ABSTRACT
The notion of co-production emerged at particular time and place—during the 1970s in the United States. Americans were struggling to cope with a vast increase in public sector activities that resulted from a myriad of events and initiatives during the 1960s. The continuing arms race of the cold war, the civil rights movement, urban violence, the Great Society and the Vietnam War converged to produce an unprecedented scope and scale of government activity at all levels—federal, state and local. Not surprisingly, in pluralist America there were competing notions about the institutional arrangements for governments as they grappled with diverse demands for administrative effectiveness, citizen participation and democratic accountability.
