Coping with functional collective action dilemma: functional fragmentation and administrative integration

ABSTRACT

Functional fragmentation among city departments has been a critical public administration problem in practice and theory. This paper investigates the political and administrative motivations for the reform from functionally fragmented water governance model towards an integrative agency design. Drawing on the Institutional Collective Action (ICA) framework and the literature on bureaucratic structures, we hypothesize that cities’ decisions for administrative reform are influenced by different types of transactions costs incurred in the negotiation process among local agencies. Empirical results of this study provide strong support for the transaction cost hypotheses on the roles of bargaining cost, enforcement cost, and information cost.

KEYWORDS:

• Functional fragmentation
• administrative reform
• environmental governance
• agency design

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The OIA Faculty Enrichment Grant of The Ohio State University.

Notes on contributors

Hongtao Yi

Hongtao Yi is associate professor in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. His research focuses on network governance, collaborative governance, policy process, and energy and environmental policy.

Can Cui is a PhD student in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at The University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include water governance, environmental policy, and policy evaluation.