Norman R. Luttbeg. The Grassroots of Democracy: A Comparative Study of Competition and Its Impact in the American Cities in the 1990s. Lanham, Maryland and Oxford, England: Lexington Books, 1999. xv + 207 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7391-0047-9.
Reviewed by Timothy D. Mead (Department of Political Science, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina)
Published on H-Urban (April, 2000)
Exploring Myths of Local Governance
Norman Luttbeg, Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University, turned his attention to many of the myths of governance in American cities. In particular, the myths Luttbeg considers relate to notions of the links between electoral competition and the responsiveness of local elected officials.
An extensive and useful review of scholarship leads to widely accepted hypotheses. Relying heavily on the insight of V. O. Key's work in the 1950s, Luttbeg hypothesizes that greater electoral competition should result in policies that are sympathetic to lower income groups and that competition should give voters choices of alternative policies. In particular, research and popular opinion contends that local government is more responsive than other levels of government. To some extent, this contention is a key component of the reform movement and its interest in institutional patterns as devices to ameliorate representational issues in local government. Luttbeg considers all these possibilities.
Luttbeg gathered data from 118 randomly selected cities over 25,000 population in the United States for two election cycles. The dates of the election cycles varied whether the individual city utilized two- or four-year terms and whether the individual city utilized elections in which all council members stood for election at the same time or the terms were staggered. Thus, data varied from 1986 to 1993. Election data included incumbents running, incumbents winning, incumbents returning, candidates per seat, margins of victory, voting turnout, and tenure in office. Institutional patterns and a host of social and economic measures were also gathered. Comparing these data with distributions across the United States indicates that the cities selected by Luttbeg were representative of all cities.
Luttbeg offers an excellent discussion of the implications of these measures for an understanding of electoral competition and its significance in the democracy of local governance in the United States. The theoretical work in this book is first-rate.
These data were manipulated with a rotated factor analysis. Luttbeg addresses, based on these manipulations, the origins of competition, the impact of competition, and the role of competition in improving representation among traditionally underrepresented groups --African-Americans, women, and Hispanics. Luttbeg also considers the impact of electoral competition on an array of local policies.
Most of Luttbeg's conclusions are contrary to expectation. While this brief review cannot trace Luttbeg's argument in detail, his conclusions are worth quoting:
"1. Competition in city elections varies greatly among cities but has little or no impact on city politics or policies." p. 142)
"2. City institutions, policies, and even politics have strong regional characteristics." (p 143)
"3. The use of district rather than at-large elections has no impact on representation of minorities." (p. 144)
"4. The accurate representation of those previously underrepresented on city councils has no impact on the policies of cities." (p. 146)
"5. American cities vary greatly in size, minority percentage and heterogeneity, growth, and size relative to the surrounding metropolitan spread, but suburbs and core cities do not represent the poles of diversity, growth, and population size." (p. 146)
"6. Two institutions have a small effect on competition in American cities, the number on the city council, and the salaries paid to city council members." (p. 148)
"7. Institutions do play a limited independent role in shaping city policies and expenditures." (p. 151)
"8. While institutions and demography influence voting turnout, turnout little shapes city politics or policies." (p. 153)
"9. There is nothing about elections in American cities or in the dynamics of their politics that would suggest this is a government 'close to the people.'" (p. 154)
Luttbeg notes that his findings will be controversial. For example, his conclusion that minority representation is not enhanced by district representation flies in the face of the tradition of institutional tinkering which has dominated American cities since the reform movement and will be unpopular among minority advocates, including the U. S. Justice Department.
In some senses, and Luttbeg recognizes this, the strength of this work is also its weakness. Aggregate analysis permits generalization without becoming captured by the details of specific cities. At the same time, the local factors which enrich the study of local politics are lost in the wealth of data and analysis.
Because Luttbeg's work will be controversial it will spawn additional research. There are ideas here for doctoral students for the next generation, perhaps as many as generated by the work of V. O. Key; high praise, I know.
One possibility for additional research would be to study a small number of cities over a long period of time with the model developed by Luttbeg. In the aggregate analysis done by Luttbeg, there is no place to consider the impact of local political traditions on competition. For example, politicians prefer to draw district lines in ways that minimize competition. District lines are drawn to assure safe seats for Democrats, Republicans, incumbents, whites, blacks, Hispanics, or other groups. Under such conditions, there may be intense competition, but it takes place away from the electoral arena. Parties often divert prospective candidates from direct competition with one another to avoid wasting scarce partisan resources in primaries.
While Luttbeg has written a small book, it is large in its implications for local government democracy in the United States. Myths do not like to be challenged. I commend this work to your attention.
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Citation:
Timothy D. Mead. Review of Luttbeg, Norman R., The Grassroots of Democracy: A Comparative Study of Competition and Its Impact in the American Cities in the 1990s.
H-Urban, H-Net Reviews.
April, 2000.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4020
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