• Because I just got an updated roll sheet, I want to hold off until next class before discussing the group projects;
• I would strongly encourage students to make an appointment to see me about the project. Go over the guidelines and answer questions.

Today's Blueprint:

Overlap from the last discussion:

• In the last class, we discussed the major issues in UP:
• The culture of privatism (fosters a conflict between economic individualism and social responsibility)
• The politics of growth (leads to the trade-off between a city government having financial autonomy and a city government having corporate backing).
• The challenge of governance (makes for a tradeoff between the political and economic logic of governing a city)
• The politics of succession (fosters the conflict between the affluent and the resource dependent)

 
• In today's class, we will extend that discussion, diving into the dominant theories of UP. Discussing theories of urban politics requires us to address three (3) important questions:
1. Who holds power in American cities?
2. What is power/Political Power?
3. How do social science researchers study power?

• We will finish our discussion talking specifically about:
• The challenges facing scholars who study pluralism
• Critiques of pluralism (the anti-pluralists)

Who has power in the urban environment? Who runs our cities? Who makes decisions about how urban space is used? Who gains and who loses? The actor include:

1. Government - central and local (regional?).
2. Business interests - small or large scale capital? Local, national or transnational?
3. The wealthy (v the poor)?
4. Citizens - regular right to vote, but otherwise usually passive
5. Local tax payers (not all citizens pay taxes)
6. Local service users - council tenants, parents of school children, public transport users (collective consumption)
7. The 'working class' - who are they? Are they 'class conscious'? Do they have a collective interest?
8. Urban social movements (or just urban movements)

What is power?

• The ability to make something happen
• The ability to stop somebody else from doing something
• Extending this logic, Political power = the power used to determine who will hold government office and how the government will behave.

• The first face of power is the ability to get certain issues on the agenda.
• The second face of power is the ability to keep off the agenda.
• The third face of power is the ability to impose one's preferences on others and convince others that your preferences are theirs.

• Relating this to UP, the ability to get an issue on to the agenda or to keep an issue off the agenda is an example of two faces of political power. The "silent" face of power includes negative decision-making, ideological domination, the mobilization of bias, anticipated reactions-all types of non-decision making.

• In other words, the power of city leaders is sometimes reflected in what cities do not do (i.e. refusing to grant unemployment compensation, income taxes, welfare services, etc.).

• Even the anticipation by some people of the needs and wishes of those deemed to be powerful is an example of the second face of power.

• Power can be latent or realized. Command over resources that may or may not be used. Resource mobilization. The capacity to act. It may reside in identifiable people or it may reside in some kind of coalition. Its location may change over time. It is experienced as a structure that limits opportunities, but also as something that can be taken through action.

 

• Does it always have to be taken away from someone else (i.e. a fixed sum in a win/lose game)? Or can new forms of power be generated?
• What about related terms such as authority (legitimate power, the right to issue commands and expect them to be obeyed), and influence (power exercised through others).

• Note the problem of methodology-Power cannot be found just by demonstrating which people fill which leadership positions. It depends on the process by which people actually take power by engaging in action.

• Therefore power is not always directly measurable. It can, however, be seen indirectly in its results:
• It can be seen through the unequal distributions of goods, services, life chances.
• It can to some extent be inferred from people's accounts of who they think is powerful, because some people gain power by other people offering it to them.

• Keep in mind that, researchers tend to find what they expect
• For example, pluralists find plural forms of decision-making when they study power, elite theorists find elites, etc.
• The reading I gave you for this weekend was by Rodney Hero, a Latino Politics scholar, and his perspective flavors what he find when he studies political power.

• Having said all this, let's take a look at how some scholars make sense of power in urban politics. Textbooks call these perspectives the "Theories of Urban Politics." Essentially, these are theories explaining who holds power. We will examine the relative merits of various theories of who holds the power below.

Caveat: In a sense, we are learning this is out of order. Early studies of UP (1929 - late 50s) stressed a model of class stratification. These were primarily elite-level theories. The way the syllabus is set up, we will not get into elite level theories of urban politics until later this week. In the meantime, pluralism is arguably the biggest theme in UP, so I believe that learning this first will help you when we learn the other theories later.

What is Pluralism?

• Pluralist theory (also known as the Interest Group Theory of Urban Politics) is a theory that holds that political resources are divided among different kinds of elites, giving relevant interest the chance to influence the outcome of decisions. Policies are made by conflict and bargaining among organizations that represent affected groups.

