Urban Politics in the State Arena

Autor: Gerald Gamm, Nancy Burns, Laura Evans, Corrine M. McConnaughy
Rok vydání: 2009
Předmět:
Zdroj: Studies in American Political Development. 23:1-22
ISSN: 1469-8692
0898-588X
DOI: 10.1017/s0898588x09000017
Popis: We seek to explain how states govern big cities. Political scientists' accounts of urban politics either fail to treat the state systematically or place state hostility at the center of such an account. Accounts by historians, by contrast, offer tools political scientists can use to theorize urban politics in the state arena. We use those tools, and we find that cities can manage the legislative process. This power starts with bill introduction and carries through to the vote on the floor. This ability results from a central feature of American state politics: on bills about big cities, state legislators now and in the past find their primary voting cues in the unity of local delegations. The city delegation, then, has tremendous power to manage the state's involvement in city affairs. In many respects, ours is an account of a special kind of divided government, with two institutional arenas where urban government is carried out.
Databáze: OpenAIRE