Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
In recent years a growing body of research has used multivariate statistical techniques to examine the relationship between aggregate environmental characteristics and the public policies of state and local governments. This research has been concerned primarily with isolating or demonstrating the social, economic, and political correlates of either public policies (e.g., expenditures, revenues and referenda issues) or governmental structures (viz., form of government, size of election districts and type of ballot).
One advantage of the aggregate approach, beyond the relative accessibility of data, is that it permits a systematic, comparative study of states or cities. On the local level this comparative approach provides a convenient supplement to the earlier case study approach which was concerned with the political processes and issues of particular cities.
A number of hypotheses have been suggested by studies employing either the case study or aggregate approaches. In those observations dealing with government structure, attention is usually directed to the council-manager plan as an example of progressive government. That is, city governments which are reform-oriented are likely to be found in more affluent, better educated, homogeneous, middle-class cities. The notion is that the middle class prefers a more efficient, professional city administration. Conversely, the mayor-council plan is usually associated with older, machine-type politics which allegedly reflects the preferences of the less affluent, less-educated, working class and ethnic minorities who are most concerned about political representation.
This research is a by-product of a larger study supported by a U.S. Public Health Service Research Grant (IFS AP33, 924-01). Special thanks are due my graduate assistant, David H. Vomacka, for his help in processing these data.
1 A good discussion of this literature can be found in Jacob, Herbert and Lipsky, Michael, “Outputs, Structure, and Power: An Assessment of Changes in the Study of State and Local Politics,” Journal of Politics, 30 (05, 1968), 510–538 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Perhaps the best known statement of this view is found in Banfield, Edward C. and Wilson, James Q., City Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1963)Google Scholar; and their article, “Public-Regardingness as a Value Premise in Voting Behavior,” this Review, 58 (12, 1964), 876–887 Google Scholar.
3 Adrian, Charles R., Governing Urban America (2nd ed., New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1961), pp. 214, 217–218 Google Scholar.
4 For example, they found that commission governments did not fulfill the objectives of institutional reform, i.e., this form of government seems to reflect rather than reduce the impact of social cleavages. Lineberry, Robert L. and Fowler, Edmund P., “Reformism and Public Policies in American Cities,” this Review, 61 (09, 1967), 701–716 Google Scholar.
5 See, for example, Mowitz, Robert J. and Wright, Deil S., Profile of a Metropolis (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; and Dahl, Robert, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961)Google Scholar.
6 See, for example, Dawson, Richard E. and Robinson, James A., “Interparty Competition, Economic Variables and Welfare Politics in the American States,” Journal of Politics, 25 (05, 1963), 265–298 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hofferbert, Richard I., “The Relation Between Public Policy and Some Structural and Environmental Variables in the American States,” this Review 60 (03, 1966), 73–82 Google Scholar; and Dye, Thomas R., “Governmental Structure, Urban Environment, and Educational Policy,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 11 (08, 1967), 353–380 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an exception to this general finding, see Sharkansky, Ira, “Economic and Political Correlates of State Government Expenditures: General Tendencies and Deviant Cases,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 11 (05, 1967), 173–192 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the discussion of this question in Jacob and Lipsky, op. cit., pp. 511–517.
7 On this point, see, Jacob and Lipsky, op. cit., p. 518.
8 Lineberry and Fowler, op. cit., p. 714.
9 Hereafter referred to as the Optional Charter Law.
10 Under the law, a city could place a proposal to elect a charter study commission before the voters either by ordinance or petition. If a commission were elected by popular vote, it could, after a study period, recommend either a mayor-council or council-manager charter, or it could recommend retention of the existing commission plan. A recommendation for a new charter was then placed before the people in a referendum.
11 Other structural variables usually considered in studies such as this were not relevant. Pennsylvania law requires partisan, at-large elections in all third-class cities.
12 One of these cities, at the time of this writing had not had the opportunity to vote. It was coded as an “active” rather than a new charter city.
