Assessing local elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements

Abstract

At times, local politicians are described as barriers to interlocal cooperation; however, recent studies show elected officials are active in interlocal networks and harbour diverse motivations for their involvement in interlocal politics. This research introduces institutional role theory to the study of interlocal politics. Using a survey of elected officials in the San Francisco Bay Area, support for various roles in interlocal politics are assessed in relation to the scope of elected officials’ concerns about the use of interlocal agreements, as well as variables related to institutional context. Exploring elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements and the roles they undertake in interlocal politics sheds light on the democratic underpinning of metropolitan civil society and highlights new research opportunities at the intersection of public administration, political science and urban studies.

Keywords

elected officials institutional roles interlocal agreement San Francisco Bay Area

Politicians in local government have the potential to contribute to the governance of metropolitan regions through the advancement of interlocal cooperation. Early studies on intergovernmental relations in the USA describe the attitudes and communication patterns of local elected officials as relevant to the conduct of local governance (Williams et al., 1965: 211; Wright, 1973). In a frequently cited passage, Ronald Oakerson (1999: 89) points to a ‘metropolitan civil society, constituted by a network of voluntary agreements and associations among local officials and citizens’, as ‘the primary mechanism of metropolitan governance in America’. Interlocal agreements, or contracts for service among local governments, have become a popular method of service delivery and a tool of voluntary cooperation in US metropolitan areas (Andrew, 2009; Brown, 2008; Hefetz et al., 2012; LeRoux and Carr, 2010; Marvel and Marvel, 2008; Thurmaier and Wood, 2002). Developing a more robust understanding of the role of local politicians in interlocal politics is critical to advancing our knowledge about the relationship between interlocal agreements as service delivery tools and the governance of metropolitan areas. This study investigates the concerns local elected officials express when they are asked about sharing or contracting for services with their neighbours. Further, the research assesses the extent to which elected officials’ concerns about the use of interlocal agreements motivate their support for various roles in interlocal politics. To advance our understanding of metropolitan civil society, we must clarify the role of elected officials in metropolitan governance.

At times, elected officials are described as barriers to interlocal cooperation; however, recent studies also point to politicians’ constructive engagement in interlocal politics. Recent discussions about the democratic anchorage and metagovernance of policy networks provide theoretical context for assessing the role of local elected officials in the governance of interlocal agreements (Bogason and Musso, 2006; Sørensen, 2006; Sørensen and Torfing, 2007). As service delivery moves away from the responsibility of a single jurisdiction toward multi-jurisdictional responsibility through the use of an interlocal agreement, the relationship between elected officials and the democratic oversight of service delivery changes. Politicians vary in the extent to which they are concerned about the emergence multi-jurisdictional governance. So too, local politicians may hold different views about their roles and responsibilities in interlocal politics as a function of both their level of concern and their institutional context.

The pages ahead review elected officials’ concerns about interlocal cooperation, as discussed in the existing literature. Elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements are hypothesised to explain the support they express for various roles in interlocal politics. A series of hypotheses related to the institutional context of city governments are also assessed, linking this research to the broader discussion about collective action in US metropolitan areas (e.g. Feiock, 2007, 2013; Feiock and Scholz, 2010). A survey of city council members and mayors in the San Francisco Bay Area is used to measure local politicians’ concerns about the involvement of their city in interlocal agreements, as well as their support for various roles in interlocal politics. These original survey data stand in contrast to many existing studies of interlocal cooperation that measure politicians’ attitudes about interlocal cooperation through proxy reports from administrative officials. By studying local elected officials’ concerns about the use of interlocal agreements, we move toward a more comprehensive understanding about how politicians view their responsibilities in the interlocal politics of US metropolitan regions.

Elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements

Frequently, elected officials are described as a barrier to the adoption and use of interlocal agreements. The assumption that local elected officials oppose interlocal cooperation can be found in early and recent commentary on metropolitan affairs. In his treatise on metropolitan problems in the USA, the notable public administration scholar Luther Gulick (1962) outlined challenges for creating metropolitan political leadership. Gulick argued that because no one can feel that a leader is working in the interest of someone else, ‘the existing local political leaders are generally barred from exercising a leadership which reaches beyond the confines of their own individual political bailiwicks’ (1962: 97). Similarly, H George Frederickson (1999: 709) argues holding local political office is ‘deeply jurisdictional’. ‘Jurisdictional politics and political institutions serve as the broader context within which interjurisdictional administrative conjunction occurs. Elected officials, however, ordinarily have little to do with conjunction’ posits Frederickson (1999: 710).

