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This paper analyzes collaboration strategies for the provision of services at local level in the municipalities of Spain, United States and Norway. It focuses on the importance of these strategies and how they are carried out in the cases mentioned, as well as the role that various factors play in such strategies. For this purpose, attention is paid to elements of the social, economic and political dynamics of the municipality, but also to the institutional design elements which shape the position that local authorities occupy in the intergovernmental system in each case. This requires an analytical approach at two different levels, which we call meso and micro respectively. The meso level concerns institutional design elements that operate in the municipality as a determining factor in the collaboration models, whilst the micro level deals with those elements located in local political society that determine the local authorities' opportunities for carrying out their strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]