by Simon Montfort, Manuel Fischer, James Hollway, & Nicolas W. Jager
In the analysis of intergovernmental cooperation within federal systems, conventional explanations have centered on problem characteristics, governance incentives, and actor interdependencies. Here, we seek to understand why institutions evolve in different directions even though they address similar problems. To address this puzzle, we investigate forms of cooperation. We seek to understand the process of institutionalization by which new agreements with specific forms of cooperation, captured through institutional design mechanisms, build upon existing ones. Our paper explores the nuanced dynamics of federal cooperation, examining how earlier institutional design choices condition subsequent cooperation.
Institutional design mechanisms are the agreed-upon rules shaping interactions during intergovernmental collaboration. This study focuses on three key mechanisms: provisions for monitoring, conflict resolution, and agreement commissions. We use these three mechanisms to investigate whether cooperation between subnational governance units, called substates, follows specific institutional design paths consisting of particular sequences of design mechanisms over time in their collaborative relationships. We expect, for instance, that conflict resolution mechanisms and monitoring provisions serve as an entry point to more strongly institutionalized forms of cooperation. The latter forms of cooperation include, for instance, agreement commissions, where substates concede more authority for shared decision-making, potentially rather slowing down other forms of cooperation.
We analyze substate cooperation in Switzerland’s federal water systems—an ideal-typical setting with robust substate competencies and a history of institutionalized cooperation. Swiss cantons, endowed with a range of voluntary cooperation options, manifest these in formal treaties known as “concordats” around water management issues. The study scrutinizes the uptake and design mechanisms in concordats spanning the last 40 years, offering insights into the dynamics of federal cooperation. We manually code formal treaties between cantons and use a semi-parametric Cox proportional hazards model to analyze the data.
Figure 1. Issue-specific pathways.
Our findings show that institutional design mechanisms contribute to specific design paths, either facilitating or hindering the inclusion of similar mechanisms in the future. For instance, the establishment of a commission often leads to further use of agreement commissions in the future. However, once a commission is in place, adding independent monitoring or conflict resolution mechanisms becomes less likely. We also identified a few design paths in which substates utilized multiple mechanisms. Additionally, we see unique pathways on pollution and fishing cooperation. These design pathways are illustrated in Figure 1.
This research enriches the literature on intergovernmental cooperation in federal systems by examining cooperation as a long-term, evolving process. By focusing on institutional design mechanisms rather than a binary assessment of cooperation, the study provides insights into the nuanced patterns of federal cooperation for similar underlying problem characteristics. Additionally, the exploration contributes to the common pool resource governance literature by shedding light on the development and layering of institutional design mechanisms over time.
In conclusion, identifying existing institutional design mechanisms can advance our understanding of intergovernmental cooperation. The Swiss case study offers valuable insights into the dynamics of federal water systems, illustrating the long-term impact of earlier institutional choices on the paths taken in subsequent cooperative ventures. As federal systems continue to evolve, understanding these design mechanisms becomes paramount for fostering effective and adaptive intergovernmental cooperation.
You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at
Montfort, Simon, Manuel Fischer, James Hollway, and Nicolas W. Jager. 2023. Design paths of federal intergovernmental cooperation. Policy Studies Journal, 51, 773–792. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12498
About the Authors
Simon Montfort is a Doctoral Candidate at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Bern. His research, supported by a Swiss National Science Foundation Doc.CH grant, focuses on pathways to ambitious environmental policy. He works at the intersection between natural language processing, public opinion surveys and social network analysis.
Manuel Fischer is a research group leader in Policy Analysis and Environmental Governance (research group PEGO) at the Department of Environmental Social Sciences at Eawag and an adjunct professor (Titularprofessor) at the Institute of Political Science, University of Bern. His research analyzes governance arrangements, decision-making processes, and political networks, focussing on water and environmental issues.
James Hollway is Co-Director of the Global Governance Centre, Head of the Environment and Sustainability Specialisation, and Associate Professor of International Relations/Political Science at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. His research develops multilevel and dynamic network theories, methods, and data for studying institutionalised cooperation and conflict on trade, health, and environmental issues such as fisheries and freshwater. His book “Multimodal Political Networks” came out in 2021 with Cambridge University Press. He is currently working on a 4-year SNSF funded project “Power and Networks and the Rate of Change in Institutional Complexes”.
Nicolas W. Jager is Assistant Professor of Governance of Sustainability Transformations with the Public Administration and Policy Group at Wageningen University and Research (NL). He is further an Associate Junior Fellow at the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg – Institute for Advanced Study Delmenhorst (DE). His research interests include issues of sustainability and climate policy, collaborative governance, and institutional change and stasis.
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