "picket fence" is largely dis mantled; and the discussion of actor perceptions is generally positive when nonprofit participants are included.

The volume of work on Collaborative Public

Management (CPM) and network management has grown tremendously in the past ten years, and informs an expansive version of IGM (O'Leary and Vij 2012). One recent case, from the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, high lights several of the CPM issues that test Wright's lessons. In March 2013, a long standing community health center named RoxComp announced its closure with a memo and a brief plan for alternative health services for its approximately 4,000 clients. An organiza tion called Higher Ground became involved to smooth the transition following the closure. Higher Ground already served RoxComp's cli ents through other educational and human ser vice programs, so was ready to assist its shared constituency in their time of need. Higher Ground has only been in existence for two years,

but it prides itself on its community-building expertise.

Higher Ground provided "boundary-span ning" (Agranoff 2007) services in many differ ent directions, with many different partners. First, it convened state legislators, city council members, public health administrators from other nonprofits, the state Department of Public Health, and the city Health Commission, and hosted periodic meetings of this group through

the transition to new service arrangements for former RoxComp clients. Shortly thereafter, when a receiver was appointed by the state Attorney General, Higher Ground offered its connections to acclimate the community and the receiver to each other. After RoxComp's close-out budget was submitted to the US Health Resources and Services Administration

(HRSA), Higher Ground helped with the nego tiations. Next came the choice of a new contractor

for community health services; in this process, many in the Roxbury community wanted a par ticipatory role, but this was not allowed under HRSA rules. Higher Ground provided the next best option, of maintaining information disse mination between HRSA, the receiver, and the public. Finally, Higher Ground provided job placement services for former RoxComp employees (Handschuh and Rivers 2013).

This case, a success story involving effec tive planning in the face of programmatic cut backs, has both substantially different dynamics from Wright's IGR cases and one similarity. The encouraging case has three main determinants: first, it involves the ability of Higher Ground to leverage its effective politi cal and programmatic relationships into a workable solution when another agency must close its doors, distinctly different from the blunt tactics of governmental "cutback man agement." Second, the "boundary spanning" occurs because Higher Ground is neither pro tecting nor threatened by any of the other pro grams that will serve the shared clients of the Roxbury neighborhood once a solution is reached. But a third factor may go to Wright's core ideas of IGM—technical factors around

negotiation, coping, and policy expertise are all engaged proficiently. Compare an IGR and a CPM protagonist to highlight differences in how these two fields are structured: early in Understanding IGR, Wright describes Ann Michel, the director of Syracuse, New York's Office of Federal and State Aid Coordination.

With a staff of eighty, her job is to "manipulate the system to get as much ... money as we can into the city;" (1988, 7-8). Mossik Hacopian, Higher Ground's executive director, pursued the shared goals described previously with a

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Burke 73

total staff of three, plus a volunteer board and voluntary partners. Taking Wright's IGR lessons in turn, we see that even though his models and metaphor are outdated, they point toward the right questions for illumination of CPM. The models do not

include private or nonprofit sectors; but the Overlapping-Authority model does recognize separate shared arenas for different partici pants. In all instances, authority among net work participants is voluntary, equal, and shared (McGuire 2006; Agranoff 2007); the collaboration only lasts as long as it serves its participants. The beauty of Wright's phases is their description of the dynamic across the intergovernmental system; for example, the Creative phase covers national programs and the local responses to them; Contractive ele ments were a part of the national philosophy and the local reaction. The Contingent Colla boration phase described national level politics of a self-serving nature, collaboration among like-minded states in climate change compacts, local response to terrorism (witness Wright's DC-area sniper example from 2002), and it can describe Higher Ground's local, cross-sectoral interaction on behalf of shared interests.

The picket fence metaphor encounters sev eral explanatory difficulties with regard to the RoxComp closure specifically, and CPM in gen eral. First, Higher Ground pursues "joined-up" service delivery, where the "silos" of specific functions are broken down so that services can

be delivered in a seamless manner. Higher Ground is predominantly an educational assis tance program, but can work with public health programs, civic participation initiatives, court support, human resource functions, and other programmatic functions beyond its core profi ciency. Rather than relations "up" or "down" within other levels in a policy area, much of Higher Ground's action is lateral, into other policy realms. Second, there is no natural order to power within this case; national, state, and local participants as well as other nonprofit agencies are given assistance, and provide assistance in return, on an as-needed basis. The

interactions in this case display features less in common with a picket fence, than with a

latticework or trellis—overlapping and multidir ectional involvement among participants.

