| For more than two decades, the analysis of urban policies and policy-making has been polarized between two dominant schools of thought. Reform Movement proponents say that the complex structure of urban governments and the hierarchical model--centralization of authority, unification of parties and organizations, elimination of duplication and overlap among governments--make for better government. Public Choice advocates say that a pluralistic, competitive approach or market model--autonomy of independent jurisdictions and flexibility of local response--improves the capacity of municipalities to take advantage of new opportunities. This research establishes a conceptual model of functional inclusion that incorporates elements of both theoretical frameworks and systematically examines municipal partnerships.; The research reviews the literature to describe the changing legal, political and fiscal environment; develops a typology to describe characteristics of redundant organization including intermunicipal, interlocal, intergovernmental and reformed structures; advances and tests hypotheses about twelve factors--state statutory rules, mandates and regulations, county institutional structure, entrepreneurial leadership, communications networks, partisanship, degree of unionization, urbanization, potential for interjurisdictional competition, fiscal stress, tax capacity, targeted state/federal revenues--that are expected to facilitate or impede municipal cooperation and affect the diffusion of resources; conducts a comparative analysis of fifty-one cases in seven counties to integrate the hypotheses and the typology for a comprehensive approach; and presents a case study of organizational innovation among local governments to explain why consolidation occurs and why it does not.; Although some manifestations of county government in New York State more closely approximate parliamentary organization, the findings demonstrate that annexation of jurisdictions rarely occurs. However, the proliferation of collaborative agreements among counties and municipalities for the provision of public services confounds both Reform Movement and Public Choice theories by maintaining elements of each in varying forms as indicated by the typology of local government cooperative organization in a federal system.; The research illustrates how voluntary federation and merger of service functions occurs among non-monopolistic governments in an open, competitive environment. The evidence suggests that public policy partnerships between local, state and federal jurisdictions provide structural and functional diversity which prompts new concepts of adaptive metropolitan organization or "virtual" government. |
