Assessing the Intensity and Diversity of Cooperation: A Study of Joint Delegation of Municipal Functions to Intermunicipal Associations

In Portugal, intermunicipal associations (IMAs) can take on any of the functions and tasks assigned by law to the municipalities. Nevertheless, a recent pilot study conducted by the General-Directorate of Local Administration identified four categories to organize the functions of IMAs: 1) Exclusive management of municipal functions; 2) Shared management of municipal functions; 3) Exclusive management of functions directly delegated by the national government; and 4) Shared management of national government functions. In this article, we identify all the tasks IMAs/local governments jointly decide to take on and assign them to each of these four categories. Prior work has attempted to measure the intensity of intermunicipal cooperation by investigating the level of financial transfers from municipalities to IMAs. However, this valuable work has not investigated the breadth of cooperative endeavors combined with financial transfers to IMAs. In other words, municipalities may engage in significant financial transfers limited to a single policy area rather than engaging in widespread cooperation across multiple policy areas. This article aims to fill this lacuna by answering the following questions: 1) why do some local governments jointly delegate tasks to their IMAs whereas others prefer to retain these responsibilities for themselves? And 2) what is the relationship between the intensity of financial transfers from local governments and the range of tasks delegated to the IMAs? We use data from 23 IMAs in Portugal to assess both the intensity and diversity of cooperation between Portuguese local governments, measured in terms of financial transfers and number of tasks involved, respectively.