The Effect of Regulatory Burden on the Effectiveness of Intergovernmental Collaborations: The Case of Subnational Partnerships for Managing International Cooperation

The Effect of Regulatory Burden on the Effectiveness of Intergovernmental Collaborations

Resumen

With the goal of improving effectiveness and efficiency, worldwide cross-sector collaboration has become a central governance arrangement. Given this trend, research has focused on illustrating examples of collaborations over time and/or identifying collaboration’s drivers and effects. Yet, as cross-sector collaborations are more prevalent, governments have changed the rules for civil society organizations to become part of cross-sector collaboration across policy domains. While some regulations can be seen as a precondition to start a collaboration, over-regulated contexts can become a burden for participating organizations, thus hindering collaboration sustainability. However, little knowledge exists as to how regulatory changes influence performance effects of cross-sector collaboration. To fill this gap, this research focuses on all the 2007-2018 Ecuadorian subnational partnerships that manage international cooperation to test whether adoption of further regulations or regulatory burden targeting civil society organizations compromises the amount of international aid subnational governments secure. We also expect that the economic diversity in a jurisdiction amplifies the performance effects of regulatory burden. Findings suggest that regulatory burden negatively influenced governance capacity to obtain international aid, particularly in jurisdictions with high economic diversity.