Governance, federalism and organizing institutions to manage complex problems
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Author | Luke Fowler |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12638 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Governance, federalism and organizing institutions
to manage complex problems
Luke Fowler
School of Public Service, Boise State
University, Boise, ID, USA
Correspondence
Luke Fowler, School of Public Service, Boise
State University, 1910 University Dr –MS
1935, Boise, ID 83703, USA.
Email: lukefowler@boisestate.edu
Abstract
In managing complex policy problems in the federal system,
state and local governments are organized into different
arrangements for translating policy goals into policy out-
comes. Air quality management is used as a test case to
understand these variations and their impact on policy out-
comes. With data from Clean Air Act implementation plans
and a survey of state and local air quality managers, five
separate institutional designs are identified: (1) central
agencies; (2) top-down; (3) donor–recipient; (4) regional
agencies; and (5) emergent governance. Findings indicate
that some arrangements (donor–recipient and emergent
governance) result in notably better air quality than others
(central agencies, top-down). Specifically, when designed to
allow bargaining between state and local officials, intergov-
ernmental management is still the most effective approach
to complex policy problems; but, in absence of this, conven-
tional federalism arrangements are less effective than public
agencies self-organizing around shared policy goals.
1|INTRODUCTION
Over the last several decades, national, state and local governments have become interdependent as they work
together to manage complex policy problems, with new sophisticated forms of governance emerging in recent years
that challenge conventional hierarchies in the federal system (McGuire 2006; Feiock and Scholz 2009). Nevertheless,
remnants of previous federalism eras are still present as some public agencies fail to adapt to newcircumstances and
fall back on outmoded forms of intergovernmental relations (Agranoff and McGuire 2001). As such, the distribution
of administrative reforms and coordination mechanisms is uneven across the federal system, with some governments
proactively pursuing innovative solutions while others rely on more traditional tools (Moynihan 2005). Consequently,
multiple institutional designs exist simultaneously. A fundamental issue determining the effectiveness of these
Received: 5 December 2018Revised: 30 September 2019Accepted: 13 November 2019
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12638
Public Admin. 2020;98:713–729.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd713
designs is the creation and mitigation of transaction costs during service delivery, which affects process efficiency
and programme outcomes. While each institutional design has strengths and weaknesses, important trade-offs
are made that affect public service delivery.
There are few comparisons of how such variations affect policy outcomes when dealing with complex policy
problems, creating limitations in understanding how we govern these problems. This is especially important in rela-
tion to conventional forms of intergovernmental management compared to emergent governance approaches, which
represents a contrast between traditional and state-of-the-art public management theory. A prime example of this is
air quality management and implementation of the Clean Air Act (CAA), where, over time, separate arrangements for
coordinating state and local resources developed across states (Woods and Potoski 2010). Using data from State
Implementation Plans (SIPs) and a survey of state and local air managers, five separate institutional designs are iden-
tified: (1) central agencies, where policy implementation is centralized within a single state agency; (2) top-down,
where local agencies are co-opted as administrative sub-units of the state; (3) donor–recipient, where implementa-
tion involves bargaining between state and local agencies; (4) regional agencies, where intermediate agencies serve a
specialized policy function at the regional level; and (5) emergent governance, where local agencies use innovation to
govern policy problems outside of state-led management strategies.
Thus, our goal here is to examine institutional designs in order to ascertain how complex policy problems are
managed within a federal system, and to compare conventional forms of intergovernmental management to emer-
gent governance approaches (Agranoff and McGuire 2001; Feiock and Scholz 2009). We first describe institutional
designs in terms of organization, advantages and constraints for air quality management. Then we examine their
effects on air quality outcomes with a dataset of 363 Air Quality Control Regions (AQCRs) (Woods and Potoski
2010; Fowler 2016). Findings indicate that some institutional designs (donor–recipient and emergent governance)
result in notably better air quality than others (central agencies). More specifically, when designed to allow bargaining
between state and local officials, intergovernmental management is still the most effective approach to complex
policy problems; but, in absence of this, intergovernmental management is less effective than public agencies self-
organizing around shared policy goals.
2|CONTEXT OF AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE US
Air quality provides an appropriate case to examine the effects of institutional designs on an inter-jurisdictional pol-
icy problem with ambiguous causes, effects and parameters (Cannibal and Lemon 2000). Under the CAA, the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets national standards and oversees state efforts, while states develop SIPs to
achieve compliance with those standards. With a bevy of administrative rules, pollution control strategies and moni-
toring sites, states organize managerial efforts differently based on unique circumstances within their jurisdictions.
One key difference between states is how SIPs incorporate local governments into implementation systems, which
ranges from explicit pre-emption to intergovernmental partnership. Local government roles in CAA implementation
are primarily a function of the policy challenge that exists, with worsening air quality increasing the likelihood that
states rely on local agencies for implementation assistance. In addition, local air agencies are more likely to emerge
when there are strong environmental advocacy groups either as a result of states attempting to shift blame or local
governments engaging in bottom-up activism. To this end, previous research indicates that local air agencies tend to
have positive effects on air quality, but it depends on their authority and relationships with state agencies (Woods
and Potoski 2010; Fowler 2016, 2018b, 2019a).
For the most part, air quality policy is a function of specific technical and/or political challenges that are unique
to local areas. As Woods and Potoski (2010) frame it: ‘the policy challenge underlying pollution is balancing its envi-
ronmental and health costs against its economic benefits. Achieving the optimal balance between the two is easier
when the pollution is narrowly concentrated in a region rather than widely dispersed across different local climates
and geographies’(p. 722). Thus, local expertise is essential to policy implementation in order to develop policies,
714 FOWLER
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