When elected officials do support interlocal cooperation, there appear to be serious limits to the scope of cooperation or service sharing that is acceptable. Through interviews with township supervisors in Michigan, James Visser (2004: 94) concludes, ‘… as rational political actors, township officials seek to preserve local autonomy in order to protect community character, identity, and quality of life, as well as provide responsive and personalized service’. Visser goes on to argue that interlocal cooperation will occur over limited and narrowly tailored goals. When debating service delivery through interlocal agreements, some local elected officials will be motivated to defend their jurisdictions’ budget, service quality, employees and identity interests in service delivery. For these officials, guarding local autonomy may take precedence over coordinated action with other local governments (Hamilton et al., 2004; Norris, 2001b). Large national surveys in the USA show political opposition relates to lower levels of interlocal contracting (Hefetz and Warner, 2012; Hefetz et al., 2012). These citations are representative of a certain level of pessimism about the role of local elected officials in the development of interlocal agreements.

Elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements tend to be discussed within three general theoretical categories. First, the characteristics of public goods and services may shape elected officials’ views on the palatability of working with other governments. Oliver P Williams (1967) differentiated system maintenance and lifestyle services provided by local governments, arguing that sharing services with visible implications for local quality of life may excite public opposition. While the evidence supporting Williams’ typology is mixed (LeRoux and Carr, 2010; Rawlings, 2003; Wood, 2006), scholars still caution public officials to acknowledge the public visibility of service sharing proposals (Hawkins and Carr, 2015; Norris, 2001a). The mass public might not be attentive to a city’s debates about service production methods, but local politicians may take on responsibility for judging which services are most appropriate for delivery through interlocal agreement. Elected officials may influence local policy debate in order to depict some proposals for interlocal cooperation as innocuous back-office efficiency, while framing other proposals for interlocal cooperation as changes that detract from services important to the city’s identity or lifestyle.

Second, transaction cost economics and research under the Institutional Collective Action (ICA) framework focused attention on the costs associated with negotiating and designing interlocal agreements, as well as the selection of mechanisms for collective action among local governments (Feiock, 2007, 2013; Kwon and Feiock, 2010). Christopher Hawkins (2009) outlines three common transaction cost barriers to interlocal cooperation including coordination problems, division problems and defection problems. Through a survey of economic development directors in major US metropolitan areas, he identified statistically discernable differences between cities with and without joint ventures in all three categories of transaction cost barriers. Hawkins’ research provides a base upon which to hypothesise that higher concerns about interlocal cooperation will be articulated in communities lacking experience with these agreements, a finding consistent with research on cooperation in experimental economics (e.g. Ostrom et al., 1994). Research linked to the ICA framework has challenged scholars to consider how institutional design can respond to transaction cost barriers (e.g. Carr et al., 2009b; Shrestha and Feiock, 2009). Developing a more extensive inventory of elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements can aid researchers investigating this nexus between governance and institutional choice.

Third, service delivery through interlocal agreements may elicit concerns about governance and the consequences of interlocal agreements for metropolitan regions. Local governments may adopt interlocal agreements to achieve a range of governance goals unrelated to economic efficiency or cost savings in service delivery (Chen and Thurmaier, 2009; Gjertsen, 2014). Because of this, elected officials may be preoccupied with concerns of losing control of policy through the emergence of new governance relationships. Andersen and Pierre (2010) argue concerns about the legitimacy of collective action should be integrated into the ICA framework and other discussions of metropolitan coordination. Specifically, they emphasise interlocal cooperation is a process of problem-solving, not just outcomes (2010: 235). Thus, elected officials may harbour concerns about the governance process itself, or the method by which local governments join together in discussions about collective action. The goal of this research is not to adjudicate among these theoretical perspectives on elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements. Instead, concerns are considered in the aggregate as a motivational force behind the elected officials’ participation in interlocal politics.

When elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements are discussed in research on metropolitan affairs and local government service delivery, they are often presented as background assumptions or modelled as an independent variable to explain municipal service delivery choices. The direct behavioural implications of their attitudes are left unstudied. The limited assessment of the role of elected officials in interlocal agreement adoption and oversight is problematic. Oakerson (1999), Frederickson (1999), Thurmaier and Wood (2002), and others depict interlocal agreements as administrative mechanisms that contribute to metropolitan civil society. If this is true, scrutinising how elected officials participate in this work should be a central research priority for advancing our understanding of metropolitan affairs. Public administration researchers have made significant investments in clarifying how administrative officials contribute to interlocal cooperation (e.g. Feiock et al., 2012; LeRoux and Carr, 2007; LeRoux and Pandey, 2011; LeRoux et al., 2010; Wikstrom, 2002), but parallel research on elected officials has not developed equally (Feiock et al., 2010; LeRoux and Carr, 2010; Matkin and Frederickson, 2009; Zeemering, 2008). While the current research design has limitations, this project advances the discussion about how elected officials contribute to interlocal politics.

Roles in interlocal politics

This investigation assesses the relationship between local politicians’ concerns about interlocal agreements and their support for various roles in interlocal politics. Interlocal agreements rescale the delivery of municipal services so that two or more local government jurisdictions are bound together in a manner that they would not be if they provided the service alone. For cities in US metropolitan areas, networks of interlocal contract relationships yield some regional coordination even in the absence of strong metropolitan governance institutions (Leland and Thurmaier, 2014; Thurmaier and Wood, 2002). As a policy tool, interlocal agreements are like many other contemporary approaches to public service delivery that shift and reshape organisational boundaries and attenuate the relationship between service delivery and traditional political jurisdictions (Catlaw, 2009; Skelcher, 2005). As more services are delivered through multi-organisational arrangements, like interlocal agreements, governments are forced to rethink the role of jurisdiction-based political institutions and legislative bodies in the maintenance of democratic accountability (Sørensen, 2006). While the expansive literature on governance frames the challenge of democratic accountability for multi-jurisdictional arrangements in different ways, scholars broadly acknowledge the need to scrutinise how political actors contribute to governance. For example, Sørensen and Torfing (2007: 98) state, ‘Flexible and proactive network governance is first and foremost conditioned by the ability of the relevant and affected actors to establish and maintain a relatively well-functioning governance network based on active engagement and trustful exchange’. Local political actors may hold wide-ranging attitudes about the value of interlocal agreements and the desirability of their use for local service delivery (Zeemering, 2008, 2012). Because of this, urban policy researchers must give more attention to local political actors’ attitudes and their involvement in the design and oversight of interlocal agreements.

Institutional role theory provides one approach for exploring how local elected officials approach their work in interlocal politics. ‘Roles are the means through which politicians play their parts in looking after the political system’s essential tasks or responsibilities’ explains Donald Searing (2012: xxiii). Institutional role theories illuminate politicians’ patterns of behaviour and attitudes, as well as their conceptions of their job responsibilities. Institutional role theories help scholars distinguish among groups of politicians based on common attitudes, actions and behaviours (Blomgren and Rozenberg, 2012). Recently, roles have received attention in comparative parliamentary research; but, roles and related concepts are widely discussed in the scholarship on new institutionalism. For example, James March and Johan Olsen (1984: 744) state, ‘political behavior, like other behavior, can be described in terms of duties, obligations, roles and rules’. Action, they argue, often follows from ‘discovering the normatively appropriate behavior’. Writing on institutional role theory, Searing (1991) argues the role conceptions of a public official have important implications for their behaviour within institutions. Rather than studying formally assigned roles such as mayor or district representative, Searing encourages a motivational approach to studying roles which prompts us to investigate the reasons politicians express for taking action.

Institutional role theory may already be implicit in recent studies of governance. For example, in an investigation into the roles of politicians in the oversight of governance networks in Danish municipalities, Sørensen (2006) explores how politicians are involved in metagovernance, or the democratic oversight and coordination of new governance networks. Through evidence from in-depth interviews, she concludes politicians play a limited role in metagovernance in comparison with other actors, and politicians do not focus on the task of promoting democracy in networks. Sørensen’s (2006) study provides a critical benchmark for exploring the roles of politicians in new governance arrangements, including the use of interlocal agreements. The present research should be considered a tentative exploration of local elected officials’ roles in interlocal politics, complementary to discussions of metagovernance. The research design does not claim to explore the scope of local elected officials’ motivations in the manner advocated by Searing (1991). Still, institutional role theory contributes to the systematic analysis of the proposition that elected officials who harbour different levels of concern about the use of interlocal agreements, and who operate in different institutional contexts, will support different approaches to interlocal politics.

