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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2010

Richard C. Feiock
Affiliation:
Florida State University
John T. Scholz
Affiliation:
Florida State University
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Summary

Fragmentation of formal authority and the self-organizing activities to resolve the collective problems imposed by fragmentation are enduring traits of governance in the United States (Tocqueville2003). As policy problems and underlying resource systems become increasingly interconnected, the decisions of one government or independent agency inevitably affect outcomes of concern to the other units. In contemporary societies, the scope and magnitude of unconsidered positive and negative externalities increase as technologies extend the nature and number of public goods while growing economies and populations strain the limits and interconnections of natural systems, particularly in areas where rapid development and growth exceed the capacities of natural systems and therefore dramatically magnify interactions between different policies and authorities (Scholz and Stiftel 2005). This imposes collective action dilemmas on government authorities similar to those much-studied problems for individuals. The costs that these institutional collective action (ICA) problems impose on local actors have generated intensive search for institutions that can coordinate decisions across interdependent policy arenas without threatening the stability and advantages of our decentralized federalist political system.

Recognition of this problem brought the editors together to ask what mechanisms have evolved for dealing with fragmented authority and the resultant collective action problems, and what we know about them. Stated another way, how can local authorities organize themselves to obtain collective benefits of policy coordination when faced with uncertainty and commitment problems associated with collective dilemmas?

Feiock and Scholz have been independently working on issues related to this question for several years.

Type
Chapter
Information
Self-Organizing Federalism
Collaborative Mechanisms to Mitigate Institutional Collective Action Dilemmas
, pp. xv - xxii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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  • Preface
  • Edited by Richard C. Feiock, Florida State University, John T. Scholz, Florida State University
  • Book: Self-Organizing Federalism
  • Online publication: 29 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511642319.001
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  • Preface
  • Edited by Richard C. Feiock, Florida State University, John T. Scholz, Florida State University
  • Book: Self-Organizing Federalism
  • Online publication: 29 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511642319.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Edited by Richard C. Feiock, Florida State University, John T. Scholz, Florida State University
  • Book: Self-Organizing Federalism
  • Online publication: 29 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511642319.001
Available formats
×