Government Congruence and Intergovernmental Relations in Federal Systems

Abstract

Intergovernmental arrangements in federal systems are important instruments to co-ordinate policy making between subnational governments. We argue that the capacity of these arrangements to guide government behaviour is shaped by the arrangements' institutionalization, which is affected by the programmatic differences between the governmental parties embedded in them. This paper presents first a measure of government congruence, which captures the programmatic differences between subnational governments. Secondly, it explores the impact of government congruence on intergovernmental arrangements' institutionalization across six countries.

Keywords:

• Intergovernmental relations
• government congruence
• congruence measure
• institutionalization
• comparative federalism

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Lori Thorlakson, Simon Toubeau and the two referees for their helpful comments and criticisms.

Notes

Note that we do not normatively claim that collective action is always preferable for subnational governments. Sometimes it might be more profitable to ‘go alone’ (especially for economically strong governments). However, we assume that in federal systems those situations regularly occur in which subnational governments can gain from gathering mutual support or co-ordinating policies amongst each other. In these situations, intergovernmental structures can indeed play a facilitating role.

In most federal systems, one finds IGAs responsible for particular policy areas as well as regional IGAs. Neither are considered in this analysis. However, their institutionalization does not differ considerably from the nation-wide bodies analysed here. Furthermore, we include IGAs with and without the federal government as a member because we are interested in the general willingness of subnational governments to invest resources in IGAs facilitating co-ordination. Simply speaking, if subnational governments are not willing to strongly institutionalize horizontal IGAs, the likelihood that they will invest in more inclusive arrangements which include the federal government is even smaller.

A comparative analysis of intergovernmental agreements in Canada, Switzerland and the United States shows that high institutionalization favours the drafting of precise and substantial agreements (Bolleyer, 2009).

One might argue that subnational governments can always agree on demanding more federal funding. However, generalist IGAs as examined here deal with a wide range of issues beyond that. The overall programmatic differences should therefore be telling with regard to IGAs' institutionalization.

The two indices capture the relative percentage of these types of jurisdictions over the total of all policy fields allocated in a constitution, as classified by Watts (1999). Values range from 0 to 1; higher values in each signify a greater amount of concurrent and exclusive state competences respectively (for details on the construction of the measures, see Bolleyer and Thorlakson, 2008).

The sum of revenues of the local and regional level as percentage of the total revenues.

These interviews of, on average, one hour were conducted with three groups, federal officials and subnational officials and intergovernmental personnel, which pursue different interests. According to the principle of triangulation, their different views help to strengthen the validity of the findings. Moreover, subnational officials are consciously selected according to varying size, territorial location and language of their states to ensure the maximal variation of opinions. For a detailed description of the interview material used (including the identification of the particular interview from which specific information is drawn), the systematic selection of interviewees across the variety of subnational units and governmental levels in the three countries and a list of interviewees and their positions, see Bolleyer (2009).

For a detailed discussion, see Thorlakson (2003) and Swenden (2006).

Canadian data based on Dyck (1986) supplemented by own data. Additional data provided by the Swiss Office for Statistics and for the United States by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL); Australian data from http://elections.uwa.edu.au/; for German data see Oeckl (vol. 1980–1998); Austrian data were provided by subnational offices, whom we want to thank.

To locate a party with regard to the decentralization–centralization issue, we subtract the percentage of anti-centralization positions (position 301) from the percentage of pro-centralization positions (position 302). Hence, if a party makes more positive statements about centralization than decentralization, this summary position will be positive, indicating a party position in favour of centralization.

Additionally we tested for the existence of a linear trend in congruence by performing seemingly unrelated regressions with small-n properties. The congruence level of a country constitutes the dependent, the linear trend the independent variable. For detailed results see Appendix A. The coefficient of the linear trend is significant on a 5% level only in the United States, a result we also see when looking at Table 1 and discuss later.

For instance, in 1996 when the National and the Liberal Party had the same programmatic position and, together with the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory, governed six of the eight Australian governments, which raised government congruence enormously.

Note that the elements are assumed to cluster, without one element being a necessary condition for the other.

According to this operationalization, if no regularity in intergovernmental exchanges can be observed and no infrastructure is given, institutionalization would be absent.

The elements are assumed to cluster, without one element being a necessary condition for the other.

In the twenty-year period for which we analysed government congruence, there were no major shifts in dominant character of the generalist and policy-specific IGAs characterizing each system.

There is a document to regulate the internal decision making in the Conference of Premiers which is, however, exclusively accessible by the members. Its relevance depends on the disposition of the individual Länder and cannot be used as an external reference point to strengthen the conference as a collective.

http://www.mpk.nrw.de/de/home/grundlagen_und_verfahren_der_mpk.html.

Different from most other federal chambers, each Land executive sends a number of mandated delegates to the second chamber, which have to defend the position of the executive and have to vote according to prior instructions.

http://www.noel.gv.at/service/lad/lad1/Adressen/Verbindungsstelle.htm. Integrationskonferenz: http://www.wien.gv.at/recht/landesrecht-wien/ rechtsvorschriften/html/v0015300.htm.

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/fsrc/report2/appendices/app1.htm. http://www.premiers.qld.gov.au/policy/intergovt/coagmincncl/Communiques/Leaders_Forums/pre-2000/26_April_1992/.

Zusammenarbeit der Kantone mit dem Bund: Rahmenordnung über die Arbeitsweise der KdK und der Direktorenkonferenzen bezüglich der Kooperation mit dem Bund, Konferenz der Kantonsregierungen, Fassung vom 3. Oktober 2003.