13 The 1960 census populations of these cities range from 10,667 to 138,440. Five cities were excluded from the study because they have dropped below the legal population minimum of 10,000 required for third-class cities.
14 Variables 1 through 10 were taken from The Municipal Yearbook 1963 (Chicago: The International City Manager's Association, 1963)Google Scholar and The County and City Data Book 1962 (Washington: U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1962)Google Scholar. All data are taken from the 1960 census.
15 The Municipal Yearbook 1963, p. 97.
16 Ibid., p. 92.
17 The employment information and home office location were taken from the Pennsylvania Industrial Directory 1965 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Department of Internal Affairs, 1965)Google Scholar.
18 “Lists of Public Officials” (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Department of Property and Supplies), Vols. 92-97Google Scholar.
19 Twenty-one of the forty-three cities were defined as active.
20 Rejection was defined to include, in addition to electoral defeat, the failure of a charter study commission either to submit a recommendation or to recommend retention of the commission plan. One of these conditions was met in twenty-five cases involving twenty cities. Five cities experienced two campaigns. In the analysis, the second effort in these five cities was treated as a separate event.
21 The twenty-two referenda occurred in nineteen cities. Again, the second referendum in three of the cities was treated as a separate event with conditional changes treated as new information.
22 For example, see Booth, David A., Metropolises: The Nashville Consolidation (East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University, Institute for Community Development, 1963), pp. 37–56 Google Scholar; and Hawkins, Brett, “Public Opinion and Metropolitan Reorganization in Nashville,” Journal of Politics, 28 (05, 1966), 408–418 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 The risks involved in dichotomizing such complex variables are recognized and accepted in view of the new information which may be revealed about the interrelationship of these variables and the standard environmental indicators in determining policy outcomes.
24 The duration of reform activity usually ranged from a year to eighteen months. Additional information on some campaigns was found in published and unpublished documents made available by the Bureau of Research and Information of the Pennsylvania Department of Community Affairs, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
25 For an analysis of the correlates of voter turnout, see, Alford, Robert R. and Lee, Eugene C., “Voting Turnout in American Cities,” this Review, 62 (09, 1968), 796–813 Google Scholar.
26 Examples of such studies are: Sherbenou, Edgar L., “Class Participation, and the Council-Manager Plan,” Public Administration Review, 21 (Summer, 1961), 131–135 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kessel, John H., “Government Structure and Environment: A Statistical Note about American Cities,” this Review, 56 (09, 1962), 615–620 Google Scholar; Williams, Oliver P. and Adrian, Charles R., Four Cities: A Study in Comparative Policy Making (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963). pp. 287–288 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schnore, Leo F., The Urban Scene: Human Ecology and Demography (New York: The Free Press, 1965) pp. 184–199 Google Scholar; Alford, Robert R. and Scoble, Harry M., “Political and Socioeconomic Characteristics of American Cities,” The Municipal Yearbook 1965 (Chicago: The International City Manager's Association), pp. 82–97 Google Scholar; Liebman, Charles S., “Functional Differentiation and Political Characteristics of Suburbs,” Americal Journal of Sociology, 66 (03 1961), 485–490 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolfinger, Raymond E. and Field, John Osgood, “Political Ethos and the Structure of City Government,” this Review 60 (06, 1966), 306–326 Google Scholar; Dye, Thomas R., “Urban Political Integration: Conditions Associated with Annexation in American Cities,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 8 (11, 1964), 430–446 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dye, Thomas R., Liebman, Charles S., Williams, Oliver P. and Herman, Harold, “Differentiation and Cooperation in a Metropolitan Area, “Midwest Journal of Political Science, 7 (05, 1963), 145–155 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hawley, Amos H., “Community Power and Urban Renewal Success,” American Journal of Sociology, 68 (01, 1963) 422–431 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Schnore, Leo F. and Alford, Robert R., “Forms of Government and Socio-Economic Characteristics of Suburbs,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 8 (06, 1963), 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 The propositions listed are logically derived from the studies indicated in footnote 26, supra. These propositions are not empirically derived because most of this literature deals specifically with government structure rather than political change. Thus, the results of the examination of these propositions do not bear directly on the findings from which they were derived.
