Approaches and Determinants of Inter-governmental Coordination in Nepalese Federalism

Abstract

This paper focuses on identifying and analyzing the major approaches and determinants that are critical for Inter-governmental coordination/relation between and among different tiers of government in the context of Nepalese federalism. This paper is based on the review and analysis of the findings of various researches which tries to incorporate some tested approaches and some valid determinants that are fairly responsible to trigger the effective coordination and relation between federal, provincial and local government. The paper tries to conceptualize two terms coordination and relation as mutually inclusive concept rather than exclusive, so appears interchangeably as overlapping concept. Classical hierarchical approaches advocate coordination based on some procedures and defined workflow prevail in most formal organization. But network approach relies on mutual needs and is basically horizontal. Whereas contingency approach is combination of both wherever situation demands.  Determinants that can excel or impede coordination are resource dependency, legal or structural coordination, communication, trust, power distance and uncertainty avoidance. Finally the paper argues that to better up the intergovernmental coordination/relation formal/informal communication, level of resource dependency, legal and structural bindings, trust factors matters.