Coordination and the management of estuarine water quality

Abstract

Evidence has been presented to show that there is extensive coordination between public and private organisations interested in and affected by water quality conditions in the Lower Fraser River. This conclusion is contrary to many assumptions and statements in literature on water quality management. It is also contrary to many of the assumptions and statements to be found in the literature on public administration, and provides yet more evidence, from another policy field, to indicate that hierarchy is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for coordination of interdependencies in production and/or consumption. A number of suggestive hypotheses have also been raised about the relative advantages and disadvantages of five kinds of coordinative mechanisms found in the provision system in question. These hypotheses have been generated in an inductive fasion from a careful scrutiny of interorganisational and interpersonal interactions, and while they are consistent with the assumptions and/or conclusions of a number of previous public choice analyses of bureaucratic behaviour, they require further empirical verification to confirm their warrantability. It is also to be hoped that subsequent public choice theorizing about bureaucratic behaviour will move beyond studies of hierarchical decision-making and contracting between organizations, and include other forms of interorganizational arrangements that appear to constitute such a large element in “government”.