Public Authorities and Intermunicipal Cooperation in a European Context

Positioning Public Authorities Conceptually

On the whole, I find the argument both interesting and convincing, although some of the observations require to be qualified.

There seems to be basically two ways of summarizing the debate on metropolitan governance. In this article, this is portrayed as consisting of two main alternatives—monocentrism and polycentrism. Although other alternatives are also mentioned, such as backdoor regionalism, the principal choices are between either fragmentation with numerous competing municipalities or a metropolitan-wide government with central decision makers that have powers to even out and redistribute. However, perhaps more common in the literature is to separate a third ideal type, sometimes under the label of “new regionalism.” This represents municipal networking, that is,

cooperative arrangements that stabilize networks of policy-relevant actors . . . heterogeneous conglomerates of actors and agencies . . . who define and deliver urban services in a way that is independent from the territorial boundaries of the traditional local government structure. (Heinelt and Kübler 2005, p. 10; cf. Savitch and Vogel 2009)

Indeed, networks of municipalities, such as intermunicipal bodies, have often been regarded to be the “second best” when attempts to establish monocentric governments have failed (Sellers and Hoffman-Martinot 2009). Although formally retaining independent municipalities, these have given up some of their policy making by transferring functions to joint bodies. However, these networks of cooperation may take very different shapes and vary with regard to the extent to which they are formally binding (Dowding and Feiock 2012). Hence, I would suggest that it would be more fruitful for an understanding of the particular features of public authorities to distinguish between three, rather than two, major models of metropolitan governance.

Furthermore, it is not entirely clear if units of intermunicipal cooperation should be included among public authorities, as defined by the authors. On one hand, it is claimed that these authorities “were established precisely because local governments were not able to cooperate . . .,” (Savitch and Adhikari 2017) but on the other hand, the urban intermunicipalities are seen as an example of public authorities in a European setting. Savitch and Adhikari would need to be more consistent in how public authorities are defined.

In addition, the authors should have addressed the question of whether there is a need for these authorities to be democratically legitimate. All these bodies have one thing in common—they are appointed and not directly elected. This limits not only accountability but often also make decision making less public. It widens the distances between citizens and decision makers and makes it even more difficult for the ordinary citizen to understand how the metropolitan area is governed. Who do you turn to when you want to question an authoritative decision that you are not satisfied with? Who can you choose not to reelect if you want different policies in place? Although it could be argued that public authorities get their legitimacy mainly through citizen satisfaction with their services, this should have been discussed more explicitly in the article.

The European Experience

If we accept that intermunicipal cooperation is functionally equivalent, with its primary aim to provide efficient service delivery independently of jurisdictional borders, this type of cooperation is perhaps the closest counterpart to the public authorities in European metropolitan areas. Such cooperation originated in countries such as France and the Netherlands already in the nineteenth century but now occurs all over Europe and has often been considered as an alternative to amalgamations (Hulst and Montfort 2007; Sellers 2002). Indeed, they are frequent even in countries that have been subject to municipal amalgamations. For example, in Sweden, where two major municipal amalgamation reforms have been carried out, each of these drastically reduced the need for intermunicipal units. Although most of these were wiped out when larger municipalities were formed, the need to cooperate on a larger scale soon became evident, and new intermunicipal bodies started to emerge (Gossas 2006).

Although comparative research on intermunicipal cooperation in Europe is rare, an exception is an overview by Hulst and Montfort (2007). Based on case studies of eight countries, they identify both communalities and differences along a number of dimensions of analysis. For example, most intermunicipal arrangements are concerned with providing public services jointly, rather than coordinating other bodies. Most of them are governed by a council representing the municipalities. However, in other respects, differences dominate. For example, they may be either single purpose or multipurpose. There are also differences with regard to degree of institutionalization—from standing organizations to loosely coupled networks. Many of the intermunicipal bodies are found in the metropolitan areas (Herschell and Newman 2002; Lefevre 1998; Otgaar et al. 2008) where the need for coordination seems to be most salient. Differences between countries are largely explained by the national institutional context and differences in state traditions (Loughlin and Peters 1997).

Apart from the dimensions of analysis suggested by Hulst and Montfort, the article by Savitch and Adhikari sets an example for European scholars by directing our attention to an additional distinction—between the public agency and the corporation. The agency is usually governed by public law, whereas the corporation form rests on private legislation. Indeed, in Europe, there seems to be a tendency that intermunicipal cooperation is increasingly taking the form of the corporation, rather than the agency. Recent research has identified such units in Portugal (Da Cruz and Marques 2011; Tavares and Camöes 2007), Italy (Citroni, Lippi, and Profeti 2013), Germany and France (Kuhlmann 2008), and Norway (Andersen 2011; Sørensen 2007).

The development of intermunicipal corporations in Europe seems to be a later phenomenon than in the United States and may be understood in the light of the increasing marketization of local government that has taken place in the European countries from the 1990s (Buckaert and Kuhlmann, forthcoming). The corporation has the advantage of offering more flexibility and autonomy, but it also makes it possible to include private businesses in the cooperating body, which may facilitate for private capital to be included (Andersen 2011; Hulst and Montfort 2007).

The Need for Further Research

There is very little systematic knowledge about the corporation type of intermunicipal cooperation in European metropolises. Hence, to assess their significance and evaluate whether they fulfill a similar integrating function as identified by Savitch and Adhikari in the U.S. metropolitan areas, more research is indeed needed. So far, knowledge of these in Europe is scattered and limited to a handful of countries. We would need to identify patterns of spread and adoption and find out whether and why they may be common in certain settings and not in other. Research should also investigate what their functions are. In addition, Savitch and Adhikari also inspire us to find out whether there are other types of units in European metropolitan areas than the usual suspects that may have integrating functions. Perhaps central government units, civil society organizations, and private firms can contribute to solving collective problems in the metropolis.

The observation that public authorities are more common in the metropolitan areas with the strongest resources in terms of wealth, citizens’ level of education, and type of employment structure is another important finding. This would suggest a connection between the inequality inherent in the polycentric model and the occurrence of public authorities. This result also calls for attention among students of European local governments, in particular those concerned with the parts of the continent where there traditionally have been strong redistributive regimes. It seems generally to have been taken for granted that intermunicipal cooperation in European metropolitan regions would even out or, at best, be neutral with regard to the wealth of the metropolis. However, the findings from a U.S. context open up for a set of questions about whether similar tendencies can be found in Europe and, if not, why there are differences between the two continents.

To conclude, although not entirely clear with regard to definitions and delimitations, the article opens up for a comparative research agenda of considerable importance for a better understanding of the preconditions for how the metropolis can be governed. It brings our attention to the fact that even in metropolitan Europe, there might be institutions that de facto function as integrating and problem solving although not having been recognized as such in previous analyses.