FOSTERING LOCAL GOVERNMENT COLLABORATION: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDIES IN OHIO

While the literature on collaborative governance is voluminous and growing, empirical studies that test differing explanations for the success of local government to local government collaborations across policy sectors are not common. This kind of study is important, however, because local government-to-local government collaborations may very well have distinctive dynamics, and they are likely to expand in the future as local officials work to develop broad collaborative strategies that extend across policy areas. In this article, we investigate the development and extent of goal achievement in eight cases of this type of collaboration in northeast Ohio. Our investigations illustrate the dynamics of progress for interlocal collaborations, while yielding evidence of goal achievements within four years in six of our eight cases. We also evaluate theoretically derived variables using a Boolean algebraic comparative case study approach, and find that external incentives provided by grants and mandates are consistently associated with at least some level of goal attainment. We also find that the combination of external incentives and past interactions leading to trust consistently predicts success among the cases in our sample. While our findings are preliminary and limited to northeast Ohio, they suggest that promising inter-governmental collaborations can yield benefits within reasonable periods of time.