New Governance for Rural America: Creating Intergovernmental Partnerships

Throughout the 1990s public demand for a fundamental shift in the relationship between government and its citizens has intensified. In response, a "new governance" model has emerged, emphasizing decreased federal control in favor of intergovernmental collaboration and increased involvement of state, local, and private agencies.

As the authors of this volume show, one of the best examples of "new governance" can be found in the National and State Rural Development Councils (NRDC and SRDC), created in 1990 as the result of President Bush's Rural Development Initiative and now called the Rural Development Partnership. This effort was part of a move within policymaking circles to redefine a rural America that was no longer synonymous with family farming and that required innovative new solutions for economic revival. By 1994 twenty-nine states had created and ten other states were in the process of forming such councils.

In this first detailed analysis of the NRDC and SRDCs, the authors examine the successes and failures of the original eight councils in Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington; as well as eight other councils subsequently created in Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Vermont, New York, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.

Combining empirical analysis with current theories about networks and inter-organizational relations, this volume should appeal to academics and practitioners interested in rural development policy, public administration, public policy and management, and intergovernmental relations.

Beryl A. Radin is professor of Public Administration and Policy in the Graduate School of Public Affairs at Rockefeller College of the State University of New York at Albany.

Robert Arganoff is professor of public administration in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.

Ann Bowman is professor of government and international studies at the University of South Carolina.

C. Gregory Buntz is executive director of the Iowa Peace Institute in Grinnell, Iowa.

J. Steven Ott is associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, where he is also director of public administration education in the Center for Public Policy and Administration.

Barbara S. Romzek is professor of public administration in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Kansas.

Robert H. Wilson is director of the Urban Issues Program and Mike Hogg Professor of Urban Policy in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.