Method of inquiry and hypotheses

While Searing (1991) encourages the analysis of roles through interviews, this research uses original cross-sectional survey data.¹ A mail survey was conducted to gather data on elected officials’ attitudes about interlocal agreements and service sharing with neighbouring local governments. The survey was sent to 554 elected officials, including mayors and city council members, in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area between November 2011 and January 2012. The names of all elected officials were identified from the current issue of the California Roster available from California’s Secretary of State and the list was cross-referenced for accuracy with city websites and the 2010 City Hall Directory published by the League of California Cities. The survey was implemented following the recommendations of Dillman (2000), including an initial contact by postcard, the survey with cover letter, a reminder postcard and a replacement survey to the remaining non-respondents.

Survey response rates from elected officials and local governments are typically low.² The response rate for this survey was 27.62%, including 153 usable responses.³ While a higher response rate is always desirable, these are useful data. These are direct attitudinal data from elected officials, not proxy responses from administrators. The surveys were returned from 76 of 101 cities in the region, an indication that the survey captures a variety of experiences with intergovernmental relations, including respondents from small cities in rural counties and respondents from the largest cities in the region. This reflects a median of two surveys per responding city, with a high of six surveys from one city. (Because multiple responses may come from one city, the statistical analyses presented later cluster errors by city.) Among the responding cities, the average population is just over 59,000, with average budget expenditures around US$87.5 million, though these averages mask great diversity in the region’s cities. About 80% of respondents are city council members, with the remaining 20% of responses from mayors. The average respondent served in local government for 6.6 years, with responses ranging from those with less than one year of service to several respondents with more than 20 years of service in local office. Over 90% of respondents report serving on either a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) board or the board of a regional agency, which hints at the possibility of a positive response bias by those who are already engaged in interlocal cooperative activity. However, the JPA structure is popular in California, and many counties in the region have forums that bring local officials together on a monthly basis, which may inflate this number. The respondents are active in intergovernmental communication, with 44% reporting weekly communication with officials from other local governments and 71% reporting meetings with officials from other governments at least a few times each month.

To explore local elected officials’ roles in interlocal politics, the survey included six statements to assess the respondents’ support for different roles in interlocal politics. These statements are grounded in the aforementioned literatures on interlocal cooperation and metagovernance. For example, two of the statements assess the extent to which elected officials advocate for the interests of their jurisdiction or their jurisdiction’s employees, consistent with the claim that elected officials can help anchor new governance arrangements to traditional political jurisdiction. Two other items assess support for the protection of community identity or independence, frequently mentioned as political barriers to interlocal cooperation. The statements, summarised with descriptive statistics in Table 1, are not an exhaustive list of roles for politicians in interlocal politics, but the six items offer a useful starting point for moving our conversations beyond simple single-item measures of political support for or opposition to interlocal cooperation.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of support for roles in interlocal politics.

Role statement	Mean	Standard deviation
I promote the interests of my city when talking with other local governments about sharing or contracting services	5.88	1.36
I attempt to find solutions that will equally benefit my city and the other local governments with whom we work	6.11	1.10
I protect my city from becoming too dependent on contracts and service sharing arrangements with other local governments	4.36	1.93
I advocate for the interests of my city’s government employees during any discussions about sharing or contracting services	5.15	1.50
Protecting the identity of my community is a priority when making decisions about local government services	5.13	1.83
Forming working relationships with other local governments is beneficial to my political career	4.60	1.89

Note: Survey responses were recorded on a seven item scale, with seven representing the highest level of support for the statement.

Local politicians’ concerns about interlocal agreements are hypothesised to be positively associated with support for roles in interlocal politics that are supportive or protective of the home jurisdiction. Elected officials who express concerns about the use of interlocal agreements are expected to express higher support for protecting the identity of their community or guarding against dependence upon other jurisdictions. Concerns about the use of interlocal agreements were assessed using a 17-item question battery, discussed in more detail in the next section.

Additionally, the institutional context of local government provides insight into how local elected officials weigh the costs and benefits of interlocal agreements (Clingermayer and Feiock, 2001; Feiock, 2007, 2013). The roles elected officials support in interlocal politics may be shaped in part by their institutional context. Existing patterns of intergovernmental communication and service delivery may influence politicians’ attitudes about interlocal politics (LeRoux and Carr, 2010; LeRoux et al., 2010). Elected officials who frequently communicate with other governments may express lower support for protective roles in interlocal politics, while expressing higher support for activities that might be associated with metagovernance or the promotion of interlocal cooperation. Similarly, higher levels of direct service delivery by the respondent’s local government may be associated with more protective roles in interlocal politics, as the respondent’s city may not have extensive experience with interlocal agreements (Hawkins, 2009; Wood, 2006).

Formal institutional positions in local government also shape roles and approaches to interlocal politics. Mayors, even in council-manager cities, may hold different attitudes about interlocal politics than their colleagues (Wright, 1973). Mayors may be described as leaders in intergovernmental politics (Protasel, 1989), and may harbour ambition for higher electoral office (Bickers et al., 2009). Because of this, mayors may exhibit different patterns of support for roles in interlocal politics than their council colleagues.

Population and fiscal pressure are among the most common variables that exhibit statistically discernable relationships with the scope of interlocal service delivery (e.g. Carr et al., 2009a; LeSage et al., 2008; Morgan and Hirlinger, 1991; Seidenstat, 1999). Elected officials in larger communities may feel less need to take on protective roles in interlocal politics, as larger jurisdictions are more likely to be sellers rather than purchasers of services through interlocal agreements. Fiscal stress may push elected officials into a more proactive stance in interlocal politics, seeking out new and beneficial relationships. Finally, partisanship may also influence local officials’ view of interlocal cooperation, as negotiating cooperative agreements may be easier in regions with higher levels of partisan homogeneity (Gerber et al., 2013). While the main focus of this inquiry is into the relationship between roles in interlocal politics and elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements, these additional contextual variables help situate the analysis in the broader discussion about interlocal cooperation among US local governments.

Analysis and findings

Elected officials’ concerns about interlocal cooperation are hypothesised to exhibit a positive relationship with support for roles protective of their jurisdiction in interlocal politics. To measure elected officials’ concerns about the use of interlocal agreements and service sharing, the survey presented 17 concerns about interlocal cooperation identified through prior research. The concern statements included in the survey map with the three major categories of concerns discussed in the literature review; but, this list includes an even more nuanced array of statements that emerged through an inductive research process grounded in in-depth interviews with elected officials. In the survey, respondents expressed their agreement with each concern on a scale ranging from one to seven, with higher responses indicating stronger agreement with the statement. The statements are presented in Table 2, organised by mean level of agreement across all respondents. The most salient concerns include losing control of the work of employees, losing control of employment policies and fairly distributing the costs of service delivery. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to assess the extent to which the 17 items are related and might measure a common underlying concept. With this measure at 0.763, we can conclude that combining these items in an additive index will provide a reliable measure of elected officials’ concerns with interlocal agreements.⁴

Table 2.

Elected officials’ agreement with concerns about interlocal agreements.

Survey statement of concern	Mean
We may no longer control the work of employees	4.7
Employment policies, including benefits, may be out of our control	4.7
Distributing the costs of the service fairly may be difficult	4.6
If we share or contract services with other governments, our city will lose its autonomy, or its ability to act alone	4.4
We may not be able to provide the same level of service when working with someone else	4.4
We may not be able to provide the same quality of service when working with someone else	4.4
Writing a fair contract or designing a Joint Powers Authority can be very difficult	4.0
Merging two departments with different cultures and identities will be too difficult	3.9
Sharing or contracting services would be unfair to existing city employees	3.7
By sharing or contracting, ownership and responsibility for equipment and assets may no longer be clear	3.7
If we begin sharing services, we may have to make expensive new investments in technology or equipment	3.7
Working with another local government might not have clear benefits for our city	3.7
Residents in this city will oppose sharing or contracting services with another city or county government	3.4
Cooperation can be difficult because we have had disagreements with other governments in the past	3.3
As policymakers, we will not receive the same amount of information about what’s going on with the service	3.2
There are too many uncertainties associated with working with someone else	3.2
Sharing or contracting services will require too many additional meetings	2.8

Notes: Cronbach’s α = 0.7630.

Survey responses were recorded on a seven-point scale, with seven representing the highest level of support for the statement.

Table 3.

Analysis of support for roles in interlocal politics.