 

• System is open and democratic
• Notion of volition (decision/will)
• Elections: ultimate guarantee of democracy
• Anticipatory Reaction
• Economic notables don't constitute a ruling elite
• Power is not vested in any one group
• Resources don't always equal power
• Power is not cumulative: multiple centers of power
• Determine power by looking at decisions NOT reputations

• Pluralists believe that modern societies are made up of a bunch of institutions and organizations, each having diverse cultural, religious, economic, and racial/ethnic interests.
• Democratic pluralism is based on the assumption that democracy can exist in heterogeneous societies, so long as groups have equal access to power.
• Therefore, pluralists assume that conflict among groups will balance power against power, resulting in a society without power monopolies.

 

• Floyd Hunter (1953), Community Power Structure
• Robert Dahl (1956), Who Governs?
• Michael Parenti, Power and the Powerless
• Browning, Marshall, and Tabb (1984), Protest is Not Enough
• Clarence Stone (1989), Regime Politics
• Michael Lipsky (1993, new edition), Protest as Political Resource

 

• The question is an empirical one—how does a democracy work within a system of great material inequalities.

• One approach: study issues in city politics and how they are resolved. Dahl’s study of New Haven, CT is the classic.
• Different elites made different decisions in different issue areas,
• Inequalities were found to be non-cumulative, and citizens had some resources to influence decisions (though Dahl always accepted there was inequality in resources).

 The Anti-Pluralists: [Include Hero in this discussion]
 Not everyone agreed with the pluralists.  This is not nearly an exhaustive list, but I present some of the critics to the pluralist perspective below.

• Elmer E. Schattschneider (1960), The Semi-Sovereign People
• Pluralists do not account for the interests and individuals who are systematically excluded from the process i.e. the poor, minorities, etc.
• Advanced the notion of a “mobilization of bias” (i.e. Parenti’s findings in NJ)
• Certain interests are organized out of the process

• Individuals are given disincentives for participation

• Politics of prevention: keeps certain groups from actively participating in the process
• Thus, non-participants do so because they’re blocked NOT b/c they’re complacent or satisfied

• Dahl’s notion of Anticipatory Reaction is false
• Leaders anticipate what the elites (powerful) want and make decisions accordingly

• Bachrach and Barratz: Certain groups are victimized by a process of non-decision making wherein certain problems are never addressed

• Michael Parenti: Certain issues are never placed on the agenda and become “non-issues”

• Gamson (1971): Process of Stable Unrepresentation
• May have access to vote, but power/influence is unequal

• Olson: Free-Rider Process
• People aren’t vocal/active about certain issues bc they can benefit without direct action

• Ways Bias is Mobilized
1. Threat of sanctions
2. Passing the buck
3. Over-studying an issue

• Critique of "democracy as sham" theme of stratification theory
• In a sentence, stratification theory is the idea that, in mid-large places, lack of urban machine creates a political "vacuum."  In smaller, homogeneous places, limited conflict means that there are "limited stakes"
• Early studies (1929 - late 50s) stress model of class stratificatio
1. upper strata
2. middle strata
3. lower strata

•     Each "layer" has its own belies (ideology) which are determined by its standing
• lower = worker consciousness
• middle = home owner consciousness
• upper = capital owner consciousness

• Each layer seeks to promote its interests at the expense of others (for example, the “top layers” control machinery of govt. but they might not factor in the interests of the needy).

• …Now, back to Pluralist Theory (R. Dahl, New Haven CT 1961)
• Identify those having reputation as powerful, then
• OBSERVE decisions they make/influence in 3 areas:
• re-development policy
• political nominations
• education policy

1) Few have power in all areas
 

• of top 50 "competitive" groups, only 3 (one is the elected mayor)
• most (27) influence in only 1 area

2) Power diffuse, fluid and mobile
 

• function of expertise, of interest groups
• new groups mobilize quickly when threatened
• busing, building ugly homes
• groups dont withdraw from process less statisfied
• no personal/family "power strucure"

3) democratic functions have real meaning
 

• most are registered voters
• elections not corrup
• in New Haven, elections competitive
• partisan, competing slates
• this constrains elites

• not only $$ and social standing
• mobilize voters, information, education
• popularity, courts, legal system
• unequal distribution of resources BUT
• easy acces to one resource of power ($$$) NOT
• equal to access to another (popular support)
• no single resource of power dominant
• nomination function of votes, popularity
• re-development function of $$, information
• education function of legal power, court access

Key questions Things to think about for next class:

• Is power over localities local?
• If not, what use are local politics, local economic development, community development?
• Many of the studies of urban power assume that it can be found within the locality being studied. However, supposing the decisions that matter are made outside the locality (at a different level) is localism a trap for the unwary social scientist?
• Does place matter?
• Is it becoming more important as cities market themselves in a global economy?