Interstate Cooperation, Second Edition

Compacts and Administrative Agreements

By Joseph F. Zimmerman

Subjects: State And Local Politics, Political Science
Paperback : 9781438442341, 355 pages, January 2013
Hardcover : 9781438442358, 355 pages, June 2012

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Table of contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Interstate Comity
2. Constitutional Interstate Governance
3. The Compacting Process
4. Compact Commissions
5. State-administered Compacts
6. Formal and Informal Administrative Agreements
7. Interstate Comity: An Assessment
Appendix A: Interstate Compacts Granted Congressional Consent
Appendix B: Federal-Interstate Compacts Granted Congressional Consent
Notes
Bibliography
Index

First in-depth examination of the various forms of interstate cooperation and their central role promoting a successful federal system of government in the United States.

Description

Cooperative interstate relations are essential for maintaining the economic and political union established by the United States Constitution. Despite this importance, interstate compacts, federal-state compacts, and interstate administrative agreements have generally been neglected by political scientists for more than half a century. In this second edition of Interstate Cooperation, Joseph F. Zimmerman demonstrates that many public goals can be achieved by either a compact or an agreement. Interstate administrative agreements, moreover, may be verbal or written, and have increased sharply in number because their flexibility allows changes to be made quickly without legislative authorization. Zimmerman aims to stimulate additional research on these forms of interstate cooperation in order to help formulate additional innovative solutions to our major interstate problems.

Joseph F. Zimmerman is Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, State University of New York. His many books include Horizontal Federalism: Interstate Relations; Regulating the Business of Insurance in a Federal System; and Congress: Facilitator of State Action, all published by SUNY Press.

Reviews

"Interstate Cooperation will prove to be a classic on the subject matter. This is a truly magnificent work on a topic that has been severely neglected by scholars. " — Nelson Wikstrom, coauthor of American Intergovernmental Relations: A Fragmented Federal Polity