	I promote the interests of my city when talking with other local governments about sharing or contracting services	I attempt to find solutions that will equally benefit my city and the other local governments with whom we work	I protect my city from becoming too dependent on contracts and service sharing arrangements with other local governments	I advocate for the interests of my city’s government employees during any discussions about sharing or contracting services	Protecting the identity of my community is a priority when making decisions about local government services	Forming working relationships with other local governments is beneficial to my political career
Concern index	−0.02^* (0.01)	−0.01 (0.01)	0.04^* (0.01)	0.03^* (0.01)	0.03^* (0.01)	−0.01 (0.01)
Intergovernmental communication	0.14 (0.14)	0.01 (0.12)	−0.17 (0.19)	0.32^* (0.12)	0.26 (0.20)	0.53^* (0.16)
Mayor	−0.29 (0.35)	0.19 (0.18)	−0.12 (0.31)	0.15 0.24	0.09 (0.35)	−0.75 (0.50)
Direct service delivery	0.02 (0.04)	−0.05 (0.05)	−0.01 (0.09)	−0.00 (0.05)	0.05 (0.09)	−0.01 (0.09)
City/county partisan difference	−0.02 (0.02)	−0.02 (0.02)	−0.07^* (0.03)	0.02 (0.03)	−0.01 (0.03)	−0.02 (0.03)
Population (ln)	−0.07 (0.08)	−0.08 (0.09)	−0.36^* (0.12)	−0.09 (0.10)	−0.06 (0.14)	0.08 (0.14)
Fiscal stress	−0.11 (0.22)	−0.35 (0.25)	−0.54 (0.42)	−0.39 (0.30)	0.04 (0.43)	−0.24 (0.42)
Constant	7.03^* (1.28)	8.15^* (1.16)	7.24^* (1.62)	3.49^* (1.15)	2.67 (1.93)	2.98 (1.79)
N	140	140	136	137	139	137
R ²	0.09	0.05	0.22	0.15	0.10	0.10

Note: *p < 0.05. Standard errors are presented in parentheses below coefficients. Errors are clustered by city.

In a multivariate OLS regression model, including other theoretically relevant independent variables, the concern index has a statistically discernable relationship with elected officials’ support for four out of six role statements. This analysis is reported in Table 3. The index has a positive relationship with support for roles including protecting the city from dependence on other governments, advocating for city employees and protecting community identity. The index has a negative relationship with the role promoting the interests of the city when talking with other governments about sharing or contracting services. Overall, these findings suggest that assessing elected officials concerns’ about interlocal agreements is important, as high levels of concern might motivate them to undertake roles in interlocal politics protective of their jurisdiction.

Other variables also have a statistically discernable relationship with elected officials’ support for the role statements. Intergovernmental communication exhibits a statistically discernable and positive relationship with two role statements. Elected officials were asked in the survey, ‘How frequently do you talk with elected officials from other cities or from county government?’. Responses were recorded on a five-item scale ranging from vary rarely to at least once per week. More frequent intergovernmental communication is associated with higher support for advocating for the interests of city government employees and forming working relationships beneficial to the officials’ political career.

Of the six roles, the model best fit the role statement, ‘I protect my city from becoming too dependent on contracts and service sharing arrangements with other local governments’. In addition to statistically discernable results for the concern index, city/county partisan difference has a negative and discernable relationship with the role, contrary to the hypothesised relationship. For this variable, the absolute value of the difference between Republican Party registration between the city and surrounding county was calculated, using 2010 registration data from the California Secretary of State. Population also has a statistically discernable relationship with support for this role statement, with officials from larger cities expressing lower support for this protective role, as hypothesised.

Three independent variables were not significant in any of the models. Mayor was measured as a dichotomous variable taken from the survey, with respondents holding the office of mayor coded as one and council members coded as zero. Direct service delivery was measured using a count of the number of services delivered directly by the city government without intergovernmental service relationships out of a total of 11 possible services. These data are taken from the 102nd edition of the Cities Annual Report from the California State Controller for fiscal year 2010–2011. Finally, fiscal stress is measured following a procedure outlined by Clark and Ferguson (1983) using financial data from the Cities Annual Report. The lack of discernable findings for theoretically relevant variables related to institutional context suggests a need to look beyond commonly hypothesised institutional effects in the municipal service delivery literature, and possibly toward explanations centred on organisational and political culture (Andersen and Pierre, 2010; Visser, 2002). With this acknowledgement, we turn to a discussion of the implications of the survey data, as well as the limitations of this investigation.

