Metropolitan Governance as a Transnational Research Agenda: The International Metropolitan Observatory Project

1. Metropolitan Governance as a Transnational Research Agenda:The International Metropolitan Observatory Project Jefferey Sellers University of Southern California Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot CERVL-IEP Bordeaux Prepared for presentation at Urban Affairs Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, April 19-22, 2006.

2. The International Metropolitan Observatory (IMO) Project • Phase I (2003-2005): Comprehensive overview of metropolitanization in 15 countries • Phase II (2005-2007): Political ecology of the metropolis, an ongoing comparative study of metropolitan electoral behavior • Phase III (projected for 2007-2009): Metropolitan governance and inequality • Possible future phases: Comparative mass survey analysis, local elite surveys, output indicators

3. Phase I Findings • Hoffmann-Martinot and Sellers (eds.), Metropolitanization and Political Change (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozial-wissenschaften, 2005) • Metropolitan regions have become the predominant form of human settlement in developed countries • Metropolitanization of urban areas has led to growing horizontal intergovernmental fragmentation • New spatial inequalities have accompanied metropolitanization • Concentrations of disadvantage (urban and suburban) • Concentrations of relative privilege in affluent and middle class communities • Metropolitan spatial patterns of political partisanship and participation under investigation in Phase II

4. Metropolitan Governance: What is the Issue? • Horizontal, as opposed to vertical forms of governance (Gregg 1974) • Decentralization has reinforced this (Dente 1990) • Beyond collective action to provide public goods, the distributive dimension is critical as an explanatory or a normative element • Growing inequality and diversity undermine collective or redistributive governance (Alesina, Baqir and Easterly 1999) • among interconnected metropolitan places, spatial inequalities can be critical to this effect

5. Governance: of or within metro areas? • Metropolitanization is not simply a creation of policy and the state, but a social and economic reality that policy and politics must address • The distributive dimension of supralocal policies and institutions can be more decisive for disparities than governance among metro units • Interlocal dynamics need to be considered in light of both metro structure and the horizontal workings of vertical institutions

6. Alternative theoretical approaches • Social structural approaches highlight ethnic, class divisions (Gainsborough, Sellers) • Reformist institutionalism, and its “new regionalist” variant stress coordination, collective action (Dreier, Mollenkopf and Swanstrom) • Public choice stresses decentralization (Tiebout, Ostrom) • International political economy looks to globalization, economic imperatives and hierarchical policies (Sassen, Brenner) • Dynamics of local and metropolitan politics and governance (Oliver, Orfield)

7. Toward a common framework • Possibility of a (partial!) theoretical synthesis • Some complementarities among theoretical approaches • Opposed alternative approaches can be tested via specific hypotheses • Resolving levels of analysis issues • Nested analytical framework • Testing through analysis of local and metropolitan variations • Supplementary analysis of multilevel processes

9. Question One • Has there been a shift toward new forms of interlocal and metropolitan governance in response to metropolitan social and economic change? And have trends converged among different national systems?

10. Question One: Alternative explanatory hypotheses • Transnational mobilization around competitiveness • Linked to metro governance? • Or to metro fragmentation? • New regionalism: need for cooperation? • Public choice: need for fragmentation? • Social structure: class, ethnic division undermine? • Political influences: Specific institutions, policies, parties, multilevel and local political dynamics? Are there political sources of solidarity between poor areas and others?

11. Question Two • Has the delivery of general and redistributive governmental services reinforced or alleviated the disadvantages of residents in the poorest, most disadvantaged metropolitan localities?

12. Question 2: Alternative explanatory hypotheses • Local spillovers from concentrated poverty prompt functional demands for more general government and social program resources (U.S. finding) • Tax capacities in poor communities lower (shown in U.S.) • Tiebout sorting in fragmented metros reinforces disadvantages of poor communities (U.S. evidence of this) • Metro mobilization around transnational economic links reinforces relative disadvantage of poor communities • Higher level government spending, redistribution, institutions, including welfare states and tax redistribution may counteract disparities (but in U.S. general government spending biases outweighs poverty-related expenditures for poor communities) • Fragmented local/metropolitan social and spatial structures may reinforce disadvantages • Metropolitan coalitions or party politics as a mechanism to overcome disadavantages? Or party politics as reinforcement of obstacles?

13. Question Three • Has the fragmentation of government within metropolitan areas enabled distinctive, localized advantages in services or tax relief for affluent and middle-class concentrations (“secession of the successful”)?

14. Question Three: Alternative explanations? • Empirical evidence on this question limited, even in the United States • Sources of affluent and middle class place advantages: fewer social needs/demands, bigger tax base, service privatization • General purpose government expenditures at higher levels favor these places (U.S. evidence) • Spatial segregation by class, other groups helps foster secession • Governmental fragmentation favors • More Tieboutian sorting opportunities in bigger, more diverse metro markets • Intermetro, transnational economic competition and links may reinforce • Political forces (parties, coalitions) with bases in these places: solidary or secessionist?

15. Question Four • Have interlocal service arrangements and metropolitan governance overcome or reinforced metropolitan disparities in services and taxation?

16. Question Four: Hypotheses about variations • Interlocal cooperation and metro governance may • Reinforce or overcome disadvantages of poor localities • Enable or rein in separation for affluent and middle class localities • Have a neutral effect • Hypotheses from Questions 2 and 3 can be utilized to explain these effects

17. Methods • Case studies of representative metropolitan areas in each country • Sampling of metropolitan areas • By the presence and absence of metropolitan arrangements • By more and less globally integrated metro areas • (if possible) Relative growth, decline

18. Methods (continued) • Question 1 • Descriptive mapping of patterns and evolution (as encompassing as possible) over 1990-2006 • Comparison of metropolitan trajectories with alternative explanatory hypotheses • Historical analysis of sources, testing posited types of influences

19. Methods (continued) • Questions 2, 3 and 4 • Selection of localities for case studies based on typological analysis from Phase II • Use budgets to compare services, tax rates, intergovernmental funds against comparative local indicators for: • local hardship (poverty, unemployment, etc.) • local indicators of affluent and middle class areas (income, education etc.) • Allocation of metro and higher level expenditure by locality to compare effects • Analysis of economic, social, political and other sources of variations

20. Methods (continued) • Questions 2, 3 and 4 (continued) • Use same periodicization as in mapping for Question 1 to compare trends • Where possible, more systematic statistical tests including multilevel analysis • To assess significance of policy, compare interlocal disparities in evolution of hardship indicators

21. Workshop Questions • Does this design address the right questions? • How feasible is this design in each country? • In what ways should the design be refined? • What are the leading/most promising causal hypotheses about sources of metro governance, metro disparities, and governance effects?