Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Political fragmentation at local and regional levels plays a significant yet poorly understood role in sustainable development and metropolitan governance. The traditional logic tends to follow a pattern: fragmentation increases competition, which in turn leads to more costly or less efficient economic development activities, and reduces focus on broader questions of sustainable environmental and social governance. While the focus on how best to efficiently deliver public services has spurred debates and a voluminous literature, the consequences for sustainable development within fragmented metropolitan governance institutions have received less scholarly attention. To evaluate this logic, we utilize a newly constructed database which matches political fragmentation indices (horizontal, vertical, and bordered) to a nationwide survey of economic development officials (ICMA) at three time periods (2004, 2009, 2014). Applying a political market framework to policy choices, we examine the impact of fragmentation on divergent economic development policy tool use. We find that several factors at the regional level, including different dimensions of political fragmentation, impact perceived competition and economic development policy usage in important ways. The nature of this impact aligns with recent research showing tradeoffs being made between traditional economic development policies and environmental sustainability commitments.