This book sheds light on the central complexities of municipal cooperation and examines the dynamics, experiences and drivers of inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in Europe. Particular attention is given to the features of governance arrangements and institutions created to generate and maintain collaborative settings between different local governments in a particular territory. The thematically grouped case studies presented here address the dearth of comprehensive and comparative analyses in recent scholarship. The authors provide fresh insights into the rise of inter-municipal cooperation and its evolution during a period of financial crisis and European Union enlargement. This includes critical examinations of the impact of austerity policies, the behavior and perceptions of key actors; and under-explored new member states. Crucially, this work goes beyond the comparison of institutional forms of IMC to address why the phenomenon so widespread and questions whether it is successful, manageable and democratic. This work which presents the most recent and innovative research on inter-local collaborative arrangements will appeal to practitioners as well as scholars of local government, public economy, public administration and policy.

Autorentext
Filipe Teles is Assistant Professor at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, where he teaches courses in the fields of Public Policy and Political Science, and member of the Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy. He has developed research work on local governance, public administration, territorial reforms and political leadership.
Pawel Swianiewicz is Professor of Economics and head of the Department of Local Development and Policy at the Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies at the University of Warsaw. His research focuses on local politics, local government finance, territorial and decentralization reforms with a special focus on countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Inhalt
1: Introduction: motives for revisiting inter-municipal cooperation; Filipe Teles and Pawel Swianiewicz.- Section One Drivers, Democracy and Delivery.- 2: Inter-municipal cooperation and austerity policies: obstacles or opportunities?; Ringa Raudla and António Tavares.- 3: Actors in inter-municipal cooperation; Pawel Swianiewicz.- 4:A borrowed mandate? Democratic legitimacy of inter-municipal entities a comparative analysis; Adam Gendwi and Marta Lackowska.- 5: Striving for local governance capacity in Portugal and Spain; Patrícia Silva and Esther Pano.- 6: Reasons for inter-municipal cooperation: A comparative analysis of Finland, Iceland and Norway; Grétar Thór Eythórsson, Pekka Kettunen, and Jan Erling Klausen.- Section Two Cooperation in Europe.- 7: Inter-municipal cooperation in France: a continuous reform, new trends; Robert Hertzog.- 8: Inter-municipal cooperation in the Netherlands; Pieter-Jan Klok, Marcel Boogers, Bas Denters, Maurits Sanders.- 9: Inter-municipal cooperation in Switzerland; Reto Steiner and Claire Kaiser.- 10: Traditions, problems and challenges of inter-municipal cooperation in the German federal state of Brandenburg; Jochen Franzke.- 11: Bigger and stronger together: How Icelandic municipalities solve their lack of capacity and scale economy; Grétar Thór Eythórsson.- 12: Inter-local financial transfers as a measure of cooperation in Poland; Julita ukomska and Katarzyna Szmigiel-Rawska.- 13: Inter-municipal cooperation in Slovenia: an intermediate step towards regionalization; Irena Balija-Brajnik.- 14: Layer upon layer: the position of inter-municipal cooperation in the Spanish quasi-federal system the case of Catalonia; Esther Pano Puey, Lluis Medir Tejado, Carla Puiggròs Mussons and Jaume Magre Ferran.- Section Three Success and failure: case-studies.- 15: The rise and fall of the union: a case in Poland; Pawe Swianiewicz and Adam Gendwi.- 16: The architecture of a complex system: the Oradea Metropolitan Area in Romania; Cristina Stnu.- 17: Korça Waste Management and the territorial reform in Albania; Alba Dakoli Wilson .- 18: Mapping the success: inter-municipal cooperation in two Czech Micro-regions; Jakub Lysek and Pavel aradín.- 19: Can tiny municipalities survive through extensive IMC arrangements? The case of Iceland; Eva Marín Hlynsdóttir.- 20: Conclusion: Inter-municipal cooperation diversity, evolution and future research agenda; Pawel Swianiewicz and Filipe Teles.