28 See also, Barth, Ernst A., “Community Influence Systems: Structure and Change,” Social Forces, 40 (10, 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, “Absentee-Owned Corporations and Community Power Structure,” American Journal of Sociology, 61 (03, 1956), 413–419 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schulze, Robert O., “The Role of Economic Dominants in Community Power Structure,” American Sociology Review, 23 (02, 1958), 3–9 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Schnore, op. cit., p. 190.
30 See for example, Hawley, Amos, “Metropolitan Populations and Municipal Expenditures in Central Cities,” Journal of Social Issues, 7 (1951), 100–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The reference to “caretaker” government is taken from the Williams and Adrian typology, loc. cit.
31 For a brief explanation, see Note, Table 2. A complete description of the program is available in Dixon, W. J. (ed.), Biomedical Computer Programs (Los Angeles: Health Sciences Computing Facility, Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of California, 1964), pp. 49–59 Google Scholar.
32 A further justification for this explanation is that population size is not strongly associated with any other environmental variable, and is only marginally associated with metropolitan classification (r = .33). It is possible that ethnicity (r = −.49) and race (percentage nonwhite, r = −.33) are exerting an indirect influence through metropolitan classification. These correlations indicate that there is a tendency for the suburban cities to have larger ethnic and non-white populations. But, the correlations between both these variables and the activity index are low, although directionally consistent (re = .29) (rnw = .25), and they proved to be rather inconsequential in the step-wise analysis.
33 The partial correlation coefficient between absentee-ownership and activity outcomes is −.45.
34 Recall that rejection here does not necessarily mean electoral defeat, but any of the means of rejection indicated earlier, supra, footnote 20.
35 Incomplete newspaper coverage is the reason other political variables were not included. Newspaper coverage improved greatly after it was established that a referendum would be held.
36 Recall again that “reform outcomes” (passage defeat) refer to the twenty-five cases in which decisions were made either by the charter commission, (e.g., recommendation to retain the commission plan) or in a referendum. At this point, only referenda decisions (defined as the percentage of the vote for the proposal) are considered.
37 See, for example, Adrian, op. cit., ch. 8; and Edward C. Banfield and James Q. Wilson, City Politics, op. cit., ch. 13.
38 A study of fluoridation referenda indicates that higher voter turnout is associated with the defeat of these referenda. See Pinard, Maurice, “Structural Attachments and Political Support in Urban Politics: The Case of Fluoridation Referendums,” American Journal of Sociology, 68 (03, 1963), 513–526 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 This is consistent with the findings that the position of the mayor is closely associated with the outcomes of fluoridation referenda. See Rosenthal, David B. and Crain, Robert L., “Executive Leadership and Community Innovation: The Fluoridation Experience,” Urban Affairs Quarterly, 1 (03, 1966), 39–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
40 The simple correlation between voter turnout and the percentage positive vote is negative, r = −.53.
41 Op. cit., p. 715.
42 See footnote 32, supra.
43 Supra, p. 1177–78.
44 Loc. cit.
45 See, for example, Jacob, Herbert, “The Consequence of Malapportionment: A Note of Caution,” Social Forces, 43 (12, 1964), 256–261 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dye, Thomas R., “Malapportionment and Public Policy in the States,” Journal of Politics, 27 (08, 1965), 586–601 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Politics, Economics and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966)Google Scholar; Hofferbert, Richard I., “The Relation Between Public Policy and Some Structural and Environmental Variables in the American States,” this Review, 60 (03, 1966), 73–82 Google Scholar; and Jacob and Lipsky, op. cit., 511–517.
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