****For C. Owens Only****

From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism 663

In 1955, the Commission on Intergovernmental

Relations — the Kestnbaum Commission — embellished

the intellectual framework of cooperative federalism and

laid out a policy agenda for promoting it. Since then,

our intergovernmental system has evolved from a pre-

dominantly cooperative federal – state – local system to one

characterized by corrosive opportunistic behavior, greater

policy prescriptiveness, eroding institutional capacity for

intergovernmental analysis, and shifting paradigms of

public management. Th ese trends threaten to undermine

eff ective intergovernmental relations and management.

Recent developments, however, off er some promise for

building new institutions of intergovernmental analysis,

more eff ective paradigms of intergovernmental public

management, and greater horizontal cooperation.

O n June 20, 1955, the Commission on Inter-

governmental Relations — commonly known

as the Kestnbaum Commission, after its

chairman, Meyer Kestnbaum — transmitted its fi nal

report to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Defying

the obscurity that befalls many such projects, the

Kestnbaum report made a substantial contribution to

American intergovernmental relations during the

post – World War II era, providing both political and

intellectual justifi cation for the paradigm of coopera-

tive federalism. Th e commission’s recommendations

lent energy to the push to create a permanent Advi-

sory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations

(ACIR), brought attention to the issues of intergov-

ernmental coordination and management in the

White House and throughout the executive branch of

government, supported the development of subcom-

mittees on intergovernmental relations in both the

House and Senate, and endorsed continued reliance

on and expansion of the system of federal categorical

grants-in-aid.

Much has changed in the 51 years since the Kestnbaum

Commission issued its report. Th e ACIR and other

national institutions of intergovernmental expertise

have come and gone. Several waves of federalism

reform have been launched since the 1950s, alternately

favoring expansion, restructuring, and contraction of

the federal grant system. New, more intrusive, and

often costly federal mandates have been developed

and widely adopted. Th e fi scal and managerial

competencies of state and local governments have

been enhanced and modernized, and new frameworks

of governance have emerged. Consequently, the report

of the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations —

coming as it did near the apex of cooperative

federalism — provides a useful baseline from which to

gauge subsequent changes in the intergovernmental

system and assess their implications for intergovern-

mental management.

Origins and Objectives of the Commission When Eisenhower was elected president in 1952,

Republicans had not held the White House for

20 years. Many in his party were keenly interested in

reexamining the proliferation of federal programs that

had been created during the New Deal period and

rationalizing or rolling back the expanded domestic

role of the national government. Senator Robert Taft

(R-OH) urged the creation of a federal commission to

reexamine federal – state relations in the new adminis-

tration, and Eisenhower followed through with a

legislative proposal in March 1953 ( Colman and

Goldberg 1990 ). Th e bill was quickly taken up and

passed by Congress and signed into law in July 1953.

In its statement of purposes, the legislation melded

elements of conservative ideology with the concerns of

mainstream public administration. Th e former was

evidenced by an apprehension that “the activity of the

Federal Government has been extended into many

fi elds which, under our constitutional system, may be

the primary interest and obligation of the several

states” (P.L. 83-109, sec. 1). Th e administrative ratio-

nale for the commission was apparent in concerns

about “confusion and wasteful duplication of func-

tions and administration” and “the resulting complex-

ity [of ] intergovernmental relations.” In language that

would presage subsequent eff orts to sort out govern-

mental functions under Presidents Eisenhower,

Tim Conlan George Mason University

From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism: Refl ections

on the Half-Century Anniversary of the Commission on

Intergovernmental Relations

Tim Conlan is a professor of government

and politics in the Department of Public and

International Affairs at George Mason

University, Fairfax, Virginia.

E-mail: [email protected] .

Rethinking the Foundations of Public Administration: A Senior–Junior Exchange

664 Public Administration Review • September | October 2006

Nixon, and Reagan, the legislation highlighted the

need to “study the proper role of the Federal Govern-

ment in relation to the States and their political subdi-

visions . . . to the end that these relations may be

clearly defi ned and the functions concerned may be

allocated to their proper jurisdiction.”

To carry out these responsibilities, the legislation estab-

lished a commission composed of 25 members: 15

appointed by the president and fi ve each by the Speaker

of the House and the president of the Senate. Together,

this membership comprised a distinguished and diverse

group that included three cabinet secretaries, six gover-

nors, several activist members of Congress, and distin-

guished educators (including William Anderson and

Clark Kerr). Th e commission also had a remarkable

professional staff , employing many of the most distin-

guished public administrators and intergovernmental

scholars of the era, such as George C. S. Benson (who

served as director of research), William Colman,

W. Brooke Graves, Arthur MacMahon, Harvey

Mansfi eld, Roscoe Martin, and Frederick Mosher.

Themes of the Commission Th e commission organized its report — and its

research — in two parts. Th e fi rst part provided a broad

overview of the historical evolution of the American

federal system, the roles of the states and the federal

government within that system, and the fi scal dimen-

sions of American federalism, with a particular focus

on grants-in-aid. Th e second part of the report con-

sisted of 11 separate studies of federal – state relations

within specifi c functional areas, from agriculture to

welfare. 1 Overall, the commission report was bound

together by a coherent set of themes and recommen-

dations. Major themes included the following:

● Th e merits of federalism: Th e report strongly

endorsed the federal form of government while

acknowledging its problems. It praised the

institution’s adaptability in crisis, such as during

the Great Depression and World War II. Equally

important, in light of the struggles with totalitari-

anism during the early 20th century, it emphasized

federalism’s potential to strengthen representative

government — by promoting individual freedom,

mobilizing the consent of the governed, provid-

ing a democratic training ground for citizens and

offi ceholders, and permitting diverse laboratories

of policy experimentation. At the same time, the

report recognized challenges such as the adminis-

trative complexities of federalism, the intergovern-

mental allocation of functions in a mobile society

and dynamic economy, state and local institutional

and fi scal weaknesses, and the problems of civil

rights and legislative apportionment.

● Cooperative federalism: Although President

Eisenhower hoped that the commission would

provide a road map for reassigning and streamlining

the intergovernmental assignment of functions

( Eisenhower 1954 ), the report instead provided a

powerful endorsement of cooperative federalism.

“Th e National Government and the States,” it said,

“should be regarded not as competitors for author-

ity but as two levels of government cooperating

with or complementing each other in meeting the

growing demands on both.” Th e rapidly growing

system of grants-in-aid, which greatly concerned

Eisenhower, was accepted as a “fully matured device

of cooperative government” (120). Th us, several

years before Morton Grodzins popularized the

“marble cake” model of cooperative federalism,

the concept was embraced and elaborated by the

Kestnbaum Commission. 2

● Federal forbearance: Th e commission report

accepted the post – New Deal concept of positive gov-

ernment, but it emphasized the need for intergov-

ernmental deference among partners in the system.

