The author identifies key issues that were judged to be of critical importance to intergovernmental relations at the end of the Reagan administration. Judgments were made by two panels of intergovernmental experts, selected by reputational technique, as part of an exploratory study conducted at the U.S. General Accounting Office. The purpose of the research was to provide data useful for thinking about likely directions of intergovernmental change in the 1990s, thereby updating the literature on key intergovernmental issues. The results suggest that there will be limited change in the direction of a Madisonian middle ground, with some increasing importance of the intergovernmental roles of state and local governments. Given the present pattern of symbolic presidential leadership in intergovernmental relations, the narrowing of the federal grants-in-aid role in domestic affairs is expected to continue.
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