Systematic versus Idiosyncratic Factors in Local Elections

This chapter examines the systematic factors behind local electoral results. Looking at data from over 7,000 different municipalities over a twenty-year time period, it appears that local elections are a curious mixture of the predictable and the idiosyncratic. They are predictable in that the majority of incumbents for local office either run unopposed or win reelection if they face challengers. This is consistent with the idea of managerial democracy: elections for local office should hinge on issues of custodial performance, and because incumbents get reelected at high rates, most are probably doing their jobs well enough to satisfy enough constituents or to dissuade any opponents. Identifying those instances when incumbents are likely to lose, however, turns out to be a very difficult task. Of the few identifiable trends, it appears that incumbent city council members are more likely to lose in places that are larger in size, greater in scope, and higher in bias. But the ability to predict the likelihood that any given incumbent is likely to lose, even when we know most political and social characteristics of a place, remains small.

Rethinking Local Democracy

This chapter considers the managerial character of local democracy. It asks: Does managerial democracy inhibit or enhance the capacity of most Americans for meaningful self-governance? Who governs in a managerial democracy? In most places, local democracy is less about coalitions of property speculators and machine politicians establishing local fiefdoms or about marginalized groups, such as minorities or the poor, empowering themselves through civic activism. Rather, it is more about large portions of the electorate attaining relatively easy consensus over the general management of a limited number of government services and a greater stratification of different groups across municipal boundaries. Local democracy in suburban America is less about intramunicipal political struggle than it is about intermunicipal political exclusion. This situation creates a much more complicated picture of “who governs” America than what most existing research suggests.