State and Local Government Participation in the Design and Administration of Intergovernmental Programs

Abstract

State and local governments may be viewed as participating in decision-making within the federal system ac cording to the states' rights model, which is competitive in concept, or the Grodzins model which emphasizes co-opera tive sharing of decisions. Empirical evidence gives greater support to the latter theory. Expanding on the Grodzins model, we find that relationships among levels of government take place primarily along functional lines. Friction results from varying levels of professionalization in the bureaucracy and between bureaucracies and legislative bodies at all levels. Reasons for these patterns are discussed. State government participation in shared decision-making is limited in compari son with the national government principally in terms of finan cial capacity. Yet, the states—even with gerrymandered legislatures—and local governments have made a greater ef fort to finance domestic programs than has the national gov ernment. Urban-rural frictions have, however, had the effect of reducing the states' share of participation in domestic policy-making, and prevailing values and patterns of finance have encouraged the steady development of an invisible gov ernment of special districts. State government activities in domestic programs will expand faster than those at other lev els in the future. The national government, according to pro jected trends, will not dominate policy development, but will barely hold its own in relation to state and local governments.