Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T18:04:01.371Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Local Roots of American Inequality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2006

Stephen Macedo  and
Christopher F. Karpowitz
Stephen Macedo
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Christopher F. Karpowitz
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

We agree with the Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy that not only the quality but the very legitimacy of American democracy is threatened by persistent and rising inequalities of political power and influence. Class conflict is as old as democracy itself, and there is an intrinsic tension between the inequalities generated by free markets and the political equality that is at the core of democracy. No institutional fixes or policy remedies will fully overcome this tension, and in some respects it may be a useful tension. But current institutional and policy arrangements—especially at the local level—are exacerbating inequalities and political divisions in ways that are toxic for democracy.Because our discussion here draws heavily on our book Democracy at Risk, we wish to fully acknowledge and thank each of the book's co-authors, including Yvette Alex-Assensoh, Jeffrey M. Berry, Michael Brintnall, David E. Campbell, Luis Ricardo Fraga, Archon Fung, William A. Galston, Margaret Levi, Meira Levinson, Keena Lipsitz, Richard G. Niemi, Robert D. Putnam, Wendy M. Rahn, Rob Reich, Robert R. Rodgers, Todd Swanstrom, and Katherine Cramer Walsh. Our co-authors in that effort have contributed significantly to our understanding of the issues we discuss here, including by offering prose that we have relied on and put to use in this article. While we acknowledge our deep debt to our colleagues, any errors remaining are, of course, ours alone.