In particular, the report stressed that the national

government had a double duty: to take “vigorous

and eff ective national action” when necessary to

fulfi ll its own responsibilities while also taking care

to “protect and promote the national interest in

the preservation of the federal system.” Th is latter

duty required a “discriminating sense of when not

to act,” and it had implications for the form of

federal involvement, “leaving room for facilitating

cooperative or independent State action.”

● State and local modernization: A healthy federal

system was seen as requiring strong partners at all

levels of government. In a statement anticipating

the subsidiarity principle in the Maastricht Treaty,

the commission off ered this general rule: “Use the

level of government closest to the community for

all public functions it can handle; utilize coop-

erative intergovernmental arrangements where

appropriate. . . . reserve National action for residual

participation where State and local governments

are not fully adequate and for the residual respon-

sibilities that only the National government can

undertake.” Th is principle suggested that the states

also bear responsibility for maintaining a healthy

federal system, particularly by assuring that they

and their political subdivisions have the fi scal and

institutional capacity to fulfi ll their responsibilities.

During the 1950s, this prompted a long list of tra-

ditional “good government” reforms: constitutional

revision, legislative reapportionment, strength-

ened state executives, interstate cooperation, local

government home rule, county modernization, and

balanced, adequate revenue systems. Such modern-

ization would, in the commission’s view, encourage

more cooperative intergovernmental relations and

“relieve much of the pressure for, and generate a

strong counter-pressure against, improper

expansion of National action.”

● Institutionalization of intergovernmental coor-

dination and analysis: Much of the commission’s

From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism 665

report focused on the need for better intergovern-

mental coordination across program areas and at all

levels of government. Th e commission report called

for state and federal encouragement of metropolitan-

wide planning districts, better coordination of local

planning, and federal and state housing, economic

development, and public works programs (52 – 53).

In a discussion that presaged future partial pre-

emption programs, the commission called for

coordinated federal – state regulatory action in areas

such as food inspection. Analysis of tax policies

brought forth a call for “improved coordination of

fi scal policies through greater separation of revenue

sources and administrative cooperation,” as well as

coordinating tax bases and methods of calculation

(106, 117). Th e latter task would require interstate

cooperation as well as federal – state coordination,

in the commission’s view. Finally, the complex tasks

of coordination and cooperation would require

improved information and understanding,

“continuing attention” by a permanent center of

expertise on interlevel relationships, and multiple

sources of advice to policy makers in both the

legislative and executive branches.

Commission Recommendations Th ese themes informed a series of commission recom-

mendations, many of which were rapidly, though

sometimes only partially, adopted. One set of recom-

mendations was aimed at enhancing coordination and

policy advice in the federal executive branch. Th e

commission called for the appointment of a special

assistant in the Executive Offi ce of the President who,

“with a small staff ,” would serve as the president’s

“chief aide and advisor” on intergovernmental relation-

ships, giving his “exclusive attention” to these issues

and serving as a “coordinating center” throughout

government (87). Th e Bureau of the Budget was called

on to “intensify its concern” with intergovernmental

fi scal aff airs and to establish “cooperative relations”

with the National Association of State Budget Offi cers.

Th e Bureau of the Budget’s legislative reference divi-

sion was also urged to “promote sharper attention to

problems of intergovernmental relations in the draft-

ing of statutes” by working with the special assistant to

the president and the federal agencies and “drafting

groups at the State level.” Finally, individual federal

agencies were encouraged to create “inter-level coordi-

nating machinery” for particular

fi elds of activity and to designate

assistant secretaries to deal with

“broad questions of National-

State-local” concern (88).

Th e commission also called for

the creation of an Advisory

Board on Intergovernmental

Relations, to be appointed by the

president after consultation with

associations representing state and local government

offi cials. Th e board’s mission would be both consulta-

tive and analytical: It would promote intergovernmen-

tal consultation and dialogue by convening meetings

of offi cials at all levels of government and study special

problems relating to the federal system.

Finally, the commission addressed several recommen-

dations to Congress, urging the appropriation of

funds to support its proposals. Congress, like the

president, was urged to give more attention to the

systemic intergovernmental eff ects of its future legisla-

tion and to systematically involve state and local

offi cials in legislative hearings. Congress was also

encouraged to “maintain active subcommittees on

intergovernmental relations” in both the House and

Senate (89).

Implementing the Commission’s Framework Th e commission’s recommendations met with an

unusual degree of success. President Eisenhower fol-

lowed up by appointing Meyer Kestnbaum as special

assistant for intergovernmental aff airs and Robert

Merriam as White House coordinator for intergovern-

mental matters ( Wright 1965, 196 – 97 ). An intergov-

ernmental assistant was also established in the Bureau

of the Budget, although the management staff there

remained small ( Colman 1965 ). In 1959, a perma-

nent Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental

Relations was established, after a brief detour.

Eisenhower fi rst sought to advance his goal of sorting

out functions between the states and the federal gov-

ernment. He appointed a Joint Federal-State Action

Committee, composed of governors and federal

offi cials, to develop recommendations for returning

domestic functions back to the states, along with

revenue sources to accomplish that goal. However, the

committee could agree on only two federal programs

to turn back, along with the federal telephone tax, and

the recommendation was never adopted by Congress.

After this failure, legislation was adopted establishing

the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental

Relations in 1959. Its structure was more independent

of the executive branch than the Kestnbaum Commis-

sion had recommended, 3 but it was designed to

permit high-level intergovernmental consultation,

comprising three members representing the federal

executive branch (normally cabinet secretaries), six

members of Congress, three

private citizens, and 14 state and

local elected offi cials. From the

start, it was served by a small but

accomplished staff .

In Congress, the House retained

a Subcommittee on Intergovern-

mental Relations as a permanent

feature of the House Committee

on Government Operations. Its

Th e commission also called for the creation of an Advisory

Board on Intergovernmental Relations, to be appointed by the president after consultation with

associations representing state and local government offi cials.

666 Public Administration Review • September | October 2006

longtime chairman was Representative L. H. Fountain

of North Carolina, who took the leadership role in

creating the ACIR. Th e subcommittee’s staff was di-

rected by Delphis Goldberg, who had also served on

the staff of the Kestnbaum Commission. Th e Senate

established its own Subcommittee on Intergovernmen-

tal Relations in 1963, chaired by Senator Edmund

Muskie, former governor of Maine. Its staff director

was David B. Walker, who subsequently became the

assistant director of the ACIR.

Th roughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, the para-

digm of cooperative federalism blossomed. Although

Eisenhower was attracted to the idea of streamlining

the intergovernmental system by sorting out func-

tions, he was not averse to proposing major expansion

of the federal grants system. He recommended a mas-

sive enlargement and restructuring of federal aid to

highways in 1955 and signed legislation establishing

the interstate highway system the following year. He

supported a program of federal aid for elementary and

secondary school construction to alleviate the over-

crowding caused by the baby boom. After the Soviet

launch of the Sputnik satellite, the Eisenhower admin-

istration developed the National Defense Education Act,

which provided grants for math, science, and language

training at all levels of the system. Th roughout the

1950s, the country saw the continued expansion of

public health, agriculture, and urban renewal grants.