Actors within the Higher Ground case dis play effective collaboration; what are the prob able perceptions of nonprofit and varied governmental participants of each other? This question has been studied at its fringes (Gazley 2010), helping to outline the nature of attitudes toward the nonprofit sector from other govern mental actors. Gazley's precondition in dis cussing perceptions was an inclination to not collaborate. As in the interaction between gov ernmental actors, trust is the most important uniting factor. Ideology may prove a barrier, with local narrow-mindedness offset with non

profit high-minded principles. Local govern ment may question the capacity of nonprofits. But there is also potential to bridge the divide between perceptions. Whitaker, Altman Sauer, and Henderson (2004) described a norm of mutual accountability, commitment, and contribution in governmental-nonprofit rela tions. Political and administrative actors tend

to be driven by citizen interests and profes sional norms; the nonprofit leader works largely for benevolent reasons related to social improvements. The shared commitment for all three types of actor (in a single community interaction) will be the creation of an agreed upon public value (Moore 1995). Shared inter ests drive both disparate cross-sectoral partici pants into collaborative networks, as well as members of intergovernmental policy net works. There may be different levels of respect between for-profit, nonprofit, and governmen tal participants within their interactions, but there is likely more of a purpose and less of the distrust of motives that Wright described between national and local actors.

Conclusion: Updating Our Understanding This article has constructed connections

between Deil Wright's important depiction of the "state of the field" of IGR as of 1988, and current circumstances and cases. It summarized

the textbook itself, as well as Wright's most significant lines of research related to the

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74 State and Local Government Review 46( I )

themes of Understanding IGR published between 1990 and 2009. Finally, it held three salient public administration cases up to the lens of Wright's most important lessons regard ing IGR. As it happens, the lessons (especially of the current Contingent Collaborative phase and the "picket fence" metaphor) still inform the intricate coping mechanisms of state-level policy experts as they respond to the problem of climate change. Political dynamics with regard to the Affordable Care Act and EPA reg ulation of climate change show a deepening animosity between national and state actors; the disjoint that Wright (and Pressman) described between national and local actors is strengthen ing. The model of IGR most relevant to the states' confrontation of the national govern ment is the Inclusive-Authority version, but with the states struggling to acquire authority over the nation. Contingency, as opportunistic self-interest, seems to drive these adversarial interactions. In one example of Collaborative Public Management, encouraging possibilities of Contingent Collaboration across sectors are highlighted; these rely on a more fluid interac tion than the "picket fence," a more complex and inclusive Overlapping-Authority model, and perceptions between actors based more in benevolence than in geographic self-interest.

In a fourth, current, edition of Understand ing IGR, what then would stay relatively static, and what would need the most renovation and

redesign? First, the place of administrators remains central. Even with crises of profession alism (Schon 1983), and with the dismantling of critical evaluative resources like the ACIR, the field will cope and provide its own, likely decentralized, resources to provide answers. "Boundary-spanning" administrators may infuse themselves easily into existing policy structures and may play a role in alleviating potential information asymmetries across gov ernmental actors from different levels. A pro minent role of a CPM network may simply be to educate its participants (Agranoff 2007).

Second, coping does remain a central pur suit of IGR and IGM practitioners. The heights of contradiction and inconsistency in national politics and policy only seemed to grow since

the turn of the new century; this trend could continue, but public service participants will still be compelled to meet public needs at the street level. CPM techniques, across sectors, and citizen participation structures within local and regional governments may undergird local and middle-tier public administrative capacity. The further development of IGR techniques will likely parallel the establish ment of well-developed CPM models.

While the state and local levels will likely continue to learn to cope with their complicated situations, the national level's political incon sistencies will likely press the system for larger reforms. Redistricting reform and changes to campaign fund-raising come to mind, as plat forms to bring back an ability to create biparti san discourse and negotiating; this could reduce the balkanization of the policy solutions described in this article's cases. Wright advo cated for a comparative focus to future studies of federalism, IGR, and IGM (Hooghe and Marks 2003; Wright and Fernandez 2004; Weissert 2011). The European Union is espe cially under stress in recent years, more related to structural and economic variables than the

political conflicts present in the American sys tem, but lessons may be there.

Reform waves can cross the American sys tem quite rapidly. Witness the move toward contracting out, and cross-sectoral service delivery. This was barely a blip on the radar screen in 1988, as we see in Wright's observa tions on the field of IGR. But now, the work of CPM is ubiquitous, and it came about through no great intentional design. What would Wright suggest as the possibility of national political reform and advancement, to bolster IGR in a more productive manner in the coming years? I imagine that there will always be room for improvement in our political and administra tive systems, on which scholars and practi tioners might take Wright's lead, and "work like the devil."

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared no potential conflicts of inter

est with respect to the research, authorship, and/or

publication of this article.

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Burke 75

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Author Biography

Brendan F. Burke is an associate professor at Suffolk University, in Boston, Massachusetts. His research and teaching interests include organiza tional theory, administrative reform, executive lead ership, and comparative public administration. He has published in the American Review of Public Administration, Public Administration Review, Pub lius: The Journal of Federalism, State and Local Government Review, and other journals.

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