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2006 , pp. 59 - 64
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addonizio, Elizabeth. 2004. “Reducing Inequality in Political Participation: An Experiment to Measure the Effects of Voting Instruction on Youth Voter Turnout.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Alex-Assensoh, Yvette. 1998. Neighborhoods, Family, and Political Participation in Urban America. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Barron, David J. 2003. “Reclaiming Home Rule.” Harvard Law Review 116(8): 2255–386.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 2005. “Economic Inequality and Political Representation.” Unpublished manuscript, Princeton University. Available online at www.princeton.edu/∼bartels/economic.pdf [last accessed 17 October, 2005].Google Scholar
Berry, Jeffrey M., Kent E. Portney, and Ken Thomson. 1991. “ The Political Behavior of Poor People.” In The Urban Underclass, eds. Christopher Jencks and Paul Peterson. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Berry, Jeffrey M., Kent E. Portney, and Ken Thomson. 1993. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Bolland, John, and Debra Moehle McCallum. 2002. “Neighboring and Community Mobilization in High-Poverty Inner-City Neighborhoods.” Urban Affairs Review 38: 42–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bositis, David A. 2003. Black Elected Officials: A Statistical Summary, 2001. Washington, D.C.: Joint Center for Political and Electoral Studies.Google Scholar
Browning, Rufus, Dale Marshall, and David Tabb. 1984. Protest Is Not Enough: The Struggle of Blacks and Hispanics for Equality in Urban Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Burns, Nancy. 1994. The Formation of American Local Governments: Private Values in Public Institutions. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Census Bureau. 2002. 2002 Census of Governments, vol. 1, no. 1: Government Organization. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Cohen, Cathy, and Michael Dawson. 1993. “Neighborhood Poverty and African American Politics.” American Political Science Review 87(2): 286–302.Google Scholar
Danielson, Michael N. 1976. The Politics of Exclusion. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Chandler, and Bernard Grofman. 1994. Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1970. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Scott Keeter. 1996. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dreier, Peter, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom. 2004. Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-first Century, 2nd edition. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Edsall, Thomas Byrne, and Mary Edsall. 1991. Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Elkin, Stephen L. 1987. City and Regime in the American Republic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Farley, Reynolds, ed. 1995. State of the Union: America in the 1990s. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P., with Samuel J. Abrams, and Jeremy C. Pope. 2005. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. New York: Pearson Longman.Google Scholar
Frey, William H. 2003. “ Melting Pot Suburbs: A Study of Suburban Diversity.” In Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from Census 2000, eds. Bruce Katz and Robert E. Lang. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Friesma, Paul. 1969. “Black Control of Central Cities: The Hollow Prize.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35: 75–79.Google Scholar
Frug, Gerald E. 2002. “Beyond Regional Government.” Harvard Law Review 115(7): 1763–836.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fung, Archon. 2004. Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 2005. “Public Opinion and Democratic Responsiveness: Who Gets What They Want from Government?” Presented at the annual meeting of inequality working groups sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation, Berkeley, CA. Available online at www.russellsage.org/programs/other/inequality/050830.944626/download [last accessed 17 October, 2005].Google Scholar
Glaeser, Edward L., and Jacob L. Vigdor. 2003. “ Racial Segregation: Promising News.” In Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from Census 2000, eds. Bruce Katz and Robert E. Long. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hajnal, Zoltan, and Jessica Trounstine. 2005a. “Where Turnout Matters: The Consequences of Uneven Turnout in City Politics.” Journal of Politics 67(May): 515–535.Google Scholar
Hajnal, Zoltan, and Jessica Trounstine. 2005b. “Turnout Matters: Voter Turnout and City Spending.” Presented at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, Princeton University, October. Available online at www.princeton.edu/∼csdp/events/pdfs/seminars/hajnal/101305.pdf [last accessed 17 October, 2005].Google Scholar
Harden, Blaine. 2005. “The Economics of Return: Class, Color May Guide Repopulation of New Orleans.” Washington Post, October 19, A01.Google Scholar
Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 2002. Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs about How Government Should Work. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kelleher, Christine, and David Lowery. 2004. “Central City Size, Metropolitan Institutions, and Political Participation: An Individual-Level Analysis of Twenty-five Urban Counties.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Kraus, Neil, and Todd Swanstrom. 2001. “Minority Mayors and the Hollow Prize Problem.” PS: Political Science and Politics 34(March): 99–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Logan, John R. 2003. “ Ethnic Diversity Grows, Neighborhood Integration Lags.” In Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from Census 2000, eds. Bruce Katz and Robert E. Long. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Macedo, Stephen, et al. 2005. Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation and What We Can Do About It. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas S., and Mary J. Fischer. 2003. “ The Geography of Inequality in the United State, 1950–2000.” In Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs 2003, eds. William G. Gale and Janet Rothenberg Pack. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas, and Nancy Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McConnell, Grant. 1966. Private Power and American Democracy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
NALEO (National Association of Latino Elected, and Appointed Officials) Election Fund. 2002. 2002 National Directory of Latino Elected Officials. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., and Jane Junn. 1998. Civic Education: What Makes Students Learn? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., and Julia Smith. 2001. “Enrollments in High School Government Classes: Are We Shortchanging Both Citizenship and Political Science Training?” PS: Political Science and Politics 34: 281–87.Google Scholar
Orfield, Myron. 2003. American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Vincent, Charles M. Tiebout, and Robert O. Warren. 1961. “The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry.” American Political Science Review 44(4): 831–42.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Vincent, Robert Bish, and Elinor Ostrom. 1988. Local Government in the United States. Oakland, CA: ICS Press.Google Scholar
Patrick, John. 2005. “The Civic Mission of Schools: Key Ideas in a Research-Based Report on Civic Education in the United States.” University of Maryland, Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, May.Google Scholar
Peterson, Paul E. 1981. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rae, Douglas W. 2003. City: Urbanism and Its End. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., and John Mark Hansen. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. 2000. “Deliberative Trouble? Why Groups Go To Extremes.” Yale Law Journal 110(71).Google Scholar
Swanstrom, Todd, Colleen Casey, Robert Flack, and Peter Dreier. 2004. Pulling Apart: Economic Segregation in the Top Fifty Metropolitan Areas, 1980–2000. Brookings Institution, Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, October.Google Scholar
Tiebout, Charles M. 1956. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” Journal of Political Economy 64(October): 416–424.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Kay L. Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Volunteerism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weissberg, Robert. 2006. “Politicized Pseudo Science.” PS: Political Science and Politics 39(January): 33–37.Google Scholar
Wolfinger, Raymond E., Benjamin Highton, and Megan Mullin. 2005. “How Post-Registration Laws Affect the Turnout of the Registered.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 5(spring).Google Scholar
Wood, Curtis, 2002. “Voter Turnout in City Elections.” Urban Affairs Review 38(November): 202–232.Google Scholar
Yates, Douglas. 1977. The Ungovernable City: The Politics of Urban Problems and Policy Making. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar