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Correlates of Influence in Local Government: An Exploratory Investigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Colin S. Rallings
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Extract

Over a number of years, and with concerns as far apart as democratic theory and organizational behaviour, many commentators have studied the patterns of recruitment in local government and the contents of the job that elected officials take upon themselves. Most of these analyses have convincingly shown a tendency for political actors to possess a higher average socioeconomic status than the population from which they are drawn. One student is explicit in saying that ‘politics is a middle-class job and the training appropriate for middle-class jobs is also a training for politics’. What has not, however, been subject to such extended consideration is the question of differences among groups of legislators themselves. This Note attempts to restore the balance by reporting briefly on a limited and exploratory investigation of patterns of leadership/influence in one Scottish local council.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 1976 , pp. 356 - 364
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 For Britain see, for example, Rees, A. M. and Smith, Trevor, Town Councillors: A Study of Barking (London: Acton Society Trust, 1964)Google Scholar; Sharpe, L. J., ‘Elected Representatives in Local Government’, British Journal of Sociology, XIII (1962), 189–209Google Scholar; Heclo, Hugh, ‘The Councillor's Job’, Public Administration, XLVII (1969), 185–202.Google Scholar For the United States see Prewitt, Kenneth, The Recruitment of Political Leaders: A Study of Citizen Politicians (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970)Google Scholar; and Matthews, Donald, The Social Background of Political Decision-Makers (New York: Random House, 1954).Google Scholar

2 Blondel, Jean, Voters, Parties and Leaders, revised edn.(Harmondsworth, Middx.:Penguin, 1969), p. 133.Google Scholar

3 A notable exception is Barber, James David's The Lawmakers (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

4 One by-election was pending during fieldwork in June/July 1973. Readers unfamiliar with the nuances of Scottish local government may welcome a clarification of some terms. A Large Burgh was – until the implementation of reform in April 1975 – an administrative district with powers and responsibilities rather similar to those of the old English County Boroughs. A committee's convenor is its chairman and the depute, quite simply, his deputy!

5 Jackson, R. M., The Machinery of Local Government (London: Macmillan, 1965), p. 76.Google Scholar

6 Bealey, Frank et al. , Constituency Politics (London: Faber, 1965)Google Scholar, Chap. 17; and Spencer, Paul, ‘Party Politics and the Process of Local Government in an English Town Council’, in Richards, A. and Kuper, A., eds., Councils in Action: Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 179.Google Scholar

7 Rose, Richard, People in Politics (London: Faber, 1970), p. 112.Google Scholar

8 For good though somewhat dated bibliographies see Verba, Sidney, Small Groups and Political Behaviour (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961)Google Scholar and Gibb, Cecil A., ed., Leadership (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1969).Google Scholar

9 Barber, James David, Power in Committees (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1967).Google Scholar

10 See Barber, , Power in Committees, p. 97Google Scholar; and Bales, Robert F., Interaction Process Analysis (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1950).Google Scholar

11 For evidence and discussion on this see Hollander, E. P., Leaders, Groups and Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 91–3.Google ScholarPubMed

12 The original inquiry also included an attempt to tap aspects of each councillor's personality. However, this did not yield particularly reliable results and discussion of it is excluded from the following analysis.

13 Of our ten influential only one – the minority group leader – is non-Labour. The coincidence of being an ‘influential’, being a convenor or depute in one of our six committees, and being a member of the Labour group executive accounts for six of the remaining nine cases. The other three include the present constituency Labour party chairman and a former Labour group leader.

14 Barber, , Power in Committees, p. 83.Google Scholar

15 We are using here the Registrar-General's five-fold social class classification. For an explanation of these categories, see Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, Classification of Occupations 1970 (London: HMSO, 1970).Google Scholar Percentages are used throughout, not in an attempt to disguise the small base numbers with which we are working, but in order to help clarify such differences as we do find between our respondents. Of the total of twenty-five councillors interviewed, ten are influential and fifteen are not.

16 Most studies in Britain report a similar pattern of response. Contrast, however, Prewitt's findings in America, where some 50 per cent of his sample became politically aware either in their adult years or sometimes only on their actual elevation to political office! See Prewitt, , Recruitment of Political Leaders, pp. 57–62.Google Scholar

17 For our purposes a ‘brokerage occupation’ may be defined as a non-manual job requiring some degree of initial professional training and the constant exercise of verbal and conciliatory skills. Here we do include teaching of all kinds, although at the secondary level and below this may be stretching our point a little far.