Designing Intergovernmental Networks and Hierarchies: Harnessing Agent Based Models as Governance and Policy Analytics Platforms

Agent-based models can be deployed as governance and policy analytics platforms to simulate complex government program rules, analyze policy implementation processes in intergovernmental arenas and track resource flows and... [ view full abstract ]

Agent-based models can be deployed as governance and policy analytics platforms to simulate complex government program rules, analyze policy implementation processes in intergovernmental arenas and track resource flows and policy outcomes under differential configurations of governance network designs. This study provides a detailed application of an agent based model that is calibrated to simulate transportation program rules, track distribution of resource flows and test alternate governance network designs among the organizations spanning from the federal transportation agencies to the state agencies in Vermont, its regional planning commissions and local governments. To illustrate the potential of this agent based model as a governance and policy analytics platform, three specific questions are addressed: (1) What are the current “formal” vs “in-use” programmatic rules and policy implementation processes that mediate among the state versus regional versus local government agency priorities to select and implement transportation infrastructure development projects? (2) How equitable are the resource flows and consequent transportation infrastructure maintenance and development across regional planning commissions and local towns in the state of Vermont? (3) Are there alternate governance network designs that minimize the trade-offs between cost-effective maintenance of the transportation system, equitable access to the transportation services and infrastructure asset management criteria? A Pattern-Oriented, Agent Based Model (ABM) of the intergovernmental network, calibrated for the state of Vermont including its regional and local town governments, is presented. This ABM simulates the dynamics of transportation project prioritization processes under alternate intergovernmental institutional rule structures and assesses their impacts on financial investment flows from federal to state, regional and local scale governments. Multiple focus groups, individual interviews, and analysis of federal, state and regional scale transportation project and program data informed the development of this ABM. An optimization experiment was set up on the calibrated version of the model to recover “rules-in-use” by setting up a genetic algorithm that minimized the difference between observed and simulated GINI coefficients from annual funding allocations to regional governments. While formal rules assign 40% weight to regional priorities and 10% weight to “project momentum” for prioritizing projects, optimization experiment revealed that, in practice, regional priorities are only assigned 10% weight and project momentum carries 40% weight. Implications of alternate governance network designs and rules-in-use versus formal rules are derived for broader public management and administration theory.