Measuring accountability in interlocal agreements between Indigenous and local governments

Abstract

Interlocal agreements are becoming a popular policy tool for facilitating intergovernmental coordination and cooperation in Canada and the United States. Indigenous and local governments are also turning to these agreements despite long histories of colonialism, exploitation and dispossession by the settler State toward Indigenous communities. To what extent do interlocal agreements between Indigenous and municipal governments require stringent accountability measures to facilitate intergovernmental coordination? Using a hierarchical Bayesian item response theory model, we explore this question by analyzing 317 interlocal agreements between Indigenous and municipal communities in Canada. We find that accountability strength varies significantly across agreements, contrary to our expectation that accountability requirements would be strong across agreements due to the long history of colonialism. We also find that some of the variation may be a function of the policy area addressed by each agreement, although this finding is likely the result of measurement uncertainty in our estimates.