Intermunicipal cooperation: policy transfer in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro

Intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) in Brazilian metropolises has increased since the year 2000, addressing certain governance vacuums. Eight IMC cases in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) metropolises were analysed to explore how territorial forces influence cooperation policy transfer and where hierarchical influences enter the process. Four policy transfer models are proposed - diffusion, convergence, combination and territorial - in which three different types of forces act: the individual motivation of municipalities, and hierarchical and territorial forces. This study shows that non-political territorial forces potentially disrupt the historically hierarchical territorial governance, although regional-local policies still have hierarchical influences extending to international levels.