A contextual explanation of regional governance in Europe: insights from inter-municipal cooperation

Cooperation among fragmented local entities for service delivery is a common problem in Europe that has been understudied from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. Drawing on the institutional collective action framework, this article advances and tests a contextual explanation of the emergence of interlocal collaborations by following a second-generation rational choice approach to the study of regional governance. Doing so, it systematically addresses: how context matters in specific choice situations; how the establishment of various governance structures with different characteristics depends on specific contextual factors that can simultaneously reduce transaction costs and risks for cooperative actors; and the practical policy implications of these choices.