"Intergovernmental Management for the 21st Century" ed. by Timothy J. Conlan, Paul L. Posner

This book explores intergovernmental relations today. This volume defines an agenda for improving the performance of America's intergovernmental system. The early chapters present the current state of practice in intergovernmental relations, including discussion of trends toward centralization, devolution, and other power-sharing arrangements. The fiscal underpinnings of the system are analyzed, along with the long-term implications of current trends in financing at all levels.

America's complex system of multi-layered government faces new challenges as a result of rapidly changing economic, technological, and demographic trends. An aging population, economic globalization, and homeland security concerns are among the powerful factors testing the system s capacity and flexibility.
Major policy challenges and responses are now overwhelmingly intergovernmental in nature, and as a result, the fortunes of all levels of government are more intertwined and interdependent than ever before.
The authors identify the principal tools used to define intergovernmental management grants, mandates, preemptions in discussing emerging models and best practices in the design and management of those tools.
This book applies these crosscutting themes to critical policy areas where intergovernmental management and cooperation are essential, such as homeland security, education, welfare, health care, and the environment. It concludes with an authoritative assessment of the system's capacity to govern, oversee, and improve.

Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: Intergovernmental Management and the Challenges Ahead
Part I. Framing the Intergovernmental Debate
2 Updating Theories of American Federalism
3 Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Evolution of American Federalism
4 Intergovernmental Finance in the New Global Economy: An Integrated Approach
Part II. Testing the Intergovernmental System: Issues and Challenges
5 Developing a National Homeland Security System: An Urgent and Complex Task in Intergovernmental Relations
6 Accountability and Innovation: New Directions in Education Policy and Management
7 Welfare Reform: A Devolutionary Success?
8 Medicaid Waivers: License to Shape the Future of Fiscal Federalism
9 Regionalism and Global Climate Change Policy: Revisiting Multistate Collaboration as an Intergovernmental Management Tool
Part III. Issues of Governance in the Intergovernmental System
10 From Oversight to Insight: Federal Agencies as Learning Leaders in the Information Age
11 Performance Management and Intergovernmental Relations
12 Block Grants and Devolution: A Future Tool?
13 Mandates: The Politics of Coercive Federalism
14 Intergovernmental Lobbying: How Opportunistic Actors Create a Less Structured and Balanced Federal System
15 Conclusion: Managing Complex Problems in a Compound Republic
Contributors
Index