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Comparative research on inter-municipal cooperation in eight European countries shows that there is a great variety of institutional arrangements for cooperation across the different countries. Also, these arrangements tend to change over time in terms of the scope of cooperation among partners, their composition and the degree of organizational integration. This article describes and analyzes the variety of and shifts in institutional arrangements for a specific class of inter-municipal cooperation arrangements: those that are set up to provide for the joint delivery of public services. It is argued that specific arrangements are typically the outcomes of interaction between national institutional contexts,environmental factors and local preferences.

After decades of centralization, in 1980 the central government of the Netherlands embarked upon an ambitious project to decentralize the administrative system. It proclaimed a series of general decentralization measures that aimed to improve the performance of the administrative system and to boost local democracy. This article presents the results of research into the effects of these measures. It shows that the decentralization project did not meet the high expectations. This can be explained by the fact that the theoretical framework underlying the decentralization policy was overly simple. The authors present a new framework that represents the contingent character of the effects of decentralization.

SUMMARYOne of the professed goals of the 1998 Tanzanian Local Government Reform Program, entailing substantial decentralization, was to provide for a democratic administrative set up in local government. Elected local councils were invested with responsibilities for a wide range of policy sectors and services; the local administrative staff, formerly recruited and instructed by central government, would be appointed by and accountable to the local councils. A well-functioning local politico-administrative system was considered paramount to improve service delivery and ensure control of decision making by the local community. This article reports on research into the relations between councilors and administrators in two Tanzanian municipalities. Overall, these relations were found to be tense and full of discordance, caused by clashing role perceptions and mutual distrust. The research suggests that the main factor underlying the behavior and attitudes of councilors and administrators is the very system of public administration, which -despite the ambitions expressed in the Local Government Reform Program -remains very centralistic in character.

Building on Lipsky, public administration scholars have conducted ample research on the coping strategies of street-level bureaucrats. To explain their behaviour, many studies focus on the individual characteristics of street-level workers or on features of the organization that they form part of. So far, less attention has been paid to the influence of the wider institutional context. This article presents findings of research on how different elements of the institutional context – the formal public administration, the norms of the professional community and the expectations of the public – can explain the coping strategies of agricultural extension officers in Tanzania. In the absence of specific guidance from the administrative context and of pressure by the public, the strategies that these street-level workers choose are primarily inspired by the norms of their professional community. Points for practitioners Public managers should be especially aware of the fact that, to a large extent, the professional norms of street-level workers determine how they use their discretion. Therefore, the training of street-level bureaucrats should not only focus on their professional abilities, but also include the transfer of key values of the public service.