American Federalism and the Search for Models of Management

Public administration and the processes of federalism have merged to a nearly indistinguishable point. Since the "cooperative federalism" of the 1930s, managing within the federal system has become an increasingly more important activity. However, federalism is not static. As policy responsibilities between the national and subnational governments have evolved and devolved, governing authority has overlapped across levels to a point where all actors are involved simultaneously to varying degrees (Wright 1988). Attention must be given to operations in such a system. Managing across governments and across organizations within the complex and continuously changing processes of federalism deserves the attention of both scholars and practitioners. Such activity has become the very heart of public administration and management. The continuing growth of federal grants and new regulatory programs, increased federal-state programming, the continuation of some federal-local programs, federal initiatives to nongovernmental organizations, and expanded roles for state government have changed the context of public administration from single-organization operations to boundary-spanning operations (Agranoff and McGuire 1998a). Not only do local public managers now operate within their home agency and jurisdiction, they also perform numerous identifiable activities within the vertical realm, which includes the state and federal governments, and also horizontal activities, which involve other local governments and many nongovernmental organizations (Agranoff and McGuire 1998b; Jennings and Krane 1994; Mandell 1990; Wright and Krane 1998). These forces have put a premium on collaborative actions and transactions across governmental boundaries. While the resilience of federalism as a form of governance is undeniable--its shape and operation has caused and been caused by changing social, economic, and political trends (Watts 1996)--the search for appropriate management models within the changing processes of federalism remains a difficult task. To help focus that search, this article explores models of management. Two venerable models, top-down and donor-recipient, and two emergent models, jurisdiction-based and network, are presented. Each model's prevalence and applicability to twenty-first-century federalism are examined. While they are adaptable to explanation in a number of policy arenas, the emerging models are confirmed by our empirical study of 237 city governments and the intergovernmental and collaborative activity of government officials promoting economic development. The primary concern of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of public-management approaches by demonstrating how emergent models exist alongside more traditional models as a result of shifts in federalism. The term "model" employed here follows Kaplan's (1964, 266-7) usage: It is a "scientific metaphor" that directs attention to certain resemblances between theoretical entities and the real subject-matter; one type of system can be shown to be a consistent interpretation of another. Our search here is not for characteristic metaphors of federalism itself (Wright 1988), but how policy making and management can vary within federalism across time and policy realms. Thus, each model is not only described, its temporal and policy-specific relevance is also analyzed. Concern for management models is hardly new. Elazar (1964, 248) suggests that, from the founding period, intergovernmental cooperation was necessary, and methods of providing for collaboration among the various parts of the federal system were sought out continually. Similarly, Grodzins (1966) equates administrative practices in federalism with shared functions, and Leach (1970) identifies the management of grants programs as involving joint action and manpower from all levels of government. Even during Nixon's New Federalism attempt to streamline the intergovernmental system, Walker (1974, 30) claimed that managing within federalism was still in "a state of considerable confusion. …