By 1960, there were 132 separate grant-in-aid

programs, up from 30 in 1939 and 60 in 1950

( Walker 1995 ).

Continued expansion of the grant system in the 1960s

accelerated eff orts to manage burgeoning cooperative

relationships. Th e number of grants grew rapidly

throughout the 1960s — more than tripling in number

from 132 to more than 400 and in dollar amounts

from $7 billion to $24 billion ( Walker 1995 ). Most

were project categorical grants with their own eligibil-

ity criteria, application and reporting requirements,

specifi c clientele, and allowable objects of spending.

Th is rapid increase in programmatic complexity frayed

administrative relationships, raised intergovernmental

tensions, and prompted a redoubling of management

reforms and coordination eff orts. Th e Johnson admin-

istration and the Bureau of the Budget considered

major organizational reforms, such as establishing a

separate Offi ce of Program Coordination in the Ex-

ecutive Offi ce of the President and distributing bureau

staff among the federal regions ( Berman 1977 ).

“Target grant” approaches, such as the Appalachian

Regional Commission and the Model Cities Program,

were developed to deal with complex, cross-cutting

problems such as urban poverty and regional eco-

nomic distress. Grant consolidation was explored as a

means of promoting better coordination of programs

at the local level, and Congress passed the Intergov-

ernmental Cooperation Act of 1968 to promote

greater involvement by state and local elected offi cials

in the grant process.

Th is expanded intergovernmental management focus

continued under President Nixon. Federal administra-

tive regions were standardized and a system of Federal

Regional Councils was established. Th e Bureau of the

Budget was reorganized, becoming part of the Offi ce

of Management and Budget (OMB), and intergovern-

mental management was addressed in a newly devel-

oped Program Coordination Division. In the policy

realm, general revenue sharing and fl exible block

grants were placed at the core of the administration’s

domestic policy approach in order to create a more

fl exible and decentralized “new federalism.” Th e ACIR

reached the height of its size and infl uence during the

1970s, with an average staff size in the mid-thirties

and an average annual budget, in real terms, of ap-

proximately $3 million. 4 Finally, under Comptroller

General Elmer Staats, the General Accounting Offi ce

(GAO; now known as the Government Accountabil-

ity Offi ce) established an intergovernmental unit to

evaluate increasingly complex problems with

intergovernmental programs.

Unraveling the Cooperative Paradigm As the proliferating initiatives suggest, the cooperative

framework was fraying. Complexity, confl ict, and

concerns over performance were growing within the

grant-in-aid system, while new forces, new problems,

and new policy instruments were driving the

intergovernmental system toward a more co-optive

and opportunistic model of federalism.

Today, the paradigm of cooperative intergovernmental

relations embraced by the Kestnbaum Commission

has largely unraveled. Th e scope of change is apparent

in four broad trends that cut across fi scal, managerial,

and analytical domains. First, the proliferation of

federal mandates, preemptions, and increasingly in-

trusive grant programs since the 1960s has prompted

a shift away from cooperation in vertical relationships

within the intergovernmental system. Th is shift has

been only partially mitigated by uneven eff orts at

devolution. Second, the administrative paradigm in

the federal system has been changing from intergov-

ernmental management to performance management,

an evolution that holds promise but also carries the

risk of further federal co-optation of the policy

agenda. Th ird, there has been an erosion of institu-

tionalized, systemic analysis in the intergovernmental

system and a concomitant increase in instrumental

advocacy. Finally, federal tax policy making has in-

creasingly departed from a traditional stance of federal

deference toward state and local governments to one

of federal disregard.

To be sure, these four trends to do not mean that all

aspects of intergovernmental cooperation have

From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism 667

vanished — far from it. Important vestiges of both

dual and cooperative federalism persist in a system as

complex and varied as ours. Th e cooperative extension

service has been battered by cuts but is still coopera-

tive; public health programs retain a considerable

degree of intergovernmental cooperation, as do other

vertical professional relationships throughout the

system. A great deal of cooperative federalism exists

horizontally as well, as evidenced by metropolitan

councils of government and multistate regional

ventures such as the streamlined sales tax project.

Moreover, contemporary federalism is highly

intergovernmentalized, even where relationships are

no longer cooperative. But compared to the era of the

Kestnbaum Commission, the governing framework

for conducting American intergovernmental relations

has clearly evolved.

From Cooperation to Opportunism One of the most profound changes in American feder-

alism since 1955 has been the changing mix of policy

instruments employed in federal – state – local relations,

moving the system away from an almost total reliance

on grants and incentives and toward instruments that

impose sanctions on, preempt, or co-opt state and

local authority. Th ere was an enormous expansion of

federal mandates during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s,

both in absolute numbers and in the creation of new

and more intrusive forms of federal regulation. Of

approximately 60 major federal mandates counted

by the ACIR in 1993, only two existed when the

Kestnbaum Commission issued its report. 5 Similarly,

federal preemptions of state and local authority

doubled in the 1970s and 1980s. According to

Zimmerman (2005) , 348 of the 513 federal

preemption statutes enacted by Congress since

1790 were adopted after 1965.

Th ese developments have led some to characterize the

current era as one of “coercive federalism” ( Kincaid

1990 ). Th ere are indeed costly and intrusive federal

mandates, and the federal system today is clearly more

coercive than it was during the Kestnbaum Commis-

sion era. Yet other aspects of contemporary federalism

are more seductive, dismissive, or co-optive than

openly coercive. Overall, opportunistic federalism

seems better able to capture the range and behavioral

dynamics of contemporary intergovernmental

behavior. 6

By opportunistic, I mean a system that allows — and

often encourages — actors in the system to pursue their

immediate interests with little regard for the institu-

tional or collective consequences. For example, federal

mandates, policy preemptions, and highly prescriptive

federal grant programs tend to be driven by opportu-

nistic policy makers who seek to achieve their own

policy and political goals regardless of traditional

norms of behavior or boundaries of institutional

responsibility. States often display similar behavior

toward local governments, and both state and local

governments behave opportunistically when they

direct federal grants away from their intended pur-

poses to serve strictly parochial ends. Although such

behavior has always existed to some extent, the

constraints on it have been greatly relaxed. Dual

federalism explicitly limited trespassing on the

responsibilities of other governments, backed by legal

and political consequences for fl outing. Cooperative

federalism actively encouraged joint intergovernmen-

tal action and emphasized shared goals across the

federal system, vertically enhanced by strong profes-

sional norms. As the normative framework of shared,

cooperative federalism erodes, however, the tempta-

tion to adopt opportunistic strategies that place

individual political and jurisdictional interests

above shared goals tends to increase at all levels

of government.

At the national level, the temptation to co-opt and

prescribe is not driven by a single party or ideological

affi liation. Conservatives have proved as willing to

preempt and mandate as liberals, although their policy

aims are typically very diff erent (promoting education

vouchers rather than bilingual education, for example,

or uniform markets rather than labor standards)

( Posner 1998 ). Th e appeal of such assertive conserva-

tism was evident in the growth of mandates of the

Reagan years ( Conlan 1986 ). It was evident in many

policies of the Clinton administration as well, such

that the political appeal of federal intervention in

symbolic issues (such as school uniforms) and local

responsibilities (such as funding “100,000 new cops”)

overwhelmed the normative constraints of traditional

responsibilities. Finally, opportunistic federalism has

been abundantly demonstrated in the Bush adminis-

tration. One would be hard pressed to develop an

intergovernmental agenda that was more dismissive of

cooperative norms and traditional responsibilities than

the recent hallmarks of the current Republican ad-

ministration and Congress: the rigorous accountabil-

ity framework of the No Child Left Behind Act; the

Help America Vote Act, which mandates standards for

provisional voting, identifi cation requirements, and

voting system standards for states; and the Real ID

Act of 2005, which establishes federal standards and

timetables for enhancing the security of state driver’s

licenses.

To be sure, recent years have also witnessed several

important eff orts to enhance fl exibility in the inter-

governmental system. Th e adoption of the Unfunded

Mandates Reform Act in 1995, welfare reform in

1996, and the expanded use of waivers in Medicaid

and other programs are all notable examples. How-

ever, it is important to recognize that some of these

initiatives — notably, welfare reform — contained

highly prescriptive elements in addition to areas of

668 Public Administration Review • September | October 2006

new fl exibility — mandated family caps and stringent

job-placement targets, for example. For their part,

waivers represent yet another face of opportunistic

federalism — an every-state-for-itself, cut-the-best-

deal-you-can form of federalism. Th e overall result has

been a complicated and uneven evolution of the inter-

governmental system but, on balance, a far more

co-optive system than that of the Kestnbaum era.

From Intergovernmental Management to Performance Management Since the 1950s, we have seen many “tides of reform”

( Light 1997 ). In the intergovernmental arena, the

focus traditionally has been on grant simplifi cation

and improved coordination, which Harold Seidman

once called the philosopher’s stone of public adminis-

tration. As indicated earlier, when grant programs

began to proliferate and coordination became increas-

ingly diffi cult, many diff erent methods of improved

coordination were explored. Th e Budget of the Bureau

and the OMB issued management circulars requiring

that elected offi cials receive notifi cation of grants to

their jurisdictions and establishing area-wide clearing-

houses of grant information. Block grants, increased

use of waiver authority, and other initiatives were also

explored, typically with mixed results.

A second stream of grant-management reforms

focused on standardization and simplifi cation. Th e

Single Audit Act, Circular A-133 (on common audit-

ing standards) and OMB Circular A-87 (on common

cost principles) sought to standardize requirements for

grant recipients. More recently, information technol-

ogy has been used to simplify the process of searching

for, obtaining, and administering federal grants.

Today, however, the ascendant paradigm — in inter-

governmental relations and in public administration

generally — is performance management. As Donald

Moynihan and Sanjay Pandey (2005) recently

observed, “Th e concept of performance has become

increasingly the central goal of public management.”

It was one of several elements in President Clinton’s rein-

venting government initiative, and it is the core focus

of President George W. Bush’s management agenda

( OMB 2002 ). Congress, too, has expressed heightened

interest in outcomes and results, most notably in the

Government Performance and Results Act of 1993.

Although the performance paradigm can be seen at

all levels of government, its embrace at the national

level may have important implications for the federal

system. Put simply, the techniques of performance

management are not intergovernmentally neutral.

Although outcome-based accountability has the po-

tential to free grant recipients from rigid process-based

systems, opportunistic federalism can interfere with

realizing this potential. Indeed, striving for strict

performance accountability can have signifi cant

centralizing eff ects in the system. As Beryl Radin

has argued, “Th e federal eff orts dealing with perfor-

mance . . . move against the devolution tide. Eff orts

to hold federal government agencies accountable for

the way that programs are implemented actually as-

sumes that these agencies have legitimate authority to

enforce the requirements that are included in

performance measures” ( Radin , forthcoming).

Th is tension can be seen in the Bush administration’s

Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART) process.

Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of this par-

ticular tool, grants, as a rule, have not scored well in

the process. Th eir performance to date has averaged

well below the mean for all programs, partly because

of the complexities of attenuated accountability in

third-party governance. Low performance ratings are

especially common among broad-based aid, such as

block grants (see table 1). Th is is not surprising, as

such programs typically have broad, even contradic-

tory objectives, relaxed reporting requirements, and

ambiguous performance standards. But as the admin-

istration seeks to connect performance ratings with

budgetary consequences, block grants such as the

Community Development Block Grants have become

targets for reductions or termination. It is ironic that

a traditional instrument of grant reform and

simplifi cation, which won particular favor from past

Republican presidents, has become a problematic

form of aid from a performance perspective.

From Intergovernmental Analysis to Instrumental Advocacy Since the 1970s, the network of federal offi ces and

agencies that was established to improve and rational-

ize intergovernmental management has been dimin-

ished, disbanded, or transformed into instruments of

advocacy. As a result, the tools and processes of inter-

governmental analysis, coordination, and consultation

have fallen by the wayside. At the same time, congres-

sional attention to issues of intergovernmental relations

and public administration has eroded as intergovern-

mental subcommittees have diminished in stature.

Organizational changes in the federal executive branch

have been particularly striking. Th e White House

Offi ce of Intergovernmental Aff airs last exerted sub-

stantial policy infl uence during President Reagan’s fi rst

term, when Richard Williamson served as assistant to

the president. Williamson was instrumental in helping

to devise Reagan’s 1982 eff ort to “sort out” responsi-

bilities between the federal government and the states

( Williamson 1990 ). Th e offi ce lost infl uence but

retained a substantial staff presence in the White

House under Williamson’s successor, Lee Verstandig,

but in 1986, it was merged into the Offi ce of Political

and Intergovernmental Aff airs under Mitch Daniels.

