A Rationalist Account of Intergovernmental Institution‐Building

Abstract

The chapter introduces a rationalist framework to account for intergovernmental institution-building. It argues that institutional choices in multilevel systems are driven by the nature of executive-legislative relations in lower-level governments determining the relative costs of intergovernmental cooperation. Executive-legislative relations are distinguished along the degree of power-sharing (e.g. depending on the cabinet type) and the type of power-sharing (e.g. the constitutional separation of powers as opposed to voluntary power-sharing in party coalitions) leading to the following two core hypotheses. Regarding the institutionalization of individual arrangements, power-concentrating governments undermine the institutionalization of intergovernmental arrangements, while power-sharing governments support it. Regarding the integration of different intergovernmental arrangements, compulsory power-sharing undermines integration between intergovernmental arrangements, while voluntary power-sharing supports it. The chapter concludes with a comparative analysis of the internal life of lower-level governments in Canada, Switzerland, and the United States and lays out how the given incentives are expected to affect intergovernmental institution-building.