ABSTRACT
Th e emergence of this viable transnational municipal network in the Great Lakes challenges our present understanding of the limits of local government in bilateral environmental cooperation. The mere existence of the Cities Initiative directly contradicts the findings of a Policy Research Institute (PRI) report sponsored by the Government of Canada which concluded that local government cross-border cooperation is sparse, that it is predominantly bilateral in nature (i.e. between individual or very small groups of cities), and that it lacks institutionalization (Policy Research Institute 2005). It challenges previous findings that local actors in North America are unable to institutionalize their cross-border relations. For example, Brunet-Jailly (2004) concludes that a “competitive-city paradigm” permeates cross-border relations in North America predicated on intense market pressures that precludes local governments from establishing and sustaining institutionalized forms of crossborder cooperation. He argues that “local actors primarily compete” (BrunetJailly 2004) and that in North America “intra-metropolitan regional competition exists in principle”. Consequently, Brunet-Jailly concludes that no cross-border
institutions exist involving Canadian and American local governments. Norman (2009), in her analysis of transboundary water governance along the United States-Canada border, concludes that “although local actors are genuinely attempting to engage in transboundary governance, they encounter limited success due to inadequate resources and restricted capacity” and that “local actors are less able to transcend the border than their nation-state counterparts”. In contrast to these fi ndings, the Cities Initiative is the clearest manifestation of the increased policy capacity of American and Canadian local governments, and provides evidence that local governments are able to transcend market forces, inter-municipal competition, and sparse resources in developing institutionalized cross-border relations.
