Inter-municipal Cooperation in the Netherlands

Abstract

In this chapter, we describe some of the features of the Dutch way of organizing inter-municipal cooperation, using a nation-wide study. The permissive institutional structure provides municipalities with a wide range of organizational structures for cooperation, including both public and private law options. This has resulted in a wide range of almost 800 inter-municipal cooperations and in high variations in both the level and complexity of inter-municipal cooperations for different municipalities. All in all this ‘crazy-quilt’ pattern of cooperation seems to be working quite well, as both democratic quality and performance in terms of perceived benefits and (transaction) costs are for most cases at a satisfactory level.