Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The need for tribal, county, and municipal cooperation is ever more vital now as political dysfunctionality, partisan gridlock, and federal and state devolution are pushing complex societal problems to be resolved at the local level. However, the desire for tribes and non-tribal local governments to cooperate can be limiting given the past historic indifferences and barriers to cooperation (i.e. racism, historic trauma, lack of trust, and power imbalance). This need to help tribes, counties, and municipalities form better relationships is what prompted Dr. James C. Collard (2006) to create a model for tribal and municipal cooperation. Collard’s model, however, only examined what lead tribal and municipal leaders to promote cooperation.

Therefore, the purpose of this study was to create a more extensive model to help tribes, counties, and municipalities not only promote intergovernmental cooperation, but to also achieve successful intergovernmental agreement. Using a mixed-method survey approach, the study revealed that trust was the only positive variable to have statistical significance on how leaders placed an importance on promoting intergovernmental cooperation. The findings also revealed that trust, respect, and interpersonal relations were the only positive variables to have statistical significance in achieving an intergovernmental agreement.

Therefore, the findings helped to improve Dr. Collard’s model by adding additional processes and steps to promote and sustain intergovernmental cooperation. In addition, to the findings being useful for tribes, counties, and municipalities, the tools in this study can also be applied to help other marginalized groups to build more enduring and more collaborative cross-cultural relations.