As the name signifi ed, the new offi ce had a much

From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism 669

stronger focus on political strategy and liaison; its staff

included future Republican National Committee

chairman Haley Barbour, for example. Although a

separate offi ce of intergovernmental aff airs was rees-

tablished under President George H. W. Bush, it

became and would remain a political liaison offi ce for

state and local offi cials. Its role as a major actor in

intergovernmental policy — much less a voice in inter-

governmental management — largely vanished. Indeed,

the offi ce has become virtually invisible in the current

Bush White House, having been eclipsed by the

president’s faith-based initiative. 7

At the OMB, the management side has traditionally

been a weak companion to the budget side, and this

has had implications for intergovernmental manage-

ment. What was once a robust presence in intergov-

ernmental management in the late 1960s and early

1970s dwindled over time until the Offi ce of Inter-

governmental Relations was formally abolished in

1983 ( McDowell 1997 ). “Th ere is no crosscutting

intergovernmental management institution any

more,” observed Dwight Ink (2006) in an interview.

Intergovernmental management functions at the

OMB are now handled by the Financial Standards

and Grants Branch within the Offi ce of Federal

Financial Management. Th e branch currently

has a staff of six professionals who deal with fi nancial

standards and fi nancial statements of federal agencies,

as well as grants management.

Nowhere has the decline in federal intergovernmental

expertise been more dramatically revealed than in the

elimination of the ACIR in

1996. As the “permanent” suc-

cessor to the Kestnbaum Com-

mission, the ACIR was once a

major source of data, policy

analysis, and intergovernmental

management expertise in the

federal government. It played an

important role in the design and

creation of a host of intergovernmental policy initia-

tives, including general revenue sharing, block grants,

regional coordinating bodies, property tax circuit

breakers, and unfunded mandates reform. It also

produced landmark research on public fi nance, repre-

sentative taxes, intergovernmental regulation, substate

and multistate regionalism, and the grant-in-aid sys-

tem. Yet a slow period of decline began in the 1980s,

starting with the appointment of President Reagan’s

controversial secretary of the interior, James Watt, as

chairman. Watt’s appointment began a process of

delegitimation that eroded the commission’s reputa-

tion as a source of unbiased information and analysis

and undermined its ability to play a constructive role

in intergovernmental consultation.

Th e ACIR suff ered a 50 percent reduction in its fund-

ing between 1985 and 1990 and another substantial

budget cut in 1993 ( McDowell 1997 ), which together

reduced its staff from a high of 37 in the 1970s to just

13 in 1995. 8 Th e ACIR’s fi nal act began with the

election of a Republican Congress in 1994. With an

infl ux of deeply conservative new House members,

many with little prior experience in government, an

agency that had its roots in the Eisenhower adminis-

tration and had reached the height of its infl uence in

the Nixon administration was suddenly viewed as part

of the “Washington problem,” not its solution. Self-

styled Republican “revolutionaries” entered offi ce

seeking a broad eff ort to shrink the federal govern-

ment’s domestic role, including the elimination of

cabinet agencies for education, commerce, and energy.

Dozens of smaller agencies such as the ACIR and the

Administrative Conference of the United States were

targeted as well in an attempt to bulk up the apparent

scope of the reform eff ort. Relatively little thought

appears to have gone into the decision to kill many of

these agencies, although many had appeared on hit

lists of agencies deemed expendable. In the end, the

major departments and agencies

that were targeted were largely

spared, as advocates rallied and

opinion polls showed public

opposition to revolutionary

changes. But support for the

ACIR had diminished over the

previous decade, and many of its

supporters among public interest

groups and in Congress had higher priorities in the

budget battles of the 104th Congress, leaving it vul-

nerable. In the end, Congress’s hunger to hang “pelts

on the wall” — to show some results for the assault on

Washington — was a deciding factor in the agency’s

termination, with little recognition or thought given

Table 1 Grant Program Ratings, Fiscal Year 2007

PART Rating All Programs Grant Programs Block Grant Programs Only

Effective 15% 3% 0% Moderately effective 29% 19% 31% Adequate 28% 29% 12% Ineffective 4% 8% 19% Results not demonstrated 24% 41% 38%

Source: Budget of the U.S. Government, Analytical Perspectives, FY 2007, pp. 15, 106, and author’s calculations for 16 block grant programs from expectmore.gov database.

Nowhere has the decline in fed- eral intergovernmental expertise been more dramatically revealed than in the elimination of the

ACIR in 1996.

670 Public Administration Review • September | October 2006

to the implications for the eff ective functioning of the

intergovernmental system (Conlan 1998; McDowell

1997 ).

Such legislative indiff erence was exhibited in other

ways as well. Legislative subcommittees on intergov-

ernmental relations, which had been established in

both the House and Senate on the recommendation

of the Kestnbaum report, became active centers of

legislative initiatives and oversight from the 1960s

through the mid-1980s. In 1987, however, the Senate

abolished its stand-alone Subcommittee on Intergov-

ernmental Relations, merging it with the former Sub-

committee on the District of Columbia to create the

ironically named Subcommittee on Governmental

Effi ciency, Federalism, and the District of Columbia.

Th e subcommittee underwent further name changes

and consolidations in subsequent years, and since

1995, there has been no Senate subcommittee with

intergovernmental relations in its name. Jurisdiction

today resides with the Subcommittee on Oversight of

Government Management, the Federal Workforce,

and the District of Columbia. In the House, the Sub-

committee on Human Resources and Intergovern-

mental Relations became the Subcommittee on

Human Resources in 1997. Intergovernmental rela-

tions was not restored to any subcommittee title

until 2001. Today, jurisdiction for intergovernmental

management rests with the Subcommittee on

Federalism and the Census, a body within the

Committee on Government Reform.

From Fiscal Deference to Federal Disregard Th e Kestnbaum Commission recognized the need for

intergovernmental tax coordination in our federal

system, for both sources of tax revenue and tax base

defi nition and administration. Th us, the commission

recognized the value of having diff erent levels of gov-

ernment focus on diff erent sources of tax revenue

(income, sales, or property), and it recommended the

coordination of tax bases and tax administration

where there was overlap. In addition, it endorsed a

policy of federal forbearance in taxation, demon-

strated by the deductibility of state and local taxes on

federal income taxes and the exclusion of interest on

state and local bonds.

Such deference has a very long history. Both deduct-

ibility and the exclusion of interest on tax-exempt

bonds are among the oldest features of the federal tax

code. Cooperative federalism was also manifest in

eff orts to reconcile the valuation of assets for federal

and state income tax purposes, state piggybacking of

the federal income tax system, and coordination of

estate taxes. But, as with other aspects of cooperative

federalism, this posture of intergovernmental defer-

ence has diminished over time. Th e deduction for

state sales tax was eliminated in 1986 (though it was

partially and temporarily restored in 2004); direct and

indirect limitations have been placed on the exclusion

of interest on state and local bonds; and Congress has

preempted some state and local tax sources, such as

telecommunication taxes. Today, federal policy makers

often do not know or simply do not consider how

federal tax policy changes will aff ect state and local

governments. For example, the impact of eliminating

the federal estate tax on the states was hardly even

considered, even though many states tied their own

estate tax directly to the federal tax ( Scheppach and

Shafroth , forthcoming).

Th e decline in federal fi scal deference has been aided

by the same process of deinstitutionalization exam-

ined previously. Th e U.S. Treasury Department’s

Offi ce of State and Local Finance was once an impor-

tant source of information and expertise on intergov-

ernmental fi nance, producing infl uential reports such

as the 1985 study Federal-State-Local Fiscal Relations:

A Report to the President and Congress. Like its

counterparts, the offi ce was eliminated in 1988

and never replaced.

Causes of Change What has led to such substantial shifts in the architec-

ture, actors, and approaches to intergovernmental

relations and management? Th e causes are many and

complex, but they include signifi cant changes in the

nature of our society and the structure of our

economy; changes in our political party system, both

organizationally and ideologically; and increased

polarization in American politics.

Th e impact of social and economic changes can be

clearly seen in the growth of federal mandates and

preemptions. A substantial proportion of federal

mandates and regulations involve civil rights and

environmental protection, such as Title VI of the

Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, the

Americans with Disabilities Act, the Clean Air Act,

the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act,

the Endangered Species Act, and others. Clearly, the

civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and

the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s

contributed to the development of such laws and to

the more expansive federal role that they entailed.

Th is expanded role, which was a necessary response to

the long and sorry legacy of racial discrimination and

the problems of cross-border pollution, blazed a trail

for a more assertive style of intergovernmental

relations across the board.

Similarly, economic changes have contributed to the

accretion of federal preemption statutes. Th e national-

ization of the economy has expanded the federal gov-

ernment’s role in regulating economic aff airs since the

founding of the republic. Today, ongoing globaliza-

tion of the economy has accelerated this process,

increasing support for federal preemption of state

From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism 671

economic regulation by national and international

corporations. Large-scale corporations almost always

prefer a single, uniform, and preferably less burden-

some federal rule to 50 diff erent state rules. Conse-

quently, the business sector has become a strong

constituency for increased federal preemption of state

regulatory authority, as in the case of telecommunica-

tions regulations, various aspects of product liability

law, and pesticide labeling, to list only a few ( Posner

1998 ). Th ough such preemption often makes sense

from an economic perspective, it can also give rise to

new arenas of intergovernmental confl ict.

Although economic and social changes have tended

to support more unilateral and regulatory federal

policies, developments in the political system have

undermined state and local governments’ ability to

moderate such federal policies. Th e erosion of state

and local power in electoral politics is one such devel-

opment. With the full ascendance of the primary

system, mayors and governors have lost much of the

infl uence they once had in presidential and congres-

sional nominations — infl uence that led Morton

Grodzins (1968) to argue that “[s]tates and localities,

working through the parties . . . are more infl uential

in federal aff airs than the federal government is in

theirs.” Individualization of the political system has

both diminished state and local infl uence and con-

vinced members of Congress of the need to “make it

on their own,” encouraging the proliferation of nar-

rowly targeted categorical grants and the increasing

profusion of legislative earmarks ( Mayhew 1974 ).

Such political changes are an important driver of

opportunistic federalism and a key reason we now

have more than 700 separate grant-in-aid programs

and 14,000 earmarks ( Rauch 2006; Utt 1999 ).

Th e political parties have adapted to this altered role,

but the energy for party building has come from the

national level. Whereas the national party committees

were once derided as “politics without power,” they

have grown tremendously since the 1980s — fi nan-

cially, technologically, and organizationally. Th e

national party committees are now the senior partners

in the system, striving to rebuild the often moribund

state and local party organizations (Hershey and Beck

2005; Sabato and Larson 2002 ). If, as Grodzins

(1966) once claimed, “the parties are responsible for

both the existence and form of the considerable

measure of decentralization that exists in the United

States,” this transformation of the party system has

tremendous implications for intergovernmental

relations.

Another signifi cant political trend with implications

for intergovernmental management is the sharp

increase in partisan and ideological polarization in

American politics since the 1970s. In Congress, this

has been expressed as a decline in the number and

infl uence of ideological moderates in both parties and

a corresponding rise in the number and infl uence of

ideological partisans ( Binder 1996 ). Th is polarization

is signifi cant administratively because political moder-

ates — Democrats, but especially Republicans —

generally have been the strongest advocates of

traditional intergovernmental management concerns.

Th ey have typically supported positive government

while favoring an emphasis on effi ciency,

decentralization, and cooperation.

In contrast, liberal Democrats since the New Deal

have favored a broad and aggressive national policy

agenda and typically have been suspicious of state

governments ( Derthick 2001 ), although, as Richard

Nathan (2006) observes, liberals can rediscover the

virtues of state policy activism when they are out

of power in Washington. Increasingly, conservative

Republicans have also lost interest in both decentral-

ization and intergovernmental reform, becoming

more and more enamored of national policy activism.

Behind the occasional shroud of states rights rhetoric,

both libertarian and social conservatives have proved

increasingly willing to sacrifi ce the traditional conser-

vative’s preference for institutional deference and

limited federal role in favor of promoting their own

view of the public good on a national scale — through

privatization, preemption, or the mandating of

conservative social values.

Implications for Intergovernmental Management: Hopeful Signs and Continuing Challenges Despite the advance of opportunistic federalism, a

variety of developments hold promise for intergovern-

mental management. Th ese include progress in

rebuilding support for intergovernmental analysis,

eff orts to meld intergovernmental fl exibility with

performance management, emerging paradigms of

public administration that recognize the centrality of

intergovernmental relations, and bottom-up eff orts to

build new arenas of intergovernmental cooperation.

At the same time, the powerful political currents that

have contributed to opportunistic federalism have not

vanished. National policy makers continue to face

strong incentives in favor of co-optive programs but

have few incentives to embrace federal forbearance.

Moreover, the fi scal environment of the federal system

in the years ahead, which will be shaped by the demo-

graphics of aging, projected health care cost infl ation,

and economic globalization, is fraught with risks for

greater intergovernmental confl ict and co-optation.

A challenging future awaits our federal system under

the best of circumstances.

Rebuilding Intergovernmental Analysis One hopeful sign for intergovernmental management

is the progress that has been made in rebuilding the

capacity for systemic analysis. Signifi cantly, given

672 Public Administration Review • September | October 2006

what some have termed an era of “executive federal-

ism” ( Gais and Fossett 2005 ), it is Congress and its

staff agencies rather than the executive branch that

have taken the lead here. For example, the Congres-

sional Budget Offi ce formed a State and Local

Government Cost Estimates Unit to implement its

responsibilities under the Unfunded Mandates

Reform Act. Th is unit of six analysts produces both

real-time cost estimates of proposed mandates for

Congress and annual reports on overall trends in

intergovernmental regulation (CBO 2006). Th e GAO

also reconstituted an intergovernmental issues group

in 2000 after allowing a similar unit to lapse in 1990.

Th is unit has recently produced reports on issues such

as unfunded mandates, third-party governance, grants

management, and Medicaid formulas. 9 Finally, Con-

gress itself has shown occasional signs of renewed

interest in intergovernmental relations. Th e enactment

of the Federal Financial Assistance Management Im-

provement Act of 1999 (P.L. 106-107) has spurred

many grant-management initiatives in the executive

branch, and a more active agenda has begun to

emerge on the core intergovernmental subcommittees.

Beyond Capitol Hill, there have been continuing

eff orts to restore some form of ACIR-type entity.

Supplementing eff orts by universities, notably the

Rockefeller Institute at the State University of New

York at Albany, the National Academy of Public

Administration established a Center for Intergovern-

m ental Relations in 2003 and has explored avenues

for reestablishing a variety of ACIR’s former functions

in intergovernmental consultation and research. Still,

no organization has yet acquired the funding needed

to re-create a permanent ACIR-like entity.

In the Bush administration, there has been only mod-

est interest in bolstering intergovernmental manage-

ment in the executive branch. Th e White House has

lacked any sustained interest in intergovernmental

management, retaining a strong focus on political

liaison activities. Th e OMB’s primary focus has been

on the areas of performance and fi nancial

management.

One modest bright spot has been the Bush adminis-

tration’s strong interest in using information technol-

ogy to enhance the management of the grants-in-aid

system, in part to carry out its re-

sponsibilities under the Federal

Financial Assistance Management

Improvement Act. An initiative fi rst

dubbed e-grants and now called

grants.gov has involved 26 grant-

making agencies and departments in

eff orts to standardize procedures,

forms, and processes under the

umbrella of an “electronic storefront” for grantees.

Th is initiative has made considerable progress in the

grant-search process, but the eff ort has far to go with

the more diffi cult and important processes of report-

ing and accountability. Progress here will require

additional streamlining and standardizing of scores of

diff erent agencies’ grant-management systems. A

hitherto dormant grants “line of business” initiative

was jump-started in the fi scal year 2007 budget to

help tackle these issues ( Miller 2006 ). Moreover, the

nascent institutionalization of a modest staff dedicated

to these issues, supported by contributions from par-

ticipating agencies, and commitments of support from

the OMB and departmental chief information offi cers

may promote the development of a new center of

grant-management expertise.

Blending Flexibility and Performance One of the promised benefi ts of the performance-

management movement is the prospect that it could

combine accountability with fl exibility. Grantees

would be held strictly accountable for achieving

results but would have a role in negotiating outcome

measures and considerable fl exibility in how they go

about meeting them ( Metzenbaum 2002 ). As experi-

ence with the No Child Left Behind Act indicates,

however, performance-accountability systems can have

intrusive and controversial eff ects in practice, and

eff orts to use performance accountability to increase

procedural fl exibility have had mixed results.

One promising approach is the performance partner-

ship program in environmental protection under the

National Environmental Performance Partnership

System (NEPPS). Th e GAO found that NEPPS has

allowed a greater focus on state and local priorities

and modest reduction in process-related state report-

ing (GAO 1999). Th e NEPPS system has also allowed

states to experiment with more innovative regulatory

approaches and obtain greater fl exibility. Environmen-

tal performance partnerships are not without prob-

lems, however. Transaction costs have been high, and

there has been less reduction of federal regulatory

oversight and less focus on results in federal reviews

than many states had hoped for (GAO 1999).

Program waivers are another increasingly used

tool that have the potential, when properly designed,

to increase both recipient fl exibility and performance

accountability. Since the late 1980s, waivers have been

used extensively in welfare,

Medicaid, education, and else-

where. Th ey are now so common

in so many program areas

that they have become a pillar

of what Gais and Fossett (2005)

term “executive federalism.”

In practice, however, most

waivers have been used more

as an escape valve from rigid federal restraints than as

a tool of performance management. Because waivers

Program waivers are another increasingly used tool that have

the potential, when properly designed, to increase both re- cipient fl exibility and perfor-

mance accountability.

From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism 673

require explicit federal approval of state requests to

deviate from normal program requirements, they

constitute a form of what Enid Beaumont (2004) has

termed “Mother may I” federalism. Regardless,

waivers are a useful tool of opportunistic federalism,

allowing those with a strong case or political clout to

cut their own unique deals.

New Analytical Frameworks Developing frameworks for public administration

off er additional cause for optimism. In particular, the

perspectives of third-party governance and network

management off er new insights into eff ective manage-

ment in an intergovernmental environment, and their

continuing maturation is a promising development.

Th e framework of third-party governance refl ects an

increasingly sophisticated understanding of changes in

our system of governance. Even the change in vocabu-

lary from government to governance signifi es how

much of what government does today is carried out

indirectly, through a range of third parties and utiliz-

ing a growing array of policy instruments, such as

contracts, grants, loans, regulation, and tax expendi-

tures. As Paul Light (1999) has observed, the “true

size” of government is far larger than what appears on

the public personnel rolls, but its performance and

management require diff erent skill sets and adminis-

trative instruments than those of hierarchical

administration.

Th ese insights are not new. Mosher outlined the

changing responsibilities and tools of the federal gov-

ernment in 1980, and Lester Salamon called attention

to the growth of third-party government at about the

same time ( Mosher 1980; Salamon 1981 ). Th e federal

grant system was in many ways the pioneer of third-

party government, and intergovernmental manage-

ment emerged to deal with a distinctive set of

problems in an era when public administration as a

whole was focused on internal hierarchies. Today,

intergovernmental management fi ts comfortably

within this emerging framework of third-party

governance, and both fi elds should profi t from the

interplay of the two.

Th is change is complemented by another developing

framework: network management. Th e move from

direct to indirect governance implies a comparable

move from hierarchical management to network

management, where authority and power are shared

and cooperation must be negotiated ( Kickert, Klijn,

and Koppenjan 1997 ). Because intergovernmental

management is inherently interorganizational — both

vertically and often horizontally — the insights pro-

vided by network theory hold particular promise in

this fi eld. Scholars are beginning to sketch the diff er-

ent types of network arrangements that are prevalent

in the intergovernmental arena. To reach its full

potential in the context of third-party governance,

however, network theory will need to pay increased

attention to the interplay between diff erent policy

instruments and networked relationships ( Agranoff

and McGuire 2003 ).

Cooperative State Policy Making Among the most positive signs of the health of

American federalism is the continuing level of policy

innovation by state governments. Such innovation

has long been recognized within individual states —

in policy fi elds as diverse as health care, welfare reform,

and environmental policy — but it is also apparent in

patterns of regional and national interstate

cooperation.

One such cooperative venture is states’ eff orts to forge

a common sales tax system for the Internet age.

Th rough a venture called the streamlined sales tax

project, dozens of states have collaborated to develop

common sales and use tax systems for remote vendors,

negotiating uniform defi nitions of taxable items, com-

mon tax rates, and simplifi ed administration. To date,

22 states representing over 20 percent of the U.S.

population have enacted implementing legislation,

and the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement

became eff ective in those states as of October 1, 2005.

Similar multistate cooperation has developed around

environmental policy issues. States have a long history

of regional coordination and cooperation on water-

related issues, such as river basin commissions and the

Great Lakes Commission. But states have also become

increasingly active in regional agreements on clean air

standards and global warming initiatives. Most recently,

seven northeastern states reached an agreement — the

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — to limit green-

house gas emissions by regional power plants ( Jones

2006 ). Whether these and similar eff orts represent a

cyclical reaction of state innovation in response to

more conservative federal policies ( Nathan 2006 )

or a secular trend of increased state policy sophistica-

tion and maturity remains to be seen, but they

represent a promising form of horizontal cooperation

in the federal system, encouraged by the same

dynamic of policy entrepreneurship responsible for

less positive features of opportunistic federalism

( Rabe 2004 ).

Conclusion Our intergovernmental system has changed consider-

ably since the days of the Kestnbaum Commission.

Vertical relationships have grown more dense, more

opportunistic, and less cooperative since the mid-

1950s. Despite these trends, we have witnessed a

period of relative disinterest and deinstitutionalization

in intergovernmental management and analysis at

the national level that is only now starting to be

addressed. Th e negative impact of these developments

674 Public Administration Review • September | October 2006

on intergovernmental relations was made starkly

evident by Hurricane Katrina. Aside from the inher-

ent diffi culties posed by the scale of the storm, the

miserable response was in large part a failure of inter-

governmental management. Cooperative federal –

state – local relationships that had been nurtured in

previous years were disrupted by the new, nationally

focused and assertive Department of Homeland Secu-

rity. Th e deinstitutionalization of intergovernmental

competence and the politicization of emergency man-

agement contributed to the failed response as well.

If allowed to persist, such weaknesses in intergovern-

mental management will be magnifi ed by challenges

that are building on the horizon. Projected public

spending commitments, especially for Medicare and

Medicaid, threaten to wreak budgetary havoc at all

levels of government, crowding out other expenditures

and generating intense political confl ict. Th e changing

dynamics of our national economy, which is driven by

technological change and globalization, pose growing

challenges for public sector revenues as well, particu-

larly for state governments. As the service sector of the

economy continues to expand and as Internet sales

grow, pressure on state and local sales tax revenues will

increase. Finally, the political dynamics that have

made federal mandates and preemption attractive to

federal policy makers are still largely intact, threaten-

ing to propel opportunistic federalism into the future.

Th ere is no quick-and-easy recipe for returning to a

more cooperative intergovernmental system. It takes

time and hard work to build and nurture intergovern-

mental relationships and to establish trust between

diff erent units and levels of government. It also

requires the commitment of resources to restore our

capacity for intergovernmental analysis, training, and

management. And above all, it requires the political

will to resist opportunistic politics and to rebuild a

culture of intergovernmental comity.

Fortunately, positive developments are beginning to

emerge in the paradigms of public management,

institutional support for intergovernmental analysis,

horizontal federalism, and specifi c tools of policy

design. Moreover, political balance in the federal

system is still nourished by the underlying strength of

state and local governments. An increasingly hollow

federal workforce has become more rather than less

reliant on its intergovernmental partners. Such

dependency — and the power it conveys over the im-

plementation of federal policy goals — is an important

source of strength for the agents of federal policy

making. Th e trust and aff ection that citizens retain for

their state and local governments — which typically

outweighs that held for the national government —

nourishes a deep foundation of political power and

legitimacy at these levels of government ( Kincaid and

Cole 2005 ). And the capacity for policy innovation at

the state and local levels, exemplifi ed by intergovern-

mental ventures such as the streamlined sales tax proj-

ect and by domestic state innovations, all point to the

continuing resilience of the American federal system.

Acknowledgments Th e concept of opportunistic federalism that is devel-

oped in this article benefi ted greatly from the writings

and insights of Paul Posner and Martha Derthick. I

would like to thank them, as well as Jonathan Bruel,

Bruce McDowell, and Carl Stenberg, for their com-

ments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article.

Needless to say, any errors of omission or commission

are mine alone.

Notes 1. Each of these functions was examined by a special

study group composed of select commission

members and prominent specialists and practi-

tioners in the fi eld. Although the functional

studies were intended to inform the general

report, they also produced some areas of disagree-

ment. For example, the report’s general recom-

mendations expressed a clear preference for the

continued use of categorical grants rather than

block grants, although the study committees on

federal aid to agriculture and public health

reached opposite conclusions. See the

Commission on Intergovernmental Relations

(1955 , 122 – 23, 132 – 33, 154, 252).

2. Th e commission was not the fi rst to develop the

idea, however; Jane Perry Clark Carey’s 1938

book, Th e Rise of a New Federalism, provided a

pathbreaking analysis of cooperative federalism.

3. Th ree House members and three senators were

appointed by the Speaker of the House and the

vice president, respectively. Th e president

appointed three executive offi cials and three public

members with considerable discretion, but the 14

state and local members were appointed by the

president based on lists proposed by relevant

public interest groups.

4. Data are derived from the 1970 – 79 annual

reports of the U.S. Advisory Commission on

Intergovernmental Relations. Th ese and other

ACIR reports can be found at the public docu-

ments cybercemetery at the University of North

Texas library, http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/.

5. Th e exact number of federal mandates is diffi cult

to estimate, depending on the defi nitions used

and the treatment of major reauthorizations and

expansions. Th e ACIR’s estimates can be taken as

conservative, however; the National Conference of

State Legislatures put the total estimate at 185

during this same period. See the ACIR (1993,

1994) for more details. Although the ACIR

estimates are now 10 years old, few of the regula-

tions involved have been rescinded, relaxed, or

terminated since then (the Reauthorization of the

From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism 675

Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996 is an exception).

Th e passage of the Unfunded Mandates Reform

Act in 1995 appears to have slowed the rate of

adoption of certain kinds of new mandates, but it

did not rescind or relax existing ones.

6. For a somewhat comparable assessment, see Posner

(1998, chap. 9) and Derthick (2001, chap. 1) .

7. Th e current director of the Offi ce of Intergovern-

mental Aff airs is Ruben Barrales, who is also

deputy assistant to the president. Th e offi ce has far

less prominence on the White House Web site

than the Offi ce of Faith-Based and Community

Initiatives, and it is described on the White

House Web site strictly in liaison terms:

“Intergovernmental Aff airs (IGA) serves as the

President’s liaison to state, local, and tribal

governments.” See www.whitehouse.gov/

government/off -descrp.html.

8. See the ACIR annual reports, various years.

9. See, for example, GAO (2003a, 2003b, 2003c,

2005).

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Agranoff , Robert , and Michael McGuire . 2003 .

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