Social Background Characteristics of Nonpartisan City Council Members
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3240355 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carol A Cassel (University of Alabama, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1985 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 495-501 |
| Publication date | 1985-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Western Political Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-4078 • E-ISSN: 2325-8675 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591298503800314 |
| OpenAlex | W2024876691 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 4 |
IN ROUGHLY two-thirds of U.S. municipal elections, candidates run for office without party labels.' Such nonpartisan elections are a product of the municipal reform movement of the early twentieth century, which attempted to limit the power of corrupt party machines, insulate local elections from the influence of state and national party politics, facilitate more efficient and businesslike administration of local government, and encourage recruitment of superior candidates, who might be reluctant to associate themselves with party organizations (Lee 1960). Nonpartisan elections provide an interesting contrast with elections where party labels are present. Behaviorally oriented political scientists of the mid-twentieth century questioned the validity of the reformers' good government theory of nonpartisan elections. A revisionist theory developed based on observations of nonpartisan elections in practice and a theoretical recognition of the functions of political parties in political systems. The classic reassessment was made by Adrian (1952), who hypothesized that nonpartisan elections weakened political parties, tended to be issueless in nature, advantaged incumbents and made them less accountable to the public, and restricted recruitment to higher political office. Subsequent studies of California cities (Lee 1960; Hawley 1973) also asserted that nonpartisan systems tended to over-recruit members of the business community and Republicans, thus reducing the representativeness of local government. This is plausible on any of several grounds: high-SES candidates (and Republicans) may be more willing to run for office in nonpartisan systems; highSES candidates may be more likely to have the resources to win without the aid of a party label; or lower turnout in nonpartisan elections may bias the voting electorate in favor of high-SES candidates. To date, none of this has been tested with a nationwide survey. This paper makes a beginning toward remedying that omission. Drawing on a survey of all U.S. cities with a population of 2,500 or more, I test the revisionist assertion that high-SES candidates are elected more frequently
Democracy · Government (linguistics) · Local government · Political economy · Political machine · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Representativeness heuristic · Sociology · State (computer science) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Public Administration · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,1 |
| Citation span | 1987 - 2018 (32) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |