Political scientists have long been concerned about the tension between                  institutional fragmentation and policy coordination in the U.S. bureaucracy. The                  literature is rife with examples of agencies competing with each other or asserting                  their independence, while cooperation is relatively rare. This is of particular                  importance in policy areas such as biodiversity, where species, habitats, and                  ecosystems cross various agency jurisdictions.Bureaucratic Landscapes explores the                  reasons for the success and failure of interagency cooperation, focusing on several                  case studies of efforts to preserve biodiversity in California. The book examines                  why public officials tried to cooperate and the obstacles they faced, providing                  indirect evidence of policy impacts as well. Among other topics, it examines the                  role of courts in prompting agency action, the role of scientific knowledge in                  organizational learning, and the emergence of new institutions to resolve                  collective-action problems. Notable findings include the crucial role of                  environmental lawsuits in prompting agency action and the surprisingly active role                  of the Bureau of Land Management in resource preservation.

Bureaucratic Landscapes: Interagency Cooperation and the Preservation of Biodiversity (Politics, Science, and the Environment) PDF

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