Government Congruence and Intergovernmental Relations in Federal Systems

Abstract: Intergovernmental arrangements in federal systems are important instruments to co-ordinate policy making between subnational governments. We argue that the capacity of these arrangements to guide government behaviour is shaped by the arrangements' institutionalization, which is affected by the programmatic differences between the governmental parties embedded in them. This paper presents first a measure of government congruence, which captures the programmatic differences between subnational governments. Secondly, it explores the impact of government congruence on intergovernmental arrangements' institutionalization across six countries.