Intergovernmental relations in the architecture of federal system: The United States

Abstract

The term intergovernmental relations originated in the United States in the 1930s and was motivated by a strong concern for the effective delivery of public services to clients. The term has come to mean the activities and interactions among governmental units within a federation and includes local general purpose and special governments and nongovernmental units (Agranoff 2004)-often working in intergovernmental networks. For comparativists, intergovernmental relations are the workings of governmental representatives at various levels usually in institutional settings.