Implications for the study of elected officials and interlocal politics

This investigation promotes the integration of institutional role theory into research on interlocal cooperation and metropolitan governance. Recent debates about governance highlight the tenuous relationship between politicians holding office in traditional units of local government and multi-jurisdictional governance arrangements (e.g. Catlaw, 2009; Sørensen, 2006). This research hypothesises that local elected officials express support for different roles in interlocal politics. Elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements help us understand the support they express for various roles in interlocal politics, with high levels of concern associated with higher support for roles protective of the politicians’ home jurisdiction. If concerns provide a motivation for local elected officials to take protective action in interlocal politics, other officials with responsibility for local governance should take note. From the perspective of public administrators, mitigating elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements may be a critical precursor to establishing new forms of metropolitan collective action. For citizens, government employees, or groups concerned about jurisdictional identity or direct service delivery, raising the salience of concerns might motivate new forms of participation by elected officials in interlocal politics. These possibilities point to the importance of refining our understanding of the link between politicians’ motivations and the roles they undertake in interlocal politics.

One important task for future research is the ongoing refinement of how we measure elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements. This research built upon an earlier study that used interviews to explore the scope of elected officials’ concerns about interlocal agreements (Zeemering, 2012). Together, these studies can contribute to how we conceptualise and measure elected officials’ concerns about interlocal cooperation. Research on metropolitan civil society and governance should move beyond the use of secondary reports from administrative officials to assess political support or opposition. A refined construct of political concerns about interlocal cooperation in the US context is an important goal for future research.

This inquiry should challenge scholars and practitioners to refine assumptions about how elected officials participate in interlocal politics. In addition to the concern index, several additional variables common in studies of municipal service delivery were assessed in the statistical models presented here, but did not exhibit discernable relationships with the role concepts under study. Further, the models explained a low percentage of the overall variation in the survey responses. These non-findings should challenge us to reconsider how we conceptualise and study interlocal politics. In recent and classic public administration literature, local elected officials are described as deeply concerned with jurisdiction and not with metropolitan affairs. Yet, the expansion of interlocal contracting has lead other scholars to posit the emergence of metropolitan civil society. The research reported here demonstrates elected officials support different approaches to interlocal politics, but only scratches the surface at understanding the sources of that variation. Before refining or validating any measures of the concepts discussed here, a return to qualitative inquiry may be necessary in order to explore how local elected officials select their roles in interlocal politics. Concerns about interlocal cooperation appear to be one relevant motivation, but other explanations must be explored.

By importing institutional role theory from the study of legislatures, this research highlights one theoretical approach for building a stronger understanding of elected officials’ participation in interlocal politics. More research is necessary to refine the conceptualisation and measurement of institutional roles in interlocal politics, but this study demonstrates the value of undertaking more work. While this research used survey data to explore local elected officials’ roles in interlocal policy dialogue, Searing (1991) makes the case for exploring roles through interviews. He states, ‘Most politicians are, in fact, extraordinarily articulate about these roles and are prepared to talk about them with interviewers just as they talk about them with their colleagues. What they have to say is a rich and subtle source of data’ (1991: 1255). More effort should be made to interview elected officials about interlocal cooperation and shared service proposals. Given the popularity of interlocal agreements and other multi-jurisdictional governance arrangements, in-depth interviews and participant observation can be used to identify a wider range of roles in interlocal politics. For example, future qualitative studies should explore the potential electoral benefits that might come from support for interlocal cooperation (e.g. Bickers et al., 2009), as well as the possibility that elected officials support interlocal agreements to enhance legitimacy or effectiveness in local government (Gjertsen, 2014).

As interlocal agreements remain popular in the USA, and as scholars seek to better understand cooperative governance at the local level, the contributions of elected officials to interlocal politics must be scrutinised. Institutional role theory offers a helpful theoretical foundation upon which to launch investigations into the motivations and goals of elected officials in local governance and interlocal politics. This survey of local elected officials in the San Francisco Bay Area shows concerns about interlocal agreements motivate support for different roles in interlocal politics. The expanded use of interlocal agreements may contribute to the emergence of a metropolitan civil society, but we have much to learn about how elected officials will contribute to metropolitan governance and debates in interlocal politics.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Thanks are extended to the editors and anonymous reviewers who provided helpful feedback. Any remaining errors or shortcomings are the responsibility of the author.

Funding

This research was supported through the Small Research Grant Program of the American Political Science Association, awarded in 2011.

Notes

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