HKU-USC-IPPA Conference on Public Policy
Paper Abstract
Abstract Number: T03P03-04
Panel
T03P03 - Theory and Practices of Institutional Collective Action Mechanism in Asia:
Collective Problem Solving in Complex Metropolitan Governance
Author
Professor Liming Suo, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
China
Co-Authors
Professor Jie Ma, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
Miss Jiayun Li, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
Title
Voluntary Cooperation, Urban Agglomeration Governance and Institutional Collective
Action
Abstract
In the last decades, there are several urban agglomerations were constructed in BeijingTianjin-Hebei area, Yangtz River Delta area and Pearl River Delta area. As a sign of a
high level of urban development, urban agglomerations plays an important role in
regional coordination and cross-regional public affairs. In the aspect of coordination
and cooperation mechanisms, the research that the superior government and local
governments act what kind of role in public affairs of urban agglomerations is a hot
issue in the field of public administration theory. It is necessary to pay attention to the
issue in theory and practice that how the superior government and local government
can promote the voluntary interlocal cooperation among local governments thorough
the rational policy, planning, coordination and cooperation mechanisms.
To address the issue on relationship among several local actors, the institutional
collective action framework aims to understand the emergence of collaborative
institutions in which various levels of government agencies and actors voluntarily work
together to create solutions to common concerns that otherwise would not be possible.
The framework essentially lays out the collective action dilemmas when examining the
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development of regional institutions and does this through the lens of local
governments. The goal is to identify mechanisms that can reduce the risk of
collaboration and examine incentive structures that motivate independent organizations
to coordinate their activities (Feiock 2013; Feiock and Scholz 2010). Accordingly, this
framework connect the micro-level relationship of the governments agencies and actors
can influence the macro-level structure of collective. Consequently, it achieves
expansion of the collective action from the individual level to the regional level
successfully.
In China, an increasing number of local governments are engaged in interjurisdictional
agreements (IJAs) to address regional governance issues (Chen et al. 2015). Urban
agglomeration is one of institution arrangements to mitigate the dilemma of collective
action. However, the current literature has not yet enough focused on the voluntary and
influential factors of institutional collective action among the local governments in the
urban agglomeration of China. ICA proposed that policy constraints from the senior
governments, homogeneity and heterogeneity among actors will act by transaction
costs and risks these two dimensions in selection of collective action mechanism. In
this paper, we will further apply this framework to explore whether these two factors
affect the voluntary cooperation among local governments of different types of urban
agglomeration. We choose environmental problems faced by urban agglomeration as
the policy area. Based upon <New Urbanization Plan in China (2014-2020)>, the urban
agglomerations are classified into two types of inter-province and intra-province. In
consideration of geographical location and economic and social development level, we
select four typical urban agglomerations (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, The Pearl River Delta,
Yangtze River Delta and Chengdu Plain) and use ILAs method （Andrew,2012；
Chen, Y.-C., & Thurmaier, K. 2009) to analyze them. We describe the time trend and
the overall structural characteristics of the local governments’ cooperative behaviors
and urban agglomerations’ collaboration in 2005-2014, and identify the different
characteristics of the collective action on environment problems in urban
agglomerations. This paper seek to reveal that the influence of the structural
heterogeneity for environmental collective action and whether the policy constraints or
structural difference among cities bring more voluntary cooperation among local
governments. Based upon ICA framework, this paper will provide a new insight on
how to identify a voluntary cooperation, and verify the voluntary interlocal cooperation
come from policy pressure or degree of heterogeneity inside urban agglomerations.
Reference
Feiock, Richard C. 2004. Introduction. In Richard C. Feiock (ed.) Metropolitan
Governance: Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation. Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press, pp.3-16.
Feiock, Richard C. 2009. Metropolitan Governance and Institutional Collective Action.
Urban Affairs Review 44(3): 356-377.
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Feiock, Richard C. 2013. The Institutional Collective Action Framework. Policy
Studies Journal 41(3): 397-425.
Feiock, Richard C. and John T. Scholz. 2010. Self-Organizing Governance of
Institutional Colective Action Dilemmas: An Overview. In Richard C. Feiock and John
T. Scholz (eds.) .
Self-Organizing Federalism: Collaborative Mechanisms to Mitigate Institutional
Collective.
Action Dilemmas. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, pp.3-32.
Andrew, S. A. (2009). An Empirical Analysis of Institutional Collection Action
Framework, (Frug 2002), 378–402.
Chen, B., Suo, L., & Ma, J. (2015). A Network Approach to Interprovincial
Agreements: A Study of Pan Pearl River Delta in China, State and Local Government
Review, 1–11.
Chen, Y.-C., & Thurmaier, K. (2009). Interlocal Agreements as Collaborations: An
Empirical Investigation of Impetuses, Norms, and Success. The American Review of
Public Administration, 39(5), 536–552.
Keyword
Voluntary cooperation, Urban agglomeration governance, Institutional collective
action, Interlocal agreements
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