Robert Agranoff

The Futility of Family Policy

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Enhancing Performance Through Public Sector Networks: Mobilizing Human Capital in Communities of Practice

Important performance outcomes of public management networks are examined, based on a study of 14 intergovernmental networks comprised of administrators and program specialists. The key to performance is based on the application of connective human capital. Collaborative public value is added as network actors pursue those knowledge-building actions related to solving interagency problems. Performance outcomes are examined from individual administrator, partner agency, network process, and tangible results perspectives. Specific project outcomes of each network are illustrated. Finally, the importance of networks as communities of practice for achieving collaborative outcomes is demonstrated as a key public management process.

Federal Evolution in Spain

The gradual development of federal arrangements in Spain through its regional governments is examined within five perspectives on “post-modern” federalism: differentiation of the Spanish unitary state through the autonomous communities; evolutionary compacting through negotiated agreements, creating “self-rule plus shared rule”; complementary building of democratic institutions and territorial distribution of power; federalisms contribution to accommodating and managing center-periphery conflicts; and the use of federal arrangements in building the Spanish welfare state. While the Spanish system to date represents “incomplete federation,” the noncentralized estado de las autonomías exemplifies the increasing federal character of states on the international scene.

The Intergovernmental Context of Local Economic Development

THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL system has become an important policy-making and administrative venue for local economic development officials. Decentralization of fiscal federalism coupled with increased local government policy responsibility have fundamentally reconfigured the relationships of cities with the federal government and the private and nonprofit sectors (Cigler 1996). As a result of reductions in federal financial assistance and a general disposition toward subnational policy solutions, cities rely increasingly on economic development initiatives as a way to replace lost revenues. Instead of acting alone, however, cities have discovered that the number of actors in state capitols and communities —who have a stake in developing city economies and who thus must be mobilized in order to effectively influence economic activity —has proliferated. Where once there was abundant federal grant money and a few insular agencies with which to work, there is now stiff competition for limited resources possessed by multiple sources; dependence

Expanding Intergovernmental Management’s Hidden Dimensions:

The practice of intergovernmental management is widespread in application but poorly understood. The empirical study of economic policy making and administration reported here suggests that the role of the intergovernmental manager has expanded considerably beyond the familiar tasks of seeking funds from other governments, coping with an expanding regulatory burden, or developing interlocal cooperative agreements. Linking data from two different surveys, the authors offer a preliminary classification of intergovernmental management activities and report the use of each formal activity. Such a classification is useful not only for identifying specific managerial functions that are conducted through multiple actors, but also for the terminology that can be applied to actions that heretofore have been heaped together under a generic intergovernmental management label. The increasingly more prevalent intergovernmental management activity is thus viewed as a routine aspect of public administration and, as such, requires a more complete understanding of its practice.

Local Governments in Multilevel Systems: Emergent Public Administration Challenges

In this article, the local government (LG) administrative implications of the movement from government to governance, involving multiple ties and externalized services operations, are examined from a cross-national perspective. Derived from a series of studies of LGs in multilevel systems, this article examines key patterns of cross-agency administration. First, administrative intergovernmental relations (IGR) are defined. Then common trends in local governments in their IGR arenas are identified. Next, changing managerial paradigms in outward as well as inward directions are introduced. Then a series of managerial challenges, including system development, IGR politics, collaborative knowledge development, network management, and interoperability are introduced. A research agenda for multilevel system local governments in IGR in the governance era concludes the article.

Partnerships in public management: rural enterprise alliances

This paper addresses public management implications of a certain form of network: the rural enterprise alliance, a formal nonmetropolitan partnership among producers, distributors, labor unions, employer associations, credit institutions, and government agencies. Six alliances are examined as examples of “postmodern” public organizing, as it fits into emergent “bottom up” approaches to economic development. Organizing locally for global competition is bringing on more decentralized, flexible, yet comprehensive public management approaches, emphasizing demand programming, self-management, incentives and information, leverage and engagement, and de-differentiated structuring. Public managers must increasingly deal with challenges like those related to the emergence of alliances.

Intergovernmental Management: Federal Changes, State Responses, and New State Initiatives

This article surveys state responses and new state initiatives in 1983 to three sets of successive federal changes in domestic policy. Collectively referred to as the New Federalism, these changes include the block grants and accompanying regulatory reforms of 1981, the changes in Medicaid reimbursement policy of 1982, and the job training and development programs of late 1982 and early 1983. Following a brief overview of these changes in intergovernmental management perspective, state responses in 1983 are examined in three areas-policy development, policy and program management, and service delivery management.

Directions in intergoverni1ental management

This paper identifies the emerging concept of intergovernmental management (IGM). As a process that focuses on the routine transactions between governments, IGM has become associated with increased interjurisdictional complexity and the corresponding need to manage. Ten IGM approaches are explained. Research and definitional issues related to this central intergovernmental concept are then raised.

Human Services Policy Management: A Role for University Institutes

Policy Management and Services Integration: Scope and Role Considerable thought and action have been placed, in recent years, on human services integration the attempt to develop coherence and effectiveness in the existing maze of social programs. The move to integration of health, welfare, and social services programs is due to five major factors. First, categorical human services have expanded to about half of all governmental output and have become predominately public, making the array of available services visible and public management of them difficult to avoid. Second, not only has government expanded its output, but Its role has become multi-faceted; it funds, regulates, and purchases services,