Bureaucratic Landscapes: Interagency Cooperation and the Preservation of Biodiversity

Political scientists have long been concerned about the tension between institutionalfragmentation and policy coordination in the U.S. bureaucracy. The literature is rife with examplesof agencies competing with each other or asserting their independence, while cooperation isrelatively rare. This is of particular importance in policy areas such as biodiversity, wherespecies, habitats, and ecosystems cross various agency jurisdictions.Bureaucratic Landscapesexplores the reasons for the success and failure of interagency cooperation, focusing on severalcase studies of efforts to preserve biodiversity in California. The book examines why publicofficials tried to cooperate and the obstacles they faced, providing indirect evidence of policyimpacts as well. Among other topics, it examines the role of courts in prompting agency action, therole of scientific knowledge in organizational learning, and the emergence of new institutions toresolve collective-action problems. Notable findings include the crucial role of environmentallawsuits in prompting agency action and the surprisingly active role of the Bureau of LandManagement in resource preservation.