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Network Structure and Cooperation in Regulatory Enforcement
Perhaps the most critical task of contemporary governance involves the allocation of
formal authority among relatively independent policy arenas that are capable of resolving the
complex policy issues of modern economies. Specialized authorities can develop expertise
necessary to respond rapidly and accurately to the common perturbations in the areas they
govern, and thus can create a stable, predictable system of rules to govern complex social and
economic systems. In a well-designed system, independent authorities acting in parallel can
outperform a centralized authority in finding welfare-enhancing solutions to complex policy
problems, provided that the allocation of authority is consistent with a “partially
decomposable” partitioning of the social and economic system (Lindblom 1959; Simon 1998).
The problem of fragmented authority arises when policy decisions in one area have
major unintended consequences in other areas of independent authority (Baumgartner and
Jones 1993). The rich and poorly understood interactions between natural, social, economic,
and political components in complex economies ensure that any division of authority will
inevitably encounter such problems. At best, welfare-optimizing decisions by independent
authorities overlook possible collaborations across authority arenas that could lead to further
gains in welfare. At worst, independent decisions lead to disasters that might have been readily
avoided by a unified authority.
When fragmentation becomes untenable, dramatic shifts take place in otherwise stable
policy arenas (Baumgartner and Jones 1993), frequently triggering the recurrent cycle of
administrative reorganization (March and Olsen 1983). For the most part, however, informal
contacts between members of the formal policy institutions provide an arena in which common
“public policy issues tend to be refined, evidence debated, and alternative options worked out”
Heclo (1978). As in all formal organizations, informal networks that span across fragmented
authorities provide a mechanism to reduce the adverse consequences of fragmentation (Scott
2003).
This article explores the role of local water policy networks in alleviating the
fragmentation of authority. Local coordination of federal, state, and local water authorities can
accommodate the unique policy interactions that are determined by the local ecosystem, and
can capitalize on local knowledge and motivation (Ostrom 1990, John 1994, Lubell et al 2002).
On the other hand, local networks can coopt federal authority because of the federal agency’s
dependence on local resources (Selznick 1966, Pressman and Wildavsky 1984), vulnerability to
political meddling (Seidman), and difficulty in controlling local influences on field offices
Convention