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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-24-26 Study Commission Agenda and Packet MaterialsA. Call to Order with Pledge of Allegiance and Moment of Silence - 11:00 AM, Commission Room, City Hall, 121 North Rouse B. Changes to the Agenda C. Public Comment on Anything within the Jurisdiction of the Study Commission THE STUDY COMMISSION OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA SC AGENDA Friday, April 24, 2026 How to Participate: If you are interested in commenting in writing on items on the agenda please send an email to govreview@bozeman.net prior to 12:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting. At the direction of the Study Commission, anonymous public comments are not distributed to the Study Commission. Public comments will also be accepted in-person and through video conference during the appropriate agenda items but you may only comment once per item. As always, the meeting will be recorded and streamed through the Meeting Videos and available in the City on cable channel 190. For more information please contact Ex Officio, Mike Maas, 406.582.2321, or visit bozemanstudy.com. This meeting will be held both in-person and also using an online video conferencing system. You can join this meeting: Via Video Conference: Click the Register link, enter the required information, and click submit. Click Join Now to enter the meeting. Via Phone: This is for listening only if you cannot watch the stream, channel 190, or attend in- person United States Toll +1 669 900 9128 Access code: 951 6442 0347 This is the time to comment on any matter falling within the scope of the Bozeman Study Commission. There will also be time in conjunction with each agenda item for public comment relating to that item but you may only speak once per topic. Please note, the Study Commission cannot take action on any item which does not appear on the agenda. All persons addressing the Study Commission shall speak in a civil and courteous manner and members of the audience shall be respectful of others. Please state your name, and state whether you are a resident of the city or a property owner within the city in an audible tone of voice for the record and limit your 1 D. Consent Agenda D.1 Approval of Study Commission Minutes(Heinen) E. Correspondence or Study Commission Update F. New Business F.1 Decision on Gallatin Valley Sentinel’s Request for Public Information G. Unfinished Business G.1 Decisions on Neighborhood Associations(Franks) G.2 Decisions on Advisory Boards(Franks) G.3 Discussions on Wards/Districts(Franks) H. Future Agenda Items H.1 Discussion for April 30(Heinen) I. Public Comment on Anything within the Jurisdiction of the Study Commission J. Announcements K. Adjournment comments to three minutes. Written comments can be located in the Public Comment Repository. Consider the Motion: I move to approve the Study Commission meeting minutes from April 15, 2026. Reference Materials Study Commission Bylaws Study Commission Resources Study Commission meetings are open to all members of the public. If you have a disability that requires assistance, please contact the City of Bozeman's ADA Coordinator, David Arnado, at 406.582.3232. Study Commission meetings are televised live on cable channel 190 and streamed live on our Meeting Videos Page. 2 Memorandum REPORT TO:Study Commission FROM:Caeleb Heinen, Recording Secretary Mike Maas, Ex Officio SUBJECT:Approval of Study Commission Minutes MEETING DATE:April 24, 2026 AGENDA ITEM TYPE:Citizen Advisory Board/Commission RECOMMENDATION:Consider the Motion: I move to approve the Study Commission meeting minutes from April 15, 2026. STRATEGIC PLAN:1.1 Outreach: Continue to strengthen and innovate in how we deliver information to the community and our partners. BACKGROUND:Attached are the written minute summaries from the previous two meetings. Future meeting minutes ought to be approved at the next schedule Study Commission meeting. All past meeting recordings are available for review on the City's Meeting Videos page. UNRESOLVED ISSUES:None identified ALTERNATIVES:As per the Study Commission FISCAL EFFECTS:None Attachments: 04-15-26 Study Commission Meeting Minutes.pdf Report compiled on: April 17, 2026 3 Bozeman City Commission Meeting Minutes, April 15, 2026 Page 1 of 4 THE CITY COMMMISSION MEETING OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA MINUTES April 15, 2026 A) 00:09:11 Call to Order with Pledge of Allegiance and Moment of Silence - 4:00 PM, Commission Room, City Hall, 121 North Rouse Present: Carson Taylor, Becky Franks, Deanna Campbell, Jan Strout, Mike Maas Absent: None Excused: Barb Cestero B) 00:11:03 Changes to the Agenda C) 00:11:08 Public Comment on Anything within the Jurisdiction of the Study Commission 00:12:16 Mark Campanelli gave public comment 00:15:08 Daniel Carty gave public comment D) 00:17:02 Consent Agenda D.1 Study Commission Claims Review and Approval 20260409090203837.pdf D.2 Approval of Study Commission Minutes 04-02-26 Study Commission Meeting Minutes.pdf D.3 Authorize absence of Study Commissioner Barb Cestero 00:17:35 Motion to approve I so move the adoption of our consent agenda Jan Strout: Motion Deanna Campbell: 2nd 00:17:42 Vote on the Motion to approve I so move the adoption of our consent agenda The Motion carried 4 - 0. Approve: Carson Taylor Becky Franks 4 Bozeman City Commission Meeting Minutes, April 15, 2026 Page 2 of 4 Deanna Campbell Jan Strout Disapprove: None E) 00:18:18 Correspondence or Study Commission Update E.1 00:18:25 Review Calendar and Goals through June 17 and Discuss Promotion of Final Public Hearing on Tentative Report May 28 2026 Plan of Action from Cmr. Franks 00:19:10 Cmr. Franks introduced the 2026 Plan of Action 00:22:04 Discussion on moving the May 7 meeting, due to multiple absences Created a new meeting for May 20. The meeting for May 7 moved to May 13, and the meeting for May 13 would now be the 20th. 00:32:09 Discussion to potentially change the date of the Public Hearing from June 17 to June 18 F) 00:34:18 New Business F.1 00:34:24 Select a Firm for Ballot Education Services KW Response - City of Bozeman Ballot Education - final.pdf Danegeld_BozemanCityCharterProposal_03April2026.pdf 00:34:34 Chair Taylor discussed the two responses for the Ballot Education RFP 00:36:18 Chair Taylor's analysis of the two submitted firms 00:39:13 Ex Officio Maas' analysis of the two submitted firms 00:41:02 Cmr. Frank's analysis of the two submitted firms 00:42:05 Cmr. Campbell's analysis of the two submitted firms 00:42:44 Cmr. Strout's analysis of the two submitted firms 00:44:54 Motion to approve I would like to make a motion to approve the contracted services of Danegill firm as presented in their RFP. Becky Franks: Motion Jan Strout: 2nd 00:45:12 Discussion on the motion 5 Bozeman City Commission Meeting Minutes, April 15, 2026 Page 3 of 4 00:50:02 Motion to amend I can amend my motion to approve the engagement of Danegill's firm for our Ballot Election Education and ask that Mike Maas work with them to engage us to decide which level (lowest, active or transformative level) that we are wanting them to do. Becky Franks: Motion Jan Strout: 2nd 00:50:46 Vote on the Motion to amend I can amend my motion to approve the engagement of Danegill's firm for our Ballot Election Education and ask that Mike Maas work with them to engage us to decide which level (lowest, active or transformative level) that we are wanting them to do. The Motion carried 4 - 0. Approve: Carson Taylor Becky Franks Deanna Campbell Jan Strout Disapprove: None 00:50:57 Working discussion on the agenda order to discuss before 5PM when County Commissioners will present G.2 00:54:56 Discussion on Neighborhood Associations Time Permitting Recommended INC Charter Language.pdf Suggestions for Strengthening Inter 4.2.26.pdf Side By Side Comparison of Bozeman 4.2.26.pdf Neighborhood Associations 3.9.26.pdf FY 2024 Montana County Elected Official (EO) Salary Survey Results.pdf Old Board Report.pdf City of Bozeman Resolution 5323.pdf American Review of Pubic Admin 2019 Effec Neighborhood Assoc.pdf CO Law Review 2008.pdf Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems.pdf Neighborhood Organizations in Civic Governance.pdf Missoula Neighborhood Councils Assessment Plan.pdf 00:54:59 Discussion started on Neighborhood Associations 00:57:10 Study Commissioners first discussed their initial thoughts on INC Charter language 01:12:28 Natsuki Nakamura gave public comment 01:16:28 Zehra Osman gave public comment 01:20:49 Jason Delmue gave public comment 6 Bozeman City Commission Meeting Minutes, April 15, 2026 Page 4 of 4 G) 01:24:07 Unfinished Business G.1 01:24:14 Presentation by County Commissioners on District System 01:24:14 Chair Taylor introduced the presenters and topic 01:25:40 County Commissioners discussed creating geographical maps for County districts 01:33:05 Questions for County Commissioners from Study Commissioners on Districting 01:41:57 County Commissioners discussed pay and benefits for County Commissioners 01:50:02 Questions for County Commissioners from Study Commissioners on Pay and Benefits 01:58:16 County Commissioners discussed County advisory boards 02:01:33 Questions for County Commissioners from Study Commissioners on County advisory boards I) 02:05:28 Public Comment on Anything within the Jurisdiction of the Study Commission H) 02:05:40 Future Agenda Items H.1 02:05:46 Future Education Discussion and Needs for April 24 Meeting 02:06:26 April 24 Meeting set for 11 to 2pm 02:06:35 Cmr. Campbell discussed meeting with University Neighborhood Association on April 28 with another Commissioner. It was clarified that it was the same night as a Study Commission meeting J) Announcements K) 02:07:58 Adjournment 7 Memorandum REPORT TO:Study Commission SUBJECT:Decision on Gallatin Valley Sentinel’s Request for Public Information MEETING DATE:April 24, 2026 AGENDA ITEM TYPE:Citizen Advisory Board/Commission RECOMMENDATION:On January 1, 2026, the Gallatin Valley Sentinel submitted requests for public information. See attached. During this agenda item the Study Commission will have the opportunity to determine whether and if so in what form the information can be released. City staff from the City Clerk’s Office and City Attorney’s Office will be available. 8 Memorandum REPORT TO:Study Commission FROM:Caeleb Heinen, Recording Secretary Mike Maas, Ex Officio SUBJECT:Decisions on Neighborhood Associations MEETING DATE: April 24, 2026 AGENDA ITEM TYPE: Citizen Advisory Board/Commission RECOMMENDATION: After discussion and learning sessions on Neighborhood Associations, the Study Commission will make decisions on these topics. Study Commissioners Cestero and Franks will present proposed language around neighborhood associations for potential draft report language. STRATEGIC PLAN: 1.1 Outreach: Continue to strengthen and innovate in how we deliver information to the community and our partners. BACKGROUND: Reference Materials are attached. "Summary - Other City Charters" created by Study Commissioners referenced for easy access on the previous research done on Montana City Charters. Mandatory Reading and Materials regarding Neighborhood Associations from 4/2 (all attached): Recommended INC Charter Language Suggestions for Strengthening Interneighborhood Council Side by Side Comparison of Bozeman Neighborhood Association FY 2024 Montana County Elected Official (EO) Salary Survey Results (Taylor) Suggested Reading (links provided by Taylor): American Review of Public Admin 2019 CO Law Review 2008 Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Neighborhood Organizations in Civic Governance Missoula Neighborhood Councils Assessment Plan Eugene Charter Eugene City Council Committee Assignments UNRESOLVED ISSUES: 9 Eugene Boards and Commissions Seattle Charter Seattle "A New Chapter for the Department of Neighborhoods" Seattle Grants and Funding Category Santa Fe New Mexico City Website Santa Fe Charter Santa Fe Boards, Commissions and Committees None Identified ALTERNATIVES: As per the Study Commission FISCAL EFFECTS: None Identified Attachments: Recommended INC Charter Language.pdf Suggestions for Strengthening Inter 4.2.26.pdf Side By Side Comparison of Bozeman 4.2.26.pdf Neighborhood Associations 3.9.26.pdf FY 2024 Montana County Elected Official (EO) Salary Survey Results.pdf American Review of Pubic Admin 2019 Effec Neighborhood Assoc.pdf CO Law Review 2008.pdf Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems.pdf Neighborhood Organizations in Civic Governance.pdf Missoula Neighborhood Councils Assessment Plan.pdf Report compiled on: April 17, 2026 10 Final INC recommended Charter Language Approved 12/11/25 (a) Intent: The citizens of Bozeman, and the City of Bozeman, value the contribution neighborhoods can make to the governance of the city. Therefore, it is the purpose of this article to strengthen neighborhood participation where it exists, and to encourage and support neighborhood participation where it does not yet exist. (b) Purpose: There shall be a City program that supports the creation and maintenance of resident-led neighborhood associations. The associations shall act in an advisory capacity, and may contribute information, opinions, advice, suggestions and recommendations to the City Commission, City Manager and other City advisory bodies on all governmental affairs and services having an effect on the area the neighborhood association represents, including, but not limited to, public finance, public works, public safety, planning and zoning, and public health and sanitation. (c) Recognition of neighborhood associations. The Inter-Neighborhood Council shall establish minimum recognition standards for neighborhood associations, to be adopted by the City Commission by ordinance. These standards shall include, but not be limited to: (1) clear geographic boundaries; (2) adherence to established minimum by-laws that ensure voting capabilities by a neighborhood association’s selected Inter-Neighborhood Council representative; (3) periodic meetings, including an annual meeting; (4) copy of the by-laws and all amendments filed with the City; (5) the definition of membership eligibility includes all residents, property owners, business owners, and nonprofit organizations located within a given neighborhood association’s boundaries; and (6) demonstrated means of communication with all members in a neighborhood association. (d) Minimum Standards. A neighborhood association must meet and continue to maintain conformity with the minimum standards as established by ordinance in order to be recognized by the City of Bozeman and to be eligible to select members and representatives to the Inter-Neighborhood Council. Neighborhood associations existing on the date of the enactment of this charter shall have one year after the enactment of said City ordinance to come into compliance. 11 (e) Inter-Neighborhood Council. There is hereby established, an Inter-Neighborhood Council (INC) to be composed of representatives selected by each formally recognized neighborhood association. (1) The INC shall provide a public forum for formally recognized Neighborhood Association representatives to meet, share information, and make recommendations to the City Commission and City Manager. Recommendations made by the INC may be related to neighborhood-level and/or city-wide issues in order to advocate for their resident’s concerns. INC recommendations do not preclude a neighborhood association from taking its concerns directly to the Mayor/City Commission and/or City Manager. (2) The INC shall meet on a regular basis to understand and address city-wide concerns, examine current or proposed city policy, and foster dialogue between neighborhoods and with City leadership. (3) The INC shall adopt by-laws governing the conduct of their business. Such by-laws shall be adopted by the City Commission, by ordinance. A vacancy on the INC shall be filled only by the affected neighborhood association. The INC may include a City Commissioner as a non-voting member of the INC. (f) Neighborhoods Coordinator. The City shall retain a full-time paid staff member to coordinate with neighborhood associations and the Inter-Neighborhood Council. This staff member shall be under the City Manager’s Department and work solely on the neighborhoods program. 12 1 | Page Suggestions for Strengthening Inter-Neighborhood Council Charter Language Below is a research-grounded, charter-focused set of suggestions showing how Bozeman can strengthen Section 4.06 to better achieve the four effectiveness criteria you identified. I organize this in three layers: 1. What the literature says matters (brief synthesis) 2. Targeted improvements to charter language (by effectiveness criterion) 3. Illustrative revised charter language (optional draft text you can lift or adapt) I used the following “effectiveness” criteria identified from the research articles: • Improve two-way communication between residents and local government • Increase resident participation in planning, budgeting, or policy discussions • Serve as a legitimate advisory body rather than an advocacy or political body • Build neighborhood level social capital and leadership capacity I explicitly tie each suggestion to findings from the peer-reviewed articles and assessments, especially: • Li, Wen & Cooper (2019) – American Review of Public Administration • Olberding, Wilson & Swiger (2022) – Journal of Economics and Politics • Mathews (2021) – Voluntas • Parlow (2008) – University of Colorado Law Review • Speer (2006) – Participatory Planning & Neighborhood Councils • Missoula Neighborhood Councils Assessment (2021) Artificial intelligence tools were used to synthesize and organize findings across these sources. 1. What the research says improves effectiveness (brief synthesis) Across the attached literature, effective neighborhood governance systems share several common design features: • Institutionalized two-way communication (not just access): regular, predictable feedback loops between neighborhoods and city decision-makers (Li et al. 2019; Missoula Assessment 2021). o This is also supported by Gallop research on employee engagement.  Having a connection to a common mission or purpose  Feeling clear about role, expectations and priorities  Ask for input and act on it when possible  Create safe spaces for ideas, concerns, and feedback  Recognize effort and contribution, not just outcomes 13 2 | Page  Actively support learning, development, and growth  Set norms for quality and mutual accountability  Encourage trust and connection among coworkers  Provide regular feedback on progress • Early, upstream involvement in planning and budgeting, rather than reactive input after decisions are mostly formed (Speer 2006; Parlow 2008). • Clear advisory—not advocacy—role, with expectations that councils deliberate internally and present reasoned suggestions reflecting neighborhood consensus (Mathews 2021; Parlow 2008). • Capacity-building supports (training, staff liaison, predictable resources) that help neighborhood associations develop leadership, social capital, and institutional memory (Li et al. 2019; Olberding et al. 2022). Bozeman’s existing charter language establishes legitimacy and structure, but it is largely procedural and underspecified on how neighborhoods interact with city government and what outcomes are expected. 2. Targeted improvements by effectiveness criterion Two-way communication between residents and local government What’s missing now • The charter ensures neighborhoods can communicate to the City, but not that the City must meaningfully communicate back. • No requirement for responses, explanations, or follow-up. Research-based improvement • Require formal response obligations from city commission or staff to InterNeighborhood Council (INC) recommendations. • Define communication as reciprocal and iterative, not informational only. Why this works • Li et al. (2019) show that perceived responsiveness—not just access—drives neighborhood effectiveness. • Missoula’s assessment identified disconnected communication as a core weakness and recommended formalized pathways. Increase resident participation in planning, budgeting, or policy discussions What’s missing now • No guarantee that neighborhood associations are engaged early in planning or budgeting processes. 14 3 | Page • Participation is optional and reactive. Research-based improvement • Embed neighborhood input upstream (e.g., draft plans, budget priorities, major policy initiatives). • Specify participation in processes, not just meetings. Why this works • Speer (2006) demonstrates that early involvement increases both participation and trust. • Parlow (2008) emphasizes that deliberative structures lose legitimacy when engagement occurs only after decisions harden. Serve as a legitimate advisory body (not advocacy or political body) What’s missing now • The charter does not clearly distinguish deliberative advisory input from political advocacy. • This ambiguity can undermine legitimacy and invite conflict. Research-based improvement • Explicitly define neighborhood associations and the INC as advisory, deliberative bodies. • Emphasize consensus-seeking, issue framing, and reasoned recommendations rather than positional advocacy. Why this works • Mathews (2021) finds that neighborhood organizations are most effective when acting as intermediaries rather than advocates. • Parlow (2008) stresses advisory status as essential to avoid capture, NIMBYism, and factional politics. Build neighborhood-level social capital and leadership capacity What’s missing now • Recognition standards focus on structure, not development. • No mention of leadership training, inclusivity practices, or succession. Research-based improvement • Add an explicit capacity-building purpose. 15 4 | Page • Require or authorize the City to provide training, technical assistance, and leadership development support. Why this works • Li et al. (2019) and Olberding et al. (2022) show leadership capacity and internal governance quality are stronger predictors of effectiveness than formal authority. • Missoula’s assessment highlights lack of diversity and leadership pipelines as persistent challenges. 3. Illustrative revised charter language (model text) Below is sample language showing how Bozeman could strengthen Section 4.06 without changing its basic structure. Section 4.06(a) – Purpose (revised) The purpose of this article is to strengthen neighborhood participation in the governance of the City by supporting neighborhood associations as inclusive, deliberative, and advisory bodies that facilitate two-way communication, early public involvement, and neighborhood leadership development, while enhancing trust, transparency, and informed decision-making. Section 4.06(b) – Recognition Standards (additions in bold) Add a new subsection: 8) procedures to encourage inclusive participation, leadership development, and transparent deliberation; and 9) demonstrated capacity to provide reasoned, consensus-based advisory input on neighborhood and citywide issues. Section 4.06(d) – InterNeighborhood Council (strengthened) Add a new subsection: 4) The City Commission and/or designated staff shall provide timely responses to formal recommendations submitted by the InterNeighborhood Council, including explanations of how such input was considered or reasons for divergence. Add another subsection: 5) The InterNeighborhood Council shall be consulted, when practicable, during the formative stages of citywide planning efforts, major policy initiatives, and budget priority discussions. 16 5 | Page Section 4.06(e) – City Liaison (expanded) The City shall designate a staff member to serve as liaison to the InterNeighborhood Council and neighborhood associations. The liaison shall support coordination, training, leadership development, and communication between neighborhood associations and the City, and may assist in facilitating participatory planning, budgeting, and policy engagement processes. Bottom line (for commissioners or charter reviewers) Bozeman does not need to give neighborhood associations decision-making authority to improve effectiveness. The research consistently shows that clarity of role, early engagement, reciprocal communication, and capacity-building matter far more than formal power. 17 1 | Page Side By Side Comparison of Bozeman’s current charter language and recommended revisions Below is a clear, side-by-side comparison of Bozeman’s current charter language and recommended revisions, organized section-by-section. The recommended language is intentionally incremental, it preserves Bozeman’s structure while strengthening effectiveness, legitimacy, and clarity consistent with the attached research. Artificial intelligence tools were used to develop suggested charter language based on the findings from the peer-reviewed articles and assessments. Section 4.06 — Neighborhood Associations (a) Purpose Current Charter Language Recommended Charter Language The citizens of Bozeman value the contribution neighborhoods can make to the governance of the city. Therefore, it is the purpose of this article to strengthen neighborhood participation where it exists, and to encourage and support neighborhood participation where it does not yet exist. The citizens of Bozeman value the contribution neighborhoods make to the governance of the City. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to strengthen neighborhood participation by supporting neighborhood associations as inclusive, deliberative, and advisory bodies that promote two-way communication, early public involvement in planning and policy, and neighborhood leadership development, while enhancing transparency, trust, and informed decision-making. Why this matters: Clarifies how neighborhoods contribute (deliberation, advice, communication), not just that they contribute. (b) Recognition of Neighborhood Associations Introductory Clause Current Recommended The city commission shall establish by ordinance minimum recognition requirements for neighborhood associations. The city commission shall establish by ordinance minimum recognition requirements for neighborhood associations that support inclusive participation, democratic deliberation, and effective communication with residents and the City. 18 2 | Page Recognition Standards (Subsections) Current Standards Recommended Standards (additions in bold) 1) clear geographic boundaries; 1) clear geographic boundaries; 2) procedures for defining a resident for neighborhood association membership; 2) procedures for defining eligibility for neighborhood association membership; 3) adherence to established by-laws that ensure democratic deliberative and voting procedures; 3) adherence to established by-laws that ensure democratic, inclusive, and deliberative procedures; 4) periodic meetings, including an annual meeting; 4) periodic meetings, including an annual meeting; 5) copy of the by-laws and all amendments filed with the city; 5) copy of the by-laws and all amendments filed with the city; 6) inclusion of all residents in the neighborhood association; 6) inclusion of all residents in the neighborhood association; 7) demonstrating that it has a means of communicating with all residents in a neighborhood association. 7) demonstrating that it has a means of regular, accessible, and two-way communication with all residents in the neighborhood; — 8) procedures to encourage leadership development, representative participation, and continuity of governance; — 9) capacity to develop and transmit reasoned, consensus-based advisory input on neighborhood and citywide issues. Why this matters: Moves beyond structure to capacity, inclusion, and quality of input—key predictors of effectiveness. (c) Minimum Standards Current Recommended A neighborhood association must meet and continue to maintain conformity with the minimum standards as established by A neighborhood association must meet and continue to maintain conformity with the minimum standards established by 19 3 | Page ordinance in order to be recognized by the city and to be eligible to elect members to the InterNeighborhood Council. ordinance in order to be recognized by the City and to be eligible to select members to the InterNeighborhood Council. (Minor wording change clarifies eligibility without altering intent.) (d) InterNeighborhood Council (INC) Purpose and Role Current Recommended The InterNeighborhood Council shall provide a forum for Neighborhood Associations to come together, share information, and make recommendations to the city commission, city staff, and the mayor on city-wide issues. The InterNeighborhood Council shall provide a forum for Neighborhood Associations to come together to deliberate, share information, and develop reasoned recommendations to the city commission, city staff, and the mayor on city-wide issues. New: Formal Two-Way Communication Current Recommended (New Subsection) (No requirement for City response) The City Commission and/or designated City staff shall provide timely responses to formal recommendations submitted by the InterNeighborhood Council, including an explanation of how such input was considered or the reasons for any divergence. New: Early Engagement Current Recommended (New Subsection) (No reference to planning or budgeting) When practicable, the InterNeighborhood Council shall be consulted during the formative stages of citywide planning efforts, major policy initiatives, and budget priority discussions. 20 4 | Page Governance (By-laws) Current Recommended The InterNeighborhood Council shall adopt by-laws governing the conduct of their business. Such by-laws shall be approved by the city commission, or as designated by ordinance. The InterNeighborhood Council shall adopt by-laws governing the conduct of its business, emphasizing deliberation, transparency, and inclusive participation. Such by-laws shall be approved by the city commission, or as designated by ordinance. (e) City Liaison Current Recommended The City shall designate a staff member to serve as liaison to the InterNeighborhood Council and neighborhood associations. The City shall designate a staff member to serve as liaison to the InterNeighborhood Council and neighborhood associations. The liaison shall support coordination, leadership development, training, and two-way communication, and may assist in facilitating participatory planning, budgeting, and policy engagement processes. Why this matters: Transforms the liaison from a passive contact into a capacity-building role, consistent with best practice. Summary for Decision-Makers These revisions do not expand neighborhood authority or create new legal obligations, but they materially strengthen Bozeman’s neighborhood system by clarifying purpose, institutionalizing two-way communication, embedding early engagement, reinforcing an advisory, not political, role, and supporting leadership development. The result is a system that is more effective, legitimate, and durable without increasing risk or administrative complexity. 21 1 | Page Descriptions of Neighborhood Councils found in Montana Local Government Charters Butte Silver Bow Section 3.03(e) The Council of Commissioners shall be the legislative and policy determining body of the City-County. Except as otherwise provided by this Charter, the Council of Commissioners shall have all legislative powers and duties conferred on counties and cities which include but are not limited to, the power and duty: (e) to authorize community councils to advise the Council of Commissioners; Bozeman Section 4.06 Neighborhood Associations a) Purpose. The citizens of Bozeman value the contribution neighborhoods can make to the governance of the city. Therefore, it is the purpose of this article to strengthen neighborhood participation where it exists, and to encourage and support neighborhood participation where it does not yet exist. b) Recognition of neighborhood associations. The city commission shall establish by ordinance minimum recognition requirements for neighborhood associations. These standards shall include, but not be limited to: 1) clear geographic boundaries; 2) procedures for defining a resident for neighborhood association membership; 3) adherence to established by-laws that ensure democratic deliberative and voting procedures; 4) periodic meetings, including an annual meeting; 5) copy of the by-laws and all amendments filed with the city; 6) inclusion of all residents in the neighborhood association; and 7) demonstrating that it has a means of communicating with all residents in a neighborhood association. c) Minimum Standards. A neighborhood association must meet and continue to maintain conformity with the minimum standards as established by ordinance in order to be recognized by the city and to be eligible to elect members to the InterNeighborhood Council. Neighborhood associations existing on the date of the enactment of this charter shall have one year after the enactment of said city ordinance to come into compliance. 22 2 | Page d) InterNeighborhood Council. There is hereby established an InterNeighborhood Council to be composed of representatives selected by each recognized neighborhood association. 1) The InterNeighborhood Council shall provide a forum for Neighborhood Associations to come together, share information, and make recommendations to the city commission, city staff, and the mayor on city-wide issues. This does not preclude a neighborhood association from taking its concerns directly to the city or the commission. 2) The InterNeighborhood Council shall meet on a regular basis to address city-wide concerns and foster dialogue between neighborhoods. 3) The InterNeighborhood Council shall adopt by-laws governing the conduct of their business. Such by-laws shall be approved by the city commission, or as designated by ordinance. A vacancy on the InterNeighborhood Council shall be filled only by the affected neighborhood association. The city may appoint a city commissioner as a non-voting member of the InterNeighborhood Council. e) City Liaison. The City shall designate a staff member to serve as liaison to the InterNeighborhood Council and neighborhood associations. Great Falls Section 4 - Neighborhood Councils. a) Purpose: There shall be neighborhood councils. The councils shall act in an advisory capacity to the City Commission, the City Manager and to other City advisory bodies, and may contribute information, opinions, advice, suggestions and recommendations to the City Commission, City Manager and other City advisory bodies on all governmental affairs and services having an effect on the area the neighborhood council represents, including, but not limited to, public finance, public works, public safety, planning and zoning, and public health and sanitation. b) Provision of Neighborhood Districts Composition of Councils; Election: The City Commission shall, by ordinance, divide the City of Great Falls into no less than nine (9) and no more than thirteen (13) neighborhood council districts. The residents of a district shall comprise the electorate for that district. Each district shall have a council comprised of five (5) members; elected to a two (2) year term at the election held in conjunction with the City general election. Nominees for election to a neighborhood council must be residents of their designated neighborhood district. c) Organization: Each council shall select from its members a chairman, secretary, and an official delegate to attend City Commission meetings, and may appoint a Vice Chair or other officers as it deems necessary. The chairman must be one of the five elected council members. In the event of a vacancy on the council, the remaining members shall appoint a person eligible to hold the position to fill the vacancy until 23 3 | Page the next general election. In the event that the Council cannot agree upon the appointment of a replacement member, the City Commission shall fill the vacancy. On or before January 30, after each election, or within thirty (30) days after new council member(s) elected in a special election receive the oath(s) of, and are sworn into office, each neighborhood council shall meet to organize as provided in the section. Each council shall adopt by-laws prescribing additional duties of the council, meeting criteria and times, and such other provisions as the council may deem appropriate and which are not inconsistent with the provisions of this charter and the laws of Montana. The City Commission may provide model by-laws for use by the councils in drafting their own by-laws. d) Open Meetings and Right to Know: All meetings of the neighborhood councils shall be open to the public. All records maintained by the council shall be available for public inspection. e) Organization of a Great Falls Citizen's Council: A majority of the neighborhood councils may provide for the creation of a Great Falls Citizen's Council, consisting of one (1) member from each of the participating neighborhood councils. The Citizen's Council may determine its rules of organization and operation, except that no rules adopted shall be inconsistent with the provisions of this Charter or the laws of Montana. The City Commission may provide model by-laws for use by the Council in drafting its own by-laws. The purposes of the Citizen's Councils shall be set forth in paragraph (a) of this section. f) Obligations of the City Commission; City of Great Falls: Nothing in this section shall obligate the City Commission to appropriate funds to any council for its operation, or to the Great Falls Citizen's Council authorized in paragraph (e). The City of Great Falls shall not be liable for any obligations incurred by the councils or the Citizen's Council during their existence except as provided for by the City Commission. Helena ARTICLE IV Neighborhood Councils Section 4.01 - Purpose There shall be seven (7) Neighborhood Councils, collectively comprising a Helena Citizens' Council. Operating independently from the city commission or city officials, the Helena Citizens' Council shall review and recommend actions relating to the annual budget and make recommendations relating to future development of the city. For federal and state programs requiring citizen participation, the Helena Citizens' Council may contract with the city for the provision of citizen participation. Section 4.02 - Composition, Boundaries, Election, Terms, Qualifications 24 4 | Page 1. The city commission shall, by ordinance, divide the City of Helena into seven (7) Neighborhood Council Districts 2. Each Neighborhood District shall have a council composed of four (4) members elected to two (2) year terms at an election held with the city general election. 3. Members of a Neighborhood Council must be residents of the designated Neighborhood Council District. 4. In the event of a vacancy on the Neighborhood Council, the remaining members shall appoint a person eligible to hold the position to fill the vacancy until the next city general election. If there are no remaining members of a Neighborhood Council, the Helen Citizens’ Council may appoint a person to fill the vacancy. A member’s position is deemed to be vacant before the expiration of the term if so declared by the Helena Citizens’ Council on the occurrence of either of the following: 1. The member fails to attend three (3) consecutive meetings of the Helena Citizens’ Council without good cause; or 2. The member ceases to be qualified to hold the position as prescribed in the rules adopted by a majority of the members of the Helena Citizens’ Council. 5. All of the elected Neighborhood Council members shall together comprise a Helena Citizens' Council 6. Within thirty (30) days after election each Neighborhood Council shall meet to organize, and within sixty (60) days after election, the mayor shall convene the Neighborhood Councils for a meeting of the Helena Citizens' Council. At that meeting the Helena Citizens' Council shall elect a chairman, vice-chairman, and secretary who shall take office immediately and proceed with business. 7. The Helena Citizens' Council shall cause a representative to attend each City Commission meeting and report back to the council. ARTICLE V Nominations and Elections Section 5.01 - Procedures The procedure for the nomination and election of all members of the city commission and the Helena Citizens’ Council shall be as required by Montana law for non-partisan elections. Missoula ARTICLE VI. Neighborhood Councils and Community Council Section 6.1 - Purpose (1) The City of Missoula values the contribution neighborhoods can make to the governance of the City. Therefore, it is the purpose of this article to strengthen 25 5 | Page neighborhood participation where it exists, and to encourage and support neighborhood participation where it does not yet exist. (2) The City Council shall establish Neighborhood Councils to advise the City Council and the Mayor on neighborhood and City-wide issues. (3) Neighborhood Councils and Community Councils shall provide a structure for increased citizen participation in the governance of the City, and shall build cooperation and improved communication between citizens and City officials. Neighborhood Council duties shall include, but shall not be limited to, developing proposals for neighborhood plans and advising the City on neighborhood projects as they occur. Neighborhood Councils shall respond to neighborhood issues at the neighborhood level. (4) The City Council shall establish a Community Council to be composed of representatives from the Neighborhood Councils. (5) The Community Council shall provide a forum for Neighborhood Councils to come together, share information, and make recommendations to the City Council and Mayor on City-wide issues. Neighborhood Councils, the Community Council, and the City of Missoula shall work together in partnership, bridging the gap between citizens and government. Section 6.2 - Composition and Responsibilities (1)Neighborhood Councils shall be created through a democratic process. All residents within the boundaries of a neighborhood district shall be eligible to serve on Neighborhood Councils, participate with Neighborhood Councils, or participate in the selection of officers for their Neighborhood Council. Composition of each Neighborhood Council should reflect the diversity which exists within that neighborhood. (2) Neighborhood Council members shall serve on a voluntary basis. The City of Missoula shall provide reasonable financial assistance to support the efforts associated with the formation and operation of Neighborhood Councils. (3) Each Neighborhood Council and the Community Council shall adopt by-laws governing the conduct of their business. Such by-laws shall be approved by the City Council. (4) Each Neighborhood Council shall meet with the residents of its neighborhood district on a regular basis. Neighborhood Councils, along with the City, shall be responsible for providing information on City and neighborhood issues to the residents of their neighborhoods. Neighborhood Councils shall facilitate participation in, and coordination of, neighborhood-initiated projects. (5) The entire City shall be divided into neighborhood districts. Neighborhood Councils shall be formed to represent the residents in each district. (6) A Missoula Community Council shall be created from an equal number of representatives from each Neighborhood Council, in accordance with Community Council 26 6 | Page by-laws. The Community Council shall meet on a regular basis to address City-wide concerns and foster dialogue between neighborhoods. (7) The City of Missoula shall be responsible for providing information on City and neighborhood issues to all Neighborhood Councils and the Community Council regularly and in a timely manner. The Neighborhood Councils and Community Council shall be responsible for reporting to the City Council and the Mayor regarding concerns and interests of the residents in the neighborhoods and in the City as a whole on a regular basis, and in a timely manner. (8) The City Council shall appoint a liaison from the City government who shall facilitate communication between the City of Missoula and the Neighborhood Councils and the Community Council. (9) Neighborhood Councils and the Community Council shall not preclude any individual or individuals from access to, or participation with, the City Council, the Mayor, or City departments. 27 County Uniform BASE EO Annual Salary Uniform Increase for EOs (% or flat amount) Longevity for all EOs (excluding statutory longevity) Clk & Rec Add-on for Election Admin Duties (MCA 7-4-2503) Treasurer Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) School Supt Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Clerk of District Court Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Justice of the Peace Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Combined County Elected Offices (MCA 7-4-2503) Consolidated EOs Receiving a Salary Above the BASE Salary as a Result of Consolidation County Commissioners Full-time, Part-time, or Per diem Co. Attorney Full-time or Part-time & Salary (not including longevity) A-Deer Lodge (City-County) Beaverhead $63,500 $2,600 $1 $2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 No combined offices N/A Full-time Full-time, $123,500 Big Horn Blaine $61,157.52 $3.33 Yrs=per hr inc: 6-10 = $0.60; 11-15 = $1.20; 16-20 = $2; 21-25 = $3; 26-30 = $4; 31 & up = $5 $2,000 $2,000 $400 No No 1. Clk & Rec/ Survyr/(E.Admin) 2. Sheriff/Coroner No Full-time Full-time, $119,725.92 Broadwater B-Silver Bow (City-County) Carbon Carter $65,926.76 6.4%1.0%$2,000 $2,000 No $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Public Admin/ Survyr/(E.Admin) 2. Clk of Ct/ School Supt 3.Sheriff/Coroner 4. Treas/Assessor 1. Clk & Rec: $1,000 2. Clk of Dist Crt: $1,000 3. Treasurer: $1,000 Part-time, 70% of EO base Part-time, $69,689.34 Cascade FY 2024 Montana County Elected Official (EO) Salary Survey Results (38 out of 56 counties responded) Montana Association of Counties Page 1 of 7 Elected Official Salary Survey Results28 County Uniform BASE EO Annual Salary Uniform Increase for EOs (% or flat amount) Longevity for all EOs (excluding statutory longevity) Clk & Rec Add-on for Election Admin Duties (MCA 7-4-2503) Treasurer Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) School Supt Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Clerk of District Court Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Justice of the Peace Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Combined County Elected Offices (MCA 7-4-2503) Consolidated EOs Receiving a Salary Above the BASE Salary as a Result of Consolidation County Commissioners Full-time, Part-time, or Per diem Co. Attorney Full-time or Part-time & Salary (not including longevity) Chouteau $52,910 $2,405 1.0%$2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk of Crt/ School Supt/ Survyr/(E.Admin) 2.Sheriff/Coroner 3. Treas/Assessor 1. Clk of Crt: $1,000 for Surveyor 2. Sheriff: $3,000 for Coroner Full-time Part-time, $84,425 Custer Daniels $51,894.48 $0.50 No $2,000 No No No No 1. Clk of Crt/ School Supt 2. Clk & Rec/ Survyr/(E.Admin) Assessor/Auditor 3.Sheriff/Coroner 1. Clk of Crt/ School Supt: $400 Per Diem Part-time, $63,259.09 Dawson $61,817.09 No No $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 1. Co Attrny/ Public Admin 2. Clk & Rec/ Auditor/Assessor/ Survyr/(E.Admin) No Full-time Full-time, $113,248.03 Fallon $75,816 6.0% Yrs=per hr inc: 5 = $0.25; 10 = $0.50; 15 = $0.75; 20 = $1; 25 = $1.50; 30 = $2 $2,000 $2,000 Contract Supt of Schools $2,000 Prorated, $848.64 1. Clk of Crt/ Public Admin 2. Clk & Rec/ SchoolSupt/ (E.Admin) 3.Sheriff/Coroner 4. Treas/Assessor No Full-time Part-time, $109,354; State Reimb.= $47,453 Fergus $60,518.46 5.5% $0.10/hr per yr, per yr of service $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 1.Sheriff/Coroner 1.Sheriff/Coroner: $5,000 Full-time Full-time, $128,635.73 Flathead $82,514 4.0%No $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 No, salary is $97,381 1. Clk & Rec/ Auditor/Surveyor 2. Sheriff/Coroner 3. Treas/Assessor 1.Sheriff/Coroner: $8,000 Full-time Full-time, $136,393 Montana Association of Counties Page 2 of 7 Elected Official Salary Survey Results29 County Uniform BASE EO Annual Salary Uniform Increase for EOs (% or flat amount) Longevity for all EOs (excluding statutory longevity) Clk & Rec Add-on for Election Admin Duties (MCA 7-4-2503) Treasurer Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) School Supt Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Clerk of District Court Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Justice of the Peace Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Combined County Elected Offices (MCA 7-4-2503) Consolidated EOs Receiving a Salary Above the BASE Salary as a Result of Consolidation County Commissioners Full-time, Part-time, or Per diem Co. Attorney Full-time or Part-time & Salary (not including longevity) Gallatin $86,086 3.0%No $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Survyr/(E.Admin) 2. Clk of Crt/ Public Admin 3.Sheriff/Coroner 4. Treas/Assessor No Full-time Full-time, $130,166 Garfield Glacier $62,600 7.0%No No $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 1.Clk & Rec/School Supt 1.Clk & Rec /School Supt:$400 Full-time Part-time $110,300 Golden Valley $38,700.01 2.5% ($943.91)No $2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Clk of Crt/ (E.Admin) 2.Sheriff/Coroner 3. Treas/ School Supt 1. Clk & Rec/ Clk of Crt: 14% 2. Sheriff/ Coroner: 12% 3. Treasurer/ School Supt: 10% Full-time + the $2,000 = $166.67 per month + mileage Full-time, $28,262.25 (Share will Musselshell) Granite $52,325.88 8.0%1.0%$2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $1,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Assessor/Surveyor /(E.Admin) 2.Sheriff/Coroner 3. Treas/School Supt/Public Admin 1. C&R/Assessor/ Surveyor: 5% 2.Sheriff/ Coroner: 15% 3. Treas/School Supt/Public Admin: 5% Half-time, $2,000 + mileage Full-time, $113,059.86 Hill $56,218.42 $5,000 1.0%$2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 1.Sheriff/Coroner 2. Treas/Assessor 1.Sheriff/Coroner: 15%Full-time Full-time, $122,583.99 Jefferson $71,041.52 6.0%1.0%$2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Co Attrny/ Public Admin 2. Clk & Rec/ Assessor/Surveyor /(E.Admin) 3.Sheriff/Coroner No Full-time Full-time, $135,930.87 Montana Association of Counties Page 3 of 7 Elected Official Salary Survey Results30 County Uniform BASE EO Annual Salary Uniform Increase for EOs (% or flat amount) Longevity for all EOs (excluding statutory longevity) Clk & Rec Add-on for Election Admin Duties (MCA 7-4-2503) Treasurer Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) School Supt Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Clerk of District Court Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Justice of the Peace Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Combined County Elected Offices (MCA 7-4-2503) Consolidated EOs Receiving a Salary Above the BASE Salary as a Result of Consolidation County Commissioners Full-time, Part-time, or Per diem Co. Attorney Full-time or Part-time & Salary (not including longevity) Judith Basin $50,644.45 4.5% ($2,180.95) $225/yr, beginning yr 2 $2,000 $2,000 Combined office split between the 2, $1,000 Combined office split between the 2, $1,000 $2,000 1. Clk of Crt/ School Supt 2. Sheriff/Coroner 1.Sheriff/Coroner: $3,500.04 Full-time, but actually only work Part-time, so 40% of EO base Full-time, $126,541.20 (85% DC Judge Salary) Lake Lewis & Clark $86,690 4.0% $2K after yr 1; $3K after yr 2; addt'l $500 each yr after $2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Co Attrny/ Public Admin 2.Clk & Rec/ Auditor/Assessor/ Surveyor/Treas 3.Sheriff/Coroner No Full-time Full-time, $134,723.00 Liberty $52,133.00 0.025 $26/yr after 5 yrs $2,000 $2,000 200 $2,000 $2,000 1.Sheriff/Coroner/ Public Admin 2. Treasurer/ Assesor No Full-time 75% $96,294 Lincoln $63,166.43 No 1.0%No No No No $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Auditor/Assessor/ Surveyor No Full-time Full-time, County pays $62,232.94; State pays $60,640.00 = $122,872.94 Madison $68,025.30 6.5% +$2,250 for Elected Schedule $2,000 $2,000 5% higher than the highest salary provided by law $2,000 $2,000 1.Sheriff/Coroner 2. Treas/ School Supt 1.Sheriff/Coroner 2. Treasurer/ School Supt Full-time Full-time, $137,063.10 McCone Montana Association of Counties Page 4 of 7 Elected Official Salary Survey Results31 County Uniform BASE EO Annual Salary Uniform Increase for EOs (% or flat amount) Longevity for all EOs (excluding statutory longevity) Clk & Rec Add-on for Election Admin Duties (MCA 7-4-2503) Treasurer Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) School Supt Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Clerk of District Court Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Justice of the Peace Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Combined County Elected Offices (MCA 7-4-2503) Consolidated EOs Receiving a Salary Above the BASE Salary as a Result of Consolidation County Commissioners Full-time, Part-time, or Per diem Co. Attorney Full-time or Part-time & Salary (not including longevity) Meagher $56,160.00 0.041 according to statute $2,000 $2,000 400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ School Supt 2. Sheriff/Coroner 3. Treasurer/ Assessor Mineral $50,872.28 $1 No $2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Assessor 2.Sheriff/Coroner/ Public Admin 3. Treas/ School Supt 1.Sheriff/Coroner/ Public Admin: 1%Part-time, 50% Full-time, $115,597.20 (includes the State portion) Missoula $47.91 25.0%1.0%No $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk of Dist Crt/ Assessor 2.Clk & Rec/Treas 3. Sheriff/Coroner No Full-time Full-time, $148,865.60 ($71.57/hr) Musselshell Park $63,105.10 $0.25 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $1,000 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Surveyor No Full-time Full-time, $115,752.00 Petroleum $36,072.24 8.0%$500 $2,000 No $2,000 No No 1. Clk of Dist Crt/ Clk & Rec 2.School Supt/ Treas 1. School Supt/ Treas: $2,000 Part-time, 50%Full-time, $40,340 Phillips Pondera $56,637.84 5.0%No $2,000 No No, Combined w/Treas. No No 1. Co Attrny/ Public Admin 2.Sheriff/Coroner 3.Treas/Assessor/S chool Supt 1. Treasurer/ School Supt/ Assessor: $3,500 for School Supt. Full-time Check other sheet, $107,368.44 Montana Association of Counties Page 5 of 7 Elected Official Salary Survey Results32 County Uniform BASE EO Annual Salary Uniform Increase for EOs (% or flat amount) Longevity for all EOs (excluding statutory longevity) Clk & Rec Add-on for Election Admin Duties (MCA 7-4-2503) Treasurer Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) School Supt Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Clerk of District Court Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Justice of the Peace Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Combined County Elected Offices (MCA 7-4-2503) Consolidated EOs Receiving a Salary Above the BASE Salary as a Result of Consolidation County Commissioners Full-time, Part-time, or Per diem Co. Attorney Full-time or Part-time & Salary (not including longevity) Powder River $49,478.97 7.0%1.0%$2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1.Sheriff/Coroner 2. Treas/Assessor 1.Sheriff/Coroner: 20%Full-time Part-time, $60,223.03 Powell $56,860 $4,000 $400 per completed term $2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Auditor No Part-time, 75%Full-time, $110,424.43 Prairie $49,418.75 $1 Based on FTE status No $2,000 $1,000 $1,000 $2,000 No 1. Co Attrny/ Public Admin 2. Clk & Rec/ Clk of Crt 3.Sheriff/Assessor 4. Treas/ School Supt No Part-time, 40%3/4-time, $92,798.28 Ravalli Richland $81,697.93 8.5% $0.50 every 5 yrs up to 25 yrs paid 2X/yr on a flat 2080 hrs $2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Surveyor 2. Treas/Assessor No Full-time, 8-9 days per month Full-time, $146,892.48 Roosevelt Rosebud $71,194.29 8.0% or $2/hour whichever greater No $2,000 $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Assessor No Full-time Full-time, $135,350.77 Sanders $63,500.00 N/A Start at $90/mo.; move to $100/mo. after 5 yrs $11,852 (combined w/several offices) $2,000 $400 $2,000 $2,000 1. Clk & Rec/ Treas/ School Supt Yes Full-time Full-time, $125,000 Sheridan $57,018 6.0%0.5%No $2,500 No No No 1. Clk & Rec/ School Supt 1. Clk & Rec/ School Supt: 10%Full-time Part-time, $88,200 Montana Association of Counties Page 6 of 7 Elected Official Salary Survey Results33 County Uniform BASE EO Annual Salary Uniform Increase for EOs (% or flat amount) Longevity for all EOs (excluding statutory longevity) Clk & Rec Add-on for Election Admin Duties (MCA 7-4-2503) Treasurer Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) School Supt Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Clerk of District Court Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Justice of the Peace Add-on (MCA 7-4-2503) Combined County Elected Offices (MCA 7-4-2503) Consolidated EOs Receiving a Salary Above the BASE Salary as a Result of Consolidation County Commissioners Full-time, Part-time, or Per diem Co. Attorney Full-time or Part-time & Salary (not including longevity) Stillwater Sweet Grass Teton Toole $61,696 6.5%1.0%$,2000 No $3,000 No No 1. Treas/ School Supt No Full-time Full-time, $117,187 Treasure $44,749.43 5% & $3,000 No $2,000 $2,000 $3,000 $3,000 $1,000 1. Co Attrny/ Public Admin 2. Clk & Rec/Clk of Crt/(E.Admin) 3. Treas/Supt of Schools 4. Sheriff/Coroner 1.Clk & Rec/Clk of Court/E.Admin 3. Treas/Supt of Schools 4. Sheriff/Coroner Part-time Part-time $69,462.01 Valley Wheatland $51,889.56 12.0%1.0%No No No No No 1. Sheriff/Coroner No Part-time, 25%Full-time, $135,890 Wibaux $61,273.48 8.62%1.0%Yes, $2,000 No Yes, $400 No No 1. Co Attrny/ Public Admin 2. Clk & Rec/ School Supt/ Surveyor 1. Clk & Rec/ School Supt/ Surveyor: 20% Part-time, 50% Part-time, 50%, $55,608.54 Yellowstone $81,989 5.0% $6,800/yr 4-yr max of $27,200 No No Yes, $400 No No 1. Clk & Rec/ Surveyor/Auditor 2.Treas/Assessor/ School Supt 1. Clk & Rec/ Surveyor/ Auditor: 20% 2. Treasurer/ School Supt/ Assessor: 10% Full-time Full-time, $148,872 Montana Association of Counties Page 7 of 7 Elected Official Salary Survey Results34 https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074019854160 American Review of Public Administration 1 –13 © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0275074019854160 journals.sagepub.com/home/arp Article Urban governance refers to the institutional arrangements through which local governments, neighborhood associa- tions, and residents make collective decisions and deliver public services in the urban setting (Cooper, Bryer, & Meek, 2006; Emerson, Nabatchi, & Balogh, 2012; Fung, 2009). It includes a wide array of major functions, including planning, coordinating, and implementing projects, allocating resources, organizing, and advocating (Chaskin & Garg, 1997). Urban governance establishes the conditions for citi- zens to channel their voices and participate in local policy issues. Neighborhood associations, which bridge the rela- tionship between citizens and local government, are essential elements of neighborhood governance (Chaskin & Greenberg, 2015; Marwell, 2004; Musso, Weare, Bryer, & Cooper, 2011). Thus, the effectiveness of neighborhood associations determines, to a large extent, how urban gover- nance functions. Neighborhood associations have been characterized vari- ously as grassroots neighborhood organizations, civic asso- ciations, community-based organizations, or city-sanctioned governing structures created at the community level by the people of each area. Scholars have been particularly inter- ested in examining the effectiveness of neighborhood asso- ciations. For example, Berry, Portney, and Thomson (2002) have identified four conditions for success of neighborhood associations: a citywide system, adequate resources, political support, and empowerment innovations to encourage participation in city governance. Andrews, Ganz, Baggetta, Han, and Lim (2010) argued that political context and resources are important, but the existence of committed activists and interdependent leadership, who can turn resources into programs and support activities, is vital to the effectiveness of civic associations in coordinating collective action. These studies have enriched our understanding of the vari- ous factors contributing to the effectiveness of neighborhood associations. However, few have examined the role of board members, who are the stewards of the organizations and act accordingly on behalf of the organizations they oversee. Organizational boards serve two important functions for organizations: monitoring management on behalf of stake- holders and providing resources (Hillman & Dalziel, 2003). As Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) note, “when an organization appoints an individual to a board, it expects the individual will come to support the organization, will concern himself with its problems, will variably present it to others, and will 854160ARPXXX10.1177/0275074019854160The American Review of Public AdministrationLi et al.research-article2019 1The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong 2City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong 3University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA Corresponding Author: Hui Li, Department of Politics and Public Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Rm. 9.46, The Jockey Club Tower, Pokfulam, Hong Kong. Email: lihuipa@hku.hk What Makes Neighborhood Associations Effective in Urban Governance? Evidence From Neighborhood Council Boards in Los Angeles Hui Li1 , Bo Wen2, and Terry L. Cooper3 Abstract This study examines the perceived effectiveness of neighborhood councils (NCs) in Los Angeles, a government-sanctioned and financed institutional innovation in urban governance. The study considers NC boards as a dynamic and open social system that interacts with NCs’ internal and external environment. We propose that three factors—internal capacity, external networking, and attention-action congruence—are related to perceived NC effectiveness. The findings from a questionnaire survey of 80 NCs show that NC leaders perceive their organizations to be moderately effective. While internal capacity contributes to all three dimensions of effectiveness, external networking enhances NCs’ effectiveness in solving community issues and advising about city policies. Attention-action congruence, which examines the correspondence between NC board members’ issue orientation and actual actions, is positively related to NCs’ effectiveness in advising about city policies. The study concludes with considerations for enhancing the effectiveness of neighborhood associations. Keywords urban governance, neighborhood council, board, organizational effectiveness, Los Angeles 35 2 American Review of Public Administration 00(0) try to aid it” (p. 163). They assert that board members provide four primary benefits: (a) advice and counsel, (b) legitimacy, (c) channels for communicating information between the focal organization and its external environment, and (d) pref- erential access to commitments or support from important elements outside the organization. In civic associations, elected board members invest significant amounts of time, expertise, and resources so that the organizations they oversee have sufficient external support, adequate resources, a large pool of committed participants, and effective leadership to advance their missions. Therefore, the effectiveness of neigh- borhood associations depends heavily on the extent to which their boards can promote internal governance, navigate the external environment, and transform ideas into actions. This study seeks to explain how board performance con- tributes to neighborhood associations’ effectiveness by revis- iting the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (hereafter NC) System, a government-sanctioned and financed governance structure established in 1999 that aims to promote citizen participation and connect citizens to the administrative sys- tems of the City of Los Angeles. With financial, operational, and institutional support from the Los Angeles municipal government, the NC system assumes three principal func- tions—promoting citizen participation, resolving commu- nity issues, and advising about city policies—that are central to urban governance. A questionnaire survey addressing these three functions was, therefore, designed and distributed among NC leaders to examine their perceptions of effective- ness and factors contributing to these perceptions. The findings show that despite the rosy expectations from both the public and the government, NCs can only be consid- ered moderately effective. NC boards are dominated by rela- tively affluent, well-educated, White, and older men who are residents of the neighborhood. More notably, by integrating theories related to board performance, agenda setting, and neighborhood governance, the study develops a framework linking board performance factors to NC effectiveness. Internally, NCs with higher capacity to run meetings, recruit volunteers, set goals, sustain leadership, and manage con- flicts—all basics of running civic associations—are likely to be more effective. Externally, NCs with board members who network more frequently with stakeholders, peer groups, elected officials, and agency officials are viewed as more effective in solving neighborhood issues and advising about city policies. In addition, we propose a new variable—atten- tion-action congruence—to capture the transformational process from issues to actions. This variable consists of the extent to which espoused concerns are acted on. When an NC board acts on what it identifies as important, it is per- ceived to be more effective in advising about city policies. Research Context Since the 1970s, a series of secession movements had been developing in the city of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, Hollywood, and the Harbor area, where residents felt that they were not receiving municipal services in proportion to their taxes and compared with the rest of the city. The seces- sion efforts had threatened the geographic, financial, and political integrity of the city, which moved city officials to take neighborhood participation in governance seriously in the mid-1990s. Initially, members of the city council attempted to create a system of NCs through passing a city ordinance. However, a city charter reform was proposed in the late 1990s and finally adopted in 1999 to address numer- ous inadequacies in that very old document. According to the new charter, the goals of the NC system are to promote more citizen participation in government, enhance the responsive- ness of government to local needs, and make NCs represen- tative of “many diverse interests in communities.” NCs are self-organized, voluntary associations that play an advisory role in the city’s public-policy process concern- ing the delivery of municipal services in their respective areas (Los Angeles City Charter, Article IX). Each NC must be certified before becoming eligible to represent the stake- holder interests in its proposed jurisdiction and garner resources from the city government to sustain daily opera- tions. To be certified, the NC has to cover a minimum popu- lation of 20,000 residents within its boundary, collect 200 to 500 signatures from community stakeholders, write bylaws, and establish a financial accounting system. All NCs are cer- tified (and decertified) by the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC), which serves as the policy board for the NC system. The commissioners are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council. The certification of each NC requires a governing board. The City Clerk administers elections to select boards to rep- resent the interests of stakeholders. The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), also known as Empower LA, subsequently assists certified NCs in organiz- ing, learning to run meetings, and navigating the city bureau- cracy. The agency also sets regulations to ensure that NCs follow all pertinent rules. Once certified, NCs become eligible to apply for $37,000 in annual funding to support daily operations and hold spe- cial events. As suggested by Weare, Musso, and Jun (2009), NC boards, elected in accordance with bylaws set up by indi- vidual councils, “are the primary membership structure of the councils” (p. 154). NC boards hold regular meetings and are responsible for creating programs and events to respond to the unique needs of their community. They advocate on issues ranging from crime prevention, roads and streets maintenance, the creation of safe spaces for children, to eco- nomic development. They are also invited on occasion to meet with the Mayor or other city agencies to discuss budget priorities and policy issues. The size of NC boards varies from seven to more than 30 individuals. While there are no head-count rules on the size of the board from above, each NC is asked to specify in its bylaws the methods employed to select/elect individuals 36 Li et al. 3 serving on the board. These methods must be in concert with the following two principles: (a) reflecting the diversity of the NC’s stakeholders and (b) specifying a reasonable, total num- ber of terms board members can serve. Considering that NC board members are legitimate representatives of their com- munity stakeholders and are empowered to make decisions on behalf of their NCs, they are required by DONE to take and pass online training courses in ethics and public funding management, sign a code-of-conduct affidavit, and register personal profiles on the board roster before assuming duties. During the 18 years since its inception, a citywide net- work of 96 NCs has been created, covering almost every neighborhood in the city.1 A set of supporting institutions, such as an early notification system, the Budget Day, the regional alliances of NCs, and the Congress of NCs have been created to foster NC capacity building as well as facili- tate interactions between NCs and city agencies. Despite all these institutional innovations, the implemen- tation of the reform has not been smooth. At the city level, NCs are susceptible to fluctuating political support and changing administrative leadership (Musso et al., 2011). Participatory institutions like NCs cannot function well if elected officials and agency officials do not have faith in citi- zens. At the organizational level, NC board members have been predominantly White, affluent, well-educated, and homeowners (Guo & Musso, 2007; Weare et al., 2009). The turnout rates of NC meetings have remained consistently low across jurisdictions and years. It is, thus, questionable whether NCs could represent the interests of stakeholders to policymakers. NCs vary in effectiveness in achieving their expected goals. Some are effective in mobilizing residents to partici- pate in local public affairs, whereas others are effective in solving community issues. Certain NCs may not be effective at all; some are dysfunctional and potentially vulnerable to an involuntary decertification procedure initiated by DONE. Our interest is in knowing why some NCs are more effective than others. In previous research, there are two streams of studies on NCs (see Table 1 for a summary of studies on NCs). One stream focused on explaining the role of the NC system in urban democracy (e.g., Kathi & Cooper, 2005), whereas the other stream empirically examined NCs’ formation, net- works, representation, and effectiveness. Jun and Shiau (2012), for example, examined NCs’ effectiveness from a multiple constituency perspective. Houston and Ong (2012) studied the determinants of voter participation in NC elec- tions. Yet, the data used in these studies were mainly col- lected prior to 2007. The effectiveness of this institutional innovation from 2007 onward is, thus, unknown. In this regard, our “revisiting” effort is a meaningful update to exist- ing studies on NCs. Below, we integrate theories related to board capacity, agenda setting, and neighborhood gover- nance to explain differential effectiveness in NCs. Framework and Hypotheses Conceptualizing NC Effectiveness Neighborhood associations like NCs exhibit distinctive char- acteristics. They differ from corporations or government agencies in that they depend heavily on elected board mem- bers’ voluntary efforts to facilitate their operations. Compared with formal social service nonprofits that focus on providing goods and services, the goals of NCs include mobilization, representation, and policy advocacy. Given these unique characteristics, it is difficult to directly measure their effec- tiveness (Sowa, Selden, & Sandfort, 2004). Existing studies have used different approaches to study organizational effectiveness. Early literature mainly used unidimensional and framework-based approaches. The uni- dimensional approach focuses on one aspect of effective- ness. Goal attainment and system resource theories are two competing perspectives of this kind. The framework-based approach recognizes the multifaceted nature of the effective- ness construct. A variant of this approach is the multiple con- stituency framework which emphasizes that multiple constituencies have different understandings of organiza- tional effectiveness. Jun and Shiau (2012), for instance, found that NCs’ levels of performance significantly vary, depending on who the evaluators are and what constituency groups they represent. For our project, we adopt a multidi- mensional approach to study the perceived effectiveness of NCs based on the distinct objectives they have, that is, (a) promoting civic engagement, (b) resolving community issues, and (c) advising about city policies. Promoting civic engagement refers to the extent to which NCs help encour- age more citizen participation in government and include representatives of the many diverse interests in the neighbor- hood. By resolving community issues, we point to NCs’ effectiveness in working to solve various neighborhood problems, such as planning, land use, and garbage collection. The last dimension, advising about city policies, captures the degree to which NCs advise the city on citywide policies, local service needs, and land use. Our approach has two key strengths. First, it is multidi- mensional in that it recognizes that NCs do not work to deliver tangible goods and services but to facilitate demo- cratic processes and connect citizens to the administrative system of the city. Second, it is comparable across organiza- tions because it focuses on organizational viability rather than on the success or failure of a specific campaign or project. Explaining Differential Effectiveness To explain factors associated with NC effectiveness, we pro- pose a theoretical framework by drawing on literature from board capacity, agenda setting, and neighborhood gover- nance (see Figure 1). We propose to view NC boards as 37 4 American Review of Public Administration 00(0) dynamic and open social systems (Katz & Kahn, 1978) that interact with the NCs’ internal and external environments. NC boards’ internal capacity refers to the extent to which boards can effectively run meetings, recruit and manage vol- unteers, define goals, maintain leadership, and manage con- flicts. External networking focuses on the extent to which board members contact other actors in their respective insti- tutional environments (see also Musso, Weare, Oztas, & Loges, 2006; Weare et al., 2009). Attention-action congru- ence captures the transformational process that translates NC board members’ issue attention to actions. Below, we explain in detail how each dimension of NC board performance relates to perceived NC effectiveness. Internal capacity. In conventional public administration litera- ture, capacity is commonly regarded as an interchangeable term with “management,” deeply linked to the performance of organizations (e.g., T. L. Brown & Potoski, 2003; Christensen & Gazley, 2008; Eisinger, 2002; Meier & O’Toole, 2003). As a multidimensional construct, it encompasses resources, lead- ership, staff, and a certain level of institutionalization (Chris- tensen & Gazley, 2008; Eisinger, 2002). In their study of community-based development agencies, Fredericksen and London (2000) contended that the internal management capac- ity provides the basis “upon which organizations can imple- ment programs and achieve goals” (p. 233). Neighborhood associations rely heavily on board mem- bers’ contributions of money, time, effort, and skill to the organizations’ cause (Andrews et al., 2010; Herman & Renz, 1997). As Rich (1980) succinctly put it, “the recruitment and maintenance of leaders is thought vital to the success of citi- zens’ action groups” (p. 570). For instance, Bradshaw, Table 1. A Summary of Studies on Neighborhood Councils. Articles Major findings Cooper and Musso (1999)This article discussed the theoretical foundations for involving neighborhoods in governance. It highlighted the role of the university in helping mediate the information gap and develop mutual understanding between citizens and city agencies. Kathi and Cooper (2005); Kathi, Cooper, and Meek (2007) The studies presented the Learning and Design Forum, which brings NCs and city agencies together in a collaborative partnership. They highlighted the potential role of the university in mediating the relationship between NCs and city agencies. Musso, Weare, Oztas, and Loges (2006); Weare, Musso, and Jun (2009) The authors described the complementary roles of bonding and bridging ties in promoting information dissemination and mobilization among NCs. In a later study, they found that elite bias tends to counteract homophily in lower income communities, where the involvement of higher income individuals tends to diversify the organization with respect to socioeconomic status. Musso, Weare, Elliot, Kitsuse, and Shiau (2007) This report demonstrated that (a) NCs are not descriptively representative of the social and economic diversity of Los Angeles residents; (b) despite the strong citywide networks, NCs remain largely peripheral in citywide policy making and service delivery; (c) the capacity and activities of NCs vary substantially across the city. Guo and Musso (2007)This study proposed a conceptual framework for understanding the verities of representation. The authors then examined the representational capacities of an NC and a community-based service organization. Jun (2007)The article examined the impacts of community contexts on NC formation. It indicated how community heterogeneity characteristics (race/ethnicity, income) and community capacity influenced the earlier formation of NCs. Bryer and Cooper (2007); Bryer (2009)Based on an action research study of NCs and city departments, the authors analyzed factors contributing to city agencies’ responsiveness to NCs and highlighted the challenges of enhancing bureaucratic responsiveness to citizens. Chen, Cooper, and Sun (2009)The authors compared the participation approaches in Los Angeles and Shanghai and highlighted how political and administrative structures in the two municipalities affect the civic engagement program differently. Musso, Weare, Bryer, and Cooper (2011)The authors summarized six lessons learned from their 10 years of research on NCs. Jun and Shiau (2012)The authors proposed a multiple constituency approach to understand NCs’ effectiveness. Their article demonstrated that citizen participants, street-level bureaucrats, and city council have different effectiveness ratings on NCs. Houston and Ong (2012)This study examined the election participation of 88 NCs and showed how neighborhood demographic and socioeconomic characteristics are related to the variation in election participation. Jun and Musso (2013)The authors analyzed the meeting agendas of NCs and showed how NCs engage with varied issues, such as land use, internal capacity, and community improvement. Their content analysis also revealed the U-shaped relationship between income and land use. Note. NC = neighborhood council. 38 Li et al. 5 Murray, and Wolpin (1992) found that more than one third of the variance in organizational effectiveness can be explained by the levels of board involvement in strategic planning. Similarly, Green and Griesinger (1996) indicated that well- functioning boards, which unexceptionally embody mecha- nisms to constructively handle conflicts and regularize meetings, are the key to organizational success in terms of goal attainment. W. A. Brown (2005) argued that the strate- gic contributions from the board account for executive per- ceptions of organizational performance. From these perspectives, the presence of an effective board in an NC, manifested through its capability to (a) run meetings smoothly, (b) recruit and manage volunteers effectively, (c) define goals clearly, (d) maintain leadership stability, and (e) reconcile internal conflicts constructively, enables the organi- zation to be more effective (Cairns, Harris, & Young, 2005). Therefore, we are advancing the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1a (H1a): NC boards’ internal capacity is positively associated with NCs’ effectiveness in promoting civic engagement. Hypothesis 1b (H1b): NC boards’ internal capacity is positively associated with NCs’ effectiveness in resolving neighborhood issues. Hypothesis 1c (H1c): NC boards’ internal capacity is positively associated with NCs’ effectiveness in advising about city policies. Attention-action congruence. Attention-action congruence examines the degree of congruence between NC board mem- bers’ issue orientation and their action, that is, the extent to which they contact respective city agencies to resolve the issues that they have discussed in their meetings. The con- cept of attention-action congruence was inspired by the the- ory of policy responsiveness, which examines the correspondence between citizens’ interests and policy out- comes. One way to look at this alignment, based on the responsiveness literature, is attitudinal concurrence, which reveals whether public officials concur with citizens on what the important issues are and how the government should respond (Hansen, 1975; Verba & Nie, 1987). The concur- rence score is considered high when citizens form and con- vey their opinions about the problems that ought to be addressed by government to public officials, public officials hear these messages, and then make informed decisions which reflect citizens’ wants. Similarly, attention-action congruence indicates the extent to which NC board members identify important issues in their neighborhood and then contact respective government agencies. Unlike the internal capacity construct, which focuses on the operational dimension of NC boards, atten- tion-action congruence emphasizes the transformational pro- cess through which NC board members translate their identified problems into actions. While the attitudinal con- currence concept focuses on the alignment of attention from two distinct parties (citizens and government), attention- action congruence examines the agreement of attention and action of board members. We draw on insights from Kingdon’s (1995) agenda-set- ting theory and hypothesize that NCs with higher attention- action congruence are more effective in advising about city policies. According to Kingdon, agendas are the result of a Figure 1. Theoretical framework. Note. NC = neighborhood council. 39 6 American Review of Public Administration 00(0) complex interaction among the politically salient issues, decision-making processes, and available policies. He distin- guished three policy streams: problems, proposals, and poli- tics. When a policy window emerges, the three streams converge, and policy agendas will be set. Kingdon also high- lighted the role of policy entrepreneurs in pushing problems and proposals onto policy agendas. Likewise, NC board members serve as exactly what Kingdon called “policy entrepreneurs” who strive to push the convergence of issue orientations and actions (Purdue, 2001). They hold meetings to discuss local problems and issues waiting to be addressed. These meetings serve as a discussion platform on which board members collectively identify problems. After the problems are identified, board members set out to contact appropriate government agencies. This kind of contacting behavior helps NC leaders gain a more nuanced understand- ing of the issues that are important to them. They acquire political skills and become well-informed participants with a higher policy advocacy capability. As Lawton and Macaulay (2014) showed, through participation in local standards com- mittees, local citizens became both expert citizens and every- day makers of their own local governance. In urban politics, scholars have long been interested in whether and how community power is distributed and exer- cised in a democratic manner. Schumaker (1993), for exam- ple, distinguished three dimensions of power, where the first face of power concerns the direct causal impact of various actors (e.g., elected representatives, bureaucrats, group lead- ers, and citizens) on policy decisions, the second face of power examines the capacity of certain actors to control issue agendas, and the third face of power estimates the indi- rect impact that various actors have in shaping the prefer- ences of those with direct power. The concept of attention-action congruence taps into these dimensions of power as it looks into the process through which NC leaders transform their issue attentions to specific actions to impact the behavior of administrative agencies in the city. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 (H2): Attention-action congruence is posi- tively associated with NCs’ effectiveness in advising about city policies. External networking. External networking refers to board members’ efforts in building and using connections with other organizations to leverage resources and support (Hick- lin, O’Toole, & Meier, 2008). Such networking helps foster connections with organizations’ external environment, bring in resources, and gain institutional efficiency and legitimacy (Isett & Provan, 2005). Johansen and LeRoux (2013), for example, distinguished two types of networking—commu- nity and political. They found that community networking increases nonprofits’ organizational effectiveness in making strategic decisions, increasing organizational funding, meet- ing funders’ performance expectations, and responding to client complaints. Political networking increases advocacy effectiveness by raising public awareness of the organiza- tion’s mission and by influencing local government’s priori- ties. Similarly, Sandfort (2013) examined how intermediary organizations and coalitions help nonprofits gain resources and garner public attention needed for effective advocacy. In this sense, external networking helps organizations exploit opportunities and protect against environmental threats (Brass, Galaskiewicz, Greve, & Tsai, 2004; Meier & O’Toole, 2003). NCs network among themselves (i.e., bonding social cap- ital), in the form of joining in regional and citywide alliances and coalitions as a means to generate a louder voice. They also network with others (i.e., bridging social capital), such as city elected officials and city agency officials, to garner sufficient attention. The respective bonding and bridging ties fostered through networking, according to Musso et al. (2006), play a mutually supporting role in promoting the sharing of innovative knowledge and trust among NCs. More specifically, from a micro perspective, networking helps build individual political skills, which, in turn, contribute to the collective action capacity of the NCs. Networking also helps improve information flows, aggregate political demands, and communicate the gathered feedback with city decision makers. This, as a whole, leads to NCs’ higher effectiveness in resolving neighborhood issues and advising about city policies. As Oztas (2004) argued, both bonding and bridging social capital matter for NC performance. Bonding social capital is conducive to internal discussions through which local concerns are crystallized, and bridging social capital “has a positive relation with NCs’ impact on both citywide and local decisions” (p. 155) as it helps fill structural holes concealed in the overall NC system and strengthen stakeholder engagement. Therefore, Hypothesis 3a (H3a): External networking is positively associated with NCs’ effectiveness in resolving neighbor- hood issues. Hypothesis 3b (H3b): External networking is positively associated with NCs’ effectiveness in advising about city policies. Data and Method Data Sources To test the relationships between board performance factors and NC effectiveness, we collected data with a questionnaire survey in 2016. Key constructs and measurements in the sur- vey were theoretically driven and drawn from a systematic review of the existing studies on neighborhood governance. We also invited scholars in the field to comment on the sur- vey; we revised the survey based on their constructive input. We obtained a list of all 96 NCs, including organization names, leadership team, and contact information (both email and telephone number) from the Los Angeles City DONE. 40 Li et al. 7 We piloted the questionnaire with a few experienced NC members and improved it based on their feedback. The questionnaire was then sent to all NC leaders, includ- ing the president and vice president of each council board via email, in which the purpose of the project was introduced and a link to the survey was provided. We sent three follow- up emails to NC leaders, reminding them to complete the survey. One of the authors also attended the Budget Day and Congress of Neighborhoods held by DONE at City Hall in July and September of 2016. In both events, we disseminated pamphlets and flyers to solicit participation in our project. Finally, we acquired a letter of support from DONE. This letter, along with the access to our survey, was incorporated in a monthly brochure, titled “NC Profile,” released on October 1, 2016, to all the NCs. Because of these outreach and legitimization attempts, we were able to collect valid responses from 80 different NCs,2 yielding a response rate of 83%. In addition, we examined whether the 80 surveyed NCs and the 16 missing ones are significantly different in terms of the covered population, organization age and size, and the percent of household with income below $20,000. The results indicate that missing data are not a major concern. We collected respondents’ demographic information at the end of the survey. The finding is consistent with previous studies that show that NC boards tend to be dominated by relatively affluent (while 18 cases are missing, 43.75% of the 80 have yearly household income above $100,000), well- educated (71.25% hold a bachelor, professional, or doctoral degree), White (65%), and middle-aged to older men (70% of the leaders are between the ages of 45 and 74; 60% are men) who are residents living in the neighborhood (76.25%). As Heikkila and Isett (2007) argued, people from dominant status groups (e.g., well educated, middle- to upper- income citizens) are more likely to get involved in public forums, leading disadvantaged groups underrepresented in public participation forums. Thus, the likelihood of truly representative “participation” may be a misnomer for forums such as advisory committees and public meetings. (pp. 246-247) Measurement The dependent variable is NC effectiveness. It is measured by asking NC leaders how their council has been performing in the past year in terms of six items. A 5-point Likert-type scale is used, where 1 = “Not at all effective” and 5 = “Extremely effective.” Guided by theory, we categorized the six items into three dimensions. The first is promoting civic engagement, which consists of two items: (1) promoting more citizen participation in government and (2) including diverse interests in the neighborhood (Cronbach’s α = .90). The second dimension is resolving community issues, which includes one item, working to solve problems in the neigh- borhood. The third dimension captures NCs’ advisory role in city policy making. It consists of three items, advising the city on (1) land use, (2) local service needs, and (3) citywide policies (Cronbach’s α = .91). The first independent variable, internal capacity, is mea- sured by the extent to which NC leaders agree with the fol- lowing six items on a 5-point Likert-type scale, including our board is able to (a) Run meetings smoothly, (b) Recruit and manage volunteers effectively, (c) Define our goals clearly, (d) Maintain leadership stability, (e) Manage conflict con- structively, (f) Form consensus effectively (Cronbach’s α = .92). Principal component factor analysis shows that one fac- tor was retained, with an eigenvalue of 4.36, explaining 73% of the variance of the variable. The six items were averaged to create a variable for internal capacity. Attention-action congruence examines the correspon- dence between board members’ issue attention and their action. The variable is calculated by averaging the distance between issues discussed in board meetings and the respec- tive agencies the NC board contacted. We are well aware that attention-action congruence cannot be assessed on a single issue; rather, it must cover a sample of key community issues to reflect the dynamics and nuances of neighborhood affairs. Therefore, the attention component examines the extent to which board members have discussed the following issues over the past year, including (a) Public safety, (b) Land use, (c) Neighborhood beautification, (d) Parks and recreation, (e) Transportation and street maintenance, (f) Solid waste and garbage collection. In the survey, we asked NC leaders to report the extent to which they discussed the above issues on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = occa- sionally, 4 = frequently, and 5 = always. The action compo- nent examines how often NC boards have contacted the following government agencies: (a) Police Department, (b) Department of Planning, (c) Department of Public Works, (d) Department of Recreation and Parks, (e) Department of Transportation, and (f) Department of Public Works.3 It is measured by a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 = not in contact and 5 = very frequent contact. We calculated the distance between the attention and action components. For example, if an NC reported that board members have always discussed public safety issues (coded as 5), but they have never con- tacted the police department (1), the distance between atten- tion and action for the safety issue in this NC is 4, indicating a high discrepancy between board members’ attention and actual action in safety issues. We reverse coded the distance and obtained the congruence score for safety issues: 5 − 4 = 1. Similarly, the congruence scores between attention and action for the other five issues were calculated, and an over- all congruence score for the NC was produced by averaging the six scores. The higher the score, the higher the congru- ence between attention and action on critical issues in the neighborhood. External networking is measured by the extent to which NC leaders have contacted community stakeholders, elected officials, agency officials, and other NCs in the 2 weeks prior 41 8 American Review of Public Administration 00(0) to the last board meeting. A 5-point Likert-type scale was used, where 1 = “Not in contact,” 2 = “1-2 times,” 3 = “3-5 times,” 4 = “6-10 times,” and 5 = “More than 10 times.” The items were averaged to create the networking variable. Three control variables were included in the analysis. Organization age is measured by the number of years an NC has been in operation since certified. We expect that older NCs are likely to perform better because compared with younger ones, they often have experienced leaders, skilled volunteers, and established contacts and systems (Chambré & Fatt, 2002). Organization size is the number of members on a particular NC board. We expect that larger NCs are often more centrally located in the interorganizational net- works and may have more resources and capacity to perform better (McPherson, 1983; Newton, 1982). These two ques- tions were in the questionnaire but can also be found in each NC’s official website. We thus cross-checked the informa- tion provided by NC leaders with that listed online and found that they are consistent. This partially implies that the quality of the survey data is reliable. The last variable is stakeholder involvement, which asks the typical number of stakeholders who showed up at an NC’s board meetings in the past year. It is a categorical variable, in which 1 = “less than 10,” 2 = “11-20,” 3 = “21-30,” and 4 = “more than 30.” Engagement with stakeholders is a key task that most NCs focus on. It allows NCs to build strategic relevant relationships with diverse community stakeholders, bring in more voices, and stimulate new ways of approaching community problems. Thus, we expect that stakeholder engagement helps increase perceived effectiveness of NCs. Analytic Strategy The survey data are analyzed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. For each effectiveness measure, the model is built hierarchically in two major steps—the control vari- ables are entered, followed by the main effects (i.e., three antecedents). Standard errors are weighted to avoid problems associated with heteroscedasticity (Newey & West, 1987). While we acknowledge that common source bias may be a problem when the independent and dependent variables are all from the same survey, we performed Harman’s single- factor test (Harman, 1976), and the analysis shows that the estimated variance for the three models is 38.8%, 39.54%, and 39.97%, which are below the 50% threshold, suggesting that common source bias is not a serious problem with the data set. Findings Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics for the variables of interest. The means for the three dimensions of NC effective- ness are 3.01, 3.29, and 3.10, respectively, suggesting that most NC leaders perceive their organizations to be moder- ately effective. Regarding the independent variables, NC board’s internal capacity is somewhere between moderately effective to effective. The mean congruence score between NC board members’ issue orientation and action is 1.48. In addition, NC board members communicate with other groups several times prior to the board meeting. The correlation table (Table 3) shows that the three dimen- sions of NC effectiveness are correlated at .81, .73, and .77, respectively, suggesting that they tap into different aspects of organizational effectiveness. The correlations between the explanatory variables are low. Three multivariate regression models with robust options were performed using Stata 12.0 (see Table 4). The first model examines factors associated with NCs’ effectiveness in promoting civic engagement. The three independent vari- ables, together with the control variables, combine to explain 57.99% of the variance in NCs’ effectiveness in promoting civic engagement. NC boards’ internal capacity is positively associated with NCs’ effectiveness in promoting civic engagement (β = .49, p < .001). That is, when an NC board performs well internally, in terms of running meetings, man- aging volunteers, defining goals, maintaining leadership, and managing conflict, the NC as a whole is likely to be more effective in promoting citizen participation and representing diverse interests. The second model focuses on NCs’ effectiveness in resolving neighborhood issues. The whole model is signifi- cant (F statistic = 39.75, p < .001), explaining 69.39% of the variance in the dependent variable. Consistent with the first model, NC boards’ internal capacity is positively related to NCs’ effectiveness in resolving community issues. In addition, if an NC is deemed active in connecting with exter- nal actors from the institutional environment, it is likely to be more effective in solving issues within the neighborhood (β = .28, p < .01). The third model concerns NCs’ effectiveness in advising the city on citywide policies, local service needs, and land use. The full model explains 58.70% of the variance in NCs’ effectiveness in advising about city policies. Furthermore, NC boards’ internal capacity contributes positively to NCs’ capacity in playing the advisory role (β = .58, p < .001). External networking is positively related to NCs’ effective- ness in advising about city policies (β = .48, p < .001). The congruence between board members’ issue orientation and action is positively associated with the extent to which NCs can play an advisory role (β = .32, p < .05). In other words, when an NC board exhibits higher congruence between its attention and actions, it is likely to be more effective in pol- icy advocacy. Discussion and Conclusion In “The Rebirth of Urban Democracy,” Berry, Portney, and Thomson (2002) considered the cultivation of citizenship as the fundamental step to revitalize urban democracy. Specifically, good citizens, who tend to believe that they are 42 Li et al. 9 responsible for bettering the functionality of the government, are more willing to proactively participate in the governmental process, thus nourishing democracy in a practical manner. Following this line of reasoning, Kathi and Cooper (2005) Table 2. Descriptive Statistics. Variables Operationalization M SD Minimum Maximum Promoting civic engagement Average of two items 3.01 1.18 1 5 Resolving community issues Single-item measure 3.29 1.18 1 5 Advising about city policies Average of three items 3.10 1.24 1 5 Internal capacity Average of six items 3.69 1.03 1 5 Attention-action congruence Average of the distance between issues discussed in board meetings and the respective agencies NC board contacted 1.48 0.65 0.17 3 External networking Average of four items 2.48 0.86 1 4.8 Organization age Years in operation since certified 12.79 2.54 1 15 Organization size Number of board members an NC currently has 16.99 5.72 5 35 Stakeholder involvement Categorical 2.33 1.03 1 4 Note. NC = neighborhood council. Table 3. Correlation Table. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 Promoting civic engagement 1.00 2 Resolving community issues .81*1.00 3 Advising about city policies .73*.77*1.00 4 Internal capacity .64*.74*.65*1.00 5 Attention-action congruence .29*.26*.31*.22 1.00 6 External networking .45*.47*.51*.32*.08 1.00 7 Organization age .25*.30*.20 −.01 .00 .09 1.00 8 Organization size .36*.39*.30*.26*.09 .13 .32*1.00 9 Stakeholder involvement .55*.49*.43*.45*.26*.43*.17 .10 1.00 *p < .05. Table 4. Regression Results (N = 80). Promoting civic engagement Resolving community issues Advising about city policies Internal capacity 0.49***0.69***0.58*** (0.10)(0.09)(0.11) Attention-action congruence 0.21 0.17 0.32* (0.13)(0.12)(0.14) External networking 0.20†0.28**0.48*** (0.11)(0.08)(0.09) Organization age 0.07*0.11**0.07 (0.03)(0.04)(0.04) Organization size 0.03 0.21 0.02 (0.02)(0.02)(0.02) Stakeholder involvement 0.25†0.04 −0.03 (0.12)(0.09)(0.12) Constant −1.58**−2.12***−1.84** (0.43)(0.46)(0.63) R2 .5799 .6939 .5870 F statistic 35.28***39.75***23.41*** Note. Standard errors in parentheses.†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. 43 10 American Review of Public Administration 00(0) urged academics and practitioners to clarify the nature of par- ticipation mechanisms through which authentic democracy can be attained. In their opinion, while representative democ- racy is widely adopted and entails citizen participation to a certain extent, its ability to represent the diversity of constitu- ent interests in populated, multicultural states like the United States remains questionable (Roberts, 2004). Given that par- ticipatory mandates are historically incapable of allowing citi- zens to have the primary influence on government agenda setting relating to local governance and service delivery (Alford, 2002), Kathi and Cooper subsequently advocated for the creation of “bottom-up structures within a governmental framework” (p. 562). The NC system in Los Angeles is a typi- cal example of such bottom-up structure. This study contributes a much-needed empirical dimen- sion to neighborhood governance by examining whether NCs in Los Angeles, a government-sanctioned and financed institutional innovation related to civic engagement at the neighborhood level, after its 18 years of operation, are effec- tive in promoting civic engagement, resolving neighborhood issues, and advising about city policies. Drawing on litera- ture from board capacity, agenda setting, and neighborhood governance, our study proposed a theoretical framework to explain NC effectiveness. We consider NC boards as a dynamic and open social system that interacts with NCs’ internal and external environment. Three factors, including internal capacity, external networking, and attention-action congruence, were related to NC effectiveness. Admittedly, existing studies have examined the effective- ness of the NC system. Musso, Weare, Elliot, Kitsuse, and Shiau (2007), for example, conducted a comprehensive eval- uation of the NC reform in 2007 and found that (a) NCs are not descriptively representative of the social and economic diversity of Los Angeles residents, (b) many NCs struggle with outreach and infighting, (c) NCs remain largely periph- eral in citywide policy making and service delivery issues, and (d) the capacity and activities of NCs vary substantially across the city. Jun and Shiau (2012) found that NC board members, street-level bureaucrats, and city council staff evaluate NCs’ internal and external dimensions of effective- ness differently. While these studies are insightful, their data were collected in 2005 to 2006. Our study uses survey data collected in 2016 and provides a timely update as to how effective NCs have been performing. We find that most NC boards are dominated by relatively affluent, well-educated, White, and elderly men who are residents living in the neigh- borhood, and they perceive their organizations to be moder- ately effective. The empirical results show that NCs’ internal capacity is positively associated with all three dimensions of organiza- tional effectiveness, confirming H1a, H1b, and H1c. In other words, if an NC has an effective board that runs meetings smoothly, recruits and manages volunteers effectively, defines goals clearly, maintains leadership stability, and rec- onciles internal conflicts constructively, it is likely to be more effective in promoting civic engagement, resolving neighborhood issues, and advising about city policies. This finding contributes to the discussion of the relationship between board internal capacity and organizational effec- tiveness. While existing studies posit that nonprofit and vol- untary boards make a difference in organizational effectiveness, few specify how they do it. As Herman and Renz (2008) propose, “Future research is necessary . . . to determine what board member, board process, and organiza- tional factors are important in affecting organizational per- formance” (p. 403). Our study shows that an effective board refers to one that performs well in running meetings, setting agendas, and resolving conflicts. These are all critical com- ponents of board process that contribute to effective neigh- borhood associations. Our study also finds that when NC board members com- municate more frequently with community stakeholders, other NCs, elected officials, and agency officials, they per- ceive their organizations to be more effective in solving com- munity issues and advising about city policies (H3a and H3b). This is consistent with prior studies on managerial net- working. While networking is costly in terms of time, efforts, and resources (Agranoff, 2006; Galaskiewicz et al., 2006), it is a critical managerial tool for nonprofit and civic organiza- tions to gain resources and status to support organizational development and policy advocacy (Johansen & LeRoux 2013; Sandfort, 2014). For NCs, networking is essentially a process of relationship building and outreach through which NCs cultivate ties with community stakeholders and outside members (including peer NCs, the city, and elected officials). These ties help develop board members’ political skills, improve information dissemination, and collective mobiliza- tion for bigger voices and impact, within the neighborhood and beyond. Thus, NCs’ external networking efforts lead to higher effectiveness in resolving neighborhood issues and advising about city policies. In addition, we proposed a new variable—attention-action congruence—to capture the degree of congruence between NC board members’ issue orientation and their action, that is, the extent to which they contact appropriate city agencies to resolve the issues they attend to. The findings show that NCs with a higher congruence score between issue attention and actions are likely to be more effective in playing the advisory role in local policy making. Put differently, when board members in an NC can collectively identify the important issues in the neighborhood and contact government agencies to solve those problems, that NC exhibits a higher level of effectiveness in policy advocacy. This speaks to Kingdon’s agenda-setting theory, which suggests that setting policy agendas is an art that requires knowledge, skills, and political savviness to identify problems, grasp windows of opportu- nity, and leverage political support. The congruence of issue and action within board members epitomizes this kind of art. NC board members deliberate, identify, and act. This process helps them gain a more nuanced understanding of the issues 44 Li et al. 11 that are important to them (Carpini, Cook, & Jacobs, 2004). They acquire political skills and become knowledgeable par- ticipants in the policy process. While existing studies exam- ine attitudinal concurrence between citizens and government officials, our study follows a similar logic but proposes a new variable to measure the congruence of board members’ attention and action in neighborhood associations. It shows that this variable is a critical predictor of these organizations’ effectiveness in policy advocacy. Future studies may include this variable and examine the processes through which atten- tion-action congruence predicts organizational effectiveness in other contexts. This study has several limitations. To start with, data were gathered from individuals leading their respective NC boards. Nonetheless, as Musso et al. (2007) and our study explicitly pointed out, one of the most regrettable shortcom- ings of the NC system is that NCs fail to adequately reflect the racial, socioeconomic, and cultural diversity of the com- munity. NC board members, in particular, are “substantially more likely than neighborhood residents to be white, wealthy, highly educated, and homeowners” (p. 7). The extent to which their expressed perceptions represent the majority opinion of community stakeholders remains unknown. In future study, one might want to conduct a more inclusive analysis of NC effectiveness. In addition, our article may be limited by the mono-method bias. Echoing Morrison (2002), “single-source bias is most problematic when both indepen- dent and dependent variables are measured on similar types of scales” (p. 1159). Although we found that it is not a seri- ous issue in our study, we believe that qualitative compo- nents, mainly in the forms of semi-structured interviews or focus group discussions, can be incorporated in future research to give our findings “an added lift.” Our study carries practical implications. The need to adapt administrative structures to embody democratic legiti- macy and procedural justice exists in other continents and metropolises around the world. In Europe, for instance, neighborhoods have been recognized as proper sites for innovation in service delivery and local governance (Lowndes & Sullivan, 2008). In Denmark, citizens and pub- lic officials worked together in the form of NCs to deal with problems of public safety, crime, and neighborhood decline (Wagenaar, 2007). In the United Kingdom, the government introduced the Localism Act in 2011, which promotes the transfer of power from above to neighborhoods and individ- ual citizens as well as the development of new exemplars of neighborhood governance and community empowerment (Lawton & Macaulay, 2014). While the sociodemographic contours of Los Angeles might not be found elsewhere, its NC system represents and subsequently demonstrates the promise of local governance reform which strives to produc- tively “mediate between communities and core decision- making institutions” (Musso et al., 2006, p. 92). Key elements of the NC system and the relationships between board per- formance and NC effectiveness can stand up to scrutiny in other contexts. By understanding issues related to underper- forming boards, the discrepancies between attention and action, and networking difficulties, this article might help devise appropriate approaches to not only increase the oper- ating effectiveness of Los Angeles NCs but also enhance the sustainability of participatory democracy in broader urban contexts. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: The project was funded by the Bedrosian Center on Governance and the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation at the University of Southern California. Notes 1. At the time of our study, there were 96 neighborhood coun- cils (NC). In 2 years, three more NCs were established. By December 2018, there are 99 NCs in Los Angeles. 2. We received more than one response from some NCs. We com- pared these responses and chose the most credible response based on two criteria: (a) the degree of missing data and (b) the accuracy of the responses by comparing them with informa- tion collected online (e.g., date certified, the number of board members). Therefore, the N of 80 represents 80 different NCs. 3. Some argue that neighborhood organizations often only orga- nize when there is a crisis. For example, many homeowner associations in China are very active when property rights vio- lations are acute. It is possible that NCs have similar dynam- ics, organizing more frequently when there are crises in the community. Yet, NCs are more institutionalized, with annual funding and administrative support. Most have various sub- committees (e.g., land use committee, public safety commit- tee, homelessness committee) and meet monthly to discuss neighborhood issues. 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A multidimensional integrated model of non- profit organizational effectiveness. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33, 711-728. Verba, S., & Nie, N. H. (1987). Participation in America: Political democracy and social equality. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Wagenaar, H. (2007). Governance, complexity, and democratic participation: How citizens and public officials harness the complexities of neighborhood decline. The American Review of Public Administration, 37, 17-50. Weare, C., Musso, J., & Jun, K. N. (2009). Cross-talk: The role of homophily and elite bias in civic associations. Social Forces, 88, 147-173. Author Biographies Hui Li is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on public and nonprofit management, NGO-government relations, and civic engagement. Bo Wen is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Policy at City University of Hong Kong. His primary areas of study are public management, organization theory and behavior, institutional analysis, policy implementation, and Chinese politics. Terry L. Cooper is the Maria B. Crutcher professor in citizenship and democratic values at the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. His research focus is on citizen participation and ethics in government. 47 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM, PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY, AND NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS: A NEW MODEL FOR CIVIC ENGAGEMENT MATTHEW J. PARLOW* This Article analyzes the lack of civic engagement in local government decision-making and the problems that result from it. Public choice theory offers one explanation: domi- nant special interest groups capture local governments for their own private interests. Thus, average citizens are not only alienated from their local government, but they also find the barriers to entry into local politics too high for col- lective action and participation. While at first glance this account seems accurate, public choice theory's explanation of local governments has normative limitations because it fails to recognize these features of the local political process as problematic-much less to offer any solutions. Therefore, this Article suggests that we ought to reject this model of local government in favor of a model based on civic republicanism, which offers a solution to the problem of civic disengagement. Civic republicanism envisions local gov- ernment substructures that provide meaningful opportuni- ties for stakeholders to deliberate with one another regarding matters facing their community and thus inform the local decision-making process. This Article explores whether neighborhood councils-new substructures of local govern- ment that aim to involve citizens in policy- and decision- making processes-can improve civic engagement. Assistant Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law. J.D., Yale Law School; B.A., Loyola Marymount University. I am grateful to Professors William N. Eskridge, Jr., and Janine Young Kim for their thoughts on this Arti- cle; to Brooke Mallette for her superb research assistance; and to Chapman Uni- versity School of Law for its financial support. 48 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW INTRODUCTION It is a truism in today's intellectual discourse that our de- mocracy is failing in significant ways. Among other things, scholars bemoan that the general public is largely uninformed about politics;' that voter turnout is consistently low in federal, state, and local elections;2 and that our democracy lacks civic virtue because of low public participation 3 in politics and gov- ernment, whether measured by voter turnout or some other in- dicator of civic engagement.4 These three phenomena are probably interconnected, with the last of these criticisms driv- ing the other two: if people are not civically engaged, they are more likely to be uninformed about current political and gov- ernmental issues and are thus less likely to vote. There are several possible explanations for the current lack of civic engagement. Public choice theory offers one: dominant special interest groups capture local government 5 1. Michael S. Kang, Democratizing Direct Democracy: Restoring Voter Com- petence Through Heuristic Cues and "Disclosure Plus," 50 UCLA L. REV. 1141, 1143 (2003) ("Voters do not know basic facts about ballot measures, seem confused about the issues, and appear unduly influenced by superficial advertising."). But see BENJAMIN I. PAGE & ROBERT Y. SHAPIRO, THE RATIONAL PUBLIC: FIFTY YEARS OF TRENDS IN AMERICANS' POLICY PREFERENCES 1, 386-90 (1992) (disputing claims that voters are ignorant and uninformed in their policy preferences). 2. See generally THOMAS E. CRONIN, DIRECT DEMOCRACY: THE POLICIES OF INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM, AND RECALL 66-70 (1989) (discussing low voter turnout in elections); THOMAS E. PATTERSON, THE VANISHING VOTER: PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN AN AGE OF UNCERTAINTY 4 (2002) (noting the decline in voter turnout for elections). 3. Terms like "civic participation," "public participation," and "civic engage- ment" can include activities ranging from voting to joining a bowling league or lo- cal softball team. For purposes of this Article, I use these terms interchangeably to refer to citizen participation in their government decision-making process, ei- ther through formal (government-sponsored) or informal (community-driven) means. 4. ROBERT D. PUTNAM, BOWLING ALONE: THE COLLAPSE AND REVIVAL OF AMERICAN COMMUNITY 1-24 (2000) (describing the decline in social networks, so- cial capital, community, and civic engagement). As Carlos Gonzdlez notes, "American politics vacillates between long periods of uninformed and apathetic disengagement, and relatively brief periods of popular ferment and participation." Carlos E. Gonzilez, Popular Sovereign Generated Versus Government Institution Generated Constitutional Norms: When Does a Constitutional Amendment Not Amend the Constitution?, 80 WASH. U. L.Q. 127, 215 (2002). 5. In this Article, I use the term local governments, cities, and localities in- terchangeably and broadly to refer to local government entities. While the sub- stance of this Article is most applicable to cities and, to a lesser degree, counties, the discussion of civic engagement and neighborhood councils has relevance to other local governments as well. By "substructure" of local government, I am re- [Vol. 79 49 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM decision-making for their own private interests. Thus, average citizens are not only alienated from their government, but they also find the barriers to entry into local politics too high for col- lective action and participation. On a superficial level, public choice theory's descriptive account of local government appears accurate. It offers convincing explanations of some of the key features of local government today-in particular, lack of transparency in policy-making and the capture of the political process by interest groups. However, public choice theory fails to recognize such features as problematic, ignoring the wide- spread belief that the dearth of citizen participation is trou- bling in our democratic society, and, more importantly, that such disengagement may lead to dysfunction and illegitimacy in local government. Instead, it views lack of engagement as the consequence of rational choice, not a flaw in a system that fails to provide opportunities for public participation. Thus, public choice theory suffers from significant normative limita- tions. Accordingly, we ought to reject a public choice theory model of local government in favor of a model infused with civic republicanism. Unlike public choice theory, civic republican- ism views the lack of civic engagement as leading to suspect lo- cal policies that stem from an insiders' game controlled by dominant interest groups. Moreover, it explains the public participation problem as deriving not from rational choice, but rather from the inaccessibility of local government structuring. Therefore, civic republicanism envisions local government sub- structures that provide meaningful opportunities for stake- holders to deliberate with one another regarding matters facing their community and correspondingly inform the local decision- making process. In doing so, we can shift from viewing local governments as a winner-takes-all political arena to an under- standing of local governments as a forum for engaging commu- nity stakeholders in a dialogic process to advance government policies that further the common good. The goal of this Article is to explore whether neighborhood councils-new substructures of local governments that aim to ferring to smaller institutions or entities created within local government by the government itself. Such smaller institutions tend to address niche areas of policy or regulation-such as business improvement districts, enterprise zones, and the like-though, as I argue later, neighborhood councils would have a broader pur- pose. 2008] 50 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW involve citizens in policy- and decision-making processes-can improve civic engagement. By providing a viable avenue for ef- fecting change in their communities, neighborhood councils can encourage everyday citizens to engage in their democracy in greater numbers and for a sustained period of time. This should be a salutary development in local government process, not only to those who favor the civic republican model of gov- ernment, but also to public choice theorists. From either per- spective, more participation should yield better, more represen- tative decision-making. Part I of this Article highlights some of the causes of civic disengagement as well as the problems that result from it and explains why local governments provide the most meaningful opportunity for citizen participation in our governmental sys- tem. Part II analyzes local governments from competing theo- retical perspectives-public choice theory and civic republican- ism-and makes a normative case for a civic republican form of local government. Part III discusses how and why past at- tempts at civic engagement on a local level have failed and the lessons that can be gleaned from those failures in order to bet- ter structure modern neighborhood councils. Finally, Part IV considers the advent of neighborhood councils, the potential pitfalls that may determine their success and longevity, and the transformation they may bring about in local governments through increased civic participation. I. LOCAL GOVERNMENT AS THE ANTIDOTE TO CMC DISENGAGEMENT In Downsizing Democracy, Matthew Crenson and Benja- min Ginsberg observe that we have entered an era of "personal democracy" where citizens no longer collectively mobilize.6 In this new personal democratic regime, citizens interface with their governments as individuals; they do not inform govern- ment policies through a deliberative process that enables the community to form a collective identity and express to decision- makers the common good for the community. As citizens be- come more private in their interactions with government, they participate less in the policy-making process and thus wield 6. MATTHEW A. CRENSON & BENJAMIN GINSBERG, DOWNSIZING DEMOCRACY: How AMERICA SIDELINED ITS CITIZENS AND PRIVATIZED ITS PUBLIC 1, 14 (2002). [Vol. 79 51 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM less and less influence in the decisions that affect their day-to- day lives. 7 In this grim assessment, Crenson and Ginsberg are not alone. One scholar notes that since the nineteenth century, in- dividuals have had fewer and fewer opportunities to assert in- fluence or control in their local government decision-making.8 Another observes that as society becomes dominated by imper- sonal institutions, citizens experience increased anxiety about their ability to have a say in the government decisions that af- fect their lives.9 This sentiment may stem from the belief that "there is ...only a small probability that any change in bene- fits one receives can be effected by one's own political activities" in local government actions. 10 Such forced detachment leads citizens to develop a sense of alienation from government. 1 1 This phenomenon pervades all levels of government, in- cluding local government, and is particularly acute in urban areas. Citizens describe their experience with local govern- ment as marked by apathy, frustration, and disenfranchise- 7. See id. at 10-11. The cyber-revolution makes it even more likely that citi- zens will pay less attention to local affairs and further weaken already ineffective neighborhood monitoring of, and input in, local government decision-making. See Robert B. Ellickson, Monitoring the Mayor: Will the New Information Technologies Make Local Officials More Responsible?, 32 URB. LAW. 391, 393 (2000) (arguing that opportunity costs for involving oneself in local governmental affairs increase as the internet allows citizens to download movies and music; watch live sporting events; and bid on collectibles through an online auction). 8. See, e.g., Gerald E. Frug, The City as a Legal Concept, 93 HARV L. REV. 1059, 1068-69 (1980). Frug points out several possible explanations for this phe- nomenon: growth in the government bureaucracy, lack of citizen participation in the decision-making process, and inaccessible government officials making deci- sions without consulting the community. 9. See generally MICHAEL J. SANDEL, DEMOCRACY'S DISCONTENT: AMERICA IN SEARCH OF A PUBLIC POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 1, 1-7 (1996). 10. PAUL E. PETERSON, CITY LIMITS 119 (1981). Peterson examines both neighborhood and individual attempts at influencing local government decision- making. He notes two key considerations which relate to this feeling of anomie experienced by local residents. Id. First, policy change would have occurred irre- spective of any lobbying or involvement by neighborhood organizations or indi- viduals. Id. Second, change oftentimes does not occur even after vigorous lobby- ing efforts. Id. These observations lead to the prevalent "[y]ou can't fight City Hall" mentality. Id. at 119-20. 11. Norman I. Fainstein & Susan S. Fainstein, The Future of Community Control, 70 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 905, 905 (1976). But see J. Eric Oliver, The Effects of Metropolitan Economic Segregation on Local Civic Participation, 43 AM. J. POL. SCI. 186, 205 (1999) (positing that low civic participation corresponds with citizen satisfaction with their governments rather than stemming from feelings of apathy or alienation). 2008] 52 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW ment.12 They feel that there are not enough opportunities for community input in local government decision-making proc- esses.13 Moreover, they lament the fragmentation of commu- nity and express feelings of anomie as a result of their lack of connectedness to others and their community.14 When asked, citizens express a desire to feel part of an integrated commu- nity where they can both empathize with others over public concerns that affect their day-to-day lives and seek to address collectively such concerns.15 Due to the failure of local gov- ernments to involve citizens in decision- and policy-making processes, "the public has become highly skeptical of the ability of government to ensure public safety, to oversee their general welfare, and to provide them with a satisfactory quality of life." 16 Despite the disconnectedness between local governments and their constituents, local governments hold the greatest po- tential for increasing civic participation. As one scholar has noted, "cities are a patchwork.., of neighborhoods, each one of which contains a somewhat greater denominator of values, needs, and interests than does the city as a whole."17 12. Archon Fung & Erik Olin Wright, Deepening Democracy: Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance, 29 POL. & SOC'Y 5, 37 (2001). Such apathy may result from the governmental structure-perhaps by design-or it may be that individuals in contemporary society do not have the time or interest for par- ticipation opportunities. Id. As Paul Peterson explains, most local governments and their decision- and policy-making processes are structured to discourage neighborhood group formation and involvement. PETERSON, supra note 10, at 121; see also Eleanor Holmes Norton, Public Assistance, Post-New Deal Bureauc- racy, and the Law: Learning from Negative Models, 92 YALE L.J. 1287, 1293 (1983) (arguing that government administrative bureaucracies have refused to cede power or influence to community groups that were adopted-either formally or informally-into the decision-making process). 13. Michele Frisby & Monica Bowman, What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate, PUB. MGMT., Feb. 1996, at A-1. Moreover, residents believe that those avenues for participation do not really allow citizens or community organi- zations to effect change or influence the policy decisions. Id. 14. RICHARD C. HARWOOD ET AL., MEANINGFUL CHAOS: HOW PEOPLE FORM RELATIONSHIPS WITH PUBLIC CONCERNS 1 (1993). 15. See id. at 2. 16. William H. Hansell, Jr., A Common Vision for the Future: The Role of Lo- cal Government and Citizens in the Democratic Process, NAT'L CIvIC REV., Fall 1996, at 5, 5. 17. Thomas J. Mikulecky, Neighborhoods: Small, More Responsive Local Gov- ernment, PUB. MGMT., AUG. 1990, at 9, 9. As Richard Briffault notes, "[a]s a social and a political concept, the city is a heterogeneous place, combining residence, work, recreation and cultural life, and mixing people of different racial and ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes and levels of education and occupational attain- [Vol. 79 53 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM Neighborhoods, like families, have a history and an identity that oftentimes bind community members together. They serve"as the primary context-beyond the household-for family life and as a focus of many informal relationships and activities."18 The groups of people who form a neighborhood tend to share many of the same values, concerns, histories, and traditions that are often unique to their community because these values are based on the formative experiences that help define the neighborhood. This communal bond is deepened by the fact that community members are repeat players with one another in the most basic and essential activities in daily life: church, work, school, business, and community organization.19 Com- munity members thus get to know one another and build both trust and respect based on shared experiences and interactions that can foster a commitment to the public good.20 This com- munal experience can, in turn, increase the likelihood that citi- zens will participate in their government, enhance its effec- tiveness, and give more credence to the policies adopted through their involvement.2 1 Indeed, if channeled properly, this process becomes self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing. Local governments can create a greater sense of community that spurs more civic engagement. Such participation in the gov- ernmental process, in turn, can strengthen the bonds of the ment." Richard Briffault, Our Localism: Part II-Localism and Legal Theory, 90 COLUM. L. REV. 346, 347 (1990). 18. Robert J. Chaskin & Sunil Garg, The Issue of Governance in Neighbor- hood-Based Initiatives, 32 URB. AFF. REV. 631, 633 (1997). 19. Small, homogenous communities may have fewer internal conflicts and thus be able to organize better. Richard Briffault, The Role of Local Control in School Finance Reform, 24 CONN. L. REV. 773, 795 (1992). On the other hand, in our increasingly diverse society, such civic engagement enables community mem- bers-who might not otherwise interact-to understand one another better and deepen their mutual ties to their neighborhood. Sheryll D. Cashin, Localism, Self- Interest, and the Tyranny of the Favored Quarter: Addressing the Barriers to New Regionalism, 88 GEO. L.J. 1985, 2001 (2000). 20. Richard Briffault, The Local Government Boundary Problem in Metropoli- tan Areas, 48 STAN. L. REV. 1115, 1126-27 (1996) [hereinafter Briffault, Local Government]. The greater the distance between constituents, the less likely such communal bonding and unity of purpose can occur. See Richard Briffault, "What About the 'Ism?" Normative and Formal Concern in Contemporary Federalism, 47 VAND. L. REV. 1303, 1314 (1994) [hereinafter Briffault, "What about the 'Ism?]; see also JEFFREY M. BERRY ET AL., THE REBIRTH OF URBAN DEMOCRACY 10 (1993) (stating that the neighborhood offers the "possibility of face-to-face interaction, which lies at the heart of the theory of participatory democracy"). 21. Briffault, Local Government, supra note 20, at 1127. 20081 54 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW community.22 Thus, the neighborhood as a "mediating institu- tion" has the potential to be a meaningful entity "within the formal framework of democratic polity."23 Local governments are also more ideally suited for new models of civic participation because they are smaller in size.24 While state and federal governments can command more re- sources and have control over broader policies than local gov- ernments, they are simply too large and inaccessible for mean- ingful civic participation. To the degree that federal and state governments could allow for citizen participation in the policy- making process, such involvement would constitute an insig- nificant percentage of the respective government's constitu- ency.25 In contrast, smaller forms of government invite a higher percentage of citizens to deliberate directly over issues affecting their community because it is easier for people to meet and share their opinions and to solicit feedback from their fellow citizens. Moreover, local governments also give commu- nity members a greater sense that their voices will be heard by the decision-makers as well as by their fellow citizens.26 In addition, constituents may be drawn to participate in lo- cal government because of the nature of the policies and regu- lations enacted at a local level. The purpose of most city gov- ernments is to provide goods and services to their residents, businesses, and other stakeholders. Such goods and services are usually those that affect people's day-to-day lives, such as 22. Richard Briffault, Voting Rights, Home Rule, and Metropolitan Govern- ance: The Secession of Staten Island as a Case Study in the Dilemmas of Local Self-Determination, 92 COLUM. L. REV. 775, 827 (1992). 23. See Chaskin & Garg, supra note 18, at 633-34. 24. Briffault, "What About the 'Ism?" supra note 20, at 348 (noting that more than 75% of cities are less than 5,000 people). In fact, the town meeting form of government that marked the beginnings of our nation were heralded by many po- litical thinkers at the time as being the quintessential form of self-government. George W. Liebmann, Devolution of Power to Community and Block Associations, 25 URB. LAw. 335, 336 (1993). However, due to the increase in population and the transformation of municipalities and their boundaries, this model of direct democ- racy has become almost non-existent. Id. at 336-37. 25. Fainstein & Fainstein, supra note 11, at 905. As Kathryn Abrams points out, federal governmental entities have been formed and developed by pluralist values and thus are, perhaps by design, distant and inaccessible to the average citizen. Kathryn Abrams, Law's Republicanism, 97 YALE L.J. 1591, 1604 (1988). 26. Richard Briffault, The Rise of Sublocal Structures in Urban Governance, 82 MINN. L. REV. 503, 505 (1997). Conversely, on the state or federal level, the average citizen is more likely to think that his or her voice will be ignored or washed out with the hundreds of thousands or millions of other constituents. See Briffault, supra note 17, at 395. [Vol. 79 55 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM trash collection, libraries, education, street paving, parks, pub- lic safety, and land use regulation, to name a few.2 7 Therefore, local governments provide an opportunity for citizens to engage in the decision- and policy-making process not only in a mean- ingful way, but also on issues that matter most to them.28 Costs of participation are similarly lower at a local level than at a state or federal level. Collective action is never easy, but the larger and more diffuse the group, the more difficult it is to mobilize and unite it. The amount of time, money, and energy necessary to reach, educate, and mobilize citizens is likely to be lower at the local level.29 Problems of scale are minimized locally because of the relationships and networks in neighborhoods and communities that make the crafting of the participation process more economically efficient. 30 The acces- sibility and proximity of local governments and elected officials, in contrast to federal and state governments, also create greater efficiencies that encourage collective action. Therefore, local governments constitute the most viable avenue for engag- ing the public in the decision- and policy-making processes and provide the proper context for this Article. 27. Richard Briffault, Local Government and the New York State Constitution, 1 HOFSTRA L. & POLY SYMP. 79, 80 (1996). 28. As Richard Briffault notes, "Local governments have long been celebrated for their role as incubators of democracy." Briffault, Local Government, supra note 20, at 1123. In fact, Briffault argues that local decision-making enables lo- calities to tailor their policies to meet the unique needs and conditions of the community, policies that are far more difficult to craft at a more centralized level of government because of the divergent experiences that communities within lar- ger governmental boundaries have. Id. at 1124. 29. Richard Briffault, Home Rule for the Twenty-First Century, 36 URB. LAW 253, 258 (2004). 30. See William R. Potapchuk, et al., The Transformative Power of Govern- ance, 88 NAT'L CWIC REV. 217 (1999); see also Carol M. Rose, The Ancient Consti- tution vs. The Federalist Empire: Anti-Federalism from the Attack on "Monar- chism" to Modern Localism, 84 Nw. U. L. REV. 74, 101 (1989) (asserting that since there are fewer constituents on a local level, they can organize more easily into groups that make up a larger percentage of the population and thus garner more attention and influence). 2008] 56 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW II. Two MODELS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT: PUBLIC CHOICE AND CIVIC REPUBLICANISM A. Public Choice Theory Many scholars view local governments from a public choice perspective.31 This commonly held viewpoint explains well the lack of public participation on the local level. Public choice theory applies economic ideas to political structures and proc- esses.32 It focuses on the interaction of two parties-interest groups and policy-makers-seeking beneficial legislative and governmental decision-making outcomes through the rules of supply and demand.33 As consumers of the public policy mar- ket, interest groups represent the demand side, while policy- makers represent the supply side.34 Moreover, public choice theory assumes that all players in the local decision-making process-elected officials, bureaucrats, business interests, lob- byists, neighborhood groups, and others-will act in the politi- cal marketplace as actors in the private, financial marketplace do: in their own self-interest.35 Accordingly, the local political process is dominated by in- dividuals who organize into special interest groups in order to 31. See, e.g., MYRON ORFIELD, METROPOLITICS: A REGIONAL AGENDA FOR COMMUNITY AND STABILITY 5-6 (1997) (detailing the successes of the "favored quarter," a phrase used to describe that portion of the population that reaps the greatest benefits from local governments); Cashin, supra note 19. As Robert Ben- nett notes, "No serious observer of contemporary American politics doubts that interest-group politics is thriving." Robert W. Bennett, Of Gnarled Pegs and Round Holes: Sunstein's Civic Republicanism and the American Constitution, 11 CONST. COMMENT. 395, 420 (1994); see also Robert C. Ellickson, New Institutions for Old Neighborhoods, 48 DUKE L.J. 75, 89 (1998) (detailing the capture of local governments by rent-seeking interest groups); Stephen M. Feldman, The Persis- tence of Power and the Struggle for Dialogic Standards in Postmodern Constitu- tional Jurisprudence: Michelman, Habermas, and Civic Republicanism, 81 GEO. L.J. 2243, 2243 (1993) ("Since the 1950s, most constitutional scholars have pre- sumed that the American political system is pluralistic, with autonomous indi- viduals struggling in the legislative arena to maximize the satisfaction of their preexisting private interests."). 32. See GEORGE A. BOYNE, PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE UK AND THE USA 1 (1998). 33. See MICHAEL T. HAYES, LOBBYISTS AND LEGISLATORS: A THEORY OF POLITICAL MARKETS 17-18 (1981). 34. See ALAN PEACOCK, PUBLIC CHOICE ANALYSIS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 13 (1992). 35. See Clayton P. Gillette, Plebiscites, Participation, and Collective Action in Local Government Law, 86 MICH. L. REV. 930, 978 (1988). [Vol. 79 57 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM gain benefits for their members through the local government decision-making process.36 These benefits, or "rents," come in the form of local political commodities, such as laws, legisla- tion, administrative decisions, government contracts, govern- ment subsidies, and the like. "Public choice theory suggests that only by organizing into special interest groups can indi- viduals influence the political process" and gain such rents.37 Therefore, individuals with similar goals and interests selec- tively join interest groups seeking to advance their economic, political, and social agendas in the local government policy- making process. Because interest groups seek to maximize their self- interest, often they must compete against one another for scarce local government resources.38 The success of a special interest group in public choice theory hinges on its effective- ness and efficiency. Large interest groups tend to be more ef- fective, but given their need to administer themselves- through more complex organizational structures and power al- locations-this effectiveness often comes at the expense of effi- ciency.39 Smaller groups are typically more efficient because of their size, but may not be able to gather the resources neces- sary to gain effectiveness in the political process.40 The "free rider" problem also contributes to the inefficiency of interest groups. An interest group faces a free rider problem when it provides a benefit to its members that others may en- joy, even if they did not share any of the burden in attaining the benefit.4 1 When free riding occurs, interest groups lose 36. Gary Becker, A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Politi- cal Influence, 98 Q.J. ECON. 371, 371 (1983) (stating that "actual political choices are determined by the efforts of individuals and groups to further their own inter- est"); see also MANCUR OLSON, THE LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION: PUBLIC GOODS AND THE THEORY OF GROUPS 5 (2nd ed. 1971) (explaining that the purpose of all interests groups is to further their members' interests). 37. See Dorothy A. Brown, The Invisibility Factor: The Limits of Public Choice Theory and Public Institutions, 74 WASH. U. L.Q. 179, 180 (1996). 38. JAMES Q. WILSON, POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS 261 (1974). 39. OLSON, supra note 36, at 46-48. 40. Id. 41. Id. at 48. Olson points to three specific problems facing large interest groups. First, "the larger the group, the smaller the fraction of the total group benefit any person acting in the group interest receives." Id. Second, "the smaller the share of the total benefit going to any individual, ...the less the likelihood that ... any single individual will gain enough from getting the collective good to bear the burden of providing even a small amount of it." Id. Third, the larger the 20081 58 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW membership, monetary contributions, and other resources, leading to the loss of the desired public policy benefit.42 There- fore, interest groups that can best avoid free riding and main- tain the equilibrium between effectiveness and efficiency will often receive a disproportionate share of any public policy bene- fits.43 Competition among interest groups in the public policy marketplace often leads to coalition-building and compromise. Coalitions may greatly increase the bargaining position and in- fluence of what would otherwise be diffuse and statistically in- significant smaller interest groups.44 According to James Q. Wilson, coalitions are most likely to form when "resources and autonomy for all prospective members can be significantly threatened (a crisis) or enhanced (an opportunity).'45 Interest groups negotiate and compromise on an agreement to ensure that a majority of the interest groups involved in a public policy issue share in the benefit.46 In this regard, the preferences of the different interest groups change so that the groups are able to come to a shared agenda that provides benefits to many or all groups and that has the best chance to affect public policy decisions. According to public choice theorists, this majority of interest groups can exert significant influence over policymak- ers, as opposed to the less effective influence of each individual, smaller interest group.47 Indeed, the compromise process forces interest groups to abandon the "all-or-nothing" pitfall in public policy and adapt their goals to coincide with those of other similarly situated groups, thus gaining some benefit to number of members in the group, "the higher the hurdle that must be jumped be- fore any collective good at all can be obtained." Id. 42. See William N. Eskridge, Jr., Politics Without Romance: Implications of Public Choice Theory for Statutory Interpretation, 74 VA. L. REV. 275, 286 (1988). Large interest groups are more susceptible to the free rider problem because the individual benefit will usually be very small, creating an incentive to rely on oth- ers to contribute and do the work. OLSON, supra note 36, at 53. Smaller interest groups can better overcome the free rider problem. Id. Not only is the potential for individual gain greater, which provides an incentive for the individual to con- tribute, but interest groups can more easily monitor free riders and perhaps ex- clude them from the public policy's benefit. Id. 43. See DENNIS C. MUELLER, PUBLIC CHOICE 1113 (1989). 44. See Saul Levmore, Voting Paradoxes and Interest Groups, 28 J. LEGAL STUD. 259, 261 (1999). 45. WILSON, supra note 38, at 267. 46. See MUELLER, supra note 43, at 63. 47. Id.; see also WILLIAM C. MITCHELL, PUBLIC CHOICE IN AMERICA: AN INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN GOVERNMENT 195 (1971). [Vol. 79 59 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM more interest groups and their members. However, this com- promise process is only successful when all interest groups in this majority are engaged in a "mutually beneficial ex- change."48 In the absence of coalitions, interest groups attain- ing the effectiveness and efficiency equilibrium mentioned above will dominate the public policy process. Constituting the supply side of the political market, local elected officials' overarching goal is to get reelected or elected to a higher office.49 Local elected officials thus pursue means that lead to this goal: votes, political contributions, expanded budgets and/or staff, and other avenues for expanding their po- litical support and power.50 Votes are a critical component of sustaining elected status for such officials. Consequently, local elected officials will not undertake a course of action without first carefully deliberating upon whether their constituents would strongly oppose such action.5 1 However, as David Mayhew points out, "the average voter has only the haziest awareness" of what his or her elected policymaker actually does in office.52 Interest groups, on the other hand, can mar- shal resources other than votes-namely, political contribu- tions and support-that are also essential for elections.53 And unlike the average voter, interest groups are keenly aware of local elected officials' actions and express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with them through lobbying, pressure and, ul- timately, through distribution of the aforementioned political 48. See MITCHELL, supra note 47, at 122. Unless interest groups believe they can gain from such a compromise, there is no incentive for them to participate and the market fails. 49. See generally DAVID R. MAYHEW, CONGRESS: THE ELECTORAL CONNECTION at 36-38 (1974); see also Eskridge, supra note 42, at 288 (stating that "[p]ublic choice theory argues that legislative behavior is driven by one cen- tral goal-the legislator's desire to be reelected"). 50. See Clayton P. Gillette, Comment, Interest Groups in the 21st Century City, 32 URB. LAW. 423, 424 (2000). This is not to imply that elected officials are cor- rupt or accept bribes, though some inevitably do. Rather, elected officials will act in ways that reward those interests that have garnered-and presumably will continue to garner-votes and/or political contributions for that official. More- over, an elected official may act in a manner which seems to advance the public good-such as a new public improvement project in the community, like a com- munity center-but the elected official may not derive his or her motivation for such action out of a disinterested obligation to the public good, but rather from a desire to appease the voting constituency. 51. See Eskridge, supra note 42, at 288. 52. MAYHEW, supra note 49, at 40. 53. See id. at 39-40. 2008] 60 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW resources. In response, local elected officials seek to keep such interest groups happy and thus create and distribute rents to those interest groups that support them in their elections.54 Those interest groups that can provide these valuable com- modities to elected officials will ultimately be more successful in the policy-making marketplace-leading to the capture of lo- cal governments by such interest groups. Public choice theorists thus view local government as a fo- rum for the political marketplace to play out. This means that local government decisions are illegitimate insofar as they con- stitute policy outputs that stem not from the community's pref- erences and needs, but rather from the influence of powerful interest groups that may or may not represent the majority view in the community.55 Public choice theory recognizes this problem of capture, but it offers few realistic or viable solutions for a more transparent and responsive local government. For example, some public choice theorists recommend limiting the autonomy of local government in order to eliminate or mini- mize the capture problem.56 A limited government offers fewer benefits, which should lead to less rent-seeking behavior. Oth- ers suggest increasing transaction costs for interest groups to make capture too expensive to sustain.57 A third solution, championed by Charles Tiebout, contemplates consumer-voters"voting with their feet" and leaving a city that fails to meet their preferences.58 The possibility of exodus by citizens, in 54. See Becker, supra note 36, at 373-74 (stating that "taxes, subsidies, regu- lations, and other political instruments are used to raise the welfare of more in- fluential pressure groups"). Robert Ellickson describes the purposefully crafted"cumbersomely indirect system for the delivery of favors" to interest groups-a system designed to hide public largess from voters that marks today's local gov- ernments. Ellickson, supra note 31, at 89. This cumbersome process for local governmental outputs also serves as an inhibitor to civic engagement because it is purposefully confusing to hide the captured system that showers benefits on the rent-seeking interest groups. 55. See Gillette, supra note 50, at 423-24. 56. See Donald J. Kochan, "Public Use" and the Independent Judiciary: Con- demnation in an Interest-Group Perspective, 3 TEx. REV. L. & POL. 49, 106-14 (1998). 57. See id. 58. See Charles M. Tiebout, A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures, 64 J. POL. ECON. 416, 419 (1956). However, many have challenged the modern day practi- cality of this theory, noting that mobility is exceedingly more difficult for a grow- ing percentage of American society because of costs and other factors. See Erin Ryan, Federalism and the Tug of War Within: Seeking Checks and Balance in the Interjurisdictional Gray Area, 66 MD. L. REV. 503, 615 (2007). [Vol. 79 61 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM theory, creates an efficient marketplace where local govern- ments compete for residents and businesses by providing a de- sirable set of goods and services.59 With the exception of Tiebout's theory, public choice ig- nores the role of citizens in government decision-making. Moreover, the role of the citizen that Tiebout does recognize is an extremely limited one of exit and entry rather than en- gagement, deliberation, and negotiation. At best, public choice theory envisions interest groups bargaining and reaching agreements to help bring about certain local government deci- sion-making results that benefit them.60 At worst, public choice theorists posit that consensus among divergent interest groups on governmental decisions can only be reached through deception, manipulation, and horse trading.61 Thus, implicit in the public choice perspective is a rejection of the notion that community stakeholders can and should; communicate with one another regarding their needs, inter- ests, and values; change one another's views or positions through dialogue; and reach consensus on a decision that is in the public interest.62 Instead, the conclusion of a local gov- ernment decision-making process is one that merely reflects a temporary political judgment based on relative conditions and power dynamics in society or, at most, an aggregation of indi- vidual and group preferences.63 This perspective also suggests that there is nothing wrong with current levels of civic disengagement because it theorizes that it is the product of an efficient marketplace. In other words, public choice assumes that if individuals feel strongly enough about the common good, they will engage in collective action. Accordingly, weak public participation in local govern- ment decision-making suggests to a public choice theorist that people are either satisfied or at least satisfied enough, having calculated that the costs of participating are not worth the po- tential reward.64 In short, public choice theory views the lack 59. See Tiebout, supra note 58, at 419-20. 60. See Steven G. Gey, The Unfortunate Revival of Civic Republicanism, 141 U. PA. L. REV. 801, 807-08 (1993) (presenting idea that public choice theory dis- misses the notion that there is an a priori set of communal values). 61. See Frank Michelman, Law's Republic, 97 YALE L.J. 1493, 1507 (1988). 62. See id. 63. See Gey, supra note 60, at 808. 64. See Cass R. Sunstein, Beyond the Republican Revival, 97 YALE L.J. 1539, 1546 (1988). 20081 62 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW of civic engagement as the result of rational choice and general satisfaction. However, as Part I of this Article detailed, many average citizens would like to participate in their local government de- cision-making but avoid doing so because they feel alienated from the process. This suggests that civic disengagement re- flects dissatisfaction and frustration with government, not si- lent approval. If this is correct, then public choice theory's so- lutions are no solutions at all. On the contrary, lack of civic engagement creates the preconditions for local governments that lack transparency and community oversight, are subject to greater incidence of capture, and produce illegitimate local government outputs. B. Civic Republicanism The fact that public choice theory largely accepts the status quo is reason enough to reject it as a model of local gov- ernment. A government plagued by actual and perceived ille- gitimacy must be changed as well as explained. Public choice theory fails to advocate for change by positing that the current state of disengagement is a more or less rational state of af- fairs. This view is, however, inconsistent with our democratic ideal that government is accountable to all of its citizens, not just to those who have the luxury of power, money, and connec- tions. Instead of continuing on our current course, we should strive for a model of local government that is infused with the values of civic republicanism. Civic republicanism envisions local government as a delib- erative democracy whereby community stakeholders engage with one another in a dialogic process to identify the needs of the community and the appropriate course of action that fur- thers the common good.65 In this way, civic republicanism in- jects an indispensable third party in the process-the ordinary citizen-and recognizes that in the absence of public discourse among such citizens, local government decisions will be driven by private and factionalized interests.66 To a civic republican, 65. Id. at 1554-55. The terms "common good" or "public good" are inextrica- bly linked to virtue or "civic virtue" in civic republican literature. See, e.g., Kath- leen M. Sullivan, Rainbow Republicanism, 97 YALE L.J. 1713, 1713 (1988). 66. See S. Candice Hoke, Preemption Pathologies and Civic Republican Val- ues, 71 B.U. L. REV. 685, 706 (1991). [Vol. 79 63 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM then, disengagement is both a symptom and a cause of a seri- ous problem that undermines government's appropriate role vis-A-vis its citizens. Fostering engagement, on the other hand, encourages positive government outputs and reduces public disenchantment. Local governments, especially, can provide a forum for public discourse and a deliberative democracy.67 Civic republi- canism has roots that hearken back to Aristotle, who argued for this model of government within the context of the Greek"communal city-state."68 In ancient Greece, it was the boule- or "council"-rather than the assembly that was the policy- making entity for the community.69 This governmental struc- ture was attributable to the recognition that the boule could serve as a forum for deliberation that was at the core of Athe- nian democracy.70 In the early years of our nation, civic repub- licanism was best embodied in town halls which, like the boule, resembled a gathering of neighbors rather than of the citizens of a larger state or nation. Within this local setting, commu- nity stakeholders come together to share ideas and understand different perspectives.71 Such community deliberation may re- veal to the collection of stakeholders their common values and help to identify norms greater than self-interest: the public 67. See Joseph Lubinski, Countering Majoritarian Politics: Challenging State- wide Initiatives at the Local Level, 13 KAN. J.L. & PUB. POLy 85, 88 (2004). Community dialogue can occur in settings both public and private: neighborhood or civic associations, places of employment, block parties, government entities' meetings, and other such locations. Gerald Frug refers to the ability to deliberate with members of one's community in this manner as "public freedom." Frug, su- pra note 8, at 1068. But as this Article argues, such dialogue should occur within formal, recognized, and legitimized substructures of local government. 68. See Stefan Kapsch & Peter Steinberger, The Impact on Legislative Com- mittees and Legislative Processes of the Use of the Initiative in the American West, 34 WILLAMETTE L. REV. 689, 696 (1998). 69. See id. 70. See id. 71. The deliberative process brings a diverse community to consensus, but not through horse trading and deal-making as we see in local governments viewed through a public choice lens. See Bennett, supra note 31, at 409. As Cass Sun- stein explains, in a deliberative democracy, "political outcomes should be produced by an extended process of deliberation and discussion, in which new information and new perspectives are brought to bear." Cass R. Sunstein, Administrative Substance, 1991 DUKE L.J. 607, 612 (1991). While this process involves participa- tion by a broad and diverse group of community stakeholders, it does not consist of merely aggregating different preferences "precisely because preferences have themselves been created by legal rules." Bennett, supra note 31, at 409 (quoting CASS R. SUNSTEIN, THE PARTIAL CONSTITUTION 11 (1993)). 2008] 64 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 79 good.72 For civic republicans, such critical norms can only be developed and reached through this dialogic discernment proc- ess; they cannot be ascertained solely through the reflection of an individual political actor.73 Civic republicanism not only offers the possibility of better government, but also of better citizens and healthier communi- ties. Community stakeholders are given the opportunity to confront one another-with their own biases, formed opinions, parochial interests, individualism, and differing experiences and cultural backgrounds-and transform themselves, their preferences, their intentions, and the community by searching for commonly held values, generating those public values, and agreeing upon the common good.74 In this way, those who 72. The common good is not the aggregation of various stakeholders' inter- ests, but rather the qualitatively different concept of the community consensus regarding the common good derived from such dialogic politics. See Mark Sei- denfeld, A Civic Republican Justification for the Bureaucratic State, 105 HARV. L. REV. 1511, 1528-29 (1992). 73. See MICHAEL J. SANDEL, LIBERALISM AND THE LIMITS OF JUSTICE 183 (1982) (observing that "when politics goes well, we can know a good in common that we cannot know alone"). In fact, as Clayton Gillette notes, voting without a dialogic process leads to self-interested voting patterns that place minority views and interests in a vulnerable state. See Gillette, supra note 35, at 954-56. Nor is the initiative process properly informative, as it also is not deliberative. See Daniel M. Warner, Direct Democracy: The Right of the People to Make Fools of Themselves; The Use and Abuse of Initiative and Referendum, A Local Govern- ment Perspective, 19 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 47, 77-78 (1995) (noting that initiatives are written by a small group of people-devoid of debate or compromise-and are susceptible to oversimplification of the issues and appeals to prejudice, rather than the common good). As Candice Hoke points out, voting alone cannot prop- erly inform government decision-making because it is not derived from the trans- formative deliberative process mentioned above. Hoke, supra note 66, at 709. Clayton Gillette echoes this sentiment in questioning whether voting can ever re- flect the actual aggregate preferences of a community. See Gillette, supra note 35, at 933. While nothing precludes voters from discussing issues they must decide on, voters tend not to do so. See id. at 945. Moreover, voters merely choose be- tween limited options rather than discuss a range of proposals and select one or more from the myriad brought up in the dialogic process. 74. See Feldman, supra note 31. When participants in the community dia- logue change their minds, civic republicans view this change as part of the trans- formative process of a deliberative democracy. The change is not the result of co- ercion, but rather it comes from a normative understanding of the needs of the community as gleaned from the dialogic process. As John Stuart Mill explains, participation is the key to this transformative process: "the practical part of the political education of a free people, taking them out of the narrow circle of per- sonal and family selfishness and accustoming them to the comprehension of joint interests, the management of joint concerns-habituating them to act from public or semi-public motives and guide their conduct by aims which unite instead of iso- 65 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM choose to engage in the dialogic process are encouraged to re- flect critically on their own preferences, allowing others' view- points to move and shape them as their perspectives do so to others-the result being a more integrated and unified com- munity.75 Moreover, by strengthening community relation- ships and fostering participation, the dialogic process renders it more likely that decisions will be accepted, even by those who may not fully agree with it.76 To be sure, the civic republican model is an ideal. Some difficult challenges must be overcome for the process to yield agreement on the common good. For example, the process must be open to and include a diverse cross-section of the local community-people with different cultural backgrounds, val- ues, and interests. 77 These different perspectives, while diffi- cult to gather, are necessary for the deliberating community to awaken to the true needs of the collective whole. Moreover, community stakeholders must be equal in their participation in the dialogic process; historic disparities among socio-economic or racial groups in society and/or the political process must be eliminated for the outcomes to be successful and accepted by lating them from one another." JOHN STUART MILL, ON LIBERTY 170 (Everyman ed. 2003). 75. Richard H. Fallon, Jr., What Is Republicanism, and Is It Worth Reviving?, 102 HARV. L. REV. 1695, 1721 (1989). While the dialogic process helps partici- pants mold each other and their communities, the resulting formulation of the common good requires that each member of the community is concomitantly sub- ject to these collective values. See Hoke, supra note 66, at 704. 76. Gey, supra note 60, at 858-59; see also Seidenfeld, supra note 72, at 1529 ("Through the transformative power of politics, citizens are able to define the community norms that restrict the behavior of all community members, yet all accept as just."); Cynthia V. Ward, The Limits of "Liberal Republicanism": Why Group-Based Remedies and Republican Citizenship Don't Mix, 91 COLUM. L. REV. 581, 584-585 (1991) ("The ideal of contemporary republican citizenship is not ini- tial agreement on substantive issues, but belief in the consensual possibilities of deliberative dialogue."). But see Gillette, supra note 35, at 934 (questioning whether individuals can truly understand and set aside their preferences and not act in their own self-interest, while also recognizing that a deliberative process may enlighten people as to their own irrational motives and prejudices). 77. See Stephen M. Feldman, Whose Common Good? Racism in the Political Community, 80 GEO. L.J. 1835, 1849-55 (1992). Civic republicans do not ignore cultural differences and private self-interest. Rather, they see these characteris- tics as necessary to be shared with others, discussed and empathized with, and ultimately used in the dialogic process to help inform the collective discernment of the public good. Kathleen Sullivan calls this goal of gathering a diverse cross- section of the community "rainbow republicanism." See Sullivan, supra note 65, at 1714. 20081 66 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 79 the community.78 Again, such equality among citizens may prove to be elusive. In addition, citizens must have meaningful points of access to local government decision-makers in order to inform the de- cisions that affect their day-to-day lives.79 Similarly, local gov- ernment decision-makers must be open to, communicate with, and engage in the community dialogue. Government officials must also explain their decisions to this group and demonstrate how they advance the public good. Such transparency helps ensure that government decisions are not made to advance the interests of a few, but rather the community as a whole.80 Oth- erwise, the process may devolve into yet another avenue to ad- vance the interests of existing groups that already dominate the political process.81 This is not to say that interest groups are always bad for the political process from a civic republican perspective. Inter- est groups can serve a valuable role in consolidating citizens with similar goals and perspectives and streamlining their in- put into the local political process.8 2 Moreover, representatives 78. See Sunstein, supra note 64, at 1541. 79. See Michael A. Fitts, Look Before You Leap: Some Cautionary Notes on Civic Republicanism, 97 YALE L.J. 1651, 1656 (1988). This approach to local gov- ernment decision-making resonates with basic tenets of American democracy: "to incorporate citizen participation in policy making and program delivery is to take seriously the rights and responsibilities of citizens to have some control over poli- cies that will have an impact on their lives." Chaskin & Garg, supra note 18, at 633. The practical effect of such civic participation is the creation of better poli- cies, programs, and services that inspire public confidence and approval. More- over, the community's collective stewardship of local government decisions and policies stemming from the deliberative process has more legitimacy than indi- vidual interests attempting to use the government decision-making process for their own personal advantage. See Hoke, supra note 66, at 705. 80. See Seidenfeld, supra note 72, at 1530. Even assuming that some elected officials endeavor for the public good-freed of the political pressures of reelection and political self-perpetuation-it seems unlikely that all of the elected officials would be so common-good-oriented. Nevertheless, such transparency is valuable regardless of the number of such noble public servants. 81. See Feldman, supra note 31, at 2243-44. As Frank Michelman explains, "the pursuit of political freedom through law depends on 'our' constant reach for inclusion of the other, of the hitherto excluded-which in practice means bringing to legal-doctrinal presence the hitherto absent voices of emergently self-conscious social groups." Michelman, supra note 61, at 1529. Nor does civic republicanism embrace majoritarianism. Civic republicanism thus rejects majoritarianism-a "winners" and "losers" approach to politics. Instead, government exists to allow for community stakeholders to deliberate about decision and policies and to reach consensus for the common good. Seidenfeld, supra note 72, at 1514. 82. Nor does there necessarily need to be a negative connotation to the term "interest group." Indeed, many of the interest groups that may participate in such 67 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM from interest groups can communicate with their members re- garding the policies and decisions adopted by their local gov- ernment.8 3 However, such interests groups must engage in the dialogic process with the goal of informing others of their views and goals, not intransigently pursuing their private interests. In other words, instead of dominating the decision-making process, interest groups should enjoy the same status as that of other community stakeholders. And like any other stake- holder, interest groups must remain open to agreeing to a solu- tion that may not directly advance their cause but that the col- lective whole believes advances the common good. 84 This civic republican model begs the question of whether one hundred percent community participation is even possible in contemporary society. As Steven Gey points out, classic civic republicanism favored small communities that were easier to organize and where the essential familiarizing and bonding could occur among citizens in order to reach a consensus as to the common good and then protect such values from outside pressures.8 5 A more modern view of civic republicanism real- izes the impossibility of replicating this model. Instead, it em- braces a more modest goal of providing individuals and repre- sentatives of different stakeholder groups with genuine avenues for engagement with their government, even if they choose not to take advantage of them. In this regard, civic re- publicanism does not require forced or total community par- ticipation, just the meaningful opportunity for it.86 III. PAST ATTEMPTS AT LOCAL CIVIC ENGAGEMENT Given the importance of public participation to democratic legitimacy and good decision-making, it strikes one as odd that more opportunities for civic engagement and community delib- eration are not available. In fact, federal, state, and local gov- ernments have attempted in the past to create means for citi- a dialogic process are critical stakeholders in the community: religious groups, civic associations, labor unions, homeless organizations, and others. 83. Seidenfeld, supra note 72, at 1530. But see Sullivan, supra note 65, at 1719 (arguing that private voluntary associations pose a threat to republicanism). 84. As I will discuss later in this Article, it remains to be seen whether it is realistic to expect interest groups to set aside their own interests-even occasion- ally-for the betterment of the common good. 85. Gey, supra note 60, at 814-15. 86. See id. at 819-20. 2008] 68 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW zen participation. However, with a few exceptions such efforts have largely failed to provide for meaningful, sustained, and broad public participation in government decision-making.87 Analysis of these failures (beginning with the War on Poverty programs)-as well as some successes-provides valuable les- sons for crafting lasting and effective models for civic engage- ment at the local level. In conjunction with the federal government, many cities started programs to engage citizens in local government proc- esses during the federal War on Poverty programs of the 1960s and 1970s, which were established by the Economic Opportu- nity Act of 1964. The War on Poverty programs encouraged"maximum feasible participation" by the poor in decisions that affected their communities.88 This emphasis led to the creation of Community Action Programs and Community Development Corporations, which were intended to facilitate more involve- ment of poor citizens in redevelopment efforts, such as opening supermarkets, engaging in business enterprise, and building or rehabilitating housing.89 These programs envisioned neighborhoods as the focal point for reform and for understand- ing and addressing problems plaguing urban areas. To that end, they sought to structure new opportunities for citizens- particularly those traditionally disenfranchised-to participate in local (and to a lesser degree federal) government decision- making. Unfortunately, administrators for the War on Poverty pro- grams-both at the federal and local levels-had little experi- ence creating and fostering deliberative processes. There was minimal participation in these programs, due in part to skepti- cism that such economic development efforts would be any more successful than in the past and thus waste citizens' time.90 The programs also struggled because of heightened ex- 87. And even those successes have distinct limitations. See infra text accom- panying notes 98-110. 88. Robert R. Alford & Roger Friedland, Public Participation and Public Pol- icy, ANN. REV. Soc., 429, 455-57 (1975). The federal Model Cities Program was very similar to these models, but also met the same unsuccessful fate. See James W. Lowe, Note, Examination of Governmental Decentralization in New York City and a New Model for Implementation, 27 HARV. J. ON LEGIS. 173, 202-03 (1990). 89. See Alford & Friedland, supra note 88, at 455-57; see also Ellickson, supra note 31, at 86-87. 90. Alford & Friedland, supra note 88, at 455-56. [Vol. 79 69 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM pectations and inadequate funding.9 1 These programs never fulfilled their potential and wound up having little impact on changing the functioning of government agencies or in success- fully engaging citizens.92 These programs failed in their en- tirety by the mid- to late-1970s. Despite these failures, the federal government-and by ex- tension local governments-attempted to spur more neighbor- hood planning and civic engagement in the 1980s and 1990s through major decentralization programs for urban revitaliza- tion. These levels of government collaborated to create territo- rially based formal substructures of local government-such as business improvement districts (BIDs)-that were created for specific purposes: namely taxation, services, and regulation. These programs continue to exist today. However, they are not designed in accordance with civic republicanism in that public participation in these programs stems from individuals orga- nizing to pursue a common self-interest. In the case of a BID, for example, business owners band together to collect and spend money raised through additional property assessments for property owners in a certain designated geographic region. The group uses this money to pay for additional services like private security and street beautification.93 Moreover, once the BID is established, a board of directors takes over its opera- tions and the collective action and engagement of the group dissipates. To be sure, entities like BIDs are successful in involving some community stakeholders in local governance.94 But their success is limited because their membership is restricted. For example, BIDs are usually only open to property owners, ex- cluding businesses, renters, and other community stake- holders. Moreover, these local government substructures en- gage only single-interest stakeholders-with BIDs, business owners. They also usually only focus on one issue-e.g., im- proving business conditions within the BID's boundaries. In 91. Peter W. Salsich, Jr., Grassroots Consensus Building and Collaborative Planning, 3 WASH. U. J.L. & POL'Y 709, 713 (2000). 92. See Alford & Friedland, supra note 88, at 457; see also Neil Gilbert, Maxi- mum Feasible Participation? A Pittsburgh Encounter, SOC. WORK, 84, 91-92 (1969) (providing a case study in Pittsburgh suggesting few successes with the programs seeking maximum feasible participation). 93. Mark S. Davies, Business Improvement Districts, 52 WASH. U. J. URB. & CONTEMP. L. 187, 191-92 (1997). 94. Briffault, supra note 29, at 531. 2008] 70 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW this sense, these substructures fail to engage an array of com- munity stakeholders in a connected and coordinated system that promotes long-term and sustainable change and policy- making. Thus, they are generally insufficient to spur greater and broader civic engagement in cities.95 At the same time, cities also provided new opportunities for public participation through neighborhood services centers, city hall annexes, and expanded constituent service depart- ments-all of which survive today.96 While these avenues give residents some sense of participating in the decision-making process, such opportunities have minimal impact on policies and services because citizens do not interact directly with those making the decisions and because citizens do not speak in a collective voice. Citizens may have realized the inefficacy of these avenues for participation because during this same pe- riod, cities experienced a dramatic increase in community ac- tivism and neighborhood group organization. Termed the "backyard revolution," this period saw the establishment of more private neighborhood groups that formed to advocate for better services and to oppose what they deemed to be undesir- able land use decisions that affected their communities.97 These groups are entities separate from local government and form to advance the interests of the neighborhood resi- dents in local government decision-making. In general, after an initial surge of interest, resident involvement is usually quite low, with only board members and a few gadflys attend- ing meetings. However, when a particular land use decision threatens the character or quality of life in the community, 95. Id. at 522 (questioning the effectiveness of sublocal government structures like BIDs, empowerment zones, and tax increment financing districts because of their targeted purposes). 96. Richard J. Cole, Citizen Participation in Municipal Politics, AM. J. POL. SCI., 761, 761 (1975). 97. William H. Simon, The Community Economic Development Movement, 2002 WIS. L. REV. 377, 388 (2002) (citing HARRY C. BOYTE, THE BACKYARD REVOLUTION: UNDERSTANDING THE NEW CITIZEN MOVEMENT (1980)). Ironically, at this same time, communities also experienced the decline in secondary associa- tions within which neighbors meet and socialize, like the Boy Scouts and bowling leagues. See generally PUTNAM, supra note 4, at 1. Putnam argues that the strength of a democratic society rests in citizens' associational life, which en- hances "social capital," promotes civic engagement, and thus strengthens democ- racy. Id. The decline of such secondary associations, then, depletes social capital, weakens democracy, and creates new barriers for collective action. So these in- formal networks that begot social capital gave way to community groups focused on narrow issues. [Vol. 79 71 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM perhaps one that increases traffic dramatically or poses envi- ronmental or health risks, the neighborhood group once again becomes flush with active residents who mobilize to oppose the project.98 These neighborhood groups have often proved suc- cessful in fighting such projects-so much so that a new word was coined to describe their attitude: NIMBYism ("Not In My Back Yard"). But once the project has been defeated, the throngs of residents disband, and the group remains active largely in name only until another such threat or problem pre- sents itself. Moreover, while such a group may be successful in bringing to light a particular issue in the immediate, this ap- proach often fails to consider long-term effects of their goals.99 Other self-interested, singularly-focused community groups such as environmental organizations, chambers of commerce, and the like experience similar limitations. Like business-oriented substructures of local government, the problem with this model of civic participation is that these groups of stakeholders mobilize and unite around a single issue that directly affects them. Such involvement in local govern- ment affairs is solely self-interested, outcome-oriented, and of- tentimes campaign-based. Moreover, it usually does not mix, say, residents from the neighborhood group with other commu- nity members who have a stake in the area, such as educators, environmentalists, and others. Those involved for such a fleet- ing issue do not communicate with others to understand the needs of the community at large and to inform government de- cision-makers about the interests of the collective whole. Rather, they push their individual agenda and attempt to in- fluence the decision-making process through mobilizing and lobbying. And since the group quickly disbands after resolu- tion of an issue, the lessons of collective action and community 98. Harold A. Ellis, Neighborhood Opposition and the Permissible Purposes of Zoning, 7 J. LAND USE & ENVTL. L. 275, 275 (1992); see also Carol M. Rose, Plan- ning and Dealing: Piecemeal Land Controls as Problem of Local Legitimacy, 71 CAL. L. REV. 837, 863 (1983). Indeed, this incidence is perhaps exacerbated by the mandatory public participation requirements in many land use decisions. See William A. Fischel, Voting, Risk Aversion, and the NIMBY Syndrome: A Comment on Robert Nelson's "Privatizing the Neighborhood", 7 GEO. MASON L. REV. 881, 881-83 (1999). 99. Salsich, supra note 91, at 732-33. Such voluntary associations oftentimes face significant barriers to entry as their efforts to raise money and to build and galvanize membership are frequently plagued by free riding. See Ellickson, supra note 31, at 86. 20081 72 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW involvement are not extended to other issues facing the com- munity as a whole. 100 These programs, which lead to semi-permanent and ad hoc public participation, appear to fit the public choice model of government decision-making. Single-issue, short-term groups are largely reactive. Instead of informing the policy- and deci- sion-making process as it unfolds, these groups enter public life only in reaction to a result or threat-either intended or unin- tended-that they find untenable. This intermittent form of civic engagement may be reflective of the costs of political and collective action. Transaction costs such as time spent not working or not with one's family, and overhead costs for run- ning such an active community organization, may prove too high for anything but those crisis situations where the personal costs of collective inaction far exceed those of collective ac- tion.101 As a consequence, policymakers make decisions with, at best, the information of those who manage to involve them- selves in the currently insulated local government processes. The governmental output thus lacks properly informed inputs from a broad cross-section of stakeholders who are not crisis- driven. Many current methods to engage the community demon- strate the problems that exacerbate citizens' feelings of discon- nectedness and lack of responsiveness from their local govern- ment. Typically, local governments interact with and engage local communities through two methods. The "try-and-sell" method, which involves no real community participation,10 2 consists of local government agencies making a decision and then attempting to "sell" it-after the fact-to local communi- ties through public meetings and other interactions. 103 The 100. See, e.g., Potapchuk et al., supra note 30, at 17 (noting that the City of Denver's effective community governance is restricted to economic development projects and does not reach other areas of interest to the community). 101. As discussed further in Part IV.C., the question of time may be the most significant barrier to neighborhood council success. 102. See Frank Benest, Serving Customers or Engaging Citizens: What is the Future of Local Government?, 78 PUB. MGMT. A6, A8 (1996). 103. For example, a city might make a decision to privatize its trash collection service without providing meaningful input from its citizens. Elected officials would then speak at community group meetings after the decision was made in an attempt to build support for the decision by delineating all of the positives of the privatization move. Such an approach-even if correct on the merits-can alien- ate constituents who will inevitably feel as though decisions affecting their day-to- day lives were made without their input. Citizens might also feel insulted that [Vol. 79 73 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM "try-and-sell" method has had little success with neighborhood groups or the community at large, generating a negative reac- tion and fostering mistrust in the decision-making process. 104 The second approach is for local governments to create new community groups or support existing neighborhood organiza- tions to provide input regarding policy-making and the needs of their communities. 105 These groups engage in discussions with local government officials and agencies regarding community concerns and approaches to solving neighborhood problems. This approach creates partnerships between city governments and neighborhood groups, spurring community clean-up, anti- drug, anti-gang, and after-school programs. 106 However, this model primarily relies on existing community-based organiza- tions. Local governments believe that these groups are embed- ded institutions with mechanisms for inclusion and communi- cation that can streamline representation of neighborhood interests. 107 But this assumption seems to be unfounded. First, as described above, these groups are usually singularly focused and do not engage a meaningful cross-section of the community. Second, rather than emerging as grassroots re- sponses to local needs, these existing groups are established, at least in part, by outside organizations, such as government elected officials assume that community members will feel a sense of ownership in the decision if the elected officials come "cheerlead" at such a meeting. 104. See Benest, supra note 102. Local residents complain about traditional models of public information dissemination, seeking a more honest form of two- way communications between neighborhoods and city government. See Frisby & Bowman, supra note 13, at 4. Residents believe that public meetings, such as"meet your local government official day," are more of a public relations opportu- nity for officials rather than a meaningful sharing of information. Such artificial shared governance relationships anger local communities. When invited to par- ticipate in community meetings with local officials, residents want an assurance that their opinions will be heard, valued, and used in the policy-making process. See id. 105. See Benest, supra note 102, at A9. In Brea, California, public officials of- ten attend homeowners association meetings to inform residents of and seek their input on new policy initiatives or to gain their support for recycling, fire preven- tion, or crime resistance programs. See Frank Benest, Creating Neighborhood Connections, 72 PUB. MGMT. 6, 7 (1990) [hereinafter Benest, Creating Neighbor- hood Connections]. This type of relationship demonstrates an effective informa- tion dissemination and collecting model of city government to neighborhood rela- tionship. 106. See Benest, supra note 102, at A9; see also Benest, supra note 105, at 6 (explaining how local governments have teamed with homeowners associations to counter gangs and drug dealers in their communities, as well as to take back local parks and community centers). 107. See Chaskin & Garg, supra note 18, at 634. 2008] 74 UNIVERSTY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW agencies or corporations, in need of information, support, or le- gitimacy in the neighborhood. 108 Third, a small group of local elites often run these organizations-a phenomenon referred to as the "iron law of oligarchy."109 These elite leaders operate with few mechanisms of communication with, or accountability to, the residents at large.110 These issues demonstrate that these existing groups do not understand, represent, or concern themselves with the needs and concerns of the community as a whole for which they claim to speak These two approaches are designed in the "vending ma- chine" mode of engagement. It finds citizens complacently ac- quiescing to pay an allotted amount of taxes and fees and in re- turn receiving a corresponding value of services from their local governments.I1 I In this regard, local governments view citi- zens as passive consumers rather than as active participants in the community decision-making process. Although some of the approaches mentioned above seek community input, neighbor- hood groups still do not have an official, institutional role in city government policy-making. In these models, local govern- ment officials often merely gather information from these groups rather than engage them in designing or crafting city policies. Moreover, these groups do not interact with one an- other as part of a larger, deliberative approach to local gov- ernment decision-making. Finally, some scholars see the suburbs and common inter- est communities (CIC)1 12-with their accompanying homeown- ers associations-as models for public participation. 113 While 108. Id. at 634-35. 109. Id. See generally ROBERT MICHELS, POLITICAL PARTIES: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE OLIGARCHICAL TENDENCIES OF MODERN DEMOCRACY 15 (1958) (describing the "iron law of oligarchy" theory that political and governmental or- ganizations will inevitably be taken over by self-perpetuating elites). 110. See MICHELS, supra note 109. 111. See Hansell, supra note 16, at 9. 112. CICs are residential developments-planned unit developments, condo- miniums, and cooperatives-where all units are subject to private land use cove- nants, conditions, and restrictions and are governed by a private homeowners as- sociation. CICs are separate, yet complementary entities to local government that supplement the goods and services that cities, counties, and other local govern- ments provide to residents. 113. See generally Robert C. Ellickson, Cities and Homeowners Associations, 130 U. PA. L. REV. 1519 (1982) (arguing for more local control to neighborhood homeowners associations); Ellickson, supra note 31, at 75 (making the case for Block Improvement Districts and Neighborhood Improvement Districts based off of the popular Business Improvements Districts); Liebmann, supra note 24; [Vol. 79 75 2008]CIVIC REPUBLICANISM some research suggests that citizens participate more in sub- urbs than in cities,114 other scholars suggest otherwise.115 Moreover, suburbs are not microcosms of large, diverse cities. Rather, they are homogenous-in terms of race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status-and oftentimes represent the "favored quarter" of regional populations. 116 Similarly, CICs are limited in terms of their universal usefulness as a model of civic en- gagement because they are largely limited to the affluent who can afford to opt out of ordinary government goods and ser- vices.117 As Wayne Hyatt notes, such communities are often "enclaves of wealth and privilege" that are coercive, not volun- tary.118 Moreover, attendance and participation in homeown- Robert H. Nelson, Privatizing the Neighborhood: A Proposal to Replace Zoning with Private Collective Property Rights to Existing Neighborhoods, 7 GEO. MASON L. REV. 827, 832 (1999) (same). The basis for these positions stems from a defense of property-a common mantra that underlies many decentralization arguments. However, local government and our conception of community involve far more than merely defending individual property rights. 114. Briffault, "What About the 'Ism?", supra note 20, at 435. 115. See Oliver, supra note 11, at 190 (noting that more affluent neighborhoods may experience lower civic participation due to "fewer social needs"). 116. ORFIELD, supra note 31, at 1 (detailing the successes of the "favored quar- ter"); Cashin, supra note 19, at 1897 (noting that suburbs represent approxi- mately 25% of a region's population, but that this quarter of the population suc- ceeds in obtaining or securing the largest share of the region's infrastructure improvements). 117. See Timothy Egan, The Serene Fortress: A Special Report; Many Seek Se- curity in Private Communities, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 3, 1995 (citing Canyon Lake, California, as an example of a private, incorporated city that is not open to the public); see also Canyon Lake Home Page, http://www.cityofcanyonlake.com. This is also to say nothing of the potential impact such a privatization revolution would have on existing cities and their ability to maintain a tax base to provide goods and services to those remaining in their boundaries who could not afford to opt out in this manner, especially the poor. Moreover, cities are quite limited in their powers to begin with, so the powers that could be decentralized to local substruc- tures of government are also, by definition, limited. Lowe, supra note 88, at 183; see also Richard C. Schragger, Can Strong Mayors Empower Weak Cities? On the Power of Local Executives in a Federal System, 115 YALE L.J. 2542, 2556-64 (2006) (noting the cities' lack of power in our federal system). In addition, to the degree that such models seek to privatize local land use decision-making, they may run afoul of the legal protection that ensures that the government cannot transfer its police power. See Steven J. Eagle, Privatizing Land Use Regulations: The Problem of Consent, 7 GEO. MASON L. REV. 905, 919 (1999) (citing Carlino v. Whitpain Investors, 453 A.2d 1385, 1388 (Pa. 1982)); see also Clayton P. Gillette, Regionalization and Interlocal Bargains, 76 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 190, 224 (2001) ("Local government law retains a significant nondelegation doctrine that limits its deci- sion-making authority to locally elected officials."). 118. Wayne S. Hyatt, Common Interest Communities: Evolution and Reinven- tion, 31 J. MARSHALL L. REV. 303, 311-12 (1998) ("[B]ecause the range of housing 76 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW ers associations tend to be low.119 When residents do engage with one another, it is often over petty disputes such as paint- ing one's house a particular color, not maintaining one's lawn properly, or some other violation of a covenant. 120 Given the restrictiveness and conformity of CICs, it is no surprise that collective action rarely occurs and that participation is low. 121 In this regard, while suburbs or CICs may prove valuable as supplemental efforts to broader civic engagement initiatives, they ultimately fail to fill the void in our democracy and local government decision-making process. The failed and limited programs of the past demonstrate that for meaningful and lasting change to occur, diverse stake- holders from across a community must establish collaborative relationships through a dialogic process to help reach consen- sus on the public good. Such efforts must be proactive and sus- tained, rather than reactive and crisis-driven. They must be structured as a formal part of the local government policy- and decision-making process so as to provide genuine access and to inform decision-makers about the needs and wants of the com- munity as a whole. Systemic changes, long-term planning, and responsive policy-making-all hallmarks of good local govern- ment--can only be accomplished through a paradigmatic shift in civic engagement. 122 The remainder of the Article explores the advent of neighborhood councils, which embrace many of the values of civic republicanism and may signal such a shift in paradigm for local governance. IV. NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS A. Structure With the failure of past attempts at increasing public par- ticipation, local governments have created promising new sub- structures that aim to engage community stakeholders, both choices is limited, individuals become subject to community association govern- ance by necessity rather than by fully informed choice."). 119. Clayton Gillette, Court, Covenants, and Communities, 61 U. CHI. L. REV. 1375, 1403 (1994). Such lack of involvement may stem from homeowners' general satisfaction in such homogenous communities where expectations and standards of living are somewhat predetermined. 120. Id. 121. Hyatt, supra note 118, at 360-61. 122. Potapchuk et al., supra note 30, at 4. [Vol. 79 77 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM with one another and, ultimately, as part of the policy- and de- cision-making process: neighborhood councils.12 3 The New York City Charter's explanation of its neighborhood councils provides a representative overview of the purposes of these en- tities: neighborhood councils exist "for the planning of commu- nity life within the city, the participation of citizens in city gov- ernment within their communities, and the efficient and effective organization of agencies that deliver municipal ser- vices in local communities and boroughs."'124 Although the structure and work of neighborhood councils vary from city to city, their general goals are the same: to bring together a broad cross-section of the community to deliberate over various laws, policies, and decisions ranging from land use and transporta- tion matters to goods and service delivery and then to inform the formal local government decision-making process with their input. 125 Many questions naturally arise when considering whether and how a local government should adopt neighborhood coun- cils. How will neighborhood council boundaries be defined and who should be allowed to participate? Should neighborhood council leadership be elected or appointed? Should they be formal or informal entities within local government? Should neighborhood councils be advisory or have decision-making au- thority? How neighborhood councils are formed and structured will make a significant difference in terms of the community's perception of their legitimacy and effectiveness. 1. Size and Boundaries Cities differ as to what constitutes an appropriate size for a neighborhood council. The City of Simi Valley, California, created four neighborhood councils with approximately 25,000 123. While the official names of these entities vary from city to city, I use the term "neighborhood council" to describe them as whatever name a city chooses, the entities are very similar, if not identical, in nature. 124. N.Y. CITY CHARTER ch. 69 § 2700 (1989). Most cities create neighborhood councils by ordinance or through their city charter. See BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 58 (noting that cities, like Portland, Oregon, created neighborhood councils by ordinance). Other cities, such as Washington, D.C., created neighborhood coun- cils in their city charters. 125. See, e.g., Benest, supra note 102, at A7 (explaining the purpose of Brea, California, neighborhood councils); Salsich, supra note 91, at 717, 719-20 (de- scribing Atlanta, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., neighborhood councils). 2008] 78 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW residents per district. 126 In Los Angeles, California, neighbor- hood councils average approximately 38,000 residents within their boundaries.127 On the larger end, in New York City fifty- nine neighborhood councils each represent an average of 125,000 residents. 128 Some cities have attempted to give flexi- bility to communities in defining and shaping neighborhood councils in order to allow for better representation of natural neighborhoods. For example, the neighborhood council system in Los Angeles is set up to address matters such as boundary designation, structuring the neighborhood councils and their boards of directors, and drafting by-laws for each community that seeks to form such an entity. 129 New York City also drew its neighborhood councils' boundaries to satisfy certain criteria, such as conformity with historic neighborhoods and communi- ties, suitability for the delivery of services, and population eq- uity. 130 Early studies show that in order for neighborhood councils to be effective, local governments should limit the scope of neighborhood councils to geographic areas with relatively small populations. 131 At the same time, they should remain flexible so as to permit boundaries that track existing neighborhoods. Smaller neighborhood councils allow for meaningful face-to- face interaction between community stakeholders engaging in a dialogic process, while flexibility allows such entities to re- main true to natural communities with shared interests. 126. See Coll Metcalfe, Neighborhood Councils Put Their Stamp on City Issues, L.A. TIMES, Mar. 30, 1998, at B8. 127. JULIET MUSSO ET AL., UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA URBAN INITIATIVE, NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS IN Los ANGELES: A MIDTERM STATUS REPORT 1 (2004), http://urban.usc.edu/maindoc/downloads/ncmidterm.pdf. 128. See Richard Briffault, The New York City Charter and the Question of Scale, 42 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REV. 1059, 1064 (1998). New York City operates on a bor- ough system. However, the large size of the boroughs-both geographically and in terms of population-necessitated another approach to true community participa- tion in local governance. See id. at 1063. Consequently, in 1961, the City of New York created neighborhood councils-which they term community districts and boards-to gain more meaningful neighborhood participation in the operation of the city. See id. The City restricts neighborhood councils from encompassing more than 250,000 residents in order to bring these entities closer to the commu- nity than the boroughs. See id. 129. MUSSO ETAL., supra note 127, at 4. 130. See Frederick A. 0. Schwarz, Jr. & Eric Lane, The Policy and Politics of Charter-Making, 42 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REV. 723, 823 (1998). 131. BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 49 (concluding that successful neighbor- hood councils covered smaller geographic regions that kept their representative populations between 2,000 and 16,000 people). [Vol. 79 79 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM 2. Who May Participate? Eligibility to participate in neighborhood councils is often a hotly debated topic. Traditional participation theory views in- dividuals as being part of only one community: the one in which they live. 132 And like most government entities, neighborhood councils are inevitably structured according to geography. However, many cities have attempted to be more inclusive in their neighborhood council participants. In Los Angeles, neighborhood councils can define for themselves the diversity of their general membership. Definitions of eligible community stakeholders vary widely among Los Angeles neighborhood councils but often include "any individual who lives, works, owns a business or owns property" within the neighborhood council's boundaries; those who participate in educational, religious, non-profit, or community organizations; and members of senior groups, cultural groups, environmental groups, fraternal organizations, and military/veteran organiza- tions.133 In Portland, Oregon, individuals from neighborhood associations, churches, hospitals, businesses, and other seg- ments of the community may participate in neighborhood coun- cils. 134 In Atlanta, Georgia, residents and those who own prop- erty, run a business, or work within the neighborhood councils' boundaries are eligible for membership and voting rights within these entities. 135 Determining who constitutes community stakeholders, and thus who may participate in neighborhood councils, becomes a critical question for the effectiveness and longevity of the coun- cils. To gain legitimacy in the community and the broader city, neighborhood councils must speak for a broad array of stake- holders and their views-not just residents who live within the boundaries, but others that have stakes in the community as well. Accordingly, cities should consider adopting a self- selection process whereby communities determine which 132. See Richard Briffault, Who Rules at Home?: One Person/One Vote and Lo- cal Governments, 60 U. CHI. L. REV. 339, 413-14 (1993). 133. MUSSO ET AL., supra note 127, at app. 1.126. While membership of neighborhood councils tends to be dominated by residents (homeowners and rent- ers), businesses, religiously-affiliated organizations, educational organizations, and representatives from social services also constitute significant percentages of the membership. Id. at 9. 134. BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 66. 135. Salsich, supra note 91, at 717. 20081 80 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW stakeholders can participate in their neighborhood council. This approach allows for a more holistic definition of "commu- nity" in building neighborhood councils. Such horizontal inte- gration in the community allows a diverse cross-section of stakeholders-homeowners, tenants, community leaders, com- mercial property owners, social service leaders, police represen- tatives, students, educators, merchants, and others with vested interest in the quality of life in the neighborhood-to partici- pate in neighborhood councils.136 It thereby provides for a more representative entity for the entire stakeholder commu- nity. Moreover, the self-selection process joins different per- spectives, bodies of expertise, bases of knowledge, and access to resources in the community. This more inclusive vision is not unprecedented in local government scholarship. Gerald Frug and Richard Thompson Ford advocate for more expansive stakeholder inclusion on the local level-one that departs from our normal conceptions of residency voting and representation-through cross-border vot- ing whereby non-residents could vote in local elections in areas where they do not reside. 137 This view stems from the realities of urban living: because many major metropolitan areas are densely populated, decisions in one neighborhood may impose externalities on surrounding communities. As such, a more in- clusive definition of community stakeholder should make sense, especially for neighborhood councils in densely popu- lated cities. 136. Horizontal integration would also include neighborhood councils them- selves communicating and engaging with one another to address citywide issues which transcend more than just the metes and bounds of a particular neighbor- hood council. Los Angeles attempts to achieve such horizontal integration through its Congress of Neighborhoods, which aims to serve as a larger delibera- tive forum for neighborhood councils to address citywide issues such as spending priorities for city services, transportation, development, and other quality of life matters. MUSSO ET AL., supra note 127, at Appendix 1. 137. Richard Thompson Ford, The Boundaries of Race: Political Geography and Legal Analysis, 107 HARV. L. REV. 1841, 1908-09 (1994); Gerald Frug, Decenter- ing Decentralization, 60 U. CHI. L. REV. 253, 297 (1993). Of course, there is a question of just how broadly a community might want to define itself. For exam- ple, Erwin Chemerinsky notes that during his time as chairman of the Elected Charter Reform Commission for the City of Los Angeles, the commission debated the merits of including undocumented immigrants as part of neighborhood coun- cils. Erwin Chemerinsky, Further Reflections of a Framer: The Los Angeles Char- ter Reform Experience, 3 GREEN BAG 2D 125, 132 (2000). [Vol. 79 81 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM 3. Leadership-Appointed or Elected? Another controversy arises as to whether the leadership of the neighborhood councils should be elected or appointed. Neighborhood councils also have boards of directors that help administer the work of the group. The number of directors var- ies depending on the neighborhood council, ranging from five to more than fifty.138 Moreover, some neighborhood councils des- ignate certain director seats for particular stakeholder groups; others hold general at-large elections or elections based on dis- tricts within the neighborhood council's boundaries; and many adopt a combination of two or more of these or other ap- proaches.139 Other neighborhood councils have their directors appointed by elected officials. 140 Both models of appointing or electing directors run into normative and/or legal problems. For example, a policy of elected officials appointing members to neighborhood councils runs counter to the notion of a local independent body that is truly representative of its community and that is more organi- cally formed. Moreover, in such a model, appointed members to these councils may feel loyalty and ties to the elected official appointing them, thus preventing them from unfettered advo- cacy and representation of their neighborhoods. On the other hand, electing directors to neighborhood councils' boards may fit the community-centered model of neighborhood councils better in terms of being more authentic 138. For example, neighborhood councils' boards of directors in Los Angeles range from five to fifty-one members, with an average of approximately twenty. MUSSO ET AL., supra note 127, at app. 1. In New York City, neighborhood council boards range from thirty to fifty members. See Briffault, supra note 128, at 1064. In Portland, Oregon, neighborhood council boards contain between nine and twenty-three members, while Washington, D.C.'s has eight members each. 139. See Ted Rohrlich, Neighborhood Power Is Key to Charter Debate, L.A. TIMES, Mar. 19, 1998, at Al (half of St. Paul's neighborhood councils elected their representatives by district, while half elected them at large, and some councils allocated board positions to particular representative groups, while others did not); Salsich, supra note 91, at 719 (Washington, D.C., neighborhood council direc- tors are elected every two years by single-member districts comprised of two thou- sand residents). 140. Benest, Creating Neighborhood Connections, supra note 105, at 7 (Simi Valley City Council appoints members to the neighborhood councils' boards); see Briffault, supra note 128, at 1064 (discussing how in New York City, council members and borough presidents appoint community activists, developers, neighborhood leaders, political supporters, and other community members to these boards for two-year terms). 2008] 82 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW and representative of the broad cross-section of community stakeholders. However, the election of neighborhood councils with decision-making authority-discussed further below- creates serious legal issues stemming from the United States Supreme Court's decision in Avery v. Midland County, which extended voting apportionment rules for state legislatures to local governments. 141 In Avery, the Court held that locally rep- resentative bodies with decision-making authority over those within its boundaries must adhere to the one person/one vote doctrine, although it also indicated that special-purpose sub- structures of local government that focused on certain constitu- ents more than others might be exempt from the rule. 142 The key to this seeming paradox is the "Supreme Court's basic premise ... that residents of a jurisdiction have an equal right to participate in the election of their local government so long as they are comparably affected by that government." 143 Nev- ertheless, the Supreme Court has almost always limited the right to vote only to those citizens who physically reside within the jurisdiction, pointing out that such residency requirements are necessary "to preserve the basic conception of a political community." 144 Moreover, the Voting Rights Act would require neighborhood councils to contain an equal number of residents, the non-dilution of minority strength and balance, and the compactness and other qualities designed to ensure fairness and avoid discrimination against one segment of the popula- tion. 145 141. Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 480-84 (1968); see also Briffault, supra note 132, at 397. 142. Avery, 390 U.S. at 480-83; see Kessler v. Grand Cent. Dist. Mgmt. Ass'n, Inc., 960 F. Supp. 760, 770-74 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) (holding that the one person/one vote doctrine was inapplicable to the Grand Central Business Improvement Dis- trict elections because of the district's limited purpose); see also Ball v. James, 451 U.S. 355, 368 (1981) (holding the one person/one vote doctrine inapplicable to wa- ter reclamation district elections); Sayler Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage Dist., 410 U.S. 719, 725-730 (1973) (upholding a California statute limit- ing the right to vote to only landowners within the district). 143. See Briffault, supra note 132, at 397. 144. See Holt Civic Club v. City of Tuscaloosa, 439 U.S. 60, 82 (1978) (uphold- ing a state law limiting the right to vote to only those residing within local gov- ernment boundaries). 145. See generally Briffault, supra note 132. The Voting Rights Act would also require the redistricting and redefining of neighborhoods every ten years. Such redistricting could not be done solely on the basis of race. Instead, it must include communities of interest, although minority voting rights must not be diminished in the process. Id. at 403-04. [Vol. 79 83 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM In this regard, the prescriptions of the Voting Rights Act and other legal limitations would render self-selected bounda- ries for elected neighborhood councils an impossibility. Also, cities would incur significant costs by sponsoring neighborhood council elections and keeping the process consistent with the Voting Rights Act. Finally, formal elections would only allow registered voters to engage in the selection of the neighborhood council members. Given the aforementioned attempts at com- munity-wide inclusiveness, this prescription would most likely limit the true representative nature of neighborhood councils by limiting those who choose their members. Accordingly, neighborhood councils should have either appointed boards of directors or elected boards with no decision-making authority. 4. Advisory or Decision-Making Entities? For the reasons just described, cities have understandably tended to shy away from granting any decision-making author- ity to neighborhood councils.146 When cities adopt neighbor- hood councils, the debate about whether to grant such entities decision-making authority or make them advisory is oftentimes heated and controversial. On the one hand, formally empow- ered neighborhood councils pose many problems. As Richard Briffault points out, "[m]ore powerful community-based gov- ernments would certainly add to already protracted process of approving certain contracts and zoning changes, and would probably make it more difficult for city government to take ac- tion."147 Neighborhood councils with land use authority may reject many, if not all, development projects.148 Many of these projects may serve important city purposes-thus exacerbating the NIMBYism problem.149 This protective approach to land 146. BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 159-60 (detailing how Portland's neighborhood councils advise city officials about community development matters, among other issues); id. at 160-61 (noting how St. Paul's neighborhood councils advise city officials on land use, zoning, and planning matters); Salsich, supra note 91, at 719-20 (noting that Washington, D.C., neighborhood councils advise city officials on planning, social service, transportation, and other public policy issues that affect their communities). 147. Briffault, supra note 128, at 1066. 148. Id. 149. Michael Wheeler, Negotiating NIMBY: Learning from the Failure of the Massachusetts Siting Law, 11 YALE J. ON REG. 241, 244-50 (1994). Another prob- lem related to NIMBYism arises in the likelihood that neighborhood councils with such powers would not consider the loss of sales tax revenue that would come 20081 84 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW use decision-making could easily stunt development and growth in the city, which-despite the already problematic is- sues that many cities face-is undesirable. In addition, a city would have to bear substantial legal liability for the actions of decision-making neighborhood councils, even if higher authori- ties could review such actions. Finally, neighborhood councils with decision-making authority significantly increase the city's costs related to the permitting and the planning processes. 150 On the other hand, questions arise as to whether commu- nity stakeholders will engage in substructures of local govern- ment like neighborhood councils if they do not have decision- making authority. Richard Briffault, Gerald Frug, and other prominent local government scholars argue that average citi- zens will not engage in civic participation unless such decen- tralized substructures of government have legal power.151 Brif- fault posits that citizens will perceive advisory entities as ineffective and thus not worthy of their time and effort. 152 If few in the community participate, then neighborhood councils will fail like past efforts at civic engagement. However, it is not necessary that neighborhood councils have de jure decision-making power. To be sure, citizens will not participate in neighborhood councils and other forms of public participation if they believe that their efforts will not change or craft public policy.153 But so long as advisory neighborhood councils wield sufficient de facto political power to affect governmental outputs-laws, decisions, policies, etc.- from denying development projects. Cities depend on expanded tax revenue from such projects to fund city services and supplement the city's budget. A city council or planning commission will be more likely to balance these competing considera- tions and thus better serve the interests of the city as a whole. 150. Briffault, supra note 128, at 1066. If a neighborhood council acts in a quasi-judicial capacity and thus must base its decisions upon evidence in the re- cord and subsequent legally adequate findings, the neighborhood council will in- crease costs by requiring staffing by city planning departments, city attorneys of- fices, and other city departments involved in the land use process. Many projects coming before neighborhood councils will require environmental review, requiring additional professional staffing. Neighborhood councils would have to comply with conflict-of-interest laws, as well as maintain sufficient safeguards to protect the city from liability. 151. See Briffault, supra note 128, at 1066 ("Significant grass-roots participa- tion would require real grass-roots power."); Frug, supra note 8, at 1070 ("No one is likely to participate in the decisionmaking of an entity of any size unless that participation will make a difference in his life."). 152. Briffault, supra note 128, at 1066. 153. Id. [-Vol. 79 85 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM community stakeholders would still have an incentive to par- ticipate. Indeed, some neighborhood councils have been very suc- cessful without the delegation of legal and governmental deci- sion-making authority. 154 Just as lobbyists and interest groups exert great power and influence over local government deci- sion-making, so too can advisory neighborhood councils garner similar effective influence without having formal decision- making authority. In an advisory role, neighborhood councils can inform city elected officials and administrative staff of their wants, needs, and interests with regard to goods and service delivery. Neighborhood councils can also hear land use devel- opment proposals and make non-binding recommendations to planning commissions, city councils, and other city entities which adjudicate land use decisions. In this regard, if properly integrated into local government decision-making-discussed below-neighborhood councils can gain sufficient influence and political power to attract community stakeholders to join and participate. 5. Formal or Informal Roles in Local Government? Most cities have created neighborhood councils as formal, legal substructures of their local government and embedded them as part of the administrative process in city decision- making (despite being advisory). 155 This type of vertical inte- gration situates neighborhood councils within the local gov- ernment decision-making hierarchy and power structure of elected officials, administrators, and bureaucrats. Moreover, this structure provides neighborhood councils the opportunity to provide input on and influence decisions that affect their 154. BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 177-80 (noting neighborhood councils' considerable impact on local governmental outputs). 155. See, e.g., CHARTER OF THE CITY OF Los ANGELES § 900-14 (2000) (formally incorporating neighborhood councils into city government and various decision- making processes--on an advisory basis-such as the land use and planning proc- ess, the delivery of city services, and city budgetary issues); Benest, supra note 102, at A7 (noting Simi Valley's incorporation of neighborhood councils into the land use approval process); Briffault, supra note 128, at 1063 (same for New York City). But see BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 58-59 (noting that though created by city ordinance, St. Paul neighborhood councils are not agencies of the city and instead are incorporated as 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations and operate under their own set of by-laws). 2008] 86 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW communities.156 As an official part of local government, many neighborhood councils receive budgets and staff in order to ful- fill this role. 157 For neighborhood councils to succeed, local governments should follow this blueprint when adopting these substructures of local government. Communication between stakeholders and government decision-makers-as described previously- has been historically marked by distance, inefficiency, and varying degrees of irrelevance. As formal entities in city gov- ernment structure, neighborhood councils link community stakeholders to these decision-makers and thus allow for mean- ingful and timely feedback on local government laws, policies, and decisions. In this regard, by incorporating neighborhood councils into their respective governmental structures and de- cision-making processes and by providing them with funding and staff in order to fulfill their envisioned role, cities provide neighborhood councils with institutional legitimacy, credibility in the community, and more influence in their local govern- ment. B. Neighborhood Councils as a Model of Civic Republicanism While local governments may be the most fertile ground for involving average citizens in government decision-making, they are currently structured in a manner that cannot provide a meaningful level of civic participation, except perhaps in the 156. This structure may also suggest that neighborhood councils ought to be coterminous with city council districts. On the one hand, strict adherence to this approach may be problematic as city council districts often do not correspond pre- cisely with stakeholders' perceptions of the metes and bounds of different commu- nities that might be logical boundaries for neighborhood councils. In this sense, certain communities that share common interests may be divided up into more than one neighborhood council because the community overlaps two or more city council districts. On the other hand, matching neighborhood councils with exist- ing city council districts allows for more clear channels through which neighbor- hood councils-and their members--can influence local government decision- makers. 157. See, e.g., BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 113 (detailing how Portland pro- vides funds for neighborhood councils and offers them the use of city staff mem- bers); Benest, supra note 102, at A7 (explaining how Simi Valley provides a full- time staff person to offer technical assistance to neighborhood councils); Salsich, supra note 91, at 719 (noting that part of the reason for neighborhood council suc- cess in Washington, D.C., stemmed from the funds provided by the District for their operation). [Vol. 79 87 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM smallest of cities. Cities have grown so populous that without substructures of government to facilitate such civic engage- ment, direct public participation has become less and less fea- sible. However, as detailed in Part III, those prior attempts at public participation through substructures of local government have failed or had only minimal, limited results. Neighborhood councils have the potential to fill this void and infuse civic republicanism into local governments by creat- ing the opportunity for meaningful civic participation. Neighborhood councils engage stakeholders with one another so that they might deliberate over pending local government decisions and matters facing their communities. They bring together a broad cross-section of the community, spanning a more diverse group of stakeholders than currently constitutes the local political landscape. Community stakeholders will ideally approach the process with openness to others' points-of- view instead of pushing their own pre-formulated self-interest. However, it is possible that when community stakeholders con- verge, they may initially disagree virulently. The key to the dialogic process is that the engaged stakeholders, through ar- guing, discussion, persuasion, and the like, ultimately reach agreement on what is best for all those involved. Those who engage in neighborhood councils will likely "form or transform [participants'] preferences and opinions in light of that undertaking," especially when exposed to diverse and oftentimes opposing views.158 Through this transforma- tive dialogue, participants will gather and process information provided by others in discerning the best policy or course of ac- tion, even if it winds up contrary to their initial preferences. By interfacing with a broad cross-section of their community, neighborhood council participants will begin to see that local government decisions have impacts on others in their commu- nity and will lead to a better sense of community interconnect- edness. In fact, the self-interested participants may even find themselves transformed by the deliberative process and thus become more altruistic after their interactions with other stakeholders. But even those stakeholders who approach the deliberative process with only their self-interest in mind will be forced to act reasonably and strategically in order to garner 158. Fung & Wright, supra note 12, at 20. 2008] 88 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW support from others involved in the process and thus further their ultimate goals. By providing this opportunity for involvement to the broader community, neighborhood councils also engage those normally disenfranchised from the local government decision- making process. As the influence of these entities stems from the broad consensus of the community, neighborhood councils mitigate against the importance of money and power in the group setting and allow for cross-class collaboration. The de- liberative process is based, in theory, on reason, persuasion, and openness, instead of the traditional political advantages of power, money, and connections. In this regard, neighborhood councils and the dialogic process more evenly level the political playing field for those who have been traditionally disenfran- chised, as well as for average citizens vis-A-vis the interest groups that currently dominate local government. When local governments incorporate citizen participation in policy- and decision-making through neighborhood councils, they take seriously the right of citizens to have a meaningful role in shaping policies that will have an impact on their lives and communities-a key tenet of civic republicanism. Neighborhood councils also promote discussion among elected officials, local government administrators and bureaucrats, and the community with regard to local policies and decisions. By embedding neighborhood councils as formal entities within cit- ies and as a necessary, albeit advisory, part of the decision- making process, local governments provide incentives for com- munity stakeholders to see decisions effectuated because of their role in the process, instead of having them handed down by a distant local government.159 As part of an enduring gov- ernmental entity, neighborhood council members can monitor the implementation of local government actions in which they participated. This ability should increase local government ac- countability. Moreover, such neighborhood council monitoring should also increase local government transparency, minimiz- ing the threat of capture by interest groups which feed off of the current lack of transparency in city government. In addition, the dialogic process of neighborhood councils and their formal role in the decision-making process should generate superior local government policies, laws, and deci- 159. Fung & Wright, supra note 12, at 26. [Vol. 79 89 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM sions than the less reflective alternatives of the managerial form of local government,160 the insulated decision-making process currently in place, and aggregate voting. 161 By involv- ing citizens in the crafting of policies and programs, local gov- ernments better suit the needs and priorities of their citi- zens.162 Community stakeholders understand the needs, opportunities, priorities, and special dynamics at work in their neighborhoods in ways that professional non-residents at- tempting to craft and implement policies may not. Neighbor- hood councils thus allow for those most directly affected by lo- cal government decisions and policies to influence the process by sharing their knowledge and experience with each other and, ultimately, the decision-makers. While the public has other avenues for expressing its views-writing letters to elected officials, speaking at an open meeting of a city's deci- sion-making body, attending a community event, etc.-many individuals do not feel as though their views are taken into consideration in any meaningful manner. In contrast, the meaningful and qualitative community input from neighbor- hood councils results in more connected, directed, responsive, and representative governmental outputs. Such outputs in- clude more targeted public expenditures, more informed deci- sion-making, enhanced delivery of goods and services, and laws and policies that more closely address the interests of the community. To this end, the success of neighborhood councils will likely be judged by their impact on local government decision- 160. The council-manager form of local government has an elected city council that vests-by appointment-administrative power, responsibility, and discretion in a professional city manager. See Schragger, supra note 117, at 2548. 161. Such involvement becomes more necessary with the sense that central- ized, categorical efforts have failed to promote positive change. Indeed, the infu- sion of civic republican-inspired neighborhood councils into our local governments are necessary "because of the failures of both representative democracy and gov- ernmentally mandated citizen participation" and because categorical approaches to problem-solving have ignored interrelations among needs and circumstances of individuals. See Chaskin & Garg, supra note 18, at 633. 162. See id. at 632. By taking an active role, local communities no longer ac- cept the reductionist label of client, customer, or interest group. See William R. Potapchuk, Building Sustainable Community Politics: Synergizing Participatory, Institutional, and Representative Democracy, NAT'L CMC REV., Fall 1996, at 54, 55. Instead, residents reprise their role as key deliberators on public affairs is- sues. In conjunction with the local government and the private sector, neighbor- hood groups work effectively to improve the quality of life for all members of the community. See Hansell, supra note 16, at 9. 2008] 90 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW making. In New York, elected officials and other local govern- ment decision-makers followed the advice of their neighborhood councils approximately eighty percent of the time. 163 Neighborhood councils are similarly influential in other cities as well.164 Yet in a signal that such entities will not solely be powerful NIMBY forces, city officials approved a large shopping mall in Portland and a racetrack in Birmingham in the face of neighborhood opposition because of perceived greater regional interest that overrode the community's resistance. 165 Neighborhood council success in influencing local govern- ment decision-making may stem, in part, from an openness on the part of elected officials, administrators, and bureaucrats to involve them in this process. 166 If neighborhood councils are taken seriously by local officials and incorporated into the deci- sion-making process, such public participation should beget improved trust and confidence in local government by commu- nity members. In fact, the authors of Rebirth of Urban Democ- racy note that in the five cities they studied, the public had great confidence in neighborhood councils and that city officials had great respect for these entities as well. 167 In this regard, by providing proper avenues for citizen participation, local gov- ernments can function better and increase the satisfaction level of their citizens. Moreover, if neighborhood councils are a meaningful part of the local government decision-making proc- ess, then communities will be more likely to accept the out- 163. Patrick McGreevy, Appointed Charter Panel Weighs Reforms, L.A. DAILY NEWS, Feb. 12, 1998, at N6; see also Rohrlich, supra note 139 (noting neighbor- hood council successes in New York City, Portland, and Birmingham). 164. BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 150-67 (discussing the successes of the neighborhood councils they studied); City of Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, Neighborhood Councils' Accomplishments, avail- able at http://www.lacity.org/done/accomplishments/donenewsflash_c94014787 10222003.pdf (last visited Oct. 10, 2007) (detailing many individual and collec- tive successes of neighborhood councils in Los Angeles). 165. Rohrlich, supra note 139. 166. BERRY ET AL., supra note 20, at 57-60, 65-67 (noting that local govern- ment officials in Portland, St. Paul, and other cities actively sought feedback from neighborhood councils on various pending matters). 167. See id. at 18 (stating that "[t]he neighborhood-based participation systems in the five core cities of our study fulfill a model of democracy substantially differ- ent from the representative democracy that exists in most American cities"); see also MUSSO ET AL., supra note 127, at 7 (noting that City of Los Angeles employ- ees and community members viewed the neighborhood councils and their work favorably). [Vol. 79 91 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM comes of the process, even when an outcome is contrary to the input they provided. 168 While their success may lead to more legitimacy in the community, neighborhood councils may also increase social capital in communities, something that has dwindled in recent years. 169 Through the dialogic process, neighborhood councils should bolster a sense of community among stakeholders as well as clearer group identification. By bringing diverse stake- holders together to interact and discuss their respective needs and interests, neighborhood councils can promote tolerance be- tween these different groups and break down walls of exclusion that homogeneous communities create. 170 Individuals participating in neighborhood councils will likely also gain a sense of pride from helping better their com- munity and taking responsibility for improving the quality of life for themselves and their neighbors. As stakeholders en- gage in the local government decision-making process, they will learn more about the needs of different segments of their com- munity, as well as the interests of the community as a whole. This community education process can help inform stake- holders of the political and governmental issues, thus minimiz- ing the necessity and desirability of relying on mass propa- ganda for the bases of political and governmental viewpoints and decisions. Therefore, civic engagement through neighbor- hood councils can lead to a more politically educated and adept electorate and, perhaps, better voter turnout at the local level immediately and at the state and federal levels in the fu- ture.171 For with a better understanding of not only the gov- 168. J. Vincent Buck, The Impact of Citizen Participation Programs and Policy Decisions on Participants' Opinions, 37 W. POL. Q. 468, 468 (1984). 169. See generally PUTNAM, supra note 4, at 19 ('Where physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals-social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them."). 170. See Gerald E. Frug, City Services, 73 N.Y.U. L. REV. 23, 35-36 (1998). On the other hand, as discussed further below, neighborhood councils could lead to balkanization and NIMBYism where participants focus only on their community and not the city as a whole. 171. While the current focus of neighborhood councils should be within the lo- cal government in which they are formed, the long-term possibilities for regional and inter-governmental influence are promising. See David J. Barron, The Com- munity Economic Development Movement: A Metropolitan Perspective, 56 STAN. L. REV. 701, 703 (2003) (explaining that "neighborhood solutions ultimately must be integrated into a reform program that attends to the metropolitan-wide relation- ship between distressed communities, the more prosperous jurisdictions that sur- 2008] 92 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW ernment and political system but also the needs and wants of other community members, through this involvement ordinary citizens may begin to see their ability to effect change through their participation and their voting. C. Potential Pitfalls for Neighborhood Councils Neighborhood councils do not come without risks of signifi- cant unintended consequences and potential pitfalls. Some may claim that neighborhood councils are just another mis- guided utopian solution to a problem that cannot or need not be solved. Indeed, public choice theorists may posit that neighborhood councils and the dialogic process will never change what they see as human nature: rational actors will al- ways pursue their self-interest, even when interacting with other community stakeholders. Critics will claim that this vi- sion for the deliberative process is naively optimistic and will inevitably lead to more private deal-making. But even if this is the case, when viewed from a public choice theory perspective, this result is not untenable. As mentioned before, the current local political and gov- ernmental opportunities for average citizens and those disen- franchised in society are limited, if not non-existent--either by design or because the barriers to entry and costs of collective action are prohibitive. By creating a forum for engagement, those who are not currently as invested in the local government decision-making process can not only have their voices heard, but also help influence results by being placed at a relatively equal status with those who currently wield more power. For example, in the neighborhood council forum, a developer will have to interact with, and perhaps make deals with, members of the community that he or she currently need not face until public hearings on land use decision-making. By the time such hearings happen, there is very little likelihood of derailing such a development project. Neighborhood councils thus encourage more stakeholders to come to the table with their respective views. From a public choice theory perspective, these groups will negotiate and compromise to find a solution that advances their respective self-interests and is palatable to all. At the round them, and the regional growth, transportation patterns, and labor patterns that span them"). [Vol. 79 93 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM same time, this more inclusive set of stakeholders informing the decision-making process should correspondingly lead to more representative policies mirroring the community's wants and needs. This model for neighborhood councils presumes that com- munity stakeholders will have the time and fortitude to sustain potentially intensive involvement in the deliberative process. This issue may well determine the success or failure of neighborhood councils. One of the strongest criticisms of civic republicanism is the idealized notion that all community stakeholders will have the time and means to be able to engage in a deliberative democracy.172 In our increasingly complex and demanding society, it may well be too much to ask of many community members-especially the poor-to give up time that could otherwise be spent working, spending time with family, or pursuing other interests.173 On the other hand, stake- holders may find that participating in neighborhood councils gives them a sense of empowerment to counter the alienation and anomie they may feel with regard to their community and local government. Moreover, if community members see that their involvement in neighborhood councils leads to more rep- resentative decision-making, such results may motivate aver- age citizens to find time in their busy lives for such public par- ticipation. While it is no doubt true that not every community mem- ber will join or engage in their neighborhood council, one hun- dred percent participation is not the goal for increased civic en- gagement. Nor is it even practical, especially when considering that neighborhood councils will almost certainly face a free rider problem.174 Instead, neighborhood councils need to build a critical mass of community stakeholders to engage in this en- 172. W. Bradley Wendel, Nonlegal Regulation of the Legal Profession: Social Norms in Professional Communities, 54 VAND. L. REV. 1955, 2035 (2001). 173. Some may point to evidence that residents in common interest communi- ties tend not to participate in associational meetings or affairs as evidence of citi- zens lack of time and/or interest in participating in a deliberative process. Gil- lette, supra note 119, at 1403. However, lack of participation in common interest communities may easily be explained as residents choosing to join a conformed, homogeneous community so that they would not have to engage in neighborhood decision-making. Id. 174. As Robert Dahl points out, if a town held a ten-hour meeting and every participant was afforded ten minutes to speak, only 60 people could participate. ROBERT DAHL, AFTER THE REVOLUTION?: AUTHORITY IN A GOOD SOCIETY 52 (1990). 20081 94 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW deavor of shared decision-making in order for the benefits of increased public participation to accrue. The authors of The Rebirth of Urban Democracy note that neighborhood councils can be successful with only about ten percent of their represen- tative population participating regularly. 175 As Frank Michel- man posits, for meaningful civic engagement, the opportunity for political dialogue need only be open to all, not necessarily exercised by all. 176 Neighborhood councils may also suffer from the cart- before-the-horse syndrome. The logic goes that if neighborhood councils are given legitimacy and influence in our local gov- ernment system, then community stakeholders-especially those that currently refuse to engage in the decision-making process-will join and engage in neighborhood councils. But neighborhood councils can only gain such legitimacy and influ- ence if they serve as representative voices for their respective communities. This proxy can only occur if a broad cross-section of the community participates in the dialogic process. Accord- ingly, elected officials, city administrators, and community leaders will need to conduct significant and meaningful out- reach efforts to educate the community as to what the city's neighborhood council system envisions and entails and to en- tice those currently disengaged community stakeholders to join and participate early on in the development of neighborhood councils. The small size of neighborhood councils as envisioned in this Article should help provide incentives for such stake- holders to join. As Richard Briffault notes, smaller governmen- tal units reward participation by increasing the likelihood that an individual's input will help influence a decision or policy. 177 By rewarding participation in this manner, neighborhood coun- cils can provide tangible incentives for non-engaged stake- holders to participate-both initially and continually. This notion of outreach by governmental and community leaders also presupposes a willingness on the part of these en- trenched political players to share the power that they wield over the decision-making process. In this regard, neighborhood councils may meet fierce opposition from those who tradition- 175. BERRY ETAL., supra note 20, at 95-98. Despite this turnout, half to three- quarters of residents in these cities knew of their neighborhood councils and thought that their efforts helped shift the balance of power in the city. Id. 176. Michelman, supra note 61, at 1503-04. 177. Briffault, Local Government, supra note 20, at 1124. [Vol. 79 95 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM ally hold much of the power in local governance: city bureauc- racies, lobbyists, business interests (particularly developers), and other special interest groups. As mentioned above, unless elected officials and city administrators embrace this new form of substructure of local government, neighborhood councils' chances of success will be considerably diminished. Even if local government officials are welcoming of such civic engagement, a neighborhood council may be susceptible to capture by private interests, resulting in its serving less as a conduit for discerning the needs of the community and more as yet another governmental entity that advances an individual interest over the collective interest. In particular, those with more wealth or power may attempt to use these advantages to dominate and control neighborhood councils. To diminish the effectiveness of these rent-seekers, neighborhood councils must involve a broad cross-section of community stakeholders and must place all stakeholders on equal footing within the delib- erative process. Moreover, by ensuring that neighborhood councils are transparent and accountable-through a city de- partment working with these entities-such rent-seeking can be minimized, if not eliminated. Neighborhood councils can also avoid this capture concern by ensuring that they are ac- countable to the communities they serve. High visibility and an openness to a broad range of stakeholders in the community will help accomplish the transparency and accountability nec- essary to mitigate against interest group capture. If they cannot capture neighborhood councils, interest groups or other self-interested parties may forum shop by seek- ing to influence the political process in other ways-for exam- ple, by going directly to elected officials or local government administrators. However, after they have participated in the process, one of the functions of neighborhood councils is to monitor local government decision-making and policy imple- mentation. Such involvement should help to limit the ability of interest groups to capture the government process if they failed in doing so at the neighborhood council level. For this monitor- ing effect to occur, elected officials and other government deci- sion-makers must accord neighborhood councils the influence and respect in the local government structure that this Article envisions. If they do so, interest groups may learn the impor- 2008] 96 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW tance of engaging in the deliberative process to gain support for their projects, interests, or other matters. 178 While one of the goals of neighborhood councils is to bring stakeholders together to deliberate over matters facing their communities, the empowerment of communities in this manner may exacerbate the balkanization of localities where communi- ties focus only on their own individual needs and not the city as a whole. Moreover, there is also the Madisonian concern that smaller, local governments are more subject to factions and the tyranny of the majority. 179 As James Lowe notes, "[c]ompletely eliminating supervision of decentralized units by central gov- ernments and the courts would open the door both to discrimi- nation and tyranny within the unit and to inequality and dis- crimination between units."'180 In this regard, structuring neighborhood councils as part of the local government system also has merit from a checks and balances standpoint that helps minimize these concerns. For example, a city could check a racially discriminatory neighborhood council by withholding its funding until it complies with the broad policy objectives for neighborhood councils. The city could even decertify such a neighborhood council if its nonconformance persists. Having an administrative staff within the city to help facilitate and oversee neighborhood councils also helps mitigate against such problems, as the staff can report and address neighborhood councils that act illegally or inconsistently with the city's pa- rameters for neighborhood councils. Moreover, if neighborhood councils are a formal part of city government, the city can work to coordinate horizontal integration between neighborhood councils by bringing them together periodically to talk with one another and learn about what each other is doing, as well as what impacts one council's actions might have on others. This 178. Some note how developers have realized the importance of obtaining sup- port from the community when applying for entitlements and other land use ap- provals. See, e.g., Gabriel A. Espinosa, Building on Brownfields: A Catalyst for Neighborhood Revitalization, 11 VILL. ENVTL. L.J. 1, 24 (2000). 179. See THE FEDERALIST No. 10, at 49 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961); see also Rose, supra note 98, at 855 (a "body drawn from too small or too homogeneous a constituency may be dominated by a single interest or faction"). But see Ellickson, supra note 31, at 89 (arguing that the larger the size of gov- ernment, the more difficult it is for citizens to monitor its decisions and policies, thus making larger governments more prone to capture by interest groups). 180. Lowe, supra note 88, at 183. [Vol. 79 97 CIVIC REPUBLICANISM type of collaboration should also mitigate against balkaniza- tion. Some of these concerns have already materialized in cities like Los Angeles. Accusations of electioneering, lack of com- munity outreach, and excessive Board of Director influence have marked the early years of neighborhood councils in Los Angeles.181 Other problems with Los Angeles' neighborhood council system include a lack of funding for the entities, a lack of diversity in terms of stakeholders, and the need for better communication between neighborhood councils.182 And while neighborhood councils in Los Angeles seem to be connecting community members with one another and their local govern- ment, average neighborhood council meetings draw fewer than fifty people.183 Nevertheless, despite these challenges, the neighborhood council structure-as evidenced by some of its successes thus far-has the potential for a long-term impact on local government. CONCLUSION It is important to remember that "[s]ince the earliest days of the Republic, the maintenance of political participation by its citizens has been viewed as essential to the preservation of free government."'184 Yet our government suffers from a lack of civic engagement. Neighborhood councils provide a new oppor- tunity to reinvigorate community involvement in local govern- ment decision-making and shift from a winner-take-all process to a dialogic one that embodies civic republican values. As de- tailed above, there is evidence of some short-term successes in that regard. The question, of course, is whether such a trans- formation in local government can be duplicated in more cities and then sustained in the long term. Neighborhood councils have the potential to effect such a transformation in ways that we have not seen since the early days of our nation. Even if they fail to live up to the lofty goals of civic republicanism, neighborhood councils still serve a valu- 181. See MUSSO ETAL., supra note 127, at 3. 182. See generally JULIET MUSSO ET AL., REPRESENTING DIVERSITY IN CoMMuNiTY GOVERNANCE: NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS IN LOS ANGELES, Urban Policy Brief, University of Southern California Urban Initiative 1 (2004). 183. MUSSO ET AL., supra note 127, at 5. 184. Liebmann, supra note 24, at 336. 20081 98 188 UNIVERSYIY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 79 able purpose in changing-even if to a lesser degree-local gov- ernment culture. By involving in the decision-making process people who are otherwise shut out of the current local govern- ment system, neighborhood councils bring more stakeholders and their views, wants, and interests to the bargaining table that public choice theory describes. Even if the community does not think and act in the common good as civic republican- ism would envision, the infusion of broader viewpoints and in- terests still would lead to more representative decision-making as new political players and the currently entrenched ones ne- gotiate in the political marketplace of public choice theory. In this regard, neighborhood councils have the potential to make a marked difference on local government through increased civic engagement that is-if not transformative-more democratic. 99 The Journal of Economics and The Journal of Economics and Politics Politics Volume 27 Issue 1 Article 1 2022 Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems: An Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems: An Empirical Study of Community Councils in Cincinnati, Ohio Empirical Study of Community Councils in Cincinnati, Ohio Julie Cencula Olberding Northern Kentucky University, olberdingj@nku.edu Darrin Wilson Northern Kentucky University Stefanie Swiger Northern Kentucky University Follow this and additional works at: https://collected.jcu.edu/jep Part of the American Politics Commons, Other Political Science Commons, Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, Public Affairs Commons, and the Urban Studies Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Olberding, Julie Cencula; Wilson, Darrin; and Swiger, Stefanie (2022) "Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems: An Empirical Study of Community Councils in Cincinnati, Ohio," The Journal of Economics and Politics: Vol. 27: Iss. 1, Article 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.59604/1046-2309.1047 Available at: https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Carroll Collected. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Journal of Economics and Politics by an authorized editor of Carroll Collected. For more information, please contact mchercourt@jcu.edu. 100 Systems of neighborhood governance have been developed in major cities across the United States and around the world as an organizational strategy to engage citizens more directly in local government. Scholarly articles on neighborhood governance systems – sometimes called “neighborhood councils,” “community councils,” and “citizen advisory councils” – have examined their formation, roles, activities, and effectiveness. The main purpose of our study is to extend the research on neighborhood governance systems by examining community councils in Cincinnati, Ohio. In particular, our study furthers the research by Li et al. (2019) of neighborhood councils in Los Angeles that addressed the question: What makes neighborhood associations effective in urban governance? These authors focused on relationships between the performance of governing boards and the effectiveness of neighborhood councils overall. In Cincinnati, community councils are nonprofit organizations developed to strengthen connections between neighborhoods – specifically, the citizens living in them – and city government by enhancing communication, engagement, participation, and representation. According to the City of Cincinnati web site, “Community councils are a crucial link between the City and its many unique neighborhoods, and each council is as unique as the neighborhood it serves. These organizations ensure that neighborhood development responds to the needs and goals of its citizens. The councils are also a vehicle for communication and engagement throughout neighborhoods” (City of Cincinnati, n.d.). A more succinct description of a community council in this city is: “a group of volunteers chosen by residents to complete projects, engage with outside interests and interface with city government on issues that impact their communities” (Monks, 2021). Our study explores community councils in Cincinnati more deeply, using the Li et al. (2019) multi-dimensional framework and methodology to analyze the relationship between 1 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 101 governing board performance and community council effectiveness. It represents one more step toward furthering our knowledge and understanding of neighborhood governance systems. This scholarly exploration seems to be as relevant and important now as it was 10 years ago, possibly for similar reasons. In their article on the “neighborhood council experience” in Los Angeles, Musso et al. (2011) wrote, “With faith in government waning, cultural diversity spiraling, and fiscal stress straining the ability of policy makers to address the policy challenges accompanying these developments, the salience of (re)connecting citizens with government takes on renewed urgency today. Nowhere is this more the case than in urban America …” (p. 102). Literature Review: Neighborhood Governance Systems Formation and Development In one of the early articles on neighborhood governance systems, Kathi and Cooper (2005) discuss the barriers to citizen participation in governance in metropolitan areas. Of course, governmental bodies in the United States operate in the context of a representative democracy, for which citizens elect representatives to act on their behalf on any number of issues. Kathi and Cooper (2005) assert that the diversity of citizens and the scope of issues make it more challenging for government bodies to accurately represent their needs, specifically in larger cities. Additionally, governments in the United States function in an administrative state; that is, once a law or policy is enacted, professional administrators are often tasked with decision-making and implementation to carry it out efficiently and effectively. “Under the ethos of the administrative state, the citizen was treated as a client or constituent. There was a minimalist approach to citizen participation” (Kathi & Cooper, 2005; p. 561). 2 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 102 In contrast to representative democracy, a deliberative democracy seeks to encourage citizens and government to work together in a collaborative fashion. One strategy to achieve deliberative democracy at the local level is to develop a neighborhood governance system, such as neighborhood councils or community councils. This approach seemed to gain popularity among city governments at the end of the 20th Century (Kathi & Cooper, 2005). For example, in 1974, the City of Raleigh created citizen advisory councils (CACs) with a mandate to work on three broad problems – housing, transportation, and governmental accountability. CACs were “designed to involve all areas of the City in a formal citizen participation structure … whereby City government might use this avenue as one means of involving citizens in the decision- making process” (Holder, 2020). It should be noted that the Raleigh City Council voted to eliminate its CACs in 2020 because, as reported, some council members believed these entities did not represent residents well and they tended to resist new development (Holder, 2020; Levine, 2020). But supporters have argued that CACs have provided Raleigh residents with “valuable opportunities to share public information, defend against over-development, and engage diverse swaths of the community in municipal decision-making” (Holder, 2020). In Los Angeles, voters adopted a city charter amendment in 1999 that developed a system of neighborhood councils designed “to decentralize the city’s planning, service delivery, and budget processes” (Kathi & Cooper, 2005; p. 563). The charter amendment, though, did not guarantee that neighborhood councils would be successfully formed in all communities in Los Angeles. Jun (2007) examined how various community contexts or factors impacted the formation of neighborhood councils, including community diversity, community preferences relative to the larger city, and community capacity such as existing organized groups and local branches of city organizations. 3 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 103 Neighborhood councils, community councils, and similar entities have been formed in other major cities in the United States including Atlanta, Honolulu, Oxnard, San Diego, Tacoma, and Washington, DC. In Canada, a system of “community leagues” exists in cities such as Edmonton and Quebec City. In fact, Edmonton adopted community leagues in 1917 to address social challenges due to rapid growth at the time, making it one of the first cities in the world with such a system (Sancton & Young, 2009). Beyond North America, there are additional neighborhood governance systems in Montevideo, Uruguay (Serdült & Welp, 2015), Tehran, Iran (Barati et al., 2012), and Shanghai, China (Chen et al., 2009). Roles and Activities Again, the overarching purpose of neighborhood governance systems, such as neighborhood councils and community councils, is to strengthen connections between citizens in these communities and the local government. “Urban governance establishes the conditions for citizens to channel their voices and participate in local policy issues. Neighborhood associations, which bridge the relationship between citizens and local government, are essential elements of neighborhood governance” (Li et al., 2019, p. 1). Within this purpose, neighborhood or community council members can discover and share information about city government policies, programs, and proposals with their communities. Information-sharing can happen via regularly- scheduled neighborhood or community council meetings, traditional newsletters, e-newsletters or group email messages, web sites, and social media. In addition, these council members can communicate their neighborhood’s concerns, challenges, and ideas with city officials – both elected leaders and government administrators. In some cities, neighborhood governance systems provide advisory recommendations related to the comprehensive plan and/or various policies, programs, and services. Further, they may receive 4 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 104 funding from the city government for the development and management of neighborhood projects such as public parking areas, community gardens and green space, public murals and art, neighborhood parades and other events, and so on (City and County of Honolulu, 2021; City of Atlanta, n.d.; City of Cincinnati, 2021; City of Tacoma, 2020; DC.gov, n.d.; Kathi & Cooper, 2005; Musso et al., 2006). According to Musso et al. (2006), the neighborhood council system in Los Angeles opens up the lines of communication and creates opportunities for collaboration with the city government in a few different ways. One way is creating more emotional attachment among neighbors to their community and to the other people living in it. This enables an environment where community members can form relationships and then rally their fellow citizens to issues that directly affect their neighborhood. Further, neighborhood councils can develop “bridging social capital,” which are “network relationships that connect groups and cross cleavages with respect to race, class, or political interest” (Musso et al., 2006; p. 85). Also, a neighborhood council system can broaden networks among these organizations, which leads to better dissemination of information; that is, information can be distributed outward to multiple neighborhood councils at once rather than simply “up and down.” Finally, neighborhood councils can create new ties with city council and create openness with city council members (Musso et al., 2006). In another article, Musso et al. (2011) focused on the “neighborhood council experience” in Los Angeles, identifying lessons for practitioners and researchers about successful implementation, particularly in terms of enhancing participatory opportunities and building social capital in order to advance “strong democracy” (p. 102). One lesson is that participation in local government can be vulnerable because of the changing political climate; therefore, a 5 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 105 neighborhood council should be set up for the long term and be able to withstand any turnover in the city’s leadership and administration (Musso et al., 2011). In addition, citizens and administrators come to the table with a different set of knowledge and attitudes. Thus, two-way capacity building is required to ensure both groups are on the same page; for citizens, their knowledge of government should be enhanced in a way that is not confusing or intimidating. Also, these researchers concluded that universities and foundations – due to their perceived neutrality – can support reforms in the area of neighborhood councils and citizen engagement. Organizational Effectiveness As mentioned earlier, Li et al. (2019) examined the organizational effectiveness of neighborhood councils in Los Angeles with a particular focus on the governing boards that lead and manage them. The authors developed a conceptual framework and hypotheses that emphasize the various constituents in urban governance who have different perspectives on neighborhood councils and their effectiveness. This multi-dimensional approach recognizes that neighborhood councils “do not work to deliver tangible goods and services but to facilitate democratic processes and connect citizens to the administrative system of the city” (Li et al., 2019, p. 3). Specifically, the authors assessed the degree to which the three aspects of governing board performance (internal capacity, attention-action congruence, external networking) are related to the three dimensions of neighborhood council effectiveness (promoting civic engagement, resolving neighborhood issues, advising about city policies). The following summarizes the governing board performance measures and the expected relationships with neighborhood council effectiveness (Li et al., 2019): 6 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 106 • Internal capacity involves various resources of the governing board including skills, time, effort, and money. The overarching hypothesis is that the governing board’s internal capacity is positively associated with neighborhood council effectiveness. • Attention-action congruence measures the governing board’s stance on an issue relative to the action it takes to address that issue. Congruence is greater when a board identifies a potential problem in the community and then takes action by contacting the appropriate government agency. The hypothesis is that the governing board’s attention-action congruence is positively associated with neighborhood council effectiveness. • External networking represents board members using their existing connections and working to build new ones in service to their community. The hypothesis is that the governing board’s external networking is positively associated with neighborhood council effectiveness. Li et al. (2019) conducted a survey of neighborhood council board members to gather data related to these three hypotheses. Valid responses were collected from 80 different neighborhood councils, and most board members indicated that their neighborhood councils are moderately effective. In terms of the hypotheses, internal capacity was positively associated with all three dimensions of neighborhood council effectiveness – promoting civic engagement, resolving neighborhood issues, and advising about city policies. Attention-action congruence was positively associated with perceived effectiveness in terms of advising about city policies. Finally, external networking was positively associated with perceived effectiveness in terms of resolving neighborhood issues and advising about city policies (Li, et al., 2019). 7 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 107 Overall, this literature has enhanced our collective understanding of neighborhood governance systems, particularly neighborhood councils in Los Angeles. Using these studies as a foundation, we turn our attention to another neighborhood governance system in a different city – community councils in Cincinnati, Ohio. Case Study: Community Councils in Cincinnati, Ohio City of Cincinnati The City of Cincinnati was settled in 1788 in southwestern Ohio, along the northern side of the Ohio River. It is considered to be the economic and cultural center of the Cincinnati metropolitan area, which is the largest area in Ohio and the 29th largest in the United States (Horn, 2018). More than 300,000 people live in the city proper while 2.2 million people live in the metropolitan area, which includes counties in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The city has operated with a council-manager form of government since progressive reforms in the 1920s, and the council consists of nine members who are elected at-large rather than by wards or districts. More recently, the city government has evolved to become a more hybrid form due to city charter revisions that resulted in “a strong mayor” who can refer legislation to council, veto decisions by council, and recommend city manager hiring and firing to the council (Horn & Coolidge, 2021). While most city departments interact with neighborhood and community groups on a regular basis, the Department of Community and Economic is specifically assigned the task of neighborhood development. The department operates the Neighborhood Support Program (NSP), which provides annual grants to community councils for leadership activities, communications, beautification, educational activities, and other needs (Invest in Neighborhoods, 2017b). 8 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 108 Additionally, the department operates the Neighborhood Enhancement Program, which is “a 90- day collaborative effort two between City departments, neighborhood residents, and community organizations” (City of Cincinnati, n.d.). The purpose of this program is to assist residents in two select neighborhoods each year with code enforcement, crime, neighborhood clean-up, and sustainable living. Community Councils For this initial study of community councils in Cincinnati, we discovered background information via city documents and web sites as well as reports by local organizations and media outlets. It is important to emphasize that Cincinnati community councils are not part of Cincinnati city government. “Community councils are nonprofit voluntary organizations that weigh in on city matters, but exist separately from the city government and follow different rules” (City of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Community Council Boundaries, 2022). At the time of this study, 48 community councils existed in Cincinnati. The official titles for many of these entities include the phrase “community council,” but some use a different phrase or word such as “neighborhood council,” “neighborhood association,” “residents council,” “town meeting,” “civic league,” “assembly,” or “forum” (Community Council Directory, n.d.). Only one ordinance in the city of Cincinnati addresses community councils, according to a Cincinnati Enquirer article (Knight, 2017). Passed in 1989, the ordinance says community councils must be nonprofit organizations that follow nonprofit laws, such as not endorsing political candidates or ballot initiatives, and they cannot deny membership based on sex or race (Knight, 2017). In addition, the ordinance mentions that the city provides an annual stipend to each community council through the NSP and that residents in each neighborhood vote on how to spend the stipend. In recent years, the NSP stipend has been about $7,000 per community 9 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 109 council, and it has been used for initiatives related to community safety, events, and beautification (Knight, 2017). As nonprofit organizations, community councils can apply for grants from foundations and other funders, and they can acquire charitable donations from individuals via their web sites, social media campaigns, special events, and other fundraising efforts. The city government recognizes only one community council per neighborhood, although there are other types of neighborhood-based organizations with different but related purposes including community development corporations (CDCs) and business district associations. Invest in Neighborhoods (IIN) is another nonprofit organization in Cincinnati that is known as “the council of councils.” Its mission is to “empower community councils and their resident members, volunteers, and related community organizations to contribute to civic life and advance the quality of life in Cincinnati’s neighborhoods, by increasing capacities and competencies, assisting with resources, and promoting civic engagement” (Invest in Neighborhoods, 2017a). IIN furthers this mission through programs aimed at technical assistance, leadership development, and resource development. In addition, the organization also manages and hosts the Neighborhood Councils Action Coalition, which promotes collective action across the neighborhoods, particularly around the city’s legislative and administrative processes that impact neighborhoods (Invest in Neighborhoods, 2017c). The coalition holds meetings once a week, which are open to community council board members and committee chairs. Sample and Data In developing and implementing our study, we partnered with IIN since it convenes and works with community councils. We began by developing an online survey instrument based on 10 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 110 the Li et al. article (2019). We piloted the online survey with IIN board members, many of whom currently serve on the governing boards of various community councils or have served on them in the past. While we used Li et al.’s survey instrument as a guide, we recognize there was a limitation to it, which needs to be recognized. The survey captures both independent and dependent variables. An alternative method would have been to collect dependent variables from sources other than the board member survey, such as data on NSP funding and building permits. However, these data are not consistently organized at the neighborhood level and/or shared by the City of Cincinnati or other sources. We followed Dillman’s “gold standard” for survey implementation: pre notification, notification, and post notification. IIN staff sent these messages to their list, which at the time consisted of 187 governing board members of community councils. During this time, we were scheduled to participate in the Cincinnati Neighborhood Summit, organized by IIN, in March 2020. Most board members attend this one-day annual event, so we had planned to present preliminary results and collect additional survey responses via laptops computers and paper-and- pencil surveys. The 2020 Neighborhood Summit was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but eventually most of the sessions were implemented in an online format during the remainder of 2020, including our session. In the end, 82 board members representing 28 community councils completed the online survey. But some responded only to the few initial items on the survey, so we removed them from the dataset. The final count was 72 respondents, so the response rate was 38.5% (i.e., 72 of 187 board members). Further, the respondents represented 58.3% of community councils (i.e., 28 of 48 councils). 11 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 111 Demographic data were collected from the respondents. Based on this data, the majority of respondents to this survey lived in their neighborhood for at least ten years, owned their home, were at least 50 years of age, white, non-Hispanic, female, had at least a bachelor’s degree, were employed, and had a household income of at least $80,000. Our respondents were very similar demographically to the respondents in Li, et.al (2019), with the exception that our respondents were predominately female. Additionally, the demographics of the majority of our respondents are similar to the demographics of nonprofit board members nationwide; that is, our respondents do not represent the diversity of the communities they serve, which is a microcosm of the broader nonprofit sector. “Diversity on nonprofit boards falls short of reflecting the overall diversity of the United States” (Osili, et.al., 2018, p. 6). Measures The dependent variables in this study are designed to measure perceived effectiveness of community councils overall. We examined effectiveness according to the three dimensions identified by Li et al. (2019): promoting civic engagement, resolving community issues, and advising about city policies. We asked respondents about their community council’s effectiveness in these areas over the past year using a 5-point Likert scale. The 5-point Likert scale ranged from 1=“Not Effective at All” to 5=“Extremely Effective”. Following Li, et.al. (2019), we categorized seven survey items into the three dimensions of community council effectiveness. Promoting civic engagement consisted of three items: (1) enhancing the sense of community or “togetherness” in the neighborhood, (2) improving the sense of pride in the neighborhood, and (3) including diverse interests in the neighborhood. Resolving community issues had one item, working to address the needs and problems in the 12 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 112 neighborhood. Finally, advising about city policies included: (1) advising city on land use, (2) advising the city on local service needs, and (3) advising the city on citywide policies. The first independent variable, internal capacity, was measured by taking the average score from a 5-point Likert scale, 1=“Strongly Disagree” to 5=“Strongly Agree”, on how well respondents felt their community council board was able to: (1) define goals clearly, (2) run meetings smoothly, (3) form consensus effectively, (4) manage conflict constructively, (5) maintain leadership stability, (6) recruit and manage volunteers effectively, (7) acquire grants and other funds as needed to support programs and activities, (8) manage financial resources effectively in terms of budgeting, accounting, and reporting, (9) encourage questions and discussion at meetings, and (10) mediate difficult conversations. The second independent variable, attention-action congruence, is the average distance on a 5-point Likert scale between how often the governing board discussed particular issues and how often they have been in contact with the issue’s corresponding city government department. The issues examined were: (1) crime, law enforcement, and public safety, (2) planning, zoning, and land use, (3) building permits, inspections, and enforcement, (4) development, redevelopment, and revitalization, (5) recreation centers, pools, and golf courses, (6) parks and greenspace, (7) streets, parking, sidewalks, and bike paths, and (8) garbage collection, yard- waste collection, snow removal, and street sweeping. This classification is intended to be broad, as each neighborhood may face issues specific to its community and/or issues similar to other neighborhoods. Additionally, this classification captures the frequency of specific issues as well as the frequency a broad topic is discussed. The corresponding city departments were: (1) Cincinnati Police Department, (2) City Planning, (3) Buildings and Inspection, (4) Department of Community and Economic Development, (5) Cincinnati Recreation Commission and/or a 13 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 113 recreation center, (6) Cincinnati Parks, (7) Department of Transportation and Engineering, and (8) Department of Public Services. The 5-point Likert scale was from, 1=“Never” to 5=“Always”. The third independent variable, external networking, is based on how often the governing board has been in contact with individuals or organizations external to the community council. The options were: (1) Mayor of Cincinnati and/or his staff, (2) One or more Cincinnati City Council members and/or their staff, (3) City Manager and/or direct staff in his office, (4) City administrators or employees other than the City Manager (e.g. city planners, police officers, park officials), (5) Invest in Neighborhoods board members or staff, and (6) Other community organizations (e.g. schools, libraries, development corporations, local businesses, other community councils). A 5-point Likert scale was used: 1=“0 times (no contact)”, 2=“1-2 times”, 3=“3-4 times”, 4=“5-6 times”, and 5=“More than 6 times”. We averaged the scores for all options to use as the external networking variable. There are two control variables, years of governing board membership and size of governing board. Unlike Li, et.al. (2019), we chose to use the respondent’s length of service on the governing board, but with the same rationale. As individuals spend more years of service to the board, they are likely to gain more experience, through networking with stakeholders and learning more about board governance (Chambre & Fatt, 2002). Additionally, there are situations where community councils operate for many years, then become dormant, and later are re- established by newer residents and/or older residents. Thus, it is not always possible to know the exact number of years that some councils were in existence. Years of board membership was coded based on how many years of service: 1=“4 years or less”, 2=“5-9 years”, 3=“10-14 years”, 4=“15-19 years”, and 5=“20 years or more”. The second control variable, size of board, was used 14 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 114 to account for how many people served on the governing board. The assumption is larger boards will have more connections to stakeholders and resources to help the board be more effective (McPherson, 1983; Newton, 1982). Unlike the other control variable, years of board service was not coded. We used a hierarchical ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to analyze community council effectiveness. The control variables were entered in the first step and the independent variables entered during the second, for all three regression models. In order to avoid problems with heteroscedasticity, standard errors were weighted in the three models. Additionally, to test for common source bias, dependent and independent variables obtained through the same survey, we performed Harman’s single factor test (Harman, 1976). The estimated variance for the three models were 30.97%, 30.39%, and 28.033%, all below the 50% threshold, indicating no common source bias. Findings According to the descriptive statistics, shown in Table 1, the dependent variables promoting civic engagement, resolving community issues, and advising about city policies, had means of 3.25, 3.49, and 2.90 respectively. This suggests that respondents, on average, felt their community councils are relatively effective in promoting civic engagement and resolving issues. However, respondents indicated that their community councils are less effective with regard to advising about city policies relative to the two other dimensions of community council effectiveness. 15 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 115 Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Dependent Variables Variables Mean SD Minimum Maximum Promoting Civic Engagement 3.25 0.92 1 5 Effective Togetherness 3.61 1.051 1 5 Effective Pride 3.33 1.075 1 5 Effective Diverse Interests 3.20 1.05 1 5 Resolving Community Issues 3.49 0.92 1 5 Advising City Policy 2.90 0.94 1 5 Effective Land Use 2.83 1.095 1 5 Effective Services 3.14 0.997 1 5 Effective City-Wide 2.69 1.071 1 5 Table 2 displays the descriptive statistics for the survey items underlying the independent variable known as internal capacity. This variable had a mean of 3.87, suggesting that respondents felt the internal capacity of their boards was relatively high. The highest scores on the individual items were on the board’s ability to encourage participation at meetings, manage finances, and maintain leadership stability. While still above average, recruiting and managing volunteers, acquiring funds, and setting clear organizational goals had the lowest scores. 16 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 116 Table 2 Descriptive Statistics for Internal Capacity (Independent Variable) Variables Mean SD Minimum Maximum Internal Capacity 3.87 0.770 1.3 5 Board Goals 3.63 0.941 1 5 Board Meetings 4.03 0.934 1 5 Board Consensus 4.00 0.872 1 5 Board Conflict 3.78 0.996 1 5 Board Leadership 4.10 0.996 1 5 Board Volunteers 3.28 1.103 1 5 Board Funds 3.56 0.977 1 5 Board Financial Management 4.14 0.939 1 5 Board Participation 4.93 0.865 1 5 Board Mediation 3.78 1.051 1 5 The second independent variable, known as attention-action congruence, measures the overall difference between the frequency of a governing board discussing a community issue and the frequency of them contacting the relevant city department. As Table 3 indicates, the overall mean of attention-action congruence was 0.80 within a range of 0 to 4. This statistic suggests that there was high association between issue discussion and action taken. Across all community councils, the issues most frequently discussed were crime, community events, and development, while the most frequent departments contacted were police, recreation, and planning. 17 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 117 Table 3 Descriptive Statistics for Attention-Action Congruence (Independent Variable) Variables Mean SD Minimum Maximum Attention-Action Congruence 0.80 0.470 0.25 2.88 Discussed Crime 4.58 0.801 2 5 Discussed Planning 3.49 0.984 1 5 Discussed Permits 3.04 0.901 1 5 Discussed Development 3.82 0.793 2 5 Discussed Recreation 3.31 1.171 1 5 Discussed Parks 3.34 0.999 1 5 Discussed Streets 3.61 0.897 2 5 Discussed Waste 2.59 0.904 1 5 Discussed Events 4.36 0.756 2 5 Discussed Youth 3.39 1.140 1 5 Contacted Police 4.36 0.869 2 5 Contacted Planning 3.35 0.896 1 5 Contacted Buildings 2.93 0.937 1 5 Contacted Development 3.07 0.900 1 5 Contacted Recreation 3.73 1.171 1 5 Contacted Parks 3.01 1.127 1 5 Contacted Transportation 3.30 0.991 1 5 Contacted Public Services 2.87 0.844 1 5 Table 4 shows the descriptive statistics for the survey items underlying the third independent variable known as external networking. The overall mean of 2.81 indicates that community councils were relatively weak in networking with external stakeholders, on the whole. Community councils rarely contacted the Mayor (or staff) or the City Manager (or staff). However, councils contacted government departments and other organizations beyond the ones listed more frequently. 18 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 118 Table 4 Descriptive Statistics for External Networking (Independent Variable) Variables Mean SD Minimum Maximum External Networking 2.81 0.79 1.5 4.67 Contacted Mayor 1.94 0.873 1 4 Contacted Council 2.96 1.194 1 5 Contacted Manager 1.93 0.944 1 5 Contacted Administration 3.55 1.301 1 5 Contacted IIN 2.88 1.299 1 5 Contacted Other 3.61 1.251 2 5 The average years of board membership was very low with a mean of 1.62, between less than 4 years of service and 5 to 9 years of service (see Table 5). The size of board membership ranged from 4 members to 17 members, with an average of slightly larger than 10. Table 5 Descriptive Statistics for Board Characteristics Variables Mean SD Minimum Maximum Years of Board Membership 1.62 0.90 1 5 Size of Board 10.23 3.43 4 17 Table 6 shows the correlations between the model’s variables. Similar to the findings of Li, et.al. (2019), the three dependent variables of community council effectiveness were correlated to one another at 0.77, 0.66, and 0.57 respectively. The statistically significant correlations between the dimensions of community council effectiveness suggest that the dimensions are accounting for different aspects of organizational effectiveness. As for the independent variables, there were very few strong correlations. 19 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 119 Table 6 Correlation Table 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. Promoting Civic Engagement 1 2. Resolving Community Issues 0.770* 1 3. Advising City Policy 0.664* 0.565* 1 4. Internal Capacity 0.792* 0.740* 0.463* 1 5. Attention-Action Congruence 0.061 0.097 0.030 0.066 1 6. External Networking 0.233 0.227 0.294* 0.229 0.065 1 7. Years of Board Membership -0.083 -0.016 -0.167 0.061 -0.095 -0.054 0.017 1 8. Size of Board -0.072 0.039 -0.045 -0.076 -0.074 0.024 -0.072 0.207 1 *p<.05 20 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 120 Three regression models were run, each using one of the three dependent variables measuring the community council’s effectiveness: promoting civic engagement, resolving community issues, and advising about city policies (Table 7). The first model – with the dependent variable of promoting civic engagement – had an R2 of 0.665 and was statistically significant at the p<.001 level. The only independent variable with a statistically significant relationship with civic engagement was internal capacity (β=0.89, p<.001). This suggests a community council board’s leadership and management abilities – such as forming consensus, running meetings, and encouraging participation – are very important to the community council’s effectiveness in promoting civic engagement. As a reminder, promoting civic engagement consists of three underlying items: enhancing sense of community or “togetherness”; improving sense of pride; and including diverse interests. Table 7 Regression Results Promoting Civic Engagement Responding to Community Needs Advising City on Policy Internal Capacity 0.888*** 0.787*** 0.546*** (0.104) (0.097) (0.140) Attention-Action Congruence -0.085 0.094 -0.051 (0.128) (0.132) (0.277) External Networking 0.095 0.064 0.221 (0.093) (0.103) (0.134) Years of Board Membership -0.120 -0.049 -0.188 (0.085) (0.088) (0.100) Size of Board -0.01 0.040 0.030 (0.023) (0.024) (0.032) Constant -0.113 -0.144 0.203 (0.538) (0.543) (0.773) R2 0.665 0.648 0.344 F statistic 19.217*** 17.793*** 5.061*** Note. Standard errors in parentheses *p>.05, **p>.01, ***p>.001. 21 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 121 The second regression model – with the dependent variable of resolving community issues – had an R2 of 0.648 and was statistically significant at the p<.001 level. As with the first model, the only independent variable with a statistically significant relationship with resolving community issues was internal capacity (β=0.79, p<.001). The third regression remodel – with the dependent variable of advising about city policies – had an R2 of 0.344. Of course, this is a lower explanatory power than the other two models, but it was statistically significant at the p<.001 level. Once again, the only independent variable statistically significant was internal capacity (β=0.55, p<.001). This highlights the importance of building the internal capacity of a governing board to increase the likelihood of organizational effectiveness overall. Not denoted in the regression output table was the statistical significance of years of board membership at the p<.10 level. The negative relationship between the two variables indicates that the longer someone serves on a governing board, the less effective they see the community council in advising about city policies. Discussion and Conclusion During the past 15 years or so, a body of research has been forming around the phenomenon of neighborhood governance systems. Most scholarly articles have looked at their formation, roles, and activities while a few studies have begun to examine outcomes and effectiveness. As mentioned, many studies have focused on the neighborhood council system in Los Angeles, partly because key scholars in this research area are based at the University of Southern California. But research has been emerging of additional cities in the United States and 22 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 122 other countries. Our study extends this research to the neighborhood governance system of community councils in Cincinnati, Ohio. The results in our study align with earlier studies of other neighborhood governance systems. Specifically, the governing board’s internal capacity is positively associated with all three measures of community council effectiveness. Recall that the internal capacity variable consists of underlying survey items related to forming consensus, running meetings, encouraging participation during meetings, managing finances, and so on. In other words, governing boards that are more competent with these leadership and management responsibilities tend to experience stronger outcomes in terms of promoting civic engagement, resolving neighborhood issues, and advising about city policies. That said, our study did not find a significant relationship between the two other aspects of governing board performance (attention-action congruence and external networking) and any of the three measures of community council effectiveness (Li, et al., 2019). A specific statistic worthy of discussion is the relatively low mean for the community council effectiveness measure of advising about city policies. The mean was 2.90 for advising about city policies, relative to 3.25 for civic engagement and 3.49 for resolving community issues. Recall the measure on advising about city policies consists of underlying survey items related to advising city officials on land use, local service needs, and citywide policies. Additionally, lower scores on contacting the Mayor (or staff) and City Manager (or staff) are noteworthy. These statistics for advising city officials may represent limited engagement overall due to structural factors with city government. One structural factor may be at-large elections for city council members, which do not encourage deep involvement with certain neighborhoods or communities. It also may be related to the strong mayor at the time – when the survey was 23 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 123 conducted – acting as “a major player not only in setting policy but also in the nitty-gritty work of specific projects” in neighborhoods such as Over-the-Rhine (Horn & Coolidge, 2021). The relatively low measure of community council advising could be explored further, possibly facilitated by IIN with support from local foundations and universities, per the recommendation by Musso et al. (2011). The descriptive statistics demonstrate that community councils in Cincinnati have certain strengths in the internal capacity of their governing boards, such as running meetings and managing financial resources. But there are areas that could be improved such as defining goals, managing conflict, recruiting and managing volunteers, and acquiring grants and resources. With its mission to increase community councils’ capacities and competencies, IIN can devote attention to these identified areas in the coming years. Local foundations and even the City of Cincinnati could assist by providing IIN with additional resources to enhance workshops, training, and so on. This idea relates to another “lesson” in Musso et al. article (2011) that neighborhood councils or community councils have an ongoing need for capacity-building. A key takeaway from this study is around the organizational structure of community councils in Cincinnati; specifically, these entities are independent nonprofit organizations, distinct from city government. Thus, Cincinnati’s City Council could not vote to disband community councils, as Raleigh’s City Council did with citizen advisory councils (Holder, 2020; Levine, 2020). This takeaway also relates to the Musso article (2011), which concluded that neighborhood governance systems should be structured to allow for endurance through political and administrative changes. In the shadow of Raleigh’s dissolution of CACs, it seems even more timely and important for additional studies of neighborhood governance systems. We encourage interested scholars to study additional neighborhood governance systems in other cities to further 24 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 124 our collective understanding of their formation, structure, roles, activities, and effectiveness. Again, neighborhood governance systems currently exist in major U.S. cities like Atlanta, Honolulu, San Diego, and Washington, DC as well as international cities like Tehran and Shanghai. As with our research of community councils in Cincinnati, these studies could replicate the research that has focused on neighborhood councils in Los Angeles. A shorter-term goal of this extended research may be to identify similarities, differences, and best practices. A longer-term goal may be to complete a more expansive study that cumulates and analyzes data across many cities with neighborhood governance systems, particularly in terms of the overarching goals of engaging citizens in governance, enhancing their sense of efficacy, and even increasing their trust of government. Disclosure Statement: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest that relate to the research, authorship, or publication of this article. 25 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 125 References Barati, Z., Samah, B.A., & Ahmad, N. (2012). Sense of community and citizen participation in neighborhood councils in Iran. 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Bloomberg CityLab. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-06/why-raleigh- s-citizen-advisory-groups-got-silenced 26 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 126 Horn, D. (2018, May 24). Census: Population tops 300K again in Cincinnati, surges in most suburbs. Cincinnati Enquirer. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/05/24/cincinnati-population-census- estimates-say-its-over-300-000-again/638122002/ Horn, D., & Coolidge, S. Analysis: How John Cranley became Cincinnati's most powerful mayor in a century. Cincinnati Enquirer. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/02/08/cincinnati-mayor-how-john-cranley- became-citys-most-powerful-mayor/4330755001/ Invest in Neighborhoods (2017a). About Invest in Neighborhoods. https://www.investinneighborhoods.org/about-invest-in-neighborhoods/ Invest in Neighborhoods (2017b). 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How much say do Cincinnati's Community Councils have in City Hall? Cincinnati Public Radio. https://www.wvxu.org/post/how-much-say-do-cincinnatis- community-councils-have-city-hall#stream/0 Musso, J.A., Weare, C., Oztas, N., & Loges, W.E. (2006). Neighborhood governance reform and networks of community power in Los Angeles. The American Review of Public Administration, 36(1), 79–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074005282586 Musso, J., Weare, C., Bryer, T., & Cooper, T.L. (2011). Toward “strong democracy” in global cities? Social capital building, theory-driven reform, and the Los Angeles neighborhood council experience. Public Administration Review, 71(1), 102–111. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02311.x Newton, K. (1982). Is small really so beautiful? Is big really so ugly? Size, effectiveness, and democracy in local government. Political Studies, 30(2), 190-206. 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As you may know, the City of Cincinnati has 48 Community Councils that represent neighborhoods within the city’s boundaries. With this relatively large number of Community Councils, it is expected that there is variation in terms of board size, meeting attendance, key activities, and so on. We’d like to learn more about all of these Community Councils in order to improve and strengthen them. We’d like to learn more about the Community Council in which you’re involved. To start, please indicate the group for which you serve as a board member. o Avondale Community Council o Bond Hill Community Council o California Community Council o Camp Washington Community Council o Carthage Civic League o Clifton Town Meeting o College Hill Forum o Columbia Tusculum Community Council o Corryville Community Council o CUF Neighborhood Association o Downtown Residents Council o East End Area Council o East Price Hill Improvement Association o East Walnut Hills Assembly o East Westwood Improvement Association o Evanston Community Council o Hartwell Improvement Association o Hyde Park Neighborhood Council o Kennedy Heights Community Council o Linwood Community Council o Lower Price Hill Community Council o Madisonville Community Council o Millvale Residents & Community Council o Mount Adams Civic Association o Mount Airy Town Council o Mount Auburn Community Council o Mount Lookout Civic Association o Mount Washington Community Council o North Avondale Neighborhood Association 29 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 129 o North Fairmount Community Council o Northside Community Council o Oakley Community Council o Over-the-Rhine Community Council o Paddock Hills Assembly o Pendleton Community Council o Pleasant Ridge Community Council o Riverside Civic & Welfare Club o Roselawn Community Council o Sayler Park Village Council o Sedamsville Civic Association o South Cumminsville Community Council o South Fairmount Community Council o Spring Grove Village Community Council o Walnut Hills Area Council o West End Community Council o West Price Hill Community Council o Westwood Civic Association o Winton Hills Community Council 2. What is the total number of people who serve on the board of your Community Council? ____ 3. In 2019, what was the AVERAGE number of people who attended your Community Council meetings including board members? In other words, what was the typical attendance at your Community Council meetings last year? o 1 = 10 people or fewer o 2 = 11 to 20 people o 3 = 21 to 30 people o 4 = 31 to 40 people or more o 5 = 41 to 50 people o 6 = 51 people or more 4. In 2019, what was the LARGEST number of people who attend one of your Community Council meetings? ___ 30 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 130 Effectiveness 5. Community Councils in Cincinnati – and similar neighborhood councils across the country and around the world – help bridge the relationship between citizens and local governments. These community and neighborhood councils play important roles in “urban governance,” which is the institutional arrangements through which citizens voices are channeled, collective decisions are made, and services are delivered to address community needs and problems. For each area identified below, select the response that best reflects your perceptions of the effectiveness of your Community Council. (Please respond to all items.) In terms of this aspect, I believe that my Community Council is … 1 = Not at all effective 2 3 4 5 = Extremely effective ▪ promoting citizen participation in government. ▪ enhancing the sense of community or “togetherness” in the neighborhood. ▪ improving the sense of pride in the neighborhood. ▪ working to address needs and problems in the neighborhood. ▪ including diverse interests in the neighborhood. ▪ advising the city on land use. ▪ advising the city on local service needs. ▪ advising the city on citywide policies. Internal Capacity 6. Generally speaking, the INTERNAL CAPACITY of public and nonprofit organizations, including Community Councils, is the basis upon which they can implement programs and achieve goals. Please indicate the degree to which you agree (or disagree) with the following statements about the internal capacity of your Community Council. (Please respond to all items.) o Strongly disagree o Disagree o Neither agree or disagree o Agree o Strongly agree My Community Council … ▪ defines goals clearly. ▪ runs meetings smoothly. 31 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 131 ▪ forms consensus effectively. ▪ manages conflict constructively. ▪ maintains leadership stability. ▪ recruits and manages volunteers effectively. ▪ acquires grants and other funds as needed to support programs and activities. ▪ manages financial resources effectively in terms of budgeting, accounting, and reporting. ▪ encourages questions and discussion at meetings. ▪ mediates difficult conversations. External Networking 7. The EXTERNAL NETWORKING component of a Community Council is the extent to which board members are in contact with community stakeholders such as elected leaders, city administrators or employees, and other individuals and organizations in the community and city. In this section, select the response that best reflects how often you and/or other board members have been in contact with such community stakeholders during the past month. (Please respond to all items.) During the past month, board members (including myself) were in contact with this group of stakeholders … o No contact with these community stakeholders o 1 to 2 times o 3 to 4 times o 5 to 6 times o More than 6 times ▪ Elected leaders in the City of Cincinnati (e.g., mayor, city council members) ▪ City administrators or employees (e.g., city manager, city planners, police officers, park officials) ▪ Invest in Neighborhoods (IIN) board members or staff ▪ Other community organizations (e.g., schools, libraries, development corporations, local businesses, other Community Councils). Issue Attention 8. The ISSUE ATTENTION component of a Community Council is the degree to which board members focus their time and energy on various issues in the neighborhood. In this section, select the response that best reflects the degree to which your Community Council discussed each issue below during the past calendar year – January through December 2019. (Please respond to all items.) During the past calendar year, my Community Council discussed this issue … o Never 32 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 132 o Rarely o Occasionally o Frequently o Always ▪ crime, law enforcement, public safety ▪ planning, zoning, land use ▪ development, redevelopment, revitalization ▪ recreation centers, pools, golf courses ▪ parks and greenspace ▪ streets, parking, sidewalks, bike paths ▪ garbage collection, yard-waste collection, snow removal, street sweeping ▪ community events and activities ▪ youth-focused activities Action 9. The ACTION component examines the extent to which Community Council board members have been in contact with city departments and agencies. In this section, select the response that best reflects the extent to which your Community Council board members were in contact with each city department during the past calendar year – January through December 2019. (Please respond to all items.) During the past calendar year, board members (including myself) contacted this government agency … o Never o Rarely o Occasionally o Frequently o Always ▪ Cincinnati Police Department ▪ City Planning ▪ Department of Community and Economic Development ▪ Cincinnati Recreation Commission and/or rec centers ▪ Cincinnati Parks ▪ Department of Transportation and Engineering ▪ Department of Public Services Demographic Information As part of this research, we are trying to get a better understanding of the individuals who serve on Community Council boards in the City of Cincinnati. Please help us by completing the 33 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 133 questions in this section of the survey. As a reminder, the information that you provide is anonymous; in other words, you do not provide your name, and the data will not be identified with you. Also, the survey results will be presented in an aggregated form; that is, the data will not be reported out at the individual or Community Council level. 10. How many years have you lived in your neighborhood? o 4 years or less o 5 to 9 years o 10 to 14 years o 15 to 19 years o 20 years or more 11. How old are you? o Under 18 years old o 18 to 29 years old o 30 to 39 years old o 40 to 49 years old o 50 to 59 years old o 60 to 69 years old o 70 years old or older 12. Which of the following best represents your race or ethnicity? o White o Black or African American o Asian o American Indian or Alaskan Native o Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander o Two or More Races o Unknown 13. Are you of Hispanic, Latino, or of Spanish origin? o No o Yes 14. To which gender identity do you most identify? o Female o Male o Transgender o Something else 34 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 134 15. To which sexual orientation do you most identify? o Straight (not gay, lesbian, or bisexual) o Gay or lesbian o Bisexual o Something else 16. Do you consider yourself a person with a disability? o No o Yes 17. What is the highest degree or level of school you have completed? o Less than a high school diploma o High school degree or equivalent (e.g., GED) o Some college credit, no degree o Associate degree (e.g., AA, AS) o Bachelor’s degree (e.g., BA, BS) o Master’s degree (e.g., MA, MS, MEd) o Professional degree (e.g., MD, DDS, JD) o Doctorate (e.g., PhD, EdD) 18. How would you describe your current living situation? o I own my residence. o I rent my residence. o Other (please explain: ________) 19. What is your current employment status? o Employed full time (32 hours per week or more) o Employed part time (up to 31 hours per week) o Unemployed and currently looking for work o Unemployed and not currently looking for work (e.g., stay-at-home parent) o Retired o Student o Military o Unable to work 20. What is your current household income? o Less than $20,000 o $20,000 to $39,999 o $40,000 to $59,999 o $60,000 to $79,999 35 Olberding et al.: Extending Research of Neighborhood Governance Systems Published by Carroll Collected, 2022 135 o $80,000 to $99,999 o $100,000 to $119,999 o $120,000 to $139,999 o $140,000 or more 36 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 27 [2022], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol27/iss1/1 DOI: 10.59604/1046-2309.1047 136 RESEARCH PAPERS Understanding the Roles and Contributions of Neighborhood Organizations in Civic Governance Melissa A. Mathews 1 Accepted: 25 May 2021/Published online: 15 June 2021 International Society for Third-Sector Research 2021 Abstract An area of ongoing debate is whether neigh- borhood organizations contribute to civic governance by enabling citizen influence in government, mobilizing con- stituents, and improving policy outcomes through localized knowledge, community organizing, and civic engagement. This article presents the findings of a study to understand the roles and contributions of neighborhood organizations in civic governance. The research design consisted of an exploratory and qualitative case study of individual inter- views with 46 board presidents who described the roles of their neighborhood organizations within communities, in relationship to a city, and whether, and to what extent, they contributed to civic governance. Study participants char- acterized their neighborhood organizations’ roles according to three core themes: developing community and improv- ing the neighborhood, educating and engaging citizens, and representing and advocating for the neighborhood. The findings reveal significant resource limitations that con- strain civic engagement and participation capacities. Thus, as a result of the findings, I contend that there are several opportunities to strengthen their roles and contributions in civic governance. Keywords Neighborhood organizations Civic governance Voluntary Civil society Introduction More than a century ago, Mary Parker Follett (1918/1998, 245) anticipated that neighborhood organizations were important for democratic governance, improving policy outcomes, and advancing democratic legitimacy: First, every neighborhood must be organized; the neighborhood groups must then be integrated, through larger intermediary groups, into a true state. Neither our cities nor our states can ever be properly administered until representatives from neighborhood groups meet to discuss and thereby to correlate the needs of all parts of the city, of all parts of the state. Scholars also have observed that nonprofit organizations are ‘‘sites for the constitution of citizens’’ (Clemens,2006, 216) and civic associations function as ‘‘great free schools’’ of democracy (Tocqueville 1835/1956, 914), which are foundational to civil society (Chaskin,2003; Cnaan,1991). Presently, Follett’s (1918/1998) vision of local governance is being realized in the USA as evidenced by an increase in the number of municipal–community partnerships, city- wide citizen participation systems, and voluntary associa- tions that connect citizens to municipalities. Neighborhood organizations mediate between individual and public, nonprofit, and private interests, enable citizen influence in government, mobilize constituents, balance economic power, and improve policy outcomes through localized knowledge, community organizing, and civic engagement. An area of ongoing debate, however, is whether neigh- borhood organizations consistently, effectively, and sub- stantively contribute to civic governance, which also serves to address weaknesses in democratic governance through local representation (Berry et al.,2002; Jun & Musso, 2013). Additionally, the debate is centered on whether &Melissa A. Mathews Melissa.Mathews@csulb.edu 1 Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration, California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840, USA 123 Voluntas (2021) 32:821–829 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00369-z 137 neighborhood organizations can sufficiently resolve dif- ferences between competing constituent interests, facilitate participatory decision-making processes, and represent citizen preferences to elected officials and city adminis- trators. Indeed, studies have found that board member elections are characterized by low voter involvement and exclusionary tendencies (Cnaan,1991; Jun & Musso, 2007), and boards predominantly consist of affluent, well- educated, White, and older homeowners (Guo & Musso, 2007; Li et al.,2019; Weare et al.,2009). Although civic engagement and participation are foundational for com- municating citizen preferences and local conditions to city administrators and elected officials (Berry et al.,2002; Box,1998), it is acknowledged that socioeconomic biases can exacerbate longstanding inequities in governance (Jun & Musso,2013; Ostrom,1999). For example, given the economic segregation of cities, and the resultant competi- tion over neighborhood resource allocation, there can be increased local fragmentation that constrains neighborhood organizations’ municipal influence (Martin & Holloway, 2005). Additionally, neighborhood organizations have the potential to coopt constituent support and serve board members’ private interests instead of transcending neigh- borhood boundaries and contributing to civic governance. While there is an established body of scholarship regarding the representational characteristics of neighbor- hood organizations, the literature does not sufficiently examine voluntary neighborhood organizations that are not part of formal municipal citizen participation systems. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to understand the roles and contributions of neighborhood organizations in civic governance. Specifically, I sought to understand how study participants conceptualized their roles within their com- munities, in relationship to the city administrators and elected officials, and whether, and to what extent, neigh- borhood organizational leaders perceived that they con- tributed to municipal processes. It is important to examine these neighborhood organi- zations to better understand their potential contributions to local governance and assess whether there are particular contingencies that might constrain their capabilities for engaging a more active populace. This article contributes a much-needed qualitative dimension, which is grounded in professional practice, to the debate about what constitutes effective civic engagement, and the findings advance an understanding of how to strengthen the civic participative capacities of neighborhood organizations. I argue that scholarship that seeks to understand civic governance should attend to the role of these intermediary organiza- tions in realizing more democratic outcomes. To situate this study within the field, I first review the literature that is focused on the representative and participatory roles of neighborhood organizations, which is followed by a description of the research methods. Thematic findings from the qualitative interview data are then presented with a discussion of the results that concludes with suggestions to improve civic participation and recommendations for future research. Literature Review Studies about the roles and contributions of neighborhood organizations in civic governance are focused on neigh- borhood constituent representation, their roles mediating between citizens and municipalities, and perceived legiti- macy and effectiveness of neighborhood organizations. It is important to note that there is a lack of consistent or shared terminology within the literature regarding neighborhood organizational types that range from (a) nonprofit neigh- borhood councils, which are formally recognized as part of municipal citizen participation systems, to (b) neighbor- hood organizations, which are voluntary and community- based organizations. Therefore, specific neighborhood organizational types are referenced throughout this review to accurately reflect the literature and advance a better understanding of potential contextual influences on their roles within communities and with regard to municipalities. The first stream of the literature about the representative aspect of neighborhood organizations illustrated that board members were not descriptively representative of neigh- borhood demographics (Chaskin & Greenberg,2015; Jun & Musso,2007; Martin & Holloway,2005; Musso et al., 2007) and boards predominantly consisted of affluent, well-educated, White, and older homeowners (Guo & Musso,2007; Weare et al.,2009). Moreover, increased racial and ethnic diversity among neighborhood residents did not result in improved demographic diversity of boards of directors (Martin & Holloway,2005), which pointed to potential racial and ethnic biases in board member recruitment and selection (Jun & Musso,2007). A more recent study confirmed that the majority of neighborhood boards still consisted of relatively affluent, well-educated, White, and older men (Li et al.,2019). Additionally, board members reported a higher socioeconomic status compared to neighborhood residents and they were elected by a minority of the residential population (Cnaan,1991). The agenda-setting activities of neighborhood councils also were influenced by board demographics and lower- income communities prioritized neighborhood mainte- nance and capacity to a greater degree compared to municipal level issues (Jun & Musso,2013). By contrast, board members from higher-income neighborhoods more frequently addressed land use and zoning issues compared to councils representing lower-income neighborhoods (Polsby,1980). Community boundaries also were invoked 822 Voluntas (2021) 32:821–829 123 138 by leaders to establish the representative roles of neigh- borhood councils and strengthen neighborhood identities (Martin,2003); however, these strategies increased orga- nizational insularity and conflicts between citizen and business interests (Chaskin,2003; Jun,2012; Martin & Holloway,2005; Meyer & Hyde,2004). Moreover, when there were greater numbers of community-based organi- zations and neighborhood boundaries were invoked to establish neighborhood organizations’ representative roles, there were increased accounts of intra-neighborhood con- flict and factionalism (Martin,2004; Meyer & Hyde,2004). This first stream of the literature regarding the represen- tative roles of neighborhood organizations revealed how localized neighborhood governance processes can con- tribute to or exacerbate class biases in civic governance. A second stream of the literature was focused on neighborhood organizations and their roles mediating between citizens and municipalities (Chaskin & Greenberg, 2015; Marwell,2004; Musso et al.,2011) to disseminate information, facilitate civic engagement, foster public deliberation, and develop shared values and social ties (Harris & Milofsky,2019). The intermediary roles that neighborhood councils enacted were described as com- plementary bonding and bridging relationships to mobilize constituents (Musso et al.,2006). Overall, neighborhood organizations were found to be either (a) parallel to civic governance providing alternative goods and services, (b) separate yet complementary filling gaps in goods and services, (c) integrated as an extension of a city, or (d) in- dependently serving as advocates for constituencies and influencing policy processes (Chaskin & Garg,1997). Lastly, neighborhood organizations were more active in municipal coproduction processes compared to other types of community-based organizations and they served as critical access points for civic governance (Lelieveldt et al., 2009). Musso (1999) advanced an argument for local gover- nance through municipal civic participation systems yet noted that neighborhoods that were less affluent and influential did not receive equal municipal attention, which contributed to inefficient or inequitable public service provision. Neighborhood organizations also were suscep- tible to fluctuating political support and new city admin- istrative leadership (Musso et al.,2011), thus decreasing bureaucratic responsiveness to citizens (Bryer,2009; Bryer & Cooper,2007). As a result, and despite the presence of strong citywide networks, neighborhood councils remained peripheral to civic governance and reported a substantial range of organizational capacities and activities, which decreased the effectiveness of their intermediary roles (Musso et al.,2007). For example, residents from higher- income neighborhoods directly accessed municipal resources instead of using neighborhood organizations as intermediaries (Lenk et al.,2002; Matejczyk,2001; Sil- verman,2003). A third stream of the literature focused on the legitimacy and effectiveness of neighborhood organizations and their roles as government control mechanisms by connecting individuals to municipalities (Paxton,2002). For example, conflicts between neighborhood organizations and cities were seen as inevitable and appropriate for improving municipal accountability (Dierwechter & Coffey,2010). Several studies, however, found that residents strongly preferred that neighborhood organizations foster positive relationships with elected officials and city administrators (Hur & Bollinger,2014) and, consequently, they deferred to municipal decisions (Dierwechter & Coffey,2010; Hur & Bollinger,2014; Matejczyk,2001). Neighborhood capacity-building initiatives by cities were critical for effective civic engagement (Chaskin & Garg,1997), and the establishment of municipal civic participation systems further improved the quality of citizen participation and reduced conflicts between private sector, municipal, and citizen interests (Berry et al.,2002). For example, citywide issues were more frequently addressed by neighborhood councils (Chaskin,2003; Chaskin & Greenberg,2015) and formal municipal recognition increased civic engagement (Bryer,2009; Bryer & Cooper,2007; Silverman,2003). The most effective municipal civic participation systems delegated substantive authority to neighborhood organiza- tions, adopted citizen participation policies, incentivized coproduction, and formally recognized neighborhood rep- resentation (Berry et al.,2002). There also were divergent evaluations by elected offi- cials, city administrators, and residents regarding the effectiveness of neighborhood organizations (Chaskin, 2003; Dierwechter & Coffey,2010; Hur & Bollinger,2014; Jun & Shiau,2012). Neighborhood organizations were considered to be only moderately effective in civic gov- ernance (Li et al.,2019), yet committed neighborhood activists who leveraged neighborhood and city resources contributed to their overall effectiveness (Andrews et al., 2010). Also, neighborhood organizations that represented residents with higher socioeconomic status reported greater access to organizational resources and subsequent effec- tiveness (Mesch & Schwirian,1996), which highlights critical inequities that influenced their roles and contribu- tions in civic governance. This third stream of the literature underscored the value of formalized civic participation systems that established linkages between citizens, neigh- borhood organizations, and city representatives to confer legitimacy and improve citizen participation processes. Overall, scholarship was focused on neighborhood constituent representation, the mediating roles of neigh- borhood organizations, and their perceived legitimacy and effectiveness. Although there was a small stream of Voluntas (2021) 32:821–829 823 123 139 research on neighborhood organizations’ intermediary roles, it was not clearly understood to what extent they contributed to civic governance. This presents a limitation for advancing an understanding of how to improve public participation; therefore, the purpose of this study was to bring us closer to understanding how neighborhood orga- nizations can engage a more active populace in municipal governance processes. Methods I used an exploratory and qualitative case study design that was situated in an interpretive paradigm, which examines individuals’ subjective interpretations within contextual settings. Specifically, I sought to understand how study participants conceptualized their neighborhood organiza- tions’ roles within their communities, in relationship to the City, and whether and to what extent they contributed to civic governance. This interpretive analysis adds a critical qualitative dimension to extant scholarship that predomi- nantly utilizes quantitative methods to examine neighbor- hood constituent representation, the mediating roles of neighborhood organizations, and their perceived legitimacy and effectiveness. Moreover, these streams of the literature do not examine board presidents’ perceptions of their neighborhood organizations’ roles and contributions in civic governance, which limits opportunities to improve professional practice and public participation in municipal governance processes. This study was conducted within a mid-sized munici- pality that is part of a major metropolitan region of the West Coast in the USA. The primary case-level data of this study consisted of individual interviews with 46 board presidents of neighborhood voluntary organizations with no to limited operating budgets. The majority of the par- ticipants were between 55 and 74 years of age, and 30 participants held bachelor or graduate degrees. There were 29 female board presidents and 17 male board presidents and 28 participants identified as White, eight participants identified as African American or Black, seven participants identified as Hispanic or Latino, two participants identified as Asian, and one participant identified as Latina and Native American. The Neighborhood Resource Center (NRC), which is part of the City’s Housing and Neighborhood Services Bureau, publishes an annual list of neighborhood groups who elect to share their contact information with the NRC approximately once every two years. I excluded 25 orga- nizations from the initial list of 82 neighborhood groups because they did not organize activities at the scale of the neighborhood and, instead, primarily focused on crime prevention or block club social events and at a significantly smaller scale. Therefore, 57 neighborhood organizations were selected for inclusion because they (a) organized neighborhood events, (b) had active boards of directors, and (c) communicated with neighborhood constituents several times per year. I elected to do this to control for potential internal organizational or external environmental field influences and enable a more robust interpretation of the findings. An important component for qualitative case study research is data saturation. Therefore, fieldwork concluded at the point where little new information was gained from additional interviews and each new interview revealed similar thematic areas and patterns regarding participants’ interpretations of their organizations’ roles within neigh- borhoods and the City. The Institutional Review Board granted ethical approval of this study, and before each interview, participants signed an informed consent form. The interviews were conducted at community centers, participants’ homes, and neighborhood coffee shops, and the duration of each interview was approximately one hour in length. The following questions guided the semi-struc- tured interviews followed by conversational probes to illicit thick data and grounded descriptions of the partici- pants’ role perceptions: (a) describe your neighborhood organization’s role and activities, (b) tell me how you engage your constituents, and (c) describe whether, and to what extent, your organization participates in civic gover- nance. NVivo software was used to facilitate data analyses, manage transcribed texts of the audio recordings, and organize my coding processes. I used an inductive approach for analysis to build concepts through codes and themes, illuminate relationships between core themes, and highlight the contextuality of the study phenomena. Specific coding strategies included holistic, in vivo, and process coding (Saldan˜a,2013) followed by pattern coding to develop core themes (Miles & Huberman,1994). To strengthen the trustworthiness of the findings, I organized a two-hour focus group session following the conclusion of the study and developed an open-ended survey for partic- ipant feedback as a form of member checking. This study was informed by a conceptual framework for participatory representation (Guo & Musso,2007)to position leaders of neighborhood organizations as con- stituent delegates. Specifically, this standpoint highlights the relationship between neighborhood organizations and their community members according to their communica- tion processes and constituent involvement in civic gov- ernance. The participatory representation framework particularly is relevant for examining whether neighbor- hood organizations engaged in participatory processes and representative practices in their neighborhoods and with the City. Moreover, this framework enables an examination of how neighborhood organizations educate and develop 824 Voluntas (2021) 32:821–829 123 140 citizens’ political and civic governance skills (Guo & Saxton,2010). Findings Study participants described their neighborhood organiza- tions’ roles within communities and their relationships with city administrators and elected officials. Moreover, they also discussed whether, and to what extent, their neigh- borhood organizations were contributing to civic gover- nance. Three main themes were prevalent in the findings according to my analysis of the study participants’ inter- view data: (a)developing community and improving the neighborhood, (b)educating and engaging citizens, and (c)representing and advocating for the neighborhood. Themes are in italic font throughout this section. Developing Community and Improving the Neighborhood Study participants indicated that a primary focus of their associations was to clean up and beautify their neighbor- hoods, which was characterized as part of developing community and improving the neighborhood.However, many board presidents also noted challenges for realizing neighborhood improvement projects due to a lack of suf- ficient resources and city support. Study participants pro- vided examples of projects that were either unsuccessful or stalled due to a lack of funding or city councilmember support. For example, one participant noted that when they were working with city administrators that they used an incremental approach to ensure that they were able to make progress on neighborhood improvement projects: There’s a trick, it’s doing things a step at a time, because if we were to say ‘‘Hey, look, we want to do a garden. We’re going to need a bench from you. We’re going to put in some trees,’’ they would be like, ‘‘Whoa. No. No.’’ Another board president observed that neighborhood organizations were centrally situated to lead improvement projects and commented: ‘‘We have a beautification program. I believe part of a good neighborhood is you want it to look good.’’ Overall, study participants described problems with securing neighborhood volunteers and substantial resource limitations although cleaning up and beautifying their neighborhood remained a priority as summarized by one board president: ‘‘It’s all about what we can do to make this neighborhood much better than what it is.’’ As part of developing community and improving the neighborhood,participants also described that they were creating relationships among residents and businesses. For example, one board president stated: ‘‘We’re looking at building community in the neighborhood and creating connections.’’ The strengthening of intra-neighborhood connections was conceptualized as a means to improve the quality of life, establish ties between residents and busi- nesses, and leverage strategies for community organizing. For example, one participant observed that ‘‘The neigh- borhood that knows each other is going to thrive, because you look out for each other in a whole lot of different ways.’’ Another board president reflected on the impor- tance of community development and commented: I think what we’re doing is changing the nature of relationships in a neighborhood, and by doing that with different groups that have different legacies here, different threads here—some are short threads, some are long threads, and so you have to get—again, that fabric analogy of getting as many long threads connected to short threads so that it can be reinforcing. Overall, when asked to describe their neighborhood organizations’ roles, study participants delineated that developing community and improving the neighborhood was an important function of their roles as a result of their intermediary positions situated between the City and neighborhood residents and businesses. Educating and Engaging Citizens The second major theme entailed educating and engaging citizens by (a) finding and involving neighborhood resi- dents and businesses in community and city projects and (b) sharing information and learning about municipal policies and processes. Similar to the first core theme, board presidents characterized their roles as intermediary between the neighborhood and the City, and that they sought to educate and engage community members for more effective civic participation. For example, one par- ticipant stated: ‘‘The whole point of the outreach we do is to empower our residents to feel like they have a friend in City Hall.’’ Another participant noted that their neighbor- hood organization served ‘‘to engage, inform and then empower, so helping people to feel empowered that they can make a difference.’’ Neighborhood leaders conceptu- alized their organizations as the ‘‘lowest level of govern- ment’’ and pointed to the importance of civic education: ‘‘It’s citizen building, because we have forfeited that ability—if we the people don’t have a say.’’ Moreover, board presidents stated that participation in neighborhood organizations was important to democratic governance as emphasized by one board president: ‘‘How can you dream about living in a democracy and don’t take part? Those two Voluntas (2021) 32:821–829 825 123 141 things are contradictory. You have to take part. That’s your responsibility.’’ Another study participant reflected that: ‘‘You cannot have an automatic democracy; you have to get out there and participate.’’ Study participants stated that an important part of edu- cating and engaging citizens was sharing information and learning about municipal policies and processes. For example, board presidents commented that convening neighborhood meetings served to educate residents and business leaders on city processes: ‘‘So, we reach out and bring in the experts to educate us on issues that pertain to everybody. They know if they come to our meetings, they learn something.’’ Another board president reflected that it was important to help residents understand their political influence and roles as city government constituents: And I see that as a hindrance to exercising our fun- damental democracy, because people don’t under- stand. You know, I tell people ‘‘You’re the City. They work for you, and any time you don’t like what they’re doing, you have an obligation to go tell them.’’ Additionally, participants noted that by sharing information and learning about municipal policies and processes, residents were better able to advocate for and actualize neighborhood improvement strategies. One board president stated: ‘‘They say knowledge is power. I say, ‘No. Applied knowledge is power.’’’ Overall, participants consistently described educating and empowering citizens as an important function that neighborhood organizations were fulfilling relative to civic engagement and participation. Representing and Advocating for the Neighborhood The third major theme that emerged from the analysis of interview data indicated that they were representing and advocating for the neighborhood on behalf of residents and businesses. For example, one board president described a recent meeting between neighborhood organization mem- bers and their city councilperson to address a zoning issue: And meeting with our councilwoman she said, ‘‘Could you live with this?’’ And we said, ‘‘We could live with that, but not with that.’’ So, when we went to the Council, everything that we talked about she put forth, and that’s now in the ordinance. Board presidents indicated that they also partnered with other neighborhood organizations to better advocate on behalf of their neighborhoods. For example, one participant stated that a fundamental priority was ‘‘helping to move information between various governmental organizations and the neighborhood organizations, and to communicate between the neighborhood organizations, because what occurs in one neighborhood might also affect another one.’’ In addition to advocating for the neighborhood, participants sought to represent the neighborhood at the city level as characterized by one board president: ‘‘It’s important that neighborhood organizations become a neighborhood resource, we become the go-between between our elected officials and the City where we know where to go, who to contact, how to do it.’’ The majority of study participants characterized their organizations as supportive of the City although several board presidents reflected that they often disagreed with city administrators and elected officials. For example, one participant commented that ‘‘We do try to play ball with the City. We’re not trying to be adversarial, because we don’t feel like that gets you anywhere. Some residents would prefer us to be more adversarial.’’ However, another board president stated: ‘‘We don’t want to be thought of as an arm of the council office, because we have a lot of issues with them. Sometimes we agree, but more often than not, we disagree with the City.’’ Several study participants also described circumstances whereby they were directly accessing the City and influ- encing civic governance rather than working in relationship with their city councilmembers: ‘‘We’ve become the sur- rogate representative for the neighborhood, and we don’t even go through the councilmember anymore, we’re wasting our time. We take care of the issues directly with the City, and we go around the councilmember.’’ It is important to highlight that all study participants indicated that they were ‘‘apolitical’’ and pointed out that ‘‘it is necessary to effectively advocate for our neighbor- hoods.’’ Overall, board presidents were concerned about whether their neighborhood organizations were adequately representative of neighborhood residents. For example, one board president stated that ‘‘It comes back to having people on the Board that may not represent all constituencies in the neighborhood.’’ However, study participants indicated that their efforts were well intentioned as summarized by a board president: ‘‘Even if we haven’t talked to every single one we’re representing, because we just don’t know everybody’s thoughts, we have to believe that our decisions are the best for the community.’’ Discussion and Conclusion This article presents study findings with respect to the roles and contributions of neighborhood organizations in civic governance and participants conceptualized their roles as (a)developing community and improving the neighbor- hood, (b)educating and engaging citizens, and (c)repre- senting and advocating for the neighborhood. First, board presidents noted that they were developing community and 826 Voluntas (2021) 32:821–829 123 142 improving the neighborhood by cleaning up and beautify- ing their neighborhoods, creating relationships among residents and businesses, and improving residential safety and the quality of life. Study participants characterized this as fulfilling municipal service provision needs and per- forming functions that the City should manage. It is important to note, relevant to Chaskin and Garg’s (1997) characterization of four types of neighborhood–city rela- tionships, that study participants perceived that they were addressing municipal service gaps and advocating on behalf of neighborhood constituents, and that they were not providing alternative services or serving as an extension of the City. Although participants conceptualized their neighborhood organizations as centrally situated to lead improvement projects and indicated that community building was important for civic engagement, they cited examples of inequitable public service provision, which might be a result of relative neighborhood affluence and concurrent degrees of political influence (Musso,1999). Second, neighborhood organizations were educating and engaging citizens by sharing and learning about municipal governance, and connecting residents and busi- nesses to neighborhood activities and city processes. Scholars have described the intermediary roles of com- munity-based organizations as disseminating information and developing shared values and social ties to facilitate civic engagement and foster public participation (Harris & Milofsky,2019). However, while board presidents noted that they were developing connections among residents and businesses, they emphasized that these activities were for social purposes only, which contrasts with previous research findings that revealed a relationship between social ties and civic engagement (Mesch & Schwirian, 1996). Additionally, study participants characterized their neighborhood organizations’ roles as an entry level or critical access point for democratic governance, and these findings are in line with research concerning community- based organizations as intermediaries between citizens and local governance (Chaskin & Greenberg,2015; Harris & Milofsky,2019; Musso et al.,2011). Board presidents emphasized that they held meetings for neighborhood constituents to learn about and participate in municipal processes. However, this study also found that these neighborhood organizations were constrained to realize their potential as schools of democratic governance (Cle- mens,2006, 216; Tocqueville 1835/1956, 914) due to the more episodic and voluntary nature of these organizations and a lack of formal recognition or legitimization by the City. Board presidents also identified challenges with the effectiveness of their roles due to a lack of sufficient neighborhood volunteers and limited board member capa- bilities for civic engagement. These findings contribute a new dimension to the literature for considering how neighborhood organizations, which are not part of munic- ipal civic participation systems, can be strengthened to more effectively contribute to civic governance through community education and development. Lastly, board presidents emphasized that they were representing and advocating for the neighborhood by getting involved in municipal processes, representing constituents, and linking the neighborhood to the City. Participants again framed the neighborhood organizations as intermediaries between the neighborhood and the City and described subsequent challenges with ensuring the right balance between supporting and opposing city administrators and elected officials. This finding contrasts with other studies that found that residents perceived conflicts between neighborhood organizations and cities as appropriate and inevitable (Dierwechter & Coffey,2010; Matejczyk,2001). Instead, the participants in this study preferred sustaining positive relationships with city coun- cilmembers and administrators (Hur & Bollinger,2014)to advance their neighborhood organizations’ goals and that they mostly deferred to municipal decisions. Another study found that neighborhood organizations that were more oppositional experienced more problematic zoning issues (Matejczyk,2001), which suggests that exhibiting greater deference to city decisions might be a strategy that neighborhood organizations employ to leverage future political influence. Overall, board presidents described an extensive range of civic participative capacities, which Musso et al. (2007) found to decrease the overall effec- tiveness of neighborhood organizations’ roles in municipal processes. To summarize, board presidents described significant resource constraints that impeded their abilities to fully participate in local governance. Municipal support for neighborhood capacity-building initiatives is instrumental for enhanced civic engagement (Chaskin & Garg,1997), and the establishment of municipal civic participation systems further improves the quality of citizen participa- tion (Berry et al.,2002; Bryer,2009; Bryer & Cooper, 2007; Silverman,2003). Moreover, the most effective municipal systems delegate substantive authority to neighborhood organizations, adopt citizen participation policies, incentivize coproduction, and formally recognize neighborhood representation (Berry et al.,2002). There- fore, the neighborhood organizations in this study certainly would benefit from increased municipal support, greater legitimacy, and a formalized citywide system for civic participation as a starting point for strengthening their contributions to civic governance. A limitation of this study was the examination of neighborhood organizations from within one municipality rather than comparing multiple cities and types of Voluntas (2021) 32:821–829 827 123 143 neighborhood organizations. However, this limitation also provides a direction for future research to extend this exploratory case study by utilizing a multiple case study design to compare voluntary neighborhood organizations to neighborhood councils, which are part of municipal civic participation systems, and identify potential organizational and contextual contingencies. A second limitation pertains to the sample population of board presidents, and future research should examine whether there are divergent interpretations between neighborhood organizational board members, constituents, city administrators, and elected officials concerning neighborhood organizations’ roles and contributions in civic governance. Despite these limita- tions, this study advances a better understanding of neighborhood organizations and their roles within com- munities, and in relationship to municipalities. The study findings delineate specific actions to improve professional practice and strengthen neighborhood organizations through community education and development to more effectively contribute to civic governance. Moreover, this exploratory and qualitative research also serves to illumi- nate particular phenomena that can be used for predictive, descriptive, and normative purposes as part of theory development. Although it remains to be clearly understood the extent to which neighborhood organizations overall engage a more active citizenry, this study reveals latent potentials for neighborhood organizations as substantive intermedi- aries between citizens and cities, and opportunities to strengthen their roles and contributions in civic gover- nance. These findings also are relevant to global perspec- tives concerning the roles of voluntary associations in civil society to improve democratic governance processes, enhance governmental accountability and policy outcomes, and advance democratic legitimacy. Neighborhood orga- nizations are well positioned to ameliorate accounts of declining public participation, and we have an obligation to examine ways to both strengthen their roles and contribu- tions in civic governance and advance representative democratic systems. It is my hope that this article adds to the conversation regarding neighborhood organizations’ roles in mediating increasingly complicated, systemic, and mutable public problems. In honor of the legacy of Mary Parker Follett (1918/1998) who suggested that neighbor- hood organizations be integrated into municipal and state governance processes, we should aim to foster this same vision for scholarship and professional practice alike. 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Cross-talk: The role of homophily and elite bias in civic associations.Social Forces, 88(1), 147–173. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Voluntas (2021) 32:821–829 829 123 145 City of Missoula, Montana Item to be Referred to City Council Committee Committee: Committee of the Whole Item: Missoula Neighborhood Councils Assessment Plan Date: February 12, 2021 Sponsor(s): Heidi West Prepared by: Kelly Elam Ward(s) Affected: ☐ Ward 1 ☐ Ward 2 ☐ Ward 3 ☒ All Wards ☐ Ward 4 ☐ Ward 5 ☐ Ward 6 ☐ N/A Action Required: Approve the recommendations set forth from Keegan Flaherty, Flaherty Consulting Firm. Recommended Motion(s): I move the City Council: I move the City Council approve the recommendations set forth from Keegan Flaherty, Flaherty Consulting Firm. Timeline: Referral to committee: February 22, 2021 Committee discussion: February 24, 2021 Council action (or sets hearing): N/A Public Hearing: N/A Deadline: N/A Background and Alternatives Explored: History: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The City of Missoula established Neighborhood Councils in 1996 to strengthen and encourage citizen participation in local government and to improve communication between citizens and City officials. In July 2020, the City of Missoula Office of Neighborhoods transitioned leadership; and as a result, engaged in a needs assessment from August to October 2020. The process included a review of organizational documents and stakeholder interviews detailed and analyzed in this report. Missoula Neighborhoods retained Keegan Flaherty of Flaherty Consulting to facilitate the needs assessment process. As a first step in that process, organizational documents were reviewed to understand the structure of the Neighborhood Councils. Next, the consultant conducted nineteen confidential interviews with Neighborhood Council leadership to further understand the current landscape. After the conclusion of a review of organizational documents and interviews, the consultant analyzed the results for 146 common trends. This report synthesizes the information provided by internal and external stakeholders, providing Missoula Neighborhoods a comprehensive assessment outlining key findings and recommendations. In the initial stages of the assessment, Flaherty Consulting, worked with the Missoula Neighborhoods staff to identify and clarify the information to gather from the process, and what purposes that information was to serve. Having discerned the Missoula Neighborhoods goals for the assessment, Flaherty Consulting next considered the best sources for each type of desired information, and developed a framework for the data-gathering process. That framework included three categories of stakeholders: City Council Representatives, Neighborhood Forum members, and neighborhood council constituents. Flaherty Consulting then used two central components for gathering data from each category: Key Findings: 1. There are varying beliefs regarding the purpose and value of the Neighborhood Councils. 2. It is perceived that Neighborhood Councils and Leadership Teams do not represent the diversity of neighborhood residents. 3. Current Neighborhood Council processes create barriers for encouraging citizen participation. 4. Communications between City Government, Neighborhood Forum, and Neighborhoods Councils is disconnected. Recommendations: 1. Evaluate the current Office of Neighborhoods resources to facilitate a more inclusive and engaging Neighborhood Council program. 2. Disseminate a community survey that touches on quality of life and engagement process that makes an implicit effort to include citizens who are historically left out. 3. Add additional Councils to the Neighborhood Councils to ensure underrepresented citizens are implicitly included in discussions, processes, and decisions. 4. Reframe the Neighborhood Council vision and purpose to identify shared values with city government, residents, nonprofits, community organizers, businesses, and developers. 5. Develop a City of Missoula led communications campaign aimed at informing citizens about the purpose of the Neighborhood Councils and increasing engagement. 6. Develop streamlined communication pathways for City Council, Neighborhood Forum, Neighborhood Councils, and Citizens. 7. Create a common architectural framework for Neighborhood Councils that fosters diversity and invites participation. Missoula Neighborhoods is proposing the Community Forum and City Council to approve and endorse the recommendations of the strategic assessment findings. 147 Financial Implications: Links to external websites: 148 Memorandum REPORT TO:Study Commission FROM:Caeleb Heinen, Recording Secretary Mike Maas, Ex Officio SUBJECT:Decisions on Advisory Boards MEETING DATE: April 24, 2026 AGENDA ITEM TYPE: Citizen Advisory Board/Commission RECOMMENDATION: After discussion and learning sessions on Advisory Boards, the Study Commission will make decisions on these topics. Study Commissioners Cestero and Franks will present proposed language around advisory boards for potential draft report language. STRATEGIC PLAN: 1.1 Outreach: Continue to strengthen and innovate in how we deliver information to the community and our partners. BACKGROUND: Reference Materials are attached. "Summary - Other City Charters" created by Study Commissioners referenced for easy access on the previous research done on Montana City Charters. Materials: Old Board Report City of Bozeman Resolution 5323 (August 10, 2021 agenda memo and video) Study Commission Meeting April 2nd on Boards with Jeff Krauss, Danielle Rogers and Jason Delmue UNRESOLVED ISSUES: None Identified ALTERNATIVES: As per the Study Commission FISCAL EFFECTS: None Identified Attachments: Old Board Report.pdf City of Bozeman Resolution 5323.pdf 149 Report compiled on: April 17, 2026 150 Name Audit Committee Board of Adjustment Board of Ethics Bozeman Area Bicycle Advisory Board (BABAB) Bozeman Beautification Advisory Board (BBAB) Bozeman Downtown Urban Renewal District (DURB) Bozeman Historic Preservation Advisory Board (BHPAB) Bozeman Midtown Urban Renewal Board (formally North Seventh Urban Renewal Board)(NSURB) Bozeman Tourism Business Improvement District (BTBID) Building Board of Appeals Cemetery Advisory Board City Planning Board City-County Board of Health Community Affordable Housing Advisory Board Community Alcohol Coalition Criminal Justice Coordinating Council Design Review Board Downtown Business Improvement District Board (BID) Economic Development Council (EDC) Fire Code Board of Appeals Impact Fee Advisory Committee Inter-Neighborhood Council (INC) Library Board of Trustees Mayors' Community Climate Task Force Northeast Urban Renewal Board (NURB) Parking Commission Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Police Commission Prospera Business Network Revolving Loan Fund Committee Recreation and Parks Advisory Board Resources Senior Citizens' Advisory Board South Bozeman Technology District Trails, Open Space and Parks Committee Transportation Coordinating Committee Tree Advisory Board Wetlands Review Board Zoning Commission 151 Version April 2020 Resolution 5323 Page 1 of 6 RESOLUTION 5323 A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA, ESTABLISHING STANDARDS FOR THE RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION OF BOARD MEMBERS, ESTABLISHING STANDARDS FOR COMMUNICATION, AND ESTABLISHING EXPECTATIONS, DUTIES, AND NORMS OF BEHAVIOR FOR ALL APPOINTED CITY BOARDS, COMMISSIONS, AGENCIES, AND COMMITTEES. WHEREAS, Article IV, Section 4.07 of the Bozeman Charter permits the City Commission to create boards, commissions, or committees as determined necessary; and WHEREAS, on April 16, 2018, the Bozeman City Commission formally adopted the Bozeman Strategic Plan via Resolution 4852; and WHEREAS, the Strategic Plan Section 1.2 Community Engagement encourages the City of Bozeman to “[b]roaden and deepen engagement of the community in city government, innovating methods for inviting input from the community and stakeholders” by “restructure[ing] or combin[ing] City boards and committees to more effectively advise the City and engage the public”; and WHEREAS, City Staff prepared a Memorandum and Proposed Plan for board restructuring, made the plan available on May 20, 2021 for public review, and provided public notice to inform the public of the opportunity to review and comment on the Proposed Plan; and WHEREAS, the City Commission held public work sessions on February 23, May 25, and June 22, 2021 during which it received and reviewed all public, written and oral testimony on the restructuring of City boards; and WHEREAS, on June 22, 2021, and in consideration of such testimony, the City Commission confirmed direction for City Staff to move forward with restructuring the City’s advisory boards; and DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 152 Version April 2020 Resolution 5323 Page 2 of 6 WHEREAS, Strategic Plan Section 7 High Performance Organization states, “[w]e operate as an ethical high performance organization, anticipating future needs, utilizing best practices, and striving for continuous improvement.” WHEREAS, the Commission intends by this Resolution to establish standards for the recruitment and appointment of board members, establish standards for how board members will communicate with the Commission and individual members of the Commission and City staff (“High Performing Boards”)to increase efficiency and efficacy of advisory board input; and WHEREAS, High Performing Boards aim to formalize and streamline communications between the City Commission, advisory boards, the City Manager, and the public; and WHEREAS, High Performing Boards aim to achieve policy driven decision-making; and WHEREAS, High Performing Boards aim to create consistency, predictability, and stability by clearly defining duties, norms, and expectations; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Commission of the City of Bozeman, Montana, to wit: SECTION 1: Membership, Recruitment, & Appointment 1) Membership: Membership is established in the resolutions, ordinances, or statutes establishing each Board’s structure, including any mandatory member qualification. Additional membership requirements include: a) Board Members may only serve in one City appointed position at a time; b) The balance of an unexpired term served by an appointee shall be considered a “term” if such unexpired term exceeds 50% of the full term; c) Upon completion of a gap in service equal to a position’s full term, a former member may be eligible for re-appointment; and d) Appointments should be made during a regular meeting in January. 2) Recruitment: Commissioners, Board Members, and the City Manager are encouraged to actively recruit qualified members to apply. During the recruitment process, the City will focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and will actively work to achieve membership that reflects, at the least, the demographics of our community – as outlined in, but not limited to the gaps analysis and equity indictors report and available census data – across all board membership. Formal recruitment will occur by three methods: a) Vacancies will be posted in the lobby of City Hall and on the City’s website; DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 153 Version April 2020 Resolution 5323 Page 3 of 6 b) Biannual active solicitation period, as prescribed in Section 4.07 of the City Charter; and c) As necessitated by vacancies. 3) Review: The review of applicants shall occur by a panel consisting of the assigned Commission Liaison, Board Chair, and the City Manager’s assigned staff liaison: a) Interview questions must ensure applicants receive a fair comparison with other candidates and will focus on potential conflicts of interest, compliance with norms of conduct, including but not limited to decorum, communications, and the concept of acting as a body with one voice; and b) Evaluation criteria must consider the City’s goals related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the duties and purpose of the individual board, and any membership requirements in enabling legislation or law. 4) Appointment: All Board appointments will be made by the City Commission except for appointments authorized by law to be made by the Mayor. Board Officers (Chair & Vice- Chair) shall be appointed by the City Commission SECTION 2: COMMUNICATIONS 1) The Boards shall receive direction from the City Commission via pursuant to the Commission’s bi-annual goal setting, requested assigned work priorities, or other specific direction as the Commission may provide; 2) A board’s annual work plan must align with the Commission’s adopted Strategic Plan 3) The Board should communicate with the Commission only through approved minutes, work plans, progress reports, or formal recommendations/resolutions voted on by the Board; 4) Board chairs shall communicate with the Staff Liaison on matters related to the Board’s operations and the board’s agenda; 5) Board Chairs should direct policy related questions to both the Commission Liaison and Staff Liaison; 6) Board Members shall adhere to the “One Body, One Voice” principle in communications to the City Commission on matters under the Board’s purview, or may become under the purview of the Board. 7) City Staff will develop minutes that the Board will review and approve; minutes shall be provided to the City Commission and made available to the public. SECTION 3: EXPECTATIONS, DUTIES, AND NORMS OF BEHAVIOR Norms for Board Members are modeled upon the City Commission’s Norms Policy as presented in Resolution 5124, and the Rules of Procedure are modeled upon Chapter 2, Article 2, BMC (See Exhibit A), and are incorporated herein. DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 154 Version April 2020 Resolution 5323 Page 4 of 6 1) Training of Board Members: Board Members must participate in an onboarding program established by the City Manager. a) The training will include, but is not limited to: i) General onboarding: Boards procedures, open meetings, public records, process, and requirements, and expectations; ii) Purposes and focus areas of the Board to be presented by the Staff Liaison; iii) “Effective Meetings” – a training to assist Board Members in conducting an efficient and effective meeting; iv) Ethics: Initial ethics training upon appointment and annual ethics training as required by the Charter; and v) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Training focusing on various DEI topics including, but not limited to, implicit and unconscious bias, anti-harassment and anti- discrimination; accessibility; and DEI in institutions, workforces, and local government. b) Board Members must complete onboarding and training within six months of the appointment of any member; and c) Board Members must participate in a six-month check-in with the Staff Liaison and Commission Liaison. 2) Duties: a) Commission Liaison has the following duties: i) Lead the interview of applicants; ii) Serve as the primary contact with the Board for the City Commission; iii) Assist with resolving questions regarding the role of the City Commission, City Manager, Staff Liaison, and the Board; iv) Serve as contact rather than an advocate, unless assigned as a voting member; v) Review the Board’s work plan and make recommendations to the City Commission regarding the Board’s work plan; vi) Support efficient Board operations; and vii) Assist training of new board members. b) The Presiding Officer has the following duties: i) Act as meeting facilitator; ii) Maintain a tone of civility during debate; iii) Ensure the public has a meaningful opportunity to participate, and that meetings operate fairly and impartially; and iv) Ensure the Board’s questions and discussion are germane to the issues presented. c) Board Members have the following duties: i) To ensure the Board has a quorum at all meetings, and commit sufficient time to ensure regular and punctual attendance; ii) Be prepared, attentive, and participate; DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 155 Version April 2020 Resolution 5323 Page 5 of 6 iii) Abide by Rules of Procedure, Norms of Behavior, and the City and State Codes of Ethics; iv) Notify the Staff Liaison as soon as they learn they will not be able to attend a meeting and of any changes to contact information. d) Staff Liaison and/or their designee(s) will prepare the agenda with collaboration from the Board Chair. 3) Norms of behavior: a) Board Members are encouraged to share their experience and knowledge with new members; b) Board Members should treat all city employees with respect, and in doing so recognize staff in performing their work strive to always serve the public to the best of their abilities; c) Board Members should be mindful of arguing or debating the merits of staff's professional judgment; rather, should Board Members disagree with staff’s professional judgment, they should direct such disagreement to the Staff Liaison; in the event that the Staff Liaison is subject to the disagreement, Board Members should direct their concerns to the City Manager; d) Board Members must seek to ensure staff recognizes the Board Member's questions are for purposes of inquiry only and should in no way be taken as an order, a request to take action, or a directive; e) Board Members should not use language or communication methods that a reasonable person would find humiliating, intimidating, hostile, or offensive; f) A Board Member may not take any action that could be construed as a directive or order to staff; g) A Board Member must not attempt to pressure or influence discussions, recommendations, workloads, schedules, or department priorities absent the approval of the City Manager and only then upon an action of the majority of the City Commission; h) Board interaction with staff during board meetings: i) Criticism of staff by a Board Member should be made in private to the City Manager. Board Members are encouraged to provide commendation to staff in public; ii) Board Members may not direct or issue orders to staff; iii) Board Members may direct questions regarding the factual basis for an item or a question soliciting staff expertise to the City employee presenting the item; questions other than those directly related to the factual basis of an agenda item should be directed to the Staff Liaison who may request the assistance of other city employees in answering the question. i) Specific provisions for Board Member's attendance at meetings other than board meetings: i) Board Members may not attend staff meetings unless requested by the City Manager; DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 156 Version April 2020 Resolution 5323 Page 6 of 6 ii) Board Members’ conduct at public meetings or other events should be informed by this Resolution and the Code of Ethics. Board Member attendance at public meetings called by staff or City Manager should not occur unless requested by the City Manager. j) All appointed members of City boards or committees should be mindful of the prohibition regarding interference with administration. PASSED, ADOPTED, AND APPROVED by the City Commission of the City of Bozeman, Montana, at a regular session thereof held on the 10th day of August, 2021. ___________________________________ CYNTHIA L. ANDRUS Mayor ATTEST: ___________________________________ MIKE MAAS City Clerk APPROVED AS TO FORM: ___________________________________ GREG SULLIVAN City Attorney DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 157 Appendix A Rules of Procedure Section 1 Applicability A. These rules shall govern the conduct of all City of Bozeman boards, commissions, agencies, and committees (hereinafter "boards") where a majority of members are appointed by the City Commission and shall supplement other governing rules of the board. B. These rules are supplementary to the provision of Title 7, Chpt. 1, Part 41, MCA, Title 7, Chpt. 5, Parts 41 and 42, MCA, and Title 2, Chpts. 2 and 3, MCA as they relate to procedures for conducting meets and public hearings before City boards. Section 2 Chairperson and Vice Chairperson – Powers and Duties A. The City Commission will appoint the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson for the year within one month of the start of new members’ terms. B. The recording secretary shall be any staff member assigned by the Staff Liaison. C. The Chairperson shall be the Presiding Officer of the board. D. During the absence of the Chairperson, the Vice Chairperson shall discharge the duties and exercise the powers and authority of the chairperson. E. The Presiding Officer shall preserve strict order and decorum at all meetings and confine members in debates to the question under consideration. F. The Presiding Officer may move or second any item of business then before the board. G. The Presiding Officer shall state, or cause to be stated, every motion coming before the board, announce the time for a roll-call vote to be announced by the recording secretary, announce the decision of the board on all subjects, and decide all questions of order, subject, however to an appeal to the board, in which event a majority vote of the board members present shall govern and conclusively determine such question of order. H. The Presiding Officer shall vote on all questions. Section 3 Parliamentary Authority A. Unless otherwise specifically provided herein or by ordinance or statute, all meetings and hearings of the boards shall be conducted in accordance with these rules. DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 158 B. In all cases not covered by these rules, the controlling parliamentary authority shall be the latest edition of Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised. Section 4 Meeting Agendas A. The Staff Liaison, or their designee, shall arrange a list of matters to be brought before the Board according to the order of business specified herein, and furnish each member and the public through the City's website with a copy of the agenda and all supporting information no later than 48 hours immediately preceding the meeting for which that item has been scheduled. All material to be presented to the board for consideration with an agenda item shall be made available to the public within the above time frame. Copies of the agenda shall be available from the City Clerk and one copy shall be posted at the designated posting board in the City Hall for public viewing and made available on the City's website. Pursuant to Section 7-1-4135, MCA, the City Commission designates as the official posting place for all boards the posting board in the lobby of City Hall located at 121 North Rouse Avenue, Bozeman, Montana. B. The Staff Liaison shall prepare the meeting agenda and may consult with the Commission Liaison or the Board Chairperson in preparing the agenda. The Chairperson or a majority of board members may remove an item from the agenda. The agenda shall be in substantially the following form: a. Call to Order b. Disclosures c. Changes to the Agenda d. Public Service Announcements e. Approval of Minutes f. Consent Items g. Public Comments h. Special Presentations i. Action Items j. FYI/Discussion k. Adjournment Order of the above may be adjusted by the Presiding Officer. Section 5 Meetings All meetings of the Board shall be open to the public unless authorized by law. Prior to closing any meeting of the Board, the Chairperson and Staff Liaison shall consult with the City Attorney. A. Regular Meetings DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 159 a. Boards shall hold a regular meeting once a month or no less than quarterly as directed in their establishing documents. b. Any meeting of the Board may be adjourned to a later date and time, provided that no adjournment shall be for a longer period than until the next regular or specially scheduled meeting. c. The Staff Liaison, Presiding Officer, or majority of the Board may cancel a regular meeting if no business is scheduled for that meeting. B. Public Hearings a. Public Hearings are meetings required of some citizen advisory boards to be held as a public hearing pursuant to law. The provisions of Section 5.A apply to Public Hearings. b. Unless prohibited by law, a public hearing may be rescheduled or adjourned to a specific later date and time. C. Executive Sessions a. Executive Sessions are meetings of the Board with the purpose to discuss litigation strategy, a matter of individual privacy, or other matters wherein a meeting may be closed pursuant to law and will be scheduled as needed. b. Although each Executive Session will commence as an open public meeting, Executive Sessions may be closed to the public pursuant to authority and limitations in Title 2, Chpt. 3, Part 2, MCA. c. An Executive Session may be called at any time during any meeting if authorized by law. D. Special Meetings a. The Staff Liaison, Presiding Officer, or a majority of the board may call Special Meetings of the board, upon at least forty-eight (48) hours’ notice to each member personally served on each member through email or left at the member’s usual place of residence. b. Notice shall also be made to the public by, at a minimum, posting the agenda on the City’s website and posting board at least 48 hours prior. E. Subcommittees a. Subcommittees shall only be formed with the express authorization of the City Commission. b. Subcommittees shall be limited to a period of time not to exceed six (6) months or until the completion of an assigned specified task. Section 6 Order of Presentation/Public Participation A. The order of presentation in which items are presented to the board shall generally be as follows: DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 160 a. The Staff Liaison, or their designee, shall present the agenda item to the Board, if appropriate. b. If applicable, the Staff Liaison may present a background report on the matter for discussion. Upon conclusion of a staff presentation, board members may ask questions of staff for the purposes of understanding and clarification. If the agenda item is a public hearing, the Presiding Officer will open the public hearing prior to staff presentation. c. If applicable, comments from the applicant, or the applicant's agent, shall be heard. The applicant's presentation/testimony is limited, subject to the discretion of the presiding officer, to ten (10) minutes. d. After being recognized by the Presiding Officer, a board member may direct questions to the staff or applicant. e. Members of the audience or their agent may be invited to present testimony or evidence. To be recognized, each person desiring to give testimony or evidence shall step forward and, after being recognized, give their name and place of residence for the record. The Presiding Officer may establish a timeframe for each public comment, typically three (3) minutes per speaker and each speaker will be afforded the same allotment of time. The Presiding Officer may lengthen or shorten the time allotted for public testimony. f. After being recognized by the Presiding Officer, a board member may direct questions to any person so testifying for purposes of clarification, g. Following public comment, the Staff Liaison shall be given the opportunity to comment on any testimony or other evidence. h. Following staff comment and if a public hearing, the applicant will be given the opportunity to rebut or comment on any testimony or other evidence. The applicant's comments and rebuttal is limited, subject to the discretion of the presiding officer, to five (5) minutes. i. If a public hearing, following applicant rebuttal and any further questions, the Presiding Officer will close the hearing and bring the agenda item forward for discussion, motion and vote. j. If a public hearing, after being recognized by the Presiding Officer, a board member may direct questions limited to the rebuttal testimony and evidence. k. The recording secretary shall enter into the record all correspondence that has been received but was not yet provided. l. Unless required to act by a certain date pursuant to law, the Board may continue the discussion to a date certain, close discussion and vote on the matter, or close the discussion and continue the vote to a date certain. B. All testimony and evidence shall be directed to the Presiding Officer. No person, other than a board member and the person recognized as having the floor shall be permitted to DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 161 enter into the discussion. No questions shall be asked of a board member except through the presiding officer. C. The Board may ask the Staff Liaison for their recommendation. D. If a public hearing, in the event the applicant does not appear at the scheduled time and place, unless the applicant has waived his or her appearance in writing, and which waiver has been accepted, or unless the matter is submitted as a consent item, the matter shall be continued to the next available regular meeting, public hearing date, or other date certain. E. For all public hearings involving land use and annexation decisions, the Board will wait a minimum of one week before making a decision whenever requested by a member unless a decision is required due to a statute, ordinance or other law. Agreement with staff’s written findings is an acceptable method of presenting findings. F. Witnesses may be required to testify under oath. G. The Board shall not be bound by the strict Rules of Evidence and may exclude irrelevant, immaterial, incompetent or unduly repetitious testimony or evidence. H. The Presiding Officer shall rule on all questions relating to the admissibility of evidence with advice from the City Attorney, which ruling may be overruled by a majority vote of the Board. I. A public hearing which has been formally closed for all public input may not be reopened and no additional evidence or testimony from the public shall be received or considered except as provided herein. If additional information is required from the public before a decision can be made, the Board upon motion duly made, seconded and passed, may call for an additional public hearing which hearing shall be noticed as required by law, specifying date, time place and subject matter of hearing. This paragraph does not preclude the Board, after the public hearing, from asking questions of staff, receiving additional evidence from staff or, after a hearing held on a preliminary plat, pursuant to Title 76, Chpt. 3, MCA, from consulting the subdivider about conditions or other mitigation required of the subdivider. Upon decision by the Presiding Officer, or upon a duly adopted motion of the board to reopen the public hearing prior to close of the agenda item in which the hearing was held, the requirement to provide public notice does not apply; the public hearing may be reopened and the additional input provided prior to a final decision on the item. Section 7 Quorum and Voting A. Unless otherwise provided by law, a quorum shall consist of a majority of all board members. If a quorum is not present, those in attendance shall be named and the board shall adjourn to a later time. B. The recording secretary shall reduce motions to writing and, upon request, shall read a motion prior to the vote. DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 162 C. All votes shall be made by roll-call. D. Upon every vote, the outcome shall be stated and recorded. E. A board member has an obligation to vote unless there is a conflict of interest. F. Email, telephonic, or proxy voting shall be prohibited. Section 8 Rules of Debate/Reconsideration/Conflict of Interest A. Every board member desiring to speak shall address the Presiding Officer and upon recognition by the Presiding Officer, shall confine discussion to the question under debate, avoiding all personalities and indecorous language. B. A board member, once recognized, shall not be interrupted when speaking unless the member is to be called to order, or as herein otherwise provided. If a board member, while speaking is called to order, they shall cease speaking until the question of order be determined, and, if in order shall be permitted to proceed. C. Order of rotation in matters of debate or discussion shall be at the discretion of the Presiding Officer. D. A motion to reconsider any action taken by the Board must be made on the day such action was taken. It must be made either immediately during the same session, or at a recessed and reconvened session thereof. Such motion shall be made by one of the prevailing side, but may be seconded by any member, and may be made at any time and have precedence over all other motions or while a board member has the floor. It shall be debatable — nothing herein shall be construed to prevent any board member from making or remaking the same or any other motion at a subsequent meeting of the board, but the matter must be duly scheduled as- an agenda item. E. Pursuant to the City' s Code of Ethics, a board member may seek the advice of the City Attorney as to whether the member has a conflict of interest pursuant to law. If the board member is advised there is a conflict of interest, the member shall recuse themselves, step away from the meeting table, and refrain from discussion and vote on the matter. F. After a motion, duly made and seconded, by the board, no person shall address the board without first securing the permission of the Presiding Officer. Section 9 Open Meetings and Email A. Except for properly called executive sessions as permitted by state law, all meetings of the board shall be open to the public and media, freely subject to recording by radio, television and photography at any time, provided that such arrangements do not interfere with the orderly conduct of the meetings. DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 163 B. A majority of the Board shall not conduct synchronized email discussions involving a matter over which the board has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power. Synchronized email discussions are email exchanges among a majority of board members within minutes of each other that create the quality of simultaneity similar to instant messaging or chat room discussions. Such discussions are characterized as an active exchange of information rather than the passive receipt of information. An example of synchronized email discussion would be a majority of board members sitting at their computers and instantly exchanging emails concerning board business, whereas a passive receipt of information is where a board member receives an email and responds in the normal course of time similar to responding by letter received in the mail. The Board shall not view emails or other electronic communication mechanisms concerning any matter on the agenda during a board meeting unless the submission is part of a specifically approved and adopted electronic public testimony program. Electronic communication mechanisms include text messaging or any other emerging technology that violates the spirit of open meeting laws. This does not preclude viewing emails or electronic communication mechanisms that were received prior to the board meeting. Emails received by board members concerning an agenda item shall be forwarded to the staff liaison or board secretary and retained in accordance with the City's retention policy. Section 10 Decorum A. While the Board is in a session, board members must preserve order and decorum, and a member shall neither, by conversation or otherwise, delay or interrupt the proceedings or the peace of the Board nor disturb any member while speaking or refuse to obey the orders of the board or its Presiding Officer. B. Any person making personal, impertinent or slanderous remarks or who shall become boisterous while addressing the board may be denied farther audience with the board by the presiding officer, unless permission to continue is granted by a majority vote of the board. C. The Board shall not debate, in a heated or argumentative manner, with a member of the public presenting testimony during a meeting. D. Speakers shall only address the agenda item before the Board. Any person speaking on an agenda item not before the Board may be called out of order. Section 11 Recording of Meetings and Minutes A. The recording secretary shall prepare a summary of all meetings to be known as the “Minutes” and to be approved by the Board. It shall not be necessary to formally read out DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 164 loud the Minutes prior to approval. The Staff Liaison or Board Secretary may revise such Minutes to correct spelling, numbering, and other technical defects. Prior to approval, any board member may request the privilege of amending or correcting the Minutes to accurately reflect the substance of the prior meeting. If objection is made by any board member to such amendment or correction, a majority vote of the board shall be necessary for adoption of the correction or amendment. The approved minutes shall be forwarded to the City Clerk's office for posting within a month of the meeting in which they were approved. B. Executive Session Minutes. Executive Session Minutes shall be taken and prepared by the Board Secretary. The Board shall approve the minutes of an executive session in open meeting; provided, however that any discussion concerning the contents of the minutes, prior to approval, shall be conducted in executive session. The Staff Liaison or Board Secretary will distribute the draft executive session minutes to the members in a manner that ensures and retains confidentiality. The Board shall follow the provision 2. 02. 130, BMC related to dissemination of executive session minutes. C. At the discretion of the Board and City Clerk's office, meetings shall be televised, broadcast, and/or a video or audio recording made. Audio or video recordings shall be made available to the public unless required to be kept confidential by law. Section 12 Attendance at Meetings/Removal by City Commission/Terms A. All board members are expected to contribute the time necessary to fulfill their fiduciary obligations to the Board. All board members are required if they are to be absent from a meeting to contact the Presiding Officer and the Staff Liaison prior to the meeting. If prior contact is made, the absence will be determined excused. If a board member fails to contact the Presiding Officer or Staff Liaison prior to the meeting, the absence will be considered unexcused. The City Commission and City Manager will be notified by the Staff Liaison of any board member with more than one unexcused absence in any calendar year. The Board, via motion and vote, may forward to the City Commission the name of any board member having three or more excused absences, or a combination of excused and unexcused absences. As provided by law, the City Commission may remove a board member for excessive absences. B. A board member’s term may be extended for up to 30 days after term expiration on a case by case basis by the City Clerk’s Office if the board member has reapplied for a subsequent term but the application process has not yet been heard by the City Commission. C. All terms shall expire on December 31 of their given year. DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 165 Section 13 Compliance with the City Code of Ethics A. All board members are required to follow State ethics laws regarding appointed officials and the City of Bozeman Code of Ethics. B. New board members will receive the City of Bozeman ethics handbook and must sign a form acknowledging receipt of the handbook and affirm they will uphold the state and city ethics codes. C. Board members are also required to attend City sponsored Ethics Training. Non- compliance with the City Code of Ethics and training requirements may result in removal of a board member. See the City Code of Ethics for more details. Section 14 Compliance with the City Purchasing Policy A. All boards are subject to the City purchasing policy (Administrative Order 2009-06), as revised, unless specified by law. B. City Staff Liaisons shall handle financial transactions unless specific arrangements have been made in writing through the City Controller. C. Boards shall not appropriate money unless specifically authorized by statute. Section 15 Compliance with State Records Retention Policy A. All City boards are subject to the State of Montana records retention policy. B. The City Clerk’s Office will handle retention of all agendas, minutes, and board resolutions once they have been forwarded to the Clerk’s Office. C. E-mails, websites and social networking sites are subject to adopted records retention schedules. For social media and websites, please refer to the current Information Technology Social Media Use Policy for further guidelines. D. Individual members are responsible for preserving communications that are potentially subject to the Right to Know provisions of Montana’s State Constitution (Art. II, Section 9) and may be considered a “public record” pursuant to Title 2, Chpt. 6, Montana Code Annotated. As such, these emails, its senders and receivers, and the contents may be available for public disclosure and will be retained pursuant to the City’s record retention policies. Emails that contain confidential information such as information related to individual privacy may be protected from disclosure under law. DocuSign Envelope ID: EFA8B98A-9F9D-4D9D-8976-89AD726CA766 166 Memorandum REPORT TO:Study Commission FROM:Caeleb Heinen, Recording Secretary Mike Maas, Ex Officio SUBJECT:Discussions on Wards/Districts MEETING DATE: April 24, 2026 AGENDA ITEM TYPE: Citizen Advisory Board/Commission RECOMMENDATION: Continued discussions on wards and districts, in advance of the Study Commission decisions on these topics. STRATEGIC PLAN: 1.1 Outreach: Continue to strengthen and innovate in how we deliver information to the community and our partners. BACKGROUND: Reference Materials are attached. "Summary - Other City Charters" created by Study Commissioners referenced for easy access on the previous research done on Montana City Charters. Mandatory Reading: At-Large VS Wards Wards Documents for Bozeman 2026 Supplemental Information: District Based Elections and Class Based Representation Evidence from the California Voting Rights Act Free Cities Center Analysis City Representation MIT At Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government Primer Districts vs. At-Large Elections Digital Trade-Offs between at-large and single member districts UofHouston Wards at-large in Canadian Cities Wards vs At Large on Diversity At-Large vs Ward - Implications for Public Infrastructure Hybrid City Council Election Systems Resources regarding Wards/Districts and Voter Turnout and Gerrymandering: Comparison City Chart (with Voter Turnout) Voter Turnout in At Large vs. Wards UNRESOLVED ISSUES: 167 Correlates of Voter Turnout - Political Behavior Seattle Districting Commission San Diego Charter Redistricting None Identified ALTERNATIVES: As per the Study Commission FISCAL EFFECTS: None Identified Attachments: At-large VS Wards 3.12.26.pdf Wards Documents for Bozeman 2026.pdf 1. district-based-elections-and-class-based-representation- evidence-from-the-california-voting-rights-act (1).pdf 2. pacificresearch.org-Free Cities Center Analysis City representation Single-member districts versus at large (1) (1).pdf 3. MIT At Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government.pdf 4. Primer_DistrictvsAt-LargeElections_Digital-1.pdf 5. Trade-Offs between at-large and single member districts- UofHouston.pdf 6. Wards at-large in Canadian Cities Candian Journal of Poli Sci.pdf 7. Wards vs At large on Diversity.pdf 8. At-Large versus Ward -Implications for Public Infrastructure.pdf 9. Hybrid City Council Election Systems.pdf Comparison City Chart (with Voter Turnout).pdf Voter Turnout in At Large vs. Wards.pdf Correlates of Voter Turnout Political Behavior.pdf Seattle Districting Commission.pdf San Diego Charter Redistricting.pdf Report compiled on: March 19, 2026 168 Prepared by the MSU Local Government Center. For Educational use only. For interpretation of the law, please seek competent legal counsel. Comparison of Electoral Systems in Medium-Sized Cities Prepared by the MSU Extension Local Government Center Introduction The City of Bozeman has a long history of conducting its elections on an at-large basis. When the study commission first proposed a city charter in 1976, it recommended electing city commissioners nominated by wards but elected at-large; however, that charter was ultimately rejected by the voters. In the Final Report prepared by the City’s first local government review, the study commission documented findings from a community survey indicating concerns about responsiveness in local government. As the report noted, citizens expressed “some dissatisfaction with the apparent unwillingness of local government officials to listen to them. The commission feels that the election of some of the commissioners by districts may cause those, so elected, to be more responsive to residents of their [ward]. A recognized danger in this method of electing commissioners is that they may become overly responsive to the citizens of their area. This may result in less concern for issues that affect the whole city and may cause a lack of harmony among commissioners. Election of all commissioners by the total electorate of the city will reduce the likelihood that these situations will develop.” Fifty years ago, the study commission had identified many of the same advantages and disadvantages associated with ward-based and at-large elections that continue to shape the discussion today. Below is a review of the advantages and disadvantages of elections conducted by wards, at-large, and hybrid systems (a combination of ward-based and at-large elections). These conclusions are drawn from peer-reviewed academic literature and applied research guides, including publications from the American Journal of Political Science, Political Science Research and Methods, and the Canadian Journal of Political Science, as well as practitioner-focused resources such as the Democracy Reform Primer Series produced by the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government at the Harris School of Public Policy, and analyses from the Pacific Research Institute. Artificial intelligence tools were used to synthesize and organize findings across these sources. ELECTIONS BY WARD Below is a list of advantages and disadvantages of elections by ward. This is a familiar practice in Montana and is the statutory default option for those municipalities in Montana that have selected the commission-executive form of government. Advantages 169 Prepared by the MSU Local Government Center. For Educational use only. For interpretation of the law, please seek competent legal counsel. • Increases descriptive representation for racial and ethnic minorities o District elections increase representation for racial/ethnic minorities when groups are moderately sized and geographically concentrated. [Source 1 & 4] o Conversion from at-large to district elections produces dramatic gains in minority officeholding when minority population share is sufficiently large. [Source 3] • Enhances representation of lower-income neighborhoods o District systems increase the proportion of elected officials from lower-income and high-renter neighborhoods. • Stronger neighborhood advocacy o Ward councilors focus on geographically defined neighborhood interests and are more responsive to localized concerns. [Source 6] o Ward-based systems create a “representational focus” on smaller areas, improving neighborhood-level responsiveness. • Lower campaign costs and higher local engagement o Candidates campaign within a smaller geographic unit, which reduces cost barriers and encourages more candidates to run. [Source 4] Disadvantages • Risk of parochialism (“ward politics”) o Councilors prioritize neighborhood interests over citywide needs, which can fragment policy decision-making. • Encourages logrolling and pork-barrel spending o Ward systems incentivize vote trading to direct geographically concentrated spending to each member’s area. [Source 8] o This can raise total municipal spending on localized capital projects. • May disadvantage women candidates o Empirical evidence shows women are less likely to be elected in single-member districts compared to at-large elections. [Source 4] • Ineffective when minorities are not geographically concentrated o District representation benefits minorities only in cities where groups are sufficiently large and segregated. Otherwise, districting provides little or no improvement. [Source 4] Options for Elections by Wards If Bozeman were to retain five elected commissioners, one option would be to continue electing the mayor at-large while electing the remaining four commissioners from wards 170 Prepared by the MSU Local Government Center. For Educational use only. For interpretation of the law, please seek competent legal counsel. drawn to be as compact and equal in population and geographic area as practicable. Under this approach, each ward would be represented by a commissioner serving approximately 14,500 residents. By comparison, districts for the Montana House of Representatives generally include between 10,000 and 11,000 residents. To further reduce the number of residents represented by each commissioner, the study commission could propose adding two additional commission seats. Expanding the commission in this manner would allow for six wards, with each commissioner representing just under 9,700 residents and the mayor elected at-large. Possible charter language: Following each federal decennial census, the city commission shall divide the city into [the number of commissioner wards corresponding to the number of commissioners elected by ward], ensuring that the wards are as compact as practicable and equal in population and geographic area. Apportionment may occur at any time for the purpose of equalizing population and area among commissioner wards. However, a commissioner ward may not be changed in a way that affects the term of office of any city commissioner who has been elected. Additionally, changes to the boundaries of any commissioner ward may not be made between the date that is six months prior to a city commissioner primary election and the date of the general election. AT-LARGE ELECTIONS At-large elections are the statutory default option for selecting city commissioners in the Commission-Manager form of government. Advantages • Encourages citywide perspective and policy coordination o At-large councilors see their constituency as the entire city, which promotes citywide rather than neighborhood-based decision-making. [Source 6] • Reduces neighborhood parochialism o At-large elections were originally adopted to reduce corruption and the hyper-localism associated with ward systems. [Source 6] • Promotes gender diversity o Research finds at-large systems tend to elect more women compared to district systems. [Source 5] • Less susceptible to gerrymandering o Because the entire city votes, manipulation of district boundaries is not possible. [Source 4] 171 Prepared by the MSU Local Government Center. For Educational use only. For interpretation of the law, please seek competent legal counsel. Disadvantages • Marginalizes racial and ethnic minorities o At-large systems historically diluted minority voting power and still suppress minority representation in many contexts. [Source 4] o Conversion from at-large to district elections consistently increases minority representation when minority groups are sizable. [Source 3] • Higher campaign costs o Campaigning citywide is significantly more expensive, limiting candidate diversity. [Source 2] • Overrepresentation of business or elite interests o At-large representatives tend to align more with citywide economic interests (business elites) rather than neighborhood-level concerns. [Source 6] • Lower responsiveness to neighborhoods o Councilors elected citywide pay less attention to geographically specific issues. [Source 6] HYBRID (MIXED WARD + AT-LARGE) SYSTEMS Research on hybrid systems is more limited, but emerging studies offer clear patterns. Advantages • Balances neighborhood representation with citywide perspective o Hybrid councils that are majority district-based retain the representational benefits of ward systems but incorporate at-large seats that promote citywide coordination. • Improves gender diversity o Including at-large seats in an otherwise ward-based system can increase the election of women compared to pure ward systems. • Reduces extreme drawbacks of both systems o Hybrids can prevent excessive parochialism while still protecting minority and neighborhood voices. [Source 9] Disadvantages • Minority representation depends on the proportion of ward seats o Hybrids with only a small number of district seats may still dilute minority representation compared to pure districts. [Source 9] 172 Prepared by the MSU Local Government Center. For Educational use only. For interpretation of the law, please seek competent legal counsel. • More complex system design o Hybrid systems require balancing ward boundaries, at-large ballot design, and potential structural inequities. • Can perpetuate inequities if at-large seats dominate o Research warns that if at-large seats form a majority, hybrid systems replicate the underrepresentation issues of pure at-large models. [Source 4] Hybrid Options for Bozeman One option for structuring the City Council is to retain a five-member council, with one member serving as mayor. Under this approach, the mayor would continue to be elected at-large by voters citywide, while the remaining four council members would be associated with geographic wards. Those four wards would be drawn to be as compact and equal in population and geographic area as practicable. Within this structure, a key design choice is how the four ward associated council members would be elected. Under one variation, each of the four council members would be required to both reside in and be elected by voters within their respective wards. This approach would emphasize direct neighborhood representation and accountability between council members and the residents of their ward. Alternatively, the four council members could be required to reside in a ward but continue to be elected at-large by the entire electorate. This option would preserve a citywide voting base while ensuring geographic diversity among council members, blending elements of ward representation with at-large elections. Gallatin County uses this same method when electing the County Commissioners. Another option would be to expand the council to seven members, which would reduce the number of residents represented by each councilor and increase overall geographic representation. Under this model, one member would serve as mayor and be elected at-large, along with one additional council member elected at-large. The remaining five council members would reside in and be elected from five wards drawn to be as compact and equal in population and geographic area as practicable. This structure blends ward-based representation with at-large positions, balancing neighborhood responsiveness with a citywide perspective. It would also spread representation more evenly across the city while retaining at-large seats to address issues affecting the community as a whole. Summary Table 173 Prepared by the MSU Local Government Center. For Educational use only. For interpretation of the law, please seek competent legal counsel. Model Advantages Disadvantages Ward Strong minority & low income representation; localized responsiveness; lower campaign costs Parochialism; logrolling; may reduce gender representation; ineffective where minorities not concentrated At-Large Unified citywide policy view; more women elected; less gerrymandering Dilutes minority representation; higher costs; elite dominance; weak neighborhood responsiveness Hybrid Balanced citywide + neighborhood representation; better gender diversity; moderates extremes Minority gains depend on ward ratio; can replicate at large inequities; structurally complex Sources: 1. Cushing-Daniels M, Jones D and Shannon B (2026) District-based elections and class- based representation: evidence from the California Voting Rights Act. Political Science Research and Methods, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070 2. Warnken, M. (2025, February 13). City representation: Single-member districts versus at-large (Free Cities Center Analysis). Pacific Research Institute. https://www.pacificresearch.org/free-cities-center-analysis-city-representation-single- member-districts-versus-at-large/ 3. Abott, Carolyn and Magazinnik, Asya. 2020. "At-Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government." American Journal of Political Science, 64 (3). 4. Trounstine, J. (2024). District vs. at-large elections: A practical research guide (Democracy Reform Primer Series). University of Chicago Center for Effective Government. https://effectivegov.uchicago.edu 5. Hofer, S., Huang, C., & Murray, R. (2018, October). The trade-offs between at-large and single-member districts (Hobby School of Public Affairs White Paper Series No. 14). University of Houston, Hobby School of Public Affairs. 6. Koop, R., & Kraemer, J. (2016). Wards, at-large systems and the focus of representation in Canadian cities. Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, 49(3), 433–448. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423916000512 [Wards at-l...f Poli Sci | PDF] 7. Trounstine, J., & Valdini, M. E. (2008). The context matters: The effects of single-member versus at-large districts on city council diversity. American Journal of Political Science, 52(3), 554–569. 174 Prepared by the MSU Local Government Center. For Educational use only. For interpretation of the law, please seek competent legal counsel. 8. Dalenberg, D. R., & Duffy-Deno, K. T. (1991). At-large versus ward elections: Implications for public infrastructure. Public Choice, 70(3), 335–342. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30025474 [At-Large v...astructure | PDF] 9. Jasso, F., & Krebs, T. (n.d.). Hybrid city council election systems (Informational brief). Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, California State University, Los Angeles; University of New Mexico. [Hybrid Cit...on Systems | PDF] 175 LOCAL GOVERNMENT CENTER | QUASI JUDICIAL HANDOUT | 01LOCAL GOVERNMENT CENTER | WARDS vs. DISTRICTS | 01 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “WARDS” AND “DISTRICTS” IN MONTANA In the Montana Code Annotated (MCA), the terms “ward” and “district” are not interchangeable, they apply to different types of local governments and serve different legal purposes. Created only in municipalities (cities and towns) Used for electing city/town council members and defining representation within the municipality Boundaries changed only by ordinance Must have at least 150 electors to form a new ward Number of wards depends on the class of the city (1st, 2nd, 3rd class or town) WARDS Used only in municipalities (cities and towns) Under MCA 7 5 4401, cities and towns must divide themselves into wards for election and other municipal purposes. These wards must be roughly equal in population, and statute prescribes how many wards different classes of cities must have. If the City of Bozeman were operating under general powers and elected its council members by wards, MCA 7 2 4401(2)(a) would control, requiring the city to establish no fewer than four wards and no more than ten wards. However, because Bozeman operates under a voter approved charter, the Charter itself may determine the number of wards or a hybrid of wards and at large and is not required to conform to this statutory expectation and range. Characteristics of Wards The purpose of Wards ensure representation within a city/town by dividing the municipality into smaller election units. Used primarily in counties (and sometimes in multi-jurisdictional special entities) DISTRICTS The MCA uses districts in two major ways: As county election districts Counties use commissioner districts or other “districts” for electing county officials. These are not called “wards” as that term is strictly used when referencing a municipal service or voting area. Butte Silver Bow Consolidated City/County and Anaconda Deer Lodge Consolidated City/County use commissioner districts As “special districts” for delivering services Special districts (park districts, fire districts, rural improvement districts, etc.) are legally defined in MCA 7-11-1002. A “special district” means a unit of local government that is authorized by law to perform a single function or a limited number of functions. These may be countywide or multi jurisdictional. 1 2 176 LOCAL GOVERNMENT CENTER | QUASI JUDICIAL HANDOUT | 02 Prepared by the MSU Local Government Center. For Educational use only. For interpretation of the law, please seek competent legal counsel. Characteristics of Districts Created by counties (or jointly by cities and counties) Used for: Electing county commissioners (in districted counties) Organizing service delivery (fire, road, RID, SID, mosquito, cemetery districts, etc.) Special districts can cross city boundaries and are defined in statute depending on the district type Purpose Districts are designed to: Structure county representation (e.g., commissioner districts) Provide specific public services in a defined geographic area Relationship Between Wards and Districts in Election Law MCA 13-3-104 clarifies that wards (municipal) and districts (county) are separate units, but precincts may be drawn in ways that intersect both, so long as voters can be clearly identified for each unit. This reinforces that wards = municipal units, and districts = county or service units. LOCAL GOVERNMENT CENTER | WARDS vs. DISTRICTS | 02 177 Political Science Research and Methods (2026), 1–17 doi:10.1017/psrm.2025.10070 ORIGINAL ARTICLE District-based elections and class-based representation: evidence from the California Voting Rights Act Michaela Cushing-Daniels1 , Daniel Jones1 and Brooke Shannon2 1School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA and 2Department of Political Science, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA Corresponding author:Daniel Jones; Email:dbj10@pitt.edu (Received 14 March 2024; revised 13 March 2025; accepted 22 April 2025) Abstract District-based elections are a central feature of local governance throughout the United States. Prior work hasexploredwhetherdistrict-basedelectionsimpactracial/ethnicdescriptiverepresentationinlocaloffice; much less is known about the impacts of local district-based elections on other dimensions of representa- tion. We consider another such dimension: socioeconomic class. To explore how district-based elections shape the composition of locally elected officials on class dimensions, we focus on city councils and study thedramaticshifttowardsdistrict-basedelectionsinCaliforniainthe2010s.Weconstructastatewidemap- ping of newly drawn council districts; we also draw on rich and partially hand-collected data on council candidates and members. We find that district-based elections increase the share of candidates and coun- cil members from lower-income and higher renter share neighborhoods, and lead to fewer members with business backgrounds. Keywords:American politics; class and ethnicity; race; regional; representation and electoral systems; urban and local politics Across the United States and for the past 40 years, district-based elections have served as a key tool for increasing the presence of otherwise underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in local elected office.A1982amendmenttotheVotingRightsAct(VRA)andasubsequentSupremeCourtdecision (ThornburgvGingles,1986)precipitatedadramaticshifttodistrict-basedlocalelectionsintheSouth; thatinturnledtoanequallydramaticincreaseinBlackrepresentationinlocallegislatures(Davidson, 1994). More recently, the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA)—signed into law in 2002—explicitly stated that at-large elections must not be used “in a manner that impairs the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice,” which has led to a dramatic shift towards local district-based elections in that state; nearly one-third of California cities shifted to district-based elections since its passage. District-based elections are a central feature of local governance in the United States, and they are documented to have a clear impact on racial/ethnic representation in local legislatures. The shift to districts at the local level is largely from multi-member at-large elections, meaning a slate of coun- cil members is elected from one election with the entire city as the electorate (Bullock and Gaddie, 1993). District reforms, like those facilitated by the CVRA, divide the city up into geographically defined areas of similar population size, and the constituents of each district elect a single represen- tative. These elections are majoritarian, winner-take-all, and institute single-member representation © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of EPS Academic Ltd. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.178 2 Cushing-Daniels et al. in the city council (Gerber et al.,1998). Districts disperse electoral power throughout the city and ensure representatives are elected from different neighborhoods. Conversely, electoral power in at- large systems favors the median voter, and in these systems it is difficult for minority candidates to win (Gerber et al.,1998; Trounstine,2010). Extant literature on district reforms has focused on race and ethnic minority representation, pri- marily because these communities were central in adopting district policies in the first place. We reviewthisliteraturebelow,inparttounderscoreitscontinuingimportanceindistricting(Hutchings andValentino,2004).Weexpandthequestionofwhetherdistrictsincreaserepresentationforminori- ties to include class; wealthy, white-collar communities are consistently over-represented in terms of who gets elected, at every level of government (Carnes,2013;2020). Therefore, the central question of our paper is,Does the use of at-large vs. district-based elections affect the descriptive representation of less-affluent residents and neighborhoods on municipal councils? District reforms to ensure representation for racial and ethnic minorities may also likely impact otherdimensions,duetothepresenceofcorrelationsbetweenraceandclass.Inadditiontoprioritiz- ing representation of a racial or ethnic minority group, do district reforms disrupt the representation for wealthier individuals and neighborhoods, traditionally robust in at-large city council systems (Schaffner et al.,2020)? To address these questions, we construct a statewide map of all newly drawn city council districts in California in the 2010s—which accounts for council districts in well over 100 cities. We link our map to Census demographics and the residential locations of council candidates. We also draw on a dataset of council candidates and winners where we have, in some cases, via hand-collection of data, attached a variety of characteristics of these individuals, again for candidates and members across the state. With those data in hand, we use a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the causal impacts of district-based elections on the characteristics of council candidates and members, as well as the neighborhoods they are coming from. We operationalize “neighborhoods” as Census block groups, mapped to city council districts in California, for all cities in the state with district elections. Our results show clear impacts of district-based elections on class-based representation. Specifically, we find that council candidates and members are significantly more likely to reside in lower-income and higher renter-share neighborhoods and are less likely to self-report a “business”- relatedoccupation.Whilewealsoreplicatepriorfindingsonracial/ethnic(inthiscase,largely,Latino) representation, our class-based results are true even for (and perhaps especially for) white candi- dates and members. We include measures for percentages of renters and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients, and average per capita income levels in the neighborhood. These measures reflect descriptive representation for the neighborhoods in which candidates and members reside. We view our results on socioeconomic representation on council as contributing to critical dis- cussionsonthelackofrepresentationalongthesedimensions—andwhatthatmightimplyforpolicy outcomesandinequality.Einsteinetal.(2022),forinstance,documentdramaticunderrepresentation ofrentersinelectedofficeandpointtothatasapotentialdriveroflongstandinghomeowner-favoring housing and zoning policy. City council members are also systematically wealthier than the popula- tions they govern (Schaffner et al.,2020); while not explicitly in the context of local government, CarnesandLupu(2023)reviewthevarietyofimpactsthatoverrepresentationofthewealthyinoffice may have on political and policy outcomes. Our results point to one institution that has an impact on these fronts: district-based elections. 1.Drawing theoretical predictions from prior work 1.1.Districts, homeownership, and socioeconomic status OverrepresentationofthewealthyisdocumentedineverylevelofAmericangovernment;only10%of citycouncilmembersarefromworking-classoccupationalbackgrounds,higherthanstatelegislators,https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.179 Political Science Research and Methods 3 members of Congress, governors, Supreme Court justices, or US presidents (Carnes,2020; Kirkland, 2021). Aside from occupation, a traditional indicator of wealth or class is homeowner status. Often extolled as a virtue in politics, homeownership is associated with familial economic prosperity and long-term investment in community (Basolo,2007). Homeownership is associated with external interest group activity in local politics; in cities with high rates of homeownership, there is less interest group activity in local politics (Anzia,2022). This indicates more citizen participation and more responsiveness by local leaders, as homeowners par- ticipatemoreinlocalpoliticsbyvotingandattendingcouncilmeetings(Einsteinetal.,2022).Recent home buyers begin to participate more after purchasing a home, and are activated most by local zon- ing policies (Yoder,2020; Hall and Yoder,2022). At the local level, land use is a dominant area of policymaking; zoning plans prioritize the interests of homeowners over others to protect most peo- ple’s most valuable assets (Trounstine,2018; Einstein et al.,2022). In both political participation and policy responsiveness to their concerns, homeowners are overrepresented at the local level. There is little variation in elected officials’ homeowner or renter status; most are owners (Carnes, 2013; Einstein et al.,2022). City council members do not rent in large numbers in any system, but Einstein et. al find that renters are no less likely to win than candidates who own their homes. However, they do find a gap earlier in the process, at the candidate recruitment stage (Einstein etal.,2022).Thisfindingiscommensuratewithotherscholarshipthatfindsinstitutionalorstructural forces, such as socioeconomic status, are major factors in the decision to run for office at all (Welch andBledsoe,1988;Spiceretal.,2017;Phillips,2021).Childhoodpovertycanhaveindelibledampen- ing effects on people’s confidence in their own qualifications for office when considering candidacy (Levine and Abromowitz,2023). The lasting insecurity left by poverty diminishes the likelihood that many people who experienced poverty as children will run. InasurveyofcandidatesforlocalofficeintheChicagoarea,Oliveretal.(2012)findalackofcon- gruence with the general population. Most candidates are long-term residents of their communities who own their homes, are over 50, typically white men with college degrees (98). The variety is in occupation; most candidates are motivated by a civic duty to public service with a responsibility to thecommunity.Thesepositionsareinthepublicsector,management,andlawindustriesthatcangive would-be candidates experience working with the public and like homeownership, can demonstrate a similar long-term investment in the community (99). Institutional reform that alters the parameters of an election may impact the decision to run for office at the recruitment stage, particularly for candidates with lower-income backgrounds. Due to economic variance in different districts, those who run for office as civic or economic elites are more likely to be diverse than in at-large systems. In this way, districts force diffusion of the centers of local political power. In a model of candidate recruitment, Jacob (1962) suggests that workers from “brokerage”occupationsfromanyclassoughttobeengaged.Brokerageoccupationsincludelawyers, restaurateursandhoteliers,insuranceandcarsalespeople,andlocalunionofficials(709).Workersin these industries have transferable skills for politics: “the ability to convince, the art of inspiring trust and confidence” (710). However, the majority of recruited candidates are white collar professionals. Blue-collar workers are harder to recruit for office because they have a harder time fundraising for campaigns that are not considered “safe bets” to win by political elites (Carnes,2020). In the absence of party influence in nonpartisan systems, other organizations can emerge in can- didate recruitment. For instance, labor unions have a vested interest in developing their members for political office. Where unions are stronger, more workers run and win (Sojourner,2013). District systems can diversify who is recruiting as well. Nationally, the vast majority of city council mem- bers come from a white-collar background (Carnes,2013;2020), but districts have been found to impact council representatives’ income and education level more than nonpartisan elections, local population, median education levels, and racial demographics (Welch and Bledsoe,1988). Theseareallimportantfactors,becausepolicyrepresentinglower-incomevoters’interestsmaybe affected by who is in office. For example, land use policies may be impacted by district reforms if thehttps://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.180 4 Cushing-Daniels et al. council itself becomes more economically diverse. Wealthy, white neighborhoods are disproportion- ately represented in at-large systems (Lineberry,1977; Heilig and Mundt,(1984)). Fundamental to arguments for district reform is that they facilitate a more diverse city council, as a result of smaller costs of running a smaller-scale campaign in a single district rather than an at-large election with a city-wide electorate. Extant literature has found higher campaign expenditures in at-large races, including within hybrid cities featuring both districts and at-large members (Heilig and Mundt, (1984); Hogan and Simpson,2001; Malinowski,2013). Others challenge these conclusions, however, comparing cities to find the size of city and prestige of serving in a larger city’s local government may have more influence over campaign costs. For instance, Adams (2018) found that campaigns for office in small cities bring down absolute and per-voter costs, since holding public office in smaller cities is viewed as less prestigious, which makes candidate background more important. Candidate background, like occupation and socioeconomic status, may matter most in nonpartisan systems as well, in lieu of a party identification heuristic for voters (Krebs,2001). Given the uniformity of non- partisan elections in California,we hypothesize that district reforms allow for more economically diverse city government.1 1.2.District-based elections and racial/ethnic representation Extant literature on descriptive representation primarily considers dimensions of race and ethnicity, andforgoodreason,giventhecentralityofraceandethnicityinpoliciesadoptingdistrict-basedelec- tions, and the construction of districts themselves. Early in the 20th century, wards or districts as the vehicleforracialandethnicminorities’representationwasamongthemainargumentsbyProgressive Era reformers supporting at-large systems (Banfield and Wilson,1963; Trounstine,2008). Later, fol- lowingthepassageoftheVRAin1965(andespeciallyfollowinganamendmenttotheVRAin1982), many local jurisdictions in the South were court-ordered to adopt districts to address the barriers Black voters faced in electing their preferred candidates; others did so preemptively in anticipation of legal action (Davidson,1994). District-based elections increased descriptive representation for African Americans, a consistent finding owing to relative consistency in geographic concentration of Black communities, an ongo- ing legacy of segregation (Karnig,1976; Robinson and Dye,1978; Engstrom and McDonald,1981; Engstrom,1987; Welch,1990; Trounstine,2008). Districts make descriptive representation for these communitiesmorelikely,sincecity-wideturnoutandanappealtoawhitemajorityarenotnecessary to elect a council member (Trounstine and Valdini,2008; Hajnal,2010). Black communities winning city council seats through districts was particularly strong in the South, where they were prohibited from voting en masse until the VRA’s passage in 1965 (Davidson,1994; Shah et al.,2013). Latinosarethelargestminorityinthecountry,andthelargestracialorethnicgroupinCalifornia, where they comprise about 40% of the total population (Lopez,2014; Funk and Lopez,2022). Population growth and the CVRA have inspired recent studies on descriptive representation explor- ing the fortunes of Latino communities in local and state institutions. Collingwood and Long (2021) found CVRA-era district reforms in California improved minority representation in high-density Latino cities by more than 20%. Around the country, Latino communities have benefited from dis- trictswhendenselyconcentratedwithindistrictboundaries,aswellasfromlargercouncilswithmore members, and as Latino candidates may drive mobilization (Taebel,1978; Bullock and MacManus, 1990; Jones-Correa,1998; Sass,2000; Barreto,2007). Studies examining California school board elections find similar results. Abott and Magazinnik (2020) use the CVRA to find an increase in one additional Latino school board representative for every three elected seats following district reforms in areas with high Latino populations and a high degree of residential segregation. Leal et al. (2004) find at-large elections detrimental for Latino 1In the online appendix, we further overview relevant work on intersections of class and race.https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.181 Political Science Research and Methods 5 representation on California school boards, especially in areas where they constitute a minority. In both city councils and school boards, district reforms have resulted in increased representation for Latino populations, largely with high numbers and in concentrated communities, both consistent with traditional findings. 2.Institutional details 2.1.California city councils All city council elections in California are nonpartisan. Part of the Progressive Era reform move- ment that resulted in at-large city councils being the norm, nonpartisan elections were intended to support a motivated and informed public outside of the divisiveness in party politics (Macmanus, 1978;Schaffneretal.,2001).Nonpartisanelectionsaffectvoters’considerationsbyremovingapromi- nent heuristic in vote choice: party identification (Kirkland and Coppock,2018). Effects on minority representation in nonpartisan elections are inconclusive; some find depressed turnout overall and strengthened incumbent advantage, which can both reinforce the status quo (Schaffner et al.,2001). Others find that emphasis on candidates’ professional and political experience may be used to com- pensate for a lack of party heuristic, but does not translate to an automatic party advantage for candidates(Schaffneretal.,2007;KirklandandCoppock,2018).Wedonotconsiderthepartisanship ofcandidatesortheelectorate,becausethereisnochangeorvariationinthenonpartisanelectiontype in the state. However, nonpartisan elections contribute to the political environment in which district reforms take place. Californiacouncilmembersservefour-yearterms,electedviastaggeredelectionseverytwoyears.2 Most councils have five members; with the exception of the largest cities, deviations from the five- member structure still result in relatively small groups of seven- or nine-members. Weidentify—forallcitiesinCalifornia—whetherandwhentheyswitchedfromat-largetodistrict- based elections. We find that by 2011, only 40 cities (roughly 8%) of cities were using district-based elections.Asoutlinedabove,thischangeddramaticallyduringthe2010s:inourdataonallCalifornia cities, by 2020, roughly 150 cities (31%) use district-based elections. All but five of the cities that shifted to district-based elections after 2011 did so in the period from 2016 to 2020. We document which cities were always at-large during our sample period, always districted during our sample period, or switched from at-large to district-based in Figure 1. A primary takeaway is that the switching cities are relatively spread throughout the state. 3.Map of cities shifting to district-based elections 3.1.California Voting Rights Act To study the impacts of district-based elections on multiple dimensions of council composition, we leverage shifts to district-based elections stemming from the CVRA of 2002. The Act specified that “Anat-largemethodofelectionmaynotbeimposedorappliedinamannerthatimpairstheabilityof a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election, as a result of the dilution or the abridgment of the rights of voters who are members of a protected class,” with protected class defined as “voters who are members of a race, color or language minority group.” As noted, at the time (and into the early 2010s), with the exception of the largest cities, most cities in California employed at-large elections. We direct readers to Abott and Magazinnik (2020) and Hankinson and Magazinnik (2023) for detailed discussions of the history of the CVRA and why the largest share of shifts to district-based elections occurred in the 2010s, a decade after the passage of the Act; in short, a major piece of the explanation for the gap in timing is that organizing groups 2For example, a five-seat council may fill seats 1 and 2 in yeart, seats 3, 4, and 5 in year t+2, and then hold an election for seats 1 and 2 again in yeart+4.https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.182 6 Cushing-Daniels et al. Figure 1.Cities by at-large vs. district-based elections during the sample period (2008–2020). Note: “Switched” refers to cities that switched from at-large to district-based city council elections between 2008 and 2020. whoinitiatedpotentiallegalactionundertheActfaced“internalcapacityconstraintsandcompeting priorities” (Hankinson and Magazinnik,2023). 4.Data We construct a unique database combining information from the California Elections Data Archive (CEDA), the US Census, the American Community Survey (ACS), the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), the California Voter Registration Database, and hand-collectedinformationoncandidatecharacteristics.Usingthisdataset,weanalyzeblock-group- level demographic data and individual-level candidate data to estimate the impact of switching to district-based elections on descriptive representation in 118 California cities. We outline the data construction in greater detail in the remainder of this section. 4.1.District maps and characteristics Most critical to our analysis is the mapping of Census block groups to city council districts for all cities in California with district-based council elections. Such a mapping allows us to compile and aggregate to district-level a variety of block-group-level demographic, socioeconomic, and partisan characteristics of residents. To do so, we begin from voter file data from 2020, which reports voters’https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.183 Political Science Research and Methods 7 Table 1.Average district characteristics, split by racial composition Maj. White (CVAP) Not Maj. White Maj. White Total N 208.00 (38.95%) 326.00 (61.05%) 534.00 (100.00%)Pop. (1000s) 19.12 (13.39) 16.11 (10.56) 17.28 (11.82)Share AAPI (CVAP) 0.15 (0.15) 0.08 (0.06) 0.11 (0.11)Share Black (CVAP) 0.08 (0.08) 0.03 (0.03) 0.05 (0.06)Share White (CVAP) 0.35 (0.10) 0.69 (0.11) 0.56 (0.20)Share Hisp. (CVAP) 0.40 (0.17) 0.18 (0.09) 0.27 (0.16) Share Other Race/Eth. (CVAP) 0.01 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) Share Renter Occ. Housing 0.41 (0.15) 0.33 (0.14) 0.36 (0.15) Share Inc>2x Pov. 0.59 (0.17) 0.72 (0.13) 0.67 (0.16) addresses—which in turn are geocoded to Census block groups—and also the city council district they are assigned to as of 2020. This then immediately facilitates a mapping of block groups to dis- tricts.Someshare(29%) ofblockgroupsaresplitacrossdistricts. However,amongstthesesplitblock groups,mostareprimarilycontainedwithinasingledistrict.Wedropanyblock-group–districtpair- ings where less than 50% of the block-group population is contained within the district in question. This generates a unique block-group–district mapping. Amongst these, for each block group in the resulting dataset, the average share of the population contained within the district that we assign it to is 96%.3 We then merge a variety of block-group variables into this dataset and aggregate them to the district-level to facilitate our analysis of the composition of districts. We draw especially on block- group-leveldemographicandsocioeconomiccharacteristics,whicharedrawnfromthe2010Census and the five-year compilation of the 2008–2012 ACSs. Specifically, we draw in block-group-level counts of population and households by income level, renter/owner status, and receipt of social assistance. We draw on the Census’s special tabulation of citizen voting age population (CVAP) by race/ethnicityasasourceforblock-grouprace/ethniccomposition.Thatalsodrawsondatacollected from the 2008 to 2012 ACSs. Aggregating all of these characteristics to the city council district-level provides a snapshot of dis- trict composition in the 2010s, when a vast majority of cities that switched to district-based elections didso.Thesecharacteristicsatthedistrict-levelaresummarizedin Table1.Giventhattheaimsofthe CVRAandshiftstodistrict-basedelectionswerefocusedonracialandethnicrepresentation,wesplit summarystatisticsbydistrictracecomposition(majoritywhitevs.notmajoritywhite)inColumns1 and2,withfullsampleaveragesinColumn3.Doingsopreviewsthecorrelationsbetweenracial/eth- niccompositionofdistrictsandothercharacteristics(income,partisancomposition,etc.),whichmay in turn imply that these shifts have broader impacts on representation. 4.2.Candidate characteristics Our main results center around how district-based elections change who runs for council and who is elected. This subsection describes how we construct our dataset on candidate characteristics. The coredatasetusedistheCEDA,whichreportstheuniverseofcandidatesforlocalofficesinCalifornia from 1995 to 2020. We use data from city council elections from 2008 to 2020. We removed cities that held district-based elections throughout the entire period, as they did not experience a system change. Our sample therefore consists of candidates in cities that switch to district-based elections between2008and2020,aswellas(forthesakeofacleancontrolgroupinthedifference-in-difference analysis) cities that are at-large the entire time. There are 13,688 candidates in our resulting subset of the CEDA data. 3Additional notes on this process can be found in the supplemental appendix.https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.184 8 Cushing-Daniels et al. CEDA data list candidates’ names, office contested, voteshare, and victory or loss. The data also note the ballot designation that appeared on the ballot; this is often the candidate’s occupation. We take advantage of the ballot designation to provide at least one measure of candidates’ professional background. The largest share of candidates indicates that their occupation is “businessperson” or somethingrelated,soinouranalysis,wecomparepeoplewithbusinessorfinance-relatedoccupations to all others. Specifically, we tag a candidate as having a business or finance-related occupation if any of the following strings appear in their ballot designation:business, owner, entrep, executive, investor, capitalist, banking, finance, accounting, accountant. This categorization is similar in spirit to the work of Carnes (2013), categorizing members of legislatures as being in “profit-oriented professions.” Then, because candidates who have won in the past and are incumbents often simply list “incum- bent” or “city councilmember” as their ballot designation, we tag individual candidates as having a business/finance-related occupation if they ever list any of the above strings across the multiple years that we see them in the data. Most typically, this will be drawn from their first appearance as a candidate. With this approach, roughly 28% of candidates are tagged as having a business/finance- related occupation. Appendix Table A3 lists all categories that we coded, some examples of ballot designations from each category, and the relative frequency of each category.4 CEDA data report only the information that appears on the ballot and the results of the election; it therefore does not report candidates’ demographic characteristics. For candidate race and gender, wedrawondatafromBeachandJones(2017)andBeachetal.(2024).Theonlineappendixdescribes their data construction process in more detail; we extend their data to include additional years using the same process. We gather additional information about candidates by matching candidate observations in the CEDA data to the 2016 California Voter Registration Files, matching by name and city. These data provide candidates’ home address. The home address is then geocoded to Census block groups and matched to Census data to provide some information on characteristics of the neighborhood that a candidate lives in (e.g., income, share of renters, etc.).5 4.3.Date of adoption of district-based elections Finally, we also use the California Election Data Archive to identify the first election year that a city used district-based elections. In elections where cities use district-based elections, the district that a candidate is running within is listed. In cities with at-large elections, this variable is simply blank. As such, we identify the first election that a city used district-based elections by identifying the first year in the data for a city where the district variable is not blank. Appendix Table A2 provides city-level summary statistics for cities that never use district-based elections during our sample period (which form our control group,n=322), cities that switch to district-based elections during our period (which form our treatment group,n=116), and cities that hold district-based elections during our entire sample period (which we ultimately omit from our analysis,n=32).6 A key takeaway is that cities that form our treatment group are quite similar to cities that form our control group on most dimensions other than population. The cities that adopt district-based elections are larger. The fact that those cities are larger is not surprising; as Hankinson and Magazinnik (2023) note, organizers actively targeted their efforts towards higher population cities. The cities that already used district-based elections prior to 2008 are different on a num- ber of dimensions than the other two categories of cities; they are much larger (even dropping Los AngelesandSanDiego)andhavehigherracial/ethnicdiversity.AppendixFiguresA10,A11,andA12 4We also adopt an alternate means of coding candidates’ occupations, described in more detail in the online appendix. 5Toassesswhetherthereisanysystematicrelationshipbetweencandidatesmatchedvs.notmatched,theAppendixprovides two figures. See further discussion in the online appendix. 6The table omits the two largest population cities in the sample, Los Angeles and San Diego, which would otherwise fall in the always-districted group.https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.185 Political Science Research and Methods 9 graphically depict averages of key outcome variables (measured at city-by-year level) across years and for each of the three categories of cities noted above (switching cities, never districted, always districted). 5.Empirical approach: difference-in-differences We employ a difference-in-difference analysis of how district-based elections impact who runs and whoisultimatelyelectedtothecouncil.Thesespecificationswilladdresshowandwhetherthepoten- tial or “expected” shifts in representation captured in the previous section in fact translate into shifts in who is elected to the council. Our main specifications are estimated at the city-by-election year level, where we take as outcomes the share of candidates or share of winning candidates with some characteristic (e.g., percent white) in that city-by-election year.7 We estimate: (Winning) Candidate Char. Sharect = 𝛽 ×Post-Districtingct + 𝛿t + 𝛾c + 𝜖ct (1) Post-Districting isabinaryvariableequaltooneincities(c)andyears(t)thatareusingdistrict-based elections and zero for cities that have not yet switched to district-based elections or never do dur- ing our sample period. We exclude cities that were district-based for the entire sample period,8 but include all other California cities. Thus, cities that switch to district-based between 2008 and 2020 serve as the “treatment” group and cities that use at-large elections the entire time serve as the “con- trol” group. We include city and year fixed effects to difference out time-invariant city characteristics and across-city year effects.𝛽identifies the causal impact of switching to district-based elections. A critical assumption inherent in difference-in-difference analysis is that treated and control units would follow parallel paths in the absence of treatment. To provide some evidence on this, we also conduct event studies to ensure that there are no differences in trends in the years leading up to treatment (Figure 4). 6.Results 6.1.Main difference-in-difference results Figure2presentsresultsfromthedifference-in-differenceanalysisoncandidatecharacteristicsaggre- gated to the city-by-year level. (Our next figure will provide evidence on the types of neighborhoods candidates and winners come from.) Each point (with confidence intervals) in the figure is from a separate regression, matching Eqn. 1 above, but taking on a variety of outcome variables. The fig- ure plots both the shares of all candidates (red dots) and the shares of winning candidates (blue dots) in a given city-year who are of a particular characteristic, listed along the left-hand side of the figure. Even though race and ethnicity is not the central focus of this paper, we describe results on that front first, both to highlight that we observe similar results to prior literature and to orient readers to our figure. Consider the row labeled “Race/Eth: White.” The pair of dots there reports the impacts of district-based elections on the share of candidates (red dot) and winners (blue dot) who are, to use Census-styleracial-ethniccategories,non-Hispanicwhite.Wefindthatthereisasignificantdecrease both in the share of candidates and the share of winners who are white. As in other work on the CVRA, district-based elections generate increases in Hispanic representation; in our paper, we are able to document that a large part of why this happens (as depicted in the figure) is an increase in 7In calculating shares, the denominator is the set of candidates or winners in that city-year that we have matched for the outcome in question. For instance, if we identify the race/ethnicity of two of the three total candidates, the denominator in calculating the race/ethnic share of candidates is two. 8A key reason for doing so is that recent work documents bias introduced by using already-treated units as control units in a difference-in-difference analysis (Goodman-Bacon,2021).https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.186 10 Cushing-Daniels et al. Figure 2.Difference-in-difference analysis: how individual characteristics of candidates and winners change under district- based elections. Note: Each point in the figure is from a distinct regression. The regression plots the “Post-Districting” coefficient from the difference-in- difference specification. Also displayed are 90% and 95% confidence intervals, with standard errors clustered at the city level. Hispaniccandidateentry,astheimpactofdistrictsontheshareofcandidatesandwinnersisrelatively similar. Next, we turn to evidence in the figure on other dimensions of representation: especially class. The bottom pair of points in the figure reports the impacts of district-based elections on the profes- sional background of candidates and winners. While we cannot observe candidates’ individual-level incomes or socioeconomic status, we do observe their occupation as self-reported on the bal- lot. We find that the share of both winners and candidates who are in a business/finance-related occupation decreases, providing evidence that district-based elections shift councils away from overrepresentation of individuals from white-collar occupations.9 Wefurtherexplorehowdistrict-basedelectionsimpactclassandsocioeconomicstatus-basedrep- resentation in our analysis on the types of neighborhoods that candidates come from, which we turn tonext.Figure3 presentsresultsonthatsetofoutcomes.Specifically,wetakeasoutcomesthecharac- teristicsoftheCensusblockgroupthatcandidatesandwinnerscomefrom.Again,tostartwithresults that link us to much of the existing literature and orient readers to the figure, the first two pairs of estimates report results on the racial/ethnic composition of Census block-group candidates live in. The results reveal that the average winner comes from a neighborhood that is roughly 4 percentage points less (non-Hisp.) white and 4 percentage points more Hispanic. Results are similar, but more muted on neighborhood characteristics for all candidates. The estimation sample standard deviation of the winning candidates’ neighborhood Hispanic population share is 0.24, so the magnitude of our effect is roughly one-sixth of a standard deviation. The remainder of the figure contains results that we view as our primary contribution. The pair of resultsintherowlabel“%Renter”capturestherentershareofcandidates’andwinners’Censusblock 9Appendix Figures A1 and A2 provide more evidence on occupational background.https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.187 Political Science Research and Methods 11 Figure 3.Difference-in-difference analysis: how neighborhood characteristics of candidates and winners change under district-based elections. Note: Each point in the figure is from a distinct regression. The regression plots the “Post-Districting” coefficient from the difference-in- difference specification. Also displayed are 90% and 95% confidence intervals, with standard errors clustered at the city level. groups. While we cannot observe whether candidates/winners are themselves renters or homeown- ers, we do find that district-based elections are associated with increases in candidates/winners from higherrenter-shareneighborhoods;withtheaveragecandidateandwinnercomingfromaneighbor- hoodthatis3percentagepointshigherinrentershareunderdistrict-basedvs.at-largeelections.The estimation sample standard deviation of winning candidates’ neighborhood renter share is 0.17, so the magnitude of our effect is roughly 0.18 of a standard deviation of the outcome. Thenexttwopairsofresultsreportimpactsonthetypesofneighborhoodscandidatesandwinners are coming from with respect to income composition. The first pair of points takes as an outcome the average (logged) per capita income of candidates/winners neighborhoods. The second pair of points takes as an outcome the share of block-group residents who are SNAP recipients; because SNAP eligibility is income-based, we draw on this outcome largely as another measure of income distribution of neighborhoods, with this measure capturing the lower end of the distribution. The high-level result on both outcomes is that we observe a shift towards candidates and win- ners from lower-income neighborhoods. For instance, the average winning candidate comes from a block group with income that is roughly 6% lower. But here, we observe more sizable differences betweentheestimatesforcandidatesandwinnersthanmanyofourotheroutcomes—withmorepro- nounced impacts for winners. This indicates that while district-based elections have some impact on the entry of candidates from lower-income neighborhoods, a large part of the increased presence of these candidates on the council is from the increased likelihood of winning conditional on running. This is consistent with our predictions, which highlighted that district-based elections may decrease the cost of participating in a contest and therefore increase the likelihood of winning for individuals from a broader range of the income and wealth distribution. 6.2.Robustness of main results As noted in the description of our methods, we conduct event study analyses to assess the parallel trends assumption that is critical to a difference-in-difference analysis. Event studies from some ofhttps://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.188 12 Cushing-Daniels et al. Figure 4.Event study: district-based elections and share of Hispanic winning candidates. Note: Each panel in the figure is from a distinct event study regression. Estimates are depicted by the solid line. Also reported are 90% (dark shaded area) and 95% (light shaded area) confidence intervals, with standard errors clustered at the city level. ourkeyoutcomevariablesaredepictedin Figure4.Thefiguresplotdifferencesbetweentreatmentand controlgroupsatdifferentpointsintimerelativetotheyearsimmediatelybeforetheimplementation of district-based elections. If there were confounding time-varying factors that relate both to our outcome but also to the adoption of district-based elections, this may materialize as trends in our outcomes in the years immediately prior to adoption. Instead, in all figures, there is no difference between treatment and control in the years prior to treatment—indicating parallel trends in the pre- periods. Additional robustness tests are presented and discussed in the online appendix. 6.3.Drivers of main results Next, we provide some additional evidence aimed at better understanding the mechanisms driving our main results. Before doing so, it is worth taking stock of our current results and the mechanisms that may be driving them. We have found that district-based elections are causally associated with an increase in shares of: Latino candidates and winners, candidates and winners from higher renter- shareneighborhoods,andcandidatesandwinnersfromlowerincomeneighborhoods.District-based elections, likewise, are causally associated with decreases in shares of: white candidates and winners andcandidatesandwinnersfromabusiness/finance-relatedoccupation.Ofcourse,therace/ethnicity resultssummarizedherearelargelyinlinewithexistingliterature;thechangesinclass-basedcompo- sition of candidates and winners are our primary focus. The fact that we observe changes in both the composition of candidates and winners already provides some evidence on the mechanism driving https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.189 Political Science Research and Methods 13 our results: results are at least partially driven by candidate entry and not strictly a change in candi- datesuccessconditionalonentering.Wedonote,however,thatinmostofourmainresults,theeffect of district-based elections is at least marginally larger when focusing on the composition of winners relative to the composition of candidates. If candidate entry was the sole driver of changes in council composition, the change in the composition of winners would roughly equal the change in the com- position of candidates. Our finding on this front parallels Abott and Magazinnik (2020), who find that district-based elections increased both the Latino share of school board candidates and school board members in California following the local adoption of district-based school board elections. Next, in the context of race/ethnic representation, many have argued that we should expect the strongest impacts of district-based elections on the composition of the elected body in relatively racially/ethnically segregated localities; Abott and Magazinnik (2020) and Trounstine and Valdini (2008) provide empirical evidence in support of this claim. We ask whether the same is true of the class-based representation that we document: are changes in class-based representation on council contingent on the degree of economic segregation in cities? Addressingthatquestioninoursettingcanhelpfurtherclarifypotentialmechanismsatplay.One mechanism that might drive our results is that district-based elections reduce the cost of campaign- ing or impact organizing efforts. If those campaign-focused channels were the primary mechanisms driving our results, results should not differ across more and less economically segregated cities. On the other hand, under the assumption that members of an underrepresented group are more likely to vote for own-group members, absent changes in campaigning or organizing, district-based elec- tions should only be expected to change the composition of the elected body in a city where the group members in question are spatially concentrated (Trounstine and Valdini,2008). Of course, the most relevant mechanisms impacting class-based representation may differ from those impacting racial/ethnic representation. Totesttheroleofeconomicsegregationinoursetting,wefirstconstructameasureofhowresiden- tially segregated higher-income individuals are. We construct a block-group measure of the share of residentswithinablockgroupwhoseincomesexceedtwo-timesthepovertyline;weusethatshareas our measure of higher-income individuals. The remainder in each block group is the share of lower- income individuals. We then use these data to construct a high-income/low-income dissimilarity index at the city level, an index of segregation frequently used to measure local racial/ethnic segre- gation. The index runs from 0 to 1, with zero indicating the maximum degree of integration and 1 indicating the maximum degree of segregation of higher and lower income individuals. We split our sampleofcitiesatthemedianvaluetodefinemoreandlessincome-segregatedcities.Wethenre-run our main specification with distinct “treatment” variables for our more and less income-segregated cities. Results are presented graphically in Figure 5. That top panel reports difference-in-difference coef- ficients for more income segregated cities; the bottom panel reports coefficients for less income segregated cities. As before, each row or pair of coefficients corresponds to a particular outcome. The directional pattern of our results is similar across the top and bottom panels. In fact, for any out- come in the figure, we are not able to reject the hypothesis that the effect of district-based elections is the same in more relative to less income segregated cities. These results do not occur just in newly districted cities with high levels of segregation, which points to the reforms as a driving force. The smaller scale of economy within districts raises the potential for a more diverse slate of candidates for seats in underrepresented neighborhoods, including non-business occupations. Next, in part because some of the factors assessed in our main analyses are correlated with one another, we test how district-based elections impact the composition of the council with regards to intersections between race/ethnic groupings (in particular, non-Hispanic white and Hispanic) and the other characteristics assessed. To do so, we run the same difference-in-difference specification usedelsewhereinthissection,buttakeasoutcomesintersectionalgroups—e.g.,shareofwinningcan- didates who reside in a Higher Income Neighborhood. Results are depicted in Figure 6 and uncover https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.190 14 Cushing-Daniels et al.Post X High BG Inc. Seg.Post X Low BG Inc. Seg.Race/Eth.: White Race/Eth.: Hisp. Bus./Fin. Occ. N'hood: % Renter N'hood: ln(PC Inc.) Race/Eth.: White Race/Eth.: Hisp. Bus./Fin. Occ. N'hood: % Renter N'hood: ln(PC Inc.) -.2 -.1 0 .1 .2 DiD Estimates - Impact of Districts All Cands. Winners Figure 5.Difference-in-difference analysis: distinct effects of district-based elections in more and less income segregated cities. Note: Each point in the figure is from a distinct regression. The regression plots the “Post-Districting” coefficient from the difference-in- differencespecification.Alsodisplayedare90%and95%confidenceintervals,withstandarderrorsclusteredatthecitylevel.“High(Low) BGInc.Seg.”referstocitiesthatareabove(below)medianinthedissimilarityindex,whichcapturesresidentialsegregationofhigherand lower income individuals. heterogeneity in the impacts of district-based elections that were concealed by the prior analyses. For example, the “Business Occ.” row reports the effect of treatment on the share of candidates who hold Business Occupations and are Hispanic or White (respectively). In this exercise, “High Income Neighborhood”and“HigherRenterNeighborhood”aredefinedasthoseblockgroupsthatfallabove the sample median in those measures. Most notably, we find that two of our main outcomes documenting shifts in class-based represen- tation (share of candidates from “business” occupations and incomes of neighborhoods candidates come from)seem tobe drivenbywhitecandidates in particular.Wefind thatdistrict-based elections impact racial/ethnic representation and separately impact class-based representation, a departure from the expectation that district-based elections may impact the race or ethnicity of candidates and winners, which would impact other intersecting characteristics. 7.Conclusion This paper has assessed the impacts of shifting from at-large to district-based elections for all 118 city councils in California that did so between 2008 and 2020. In doing so, it has been our aim to shed light on the broad impacts of district-based elections in local elections, both in who runs and wins elections, and how districts are drawn. While a sizable body of work has studied the impacts of district-based elections on descriptive racial and ethnic representation (Davidson,1994; Abott and Magazinnik,2020), there is less known in the modern context and on a wide scale about the two main focuses of this paper: the characteristics of candidates and elected councilmembers, and the far-reaching impacts of how the districts themselves are drawn. We aim to address these questions, focusing in particular on class-based representation. The rapid shift from at-large to district-based https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10070Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.191 Political Science Research and Methods 15 Figure 6.Difference-in-difference analysis: winning candidate characteristics interacted with race/eth. Note: Each point in the figure is from a distinct regression. The regression plots the “Post-Districting” coefficient from the difference- in-difference specification. Also displayed are 90% and 95% confidence intervals, with standard errors clustered at the city level. All regressions are at the city-by-year level. elections among city councils in California in the 2010s and our statewide district mapping efforts facilitate our contributions on these fronts. To briefly summarize our findings: we find increases in the representation of individuals from lower-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods with a higher share of renters. We also find a decrease in winners with “business”-related occupations. These findings are important in light of the dramatic underrepresentation of working-class individuals and renters in local government (Schaffner et al.,2020; Einstein et al.,2022) and also in light of some recent papers that document a shiftinhousingpolicyunderdistrict-basedelections(Mast,2024;HankinsonandMagazinnik,2023). Beyond the shift in incentives faced by councilmembers elected from districts, our results highlight that changes in housing policy (and likely other policy) may also be a consequence of who serves on the council under district-based elections, in line with evidence that working-class representation in Congress impacts substantive representation (Carnes,2012). Our results also contribute to enduring questions: which groups get represented, and by whom? The myriad implications of these two essential roles in democratic representation have animated decades of research. District reforms in city councils have the potential to increase substantive rep- resentation for minorities long excluded, namely, people of color and lower classes. While districts are able to remedy underrepresentation for these groups, they are most beneficial for geographi- cally concentrated populations, a direct result of racial and economic segregation. As cities continue to reform electoral institutions to reflect minority communities, we expect district representation to becomemoreubiquitous,andmunicipalpolicytomorecloselyreflectthepreferencesoftheseminor- ity groups. Future research is needed to address more substantive benefits of district reform in the policyareasmostimportanttocitycouncils,suchasdevelopment,parks,policeandfire,andutilities. Supplementary material.The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025. 10070. 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Montana State University Library, on 11 Mar 2026 at 17:50:23, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.194 February 13, 2025 Free Cities Center Analysis: City representation – Single- member districts versus at large pacificresearch.org/free-cities-center-analysis-city-representation-single-member-districts-versus-at-large At-Large Elections: Advantages and Disadvantages In at-large elections, all elected representatives represent the entire polity, be it a city or county. Proponents argue that this method promotes a unified vision among members since they all serve the same district. Additionally, at-large elections eliminate the issue of gerrymandering within the city, as there are no individual districts to manipulate. It also allows every citizen to vote for every member of the city council. One can argue that no one is left out. 1/5195 Those reasons are compelling for many people, but the most significant drawback of at-large elections is the very real marginalization of minorities. For example, if a city is 60% white and Democrat, it is common for all city council members to be white and Democrats (or vice versa). The majority easily forms a majority while they hold the majority. The cost of running is higher at large, which also reinforces the majority and further marginalizes other voters. While occasionally someone outside this paradigm may be elected, they are immediately in the minority if they vote differently from the rest. Though just being there has an effect and that is substantive and moves the ball so to speak, they are easily voted down. At-large districts often result in every member of a city council being from one party, and one race and other factors leading to a lack of diverse perspectives and often an oppression of opposing views. Single-Member Districts: Benefits and Concerns In single-member district elections, the city is divided into districts with relatively equal population sizes as required by law, and each member runs from their respective district. One advantage is that the cost of running for office is significantly lower, as candidates only need to campaign within their specific district and not the entire community. Research shows that voter participation tends to be higher in district elections, possibly due to increased engagement and a sense of direct representation. Candidates do not have the burden of running in the entire district. Thus, they can spend more time with their smaller group of voters. Critics of single-member districts express concern about each representative focusing primarily on their own district’s interests, a phenomenon known as parochialism. This can lead to conflicts between districts and a lack of a citywide perspective. However, proponents argue that this localized focus ensures that each area’s unique needs and concerns are addressed. One exemplary problem could be that if one rep had a post office put in their district, everyone else would want one too. This can be true, but it also represents a form of fairness. Everyone in one way or another contributes taxes. If one district is given something, it is only natural that other districts seek something to even things out. It might lead to overall general consumption that people might not want, but it also prevents one part of the city from getting all the spoils so to speak. People do keep score. There is a point for each person when you can no longer ignore the disparities and that is human nature. Key Differences: Access, Cost and Accountability The most critical differences between at-large and district elections lie in the access afforded to minorities, the cost of elections and the accountability of members to their constituents. Single-member districts provide better opportunities for minority representation, as 2/5196 historically underrepresented communities can have a stronger voice in electing their own representatives. The lower cost of running in district elections allows for a more diverse pool of candidates. At-large races are generally left to those with significant financial resources. Finally, district representatives are more directly accountable to their constituents, as they are elected by and responsible for a specific area. When something happens in a district, it is that representative whose duty it falls on to fix the matter. At-large elections allow the representatives to escape responsibility. History and Practice in California In California, every county appears to have district elections, while cities have a mixed history. Research shows that all cities initially had district elections and strong mayors with veto power. Over time, many cities transitioned to at-large elections. The author believes this is likely due to the involvement and greater influence of government officials and employees, but this trend is now reversing due to the passage of the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA). Santa Barbara Case Study: From At-Large to District Elections The author’s experience in Santa Barbara, Calif., provides a compelling example of the transition from at-large to district elections. When elections were held at large, the cost of running increased significantly, with each winning candidates eventually raising around $100,000 to have a chance at winning. Campaigns focused on prime voters – those who voted four of the last four elections were the doors that were generally knocked on. Most focus went particularly to an affluent area coined as the “golden triangle” area, leading to a lack of diversity on the City Council. The more focus over time simply reinforced its prominence to the detriment to other areas. One strange period had all the members of the City Council living on the mesa within a few blocks of each other. At-large elections simply have a proclivity to electing people who were often living in the same area, were from the same political party and had the same racial background. The Santa Barbara Tea Fire incident highlighted the problems with at-large elections at the end of 2008. During the fire, City Council members went on television and individually addressed issues based upon the fire in general terms, leaving citizens unsure of whom to contact with specific concerns. This lack of direct representation and accountability was clearly a significant drawback of the at-large system. A lawsuit based on the CVRA forced Santa Barbara to adopt district elections. The first election under the new system saw a significant drop in campaign costs and increased voter participation. Two majority-minority districts for Latinos were created, and the winner of one 3/5197 of these districts ensured that more resources were allocated to previously neglected areas. Interestingly, when district elections were brought back, the city police chose to no longer participate in the elections with support or endorsements, likely to avoid finding themselves with an opponent in office. Again, it appears that government employees may favor at-large elections as it appears to increase their influence on the electoral process. In one word, it gives those in government more power and in turn, many minorities are not given choices. Legal Perspective: The California Voting Rights Act The CVRA has been a driving force behind the shift from at-large to district elections in California. Enacted in 2002, the CVRA prohibits the use of at-large elections in local government if they impair the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or influence the outcome of an election (California Elections Code § 14027). In Sanchez v. City of Modesto (2006), the California Court of Appeal held that the CVRA applies to both charter cities and general law cities. This decision has led to numerous lawsuits and settlements, resulting in many cities transitioning from at-large to district elections to avoid costly litigation. The CVRA has withstood constitutional challenges. In Jauregui v. City of Palmdale (2014), the Court of Appeal rejected arguments that the CVRA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution or the California Constitution. The Importance of Minority Representation and Access In district elections, citizens with specific problems can address their concerns directly to their representative, increasing the likelihood of their issues being addressed. In at-large elections, issues affecting a small number of people are less likely to receive attention, especially as the city’s population grows. The most reasonable and proper solution is to move to single-member districts and increase the number of representatives on the council. In a republican form of government, minority rights must be vigilantly protected. The American system of government is styled as a democratic system, meaning that each person should have their part in government and not be structurally excluded from the process. Access to representative bodies should be a fundamental right, as the purpose of representative government is to provide access to those being represented. Districts Elections are the Better Model Single-member district elections offer a more equitable and accessible form of representation, particularly for minorities and underrepresented groups. The CVRA has been instrumental in promoting this transition in California, with courts upholding its 4/5198 constitutionality and applicability to all cities. While at-large elections may have some advantages, the potential for minority marginalization and lack of direct accountability make single-member districts a more democratic and representative system. As cities and counties continue to grapple with issues of representation and governance, the move towards single-member districts is a step in the right direction for ensuring fair and inclusive political participation. Michael Warnken works on court cases relating to representation and other similar issues. He is an advisor for the nonprofit Citizens Rising. 5/5199 MIT Open Access Articles At#Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Citation: Abott, Carolyn and Magazinnik, Asya. 2020. "At#Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government." American Journal of Political Science, 64 (3). As Published: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12512 Publisher: Wiley Persistent URL: https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140916 Version: Author's final manuscript: final author's manuscript post peer review, without publisher's formatting or copy editing Terms of use: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 200 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. At-Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government Carolyn Abott † Asya Magazinnik ‡ December 19, 2019 Keywords: at-large elections, local government, education politics, minority representation, voting rights This work would not have been possible without a grant from the Spencer Foundation that allowed us to collect this data for the Education Governance and Accountability Project (EGAP) at The Ohio State University. Special thanks go to Vlad Kogan and St´ephane Lavertu at EGAP, and to Nolan McCarty, Kosuke Imai, and members of the Imai Research Group at Princeton University for their invaluable feedback on this project. Additional thanks to participants of the 2017 CSAP American Politics Conference at Yale University. We are also grateful to Robert Rubin for many informative conversations. †Department of Government and Politics, St. John’s University; abottc@stjohns.edu. ‡Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; asyam@mit.edu. 1 This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to dierences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1111/ajps.12512 201 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Abstract Despite a long history of legal challenges alleging that elections conducted at-large suppress minority representation, this remains the dominant electoral system in local governments throughout the United States. Moreover, a large empirical literature remains divided over the present-day impact of at-large elections on the political success of underrepresented groups. We reconcile the competing findings in this literature by providing contingent, causal estimates of the eect of conversion from at-large to ward elections on minority oceholding, using a novel identification strategy aorded by the California Voting Rights Act of 2001. We find a dramatic positive eect of conversion in districts where Latinos constitute a suciently large share of the voting population, and in large and residentially segregated districts. When these conditions are not satisfied, we consistently see null estimated eects. Replication materials: The data and materials required to verify the computational re- producibility of the results, procedures and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/6OEPWE. Word Count:9,583 202 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 1 Introduction Free and fair elections are the very essence of modern democracy. The institutions that structure how this exercise of popular will is translated into political representation are no less important. In the United States, electoral rules governing who can vote and how votes are aggregated to legislative seats have been used to exclude women and ethnic minorities from full political participation. By the same token, the past half century has seen a number of attempts at reforming the rules of the game to correct these historical inequities. One prominent example has been the push to eliminate at-large voting in local elections across the country. In at-large elections, voters across an entire constituency have the oppor- tunity to select candidates for every available seat in its legislative body. This is in contrast to the classic majoritarian scheme that divides the constituency into wards, each having its own seat in the legislature. 1 In at-large systems, its opponents claim, the minority vote is diluted by majority interests voting as a bloc. If minorities are highly concentrated in particular regions, as they have been historically, then switching to ward representation can at least guarantee them seats wherever they constitute a local majority, thereby increasing their voice in the political process. If these claims are accurate, then the elimination of at-large voting would have profound, far-reaching consequences for political representation across the United States. At-large sys- tems are still the prevailing institution in American local elections: as of 2012, approximately 64 percent of U.S. cities relied exclusively on at-large voting for their city council elections, with another 21 percent employing some combination of at-large and ward systems (Clark and Krebs 2012). 2 Governing bodies elected at-large—city councils, school boards, and mu- 1This representational scheme is known by many dierent names, including “district,” “by-trustee,” and “single-member.” For the sake of clarity we will use the term “ward” throughout, and reserve “district” to refer to the entire political unit—in our empirical case, the school district—whether it has at-large elections or is further subdivided into wards. 2These figures are estimates that come from surveys conducted by the International 1 203 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. nicipal boards—make decisions about how education is funded, where roads are built, and how water and sanitation services are delivered; they determine housing, economic devel- opment, transportation, and urban planning policies that shape their constituents’ daily lives. Recognizing the importance of local electoral institutions, coalitions of minority groups and civil rights advocates have mobilized to take legal action against at-large voting districts, resulting in several historical waves of conversion to wards (Browning, Marshall and Tabb 1986). Most recently, the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) of 2001 lowered the legal standard of victory for plaintis suing at-large districts for suppressing minority represen- tation. The result was a flurry of successful litigation across the state to break up at-large school board and city council districts into wards, amassing millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements, and more than tripling the incidence of ward-based systems in California over the fifteen years following the CVRA’s passage (California Common Cause 2017). But these institutional reform eorts have also generated significant controversy—even among supporters of their general goals. Ward elections, critics argue, breed parochialism, fragmen- tation, and less responsiveness to the interests of the larger constituency; moreover, reforms have not been nearly as eective as expected at increasing the number of Latino representa- tives elected to oce. 3 Meanwhile, costly lawsuits deplete already overstretched municipal budgets, hurting the very constituents that the law was meant to empower. At least one of the focal points of this debate—the eectiveness of conversion to ward representation in propelling minority candidates to oce—is an empirical question that a careful study of electoral institutions and outcomes ought to resolve. Unfortunately, a vast City/County Management Association. Though imperfect, and subject to survey measure- ment error, these estimates are the best measure we have of the frequency of local at-large elections. 3See, for instance, https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-voting-rights-minorities- california-20170409-story.html (last accessed 09/30/19). 2 204 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. research agenda attempting to measure the relative merits of the two systems for minority oceholding has been unable to produce conclusive results. While there is substantial evi- dence that ward elections for local oce result in greater representation for Black and Latino voters (Molina Jr. and Meier 2016; Marschall, Ruhil and Shah 2010; Trounstine and Valdini 2008; Meier, Juenke, Wrinkle and Polinard 2005; Leal, Martinez-Ebers and Meier 2004; Poli- nard 1994; Davidson and Grofman 1994; Moncrief and Thompson 1992; Stewart, England and Meier 1989; Karnig and Welch 1982; Davidson and Korbel 1981; Engstrom and McDon- ald 1981; Robinson and England 1981), a number of additional studies have found no eect (Fraga 2009; Welch 1990; Bullock and MacManus 1987; MacManus 1978; Cole 1974), with still others that posit a negative association between ward elections and minority electoral success (Meier and Rutherford 2014; Welch and Karnig 1978). Two factors explain the lack of scholarly consensus on this subject: the highly contingent nature of the eect of electoral reform, and the extreme diculty of recovering plausibly causal estimates of this eect. Ward elections can only help minority candidates win oce when the minority group is suciently large and geographically concentrated, such that it constitutes a local majority. Identifying the cases where these important prerequisites are in place is beyond the scope of most datasets that have been available to date, but essential for a proper test of the reform. 4 Moreover, the vast majority of studies have attempted to identify the eects of at-large versus ward representation by comparing localities with each kind of system, or, at best, those that have switched to ward systems to those that have not. But even after controlling for any number of covariates, crucial unobserved dierences remain between areas with long histories under each rule, and those that choose to switch to wards are fundamentally dierent from those that do not. The result is a selection eect that can bias the estimated quantity of interest in either direction. As the political debate in California intensifies—and additional states such as Texas 4Some notable exceptions that consider the contingent eects of institutional arrangements include Marschall, Ruhil and Shah (2010) and Trounstine and Valdini (2008). 3 205 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. appear poised to follow California’s lead in undertaking reform 5—questions about the relative merits of at-large and ward systems for the interests of historically underrepresented groups take on a new urgency. The contribution of the present study is to provide the first causal, contingent, and policy-relevant estimates of the eect of conversion from at-large to ward representation on minority oceholding. To estimate these eects, we apply a novel research design that takes advantage of exogenous variation in electoral reform induced by the CVRA, as well as an original panel dataset that allows us to measure key predictors of the reform’s success. Our findings shed light on why the academic literature has for so long failed to arrive at a consensus—and on the conditions that advocates who hope to achieve real lasting change need to target in their eorts. Consistent with theoretical expectations, we find a dramatic positive eect of being forced to convert to ward elections under the CVRA on Latinos’ ability to get elected to California school boards among districts with a high level of residential segregation. Our analysis also uncovers a key moderator of the eect of reform that previous studies of at-large elections have ignored, though scholars have long recognized its importance for political mobilization: the size of districts, as measured by total school enrollment. In large and segregated districts, the eects of electoral reform are generally positive and steadily increasing in the size of the Latino community—a dierence that rises above one additional Latino oceholder for every three available seats—but may also be negative when the minority community is suciently small. When these conditions are not met, we consistently see null estimated eects. Additionally, we examine districts that voluntarily chose to convert from at-large to ward elections. Through the use of an instrumental variables framework, we show that conversions spurred by district-adjacent legal threats have a large and unconditional positive impact on the political fortunes of the Latino community. 5See https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/11/richardson-isd-school-board-representation/ (last accessed 09/30/19). 4 206 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 2 Theory Scholars of local and urban politics have deservedly devoted significant attention to the dierential eects of at-large and ward elections on oceholding among Blacks, Latinos, and women.6 The justification for their focus on descriptive representation—broadly conceived as the resemblance between the representative and the represented along some politically salient dimension, such as sex or ethnicity (Pitkin 1967)—is twofold. First, descriptive representa- tion is valuable in its own right, as it has been shown to increase underrepresented groups’ sense of political ecacy, trust in government, and legitimacy of the governing regime, and to provide role models for those groups (Phillips 1991, 1995, 1998; Mansbridge 1999; Dovi 2002). Second, descriptive representation may lead to more tangible gains, such as an in- crease in the share of public resources allocated to a given group, or an improvement in the quality of life of its members (Haider-Markel, Joslyn and Kniss 2000; Wald, Button and Rienzo 1996; Fraga, Meier and England 1986; Meier, Stewart and England 1991; Leal, Martinez-Ebers and Meier 2004; Marschall and Ruhil 2007; Browning, Marshall and Tabb 2003). How might ward elections increase descriptive representation of minorities compared to at-large systems? A key condition for this relationship to hold is that the voting population be segregated enough for the minority group to constitute a local majority in at least one ward, and that the political boundaries be drawn accordingly (Trounstine and Valdini 2008; Marschall, Ruhil and Shah 2010; Sass 2000). To understand why this is the case, consider the unit depicted in Figure 1. The diagram illustrates how votes in an electorate (above) are translated to seats in a governing body (below) under at-large and ward systems. In each of the three cases shown, the polity consists of two groups with opposing political interests: majority group A, which comprises 13/20 of the voting population, and minority group B, 6See Table 1 in Marschall, Ruhil and Shah (2010) for a useful review of the vast empirical literature on Black representation alone. 5 207 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. which comprises the remaining 7/20. In the first case, there is an at-large system: every member of the electorate gets to vote on every seat in the legislature as it becomes available. As long as Group A can field a candidate for every race, it will be victorious every time, leaving the sizable minority without any political representation. Moving to a ward system, as Cases II and III show, may improve electoral outcomes for Group B—conditional on how the members of this group are distributed. In Case II, the electorate is divided into four wards, each with its own seat in the legislature. Because the boundaries are drawn such that the minority population constitutes a local majority in Ward 1, Group B is able to capture one seat and increase its voice in the legislature. But as Case III shows, geographic segregation is a necessary condition for ward representation to yield electoral gains for this group. Here, Group B is distributed approximately equally throughout the wards, and remains a minority in each one. As a result, the problem present in the at-large system is replicated one level down, and wards yield no representational gains for the minority. Another key determinant of whether ward systems can improve electoral outcomes for underrepresented groups is district size—though there are compelling reasons to believe the eect may swing in either direction. On the one hand, the likelihood of finding willing and qualified candidates to run for oce increases with district size, and those candidates may be able to take advantage of greater resources and more sophisticated political organization. On the other hand, smaller districts may advantage political outsiders who have less money and experience, as they can garner support from their local communities through face-to-face contact rather than large-scale campaigns. And while scholars have gone so far as to caution against extrapolating from findings on large units to smaller ones (Welch 1990), no further empirical work to our knowledge has focused on this important contingency. For policymakers weighing the benefits of conversion from at-large districts to wards, process also matters. In the U.S., reform has generally occurred in one of two ways: localities have been forced to change their systems as the result of successful litigation against them, or they have chosen to do so voluntarily, either by popular vote or a unilateral decision of 6 208 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Figure 1: Conversion of Votes to Seats, Wards vs. At-Large Districts Ward 1 Ward 2 Ward 3 Ward 4 Ward 1 Ward 2 Ward 3 Ward 4 (II) Ward, Segregated (III) Ward, Not Segregated(I) At-Large Ward 1: 3/5 A, 2/5 B Ward 2: 3/5 A, 2/5 B Ward 3: 3/5 A, 2/5 B Ward 4: 4/5 A, 1/5 B Ward 1: 1/5 A, 4/5 B Ward 2: 4/5 A, 1/5 B Ward 3: 4/5 A, 1/5 B Ward 4: 4/5 A, 1/5 B Overall: 13/20 A, 7/20 B Seat 1 Seat 2 Seat 3 Seat 4 Seat 1 Seat 2 Seat 3 Seat 4 Seat 1 Seat 2 Seat 3 Seat 4 Notes: Group A represented in dark gray and Group B represented in light gray. Squares represent the geo- graphical distribution of the voting population; circles represent seats on the legislative council. Proportion of the electorate comprised of Groups A and B is the same in each case. 7 209 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. the governing body. In the following section, we discuss the historical context of American local electoral reform, culminating in the adoption of California’s own Voting Rights Act. The CVRA led to a dramatic rise in both kinds of conversions: those resulting from legal action (or the threat thereof), which began to favor plaintis after the law’s passage, and those undertaken voluntarily as the issue gained salience around the state. In both cases, the law’s implementation and the way in which reform unfolded introduced some random variation in the likelihood that districts would change their systems, and we discuss how we exploit this in our empirical analysis. 3 Causal Identification Through the CVRA Historical Context Since the passage of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, at-large districts around the country have come under legal attack on the grounds of minority vote dilution (see Browning, Marshall and Tabb (1986)), but not all plaintis have been successful in federal court. The Supreme Court ruling in Thornburg v. Gingles in 1986 clarified the standards that a claimant must meet in order to demonstrate that at-large elections are responsible for a failure of representation, setting a high bar for plaintis alleging vote dilution in at-large elections (Trounstine and Valdini 2008; Epstein and O’Halloran 1999). Many suits filed under the federal Voting Rights Act since then have been unsuccessful as a result. Then, in 2001, California passed its own Voting Rights Act eliminating the Gingles requirements and imposing a much lower standard on plaintis: to win in court, they would only have to demonstrate the presence of “racially polarized voting” in the district. Moreover, unlike in cases filed under federal law, the CVRA required the district being sued to pay all legal fees, even if the two parties chose to settle out of court. Civil rights groups across California quickly recognized a powerful tool in the CVRA. Under this new law, suing an at-large district for minority vote dilution had relatively little 8 210 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. downside compared to federal cases: most of the time, the prospect of paying exorbitant legal fees convinced districts to convert at the mere threat of legal action, and if a case went all the way to trial, the low “racially polarized voting” standard almost assured victory for the plainti. The result was a mobilization of eorts around the state to initiate legal action in as many at-large districts as possible where there was a mismatch between the size of the Latino population and its representation in local government, a movement described as no less than “a quiet revolution” with the potential to transform “the literal face of California politics.”7 In 2002, the vast majority of California’s school districts had at-large elections (906 of 978 districts in our sample); by 2017, 138 of these districts had switched to ward systems, either voluntarily or under direct threat of legal action. For a complete picture of how the CVRA transformed California’s electoral landscape, we estimate the eects of two distinct treatments on Latino oceholding across the state: first, the direct eect of conversion to ward representation on districts threatened with litigation, and second, the indirect eect on districts that were incentivized to convert of their own accord by the new legal standard. Taken together, these estimands do more than measure the dierences between at-large and ward systems, which is where the vast majority of the academic literature stops; rather, they illuminate the change in minority representation we can expect from precisely the sort of mechanism that policymakers would use to induce institutional reform. The Eect of Conversion by Legal Threat: A Fixed Eects Approach The constraint upon the number of CVRA cases that civil rights groups could file was not the availability of at-large districts where a case could succeed, but rather the willingness 7Quoted in “Districts Abandoning At-Large Elections,”Education Week, http://www. edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/02/27/22schoolboards ep.h32.html (last accessed 09/30/19). 9 211 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. of potential plaintis to engage in legal action. Civil rights groups operating at the state or national level could not initiate suits themselves, but had to do so on behalf of residents of the jurisdiction that they were taking to court. Through a series of interviews with the lawyers centrally involved in the cases tried under the CVRA, we learned about the process driving the conversion of school districts to ward elections in California. First, they identified all of the at-large districts across the state where there was a sizable Latino population (as a general rule of thumb, at least fifteen percent) and a misalignment between the size of the Latino population and representation. Next, they arranged meetings with local organizations within these districts to educate citizens about at-large voting. They would ask whether community members felt that minority interests could be better represented in local government, and whether they thought their districts would benefit from ward representation; invariably, the answer was yes. They also hired statistical consultants to assess whether there was evidence of “racial polarization” in the selected districts, but given the low standard set by the CVRA and the demographic realities on the ground, this step did not eliminate many candidates. The most significant drop-o from initial identification to ultimate litigation occurred at the level of plainti recruitment: although the lawyers had no diculty demonstrating the value of legal action to the communities they approached, they struggled to convince specific individuals to shoulder the burden themselves. Importantly, the ability of civil rights lawyers to identify plaintis in targeted areas, with limited time and resources at their disposal, was not systematically related to the key political characteristics of those districts. To be sure, the people who stepped forward as plaintis do not represent a random sample of citizens. As Robert Rubin, a lawyer with the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights (LCCR) who spearheaded CVRA litigation, stated, “you’re asking a member of a disenfranchised community to fight the establishment,” so the plainti would often be a retiree or someone not working for the city. However, conditional on being identified for legal action, the communities from which these plaintis were drawn closely resembled those where a plainti could not be found, and varied widely in “political 10 212 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. sophistication”: while some were highly organized, others were unprepared for a legal victory, and could not field a competitive candidate after winning their case. 8 Figure 2: Process of Legally Mandated Conversion from At-Large Districts to Wards under the CVRA Figure 2 summarizes all of the pathways to conversion as a result of legal action, and helps clarify how we define the treatment and control groups in our fixed eects analysis. 346 at-large districts met the LCCR’s criteria for identifying potential litigants. The criteria were simple: the district’s population had to be at least 15% Latino, the voting-eligible population had to be less than 60% Latino, 9 and the school board had to be composed 8Conversation with Robert Rubin. 9If the voting-eligible population was greater than 60% Latino, Latinos would be the majority bloc and therefore hurt by conversion to ward districts. We follow the LCCR’s 11 213 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. of proportionally fewer Latinos than the district’s population. The remaining 632 districts in the state were outside of their target group for one of three reasons: they already had ward elections by the time of the CVRA’s passage, they did not satisfy the demographic and political selection criteria described above, or they voluntarily converted without the lawyers’ intervention. Within the target group, four suits were successfully filed, with one going to court and three others settling, all in favor of the plainti. In an additional twenty cases, districts received a threat letter stating that they would soon be sued if they did not promptly change their systems. The threat was credible: organizations only sent such a letter if they had in fact identified claimants from the community who were prepared to move forward if necessary (see Appendix A.1 for an example of such a letter). Regardless of whether a school board was merely threatened with legal action or taken all the way to court, the final outcome was the same: the district converted to ward elections, either by vote or by obtaining a waiver from the state permitting them to convert by fiat. These cases, shown in dark gray in Figure 2 (and listed in full in Appendix A.4), constitute the treatment group in our analysis. The control group, shown in light gray, includes all of the districts that would have followed the same deterministic trajectory if not for the short-term inability to find a plainti. Within this sample of potentially treated districts, we estimate the two-way fixed eects regression model: Yit =0 +1 proportionLatinoit +2wardit +3(proportionLatino * ward)it+ Xit +i +t +it (1) where the outcome Yit is the proportion of seats up for election in school district i and election year t won by Latino candidates; proportionLatinoit is the proportion of the over-18 protocol in choosing a 60% threshold rather than a bare 50% majority in order to adjust for low turnout within this group. This does not dramatically change the sample, and the results are not sensitive to this choice. 12 214 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. population of the district that is both Latino and eligible to vote (a native-born or naturalized U.S. citizen); wardit is a binary indicator for having ward elections;Xit is a vector of financial, demographic, and socioeconomic controls (described more fully in the Data and Measurement section); and i and t are district and year fixed eects, respectively. The primary quantity of interest is the marginal eect of conversion estimated at a given level of Latino population, or 2 +3 proportionLatino, because if the reform did indeed improve minority electoral outcomes, then the Latino composition of school boards should rise with the size of the Latino population in the district. This is the modeling approach recommended by Engstrom and McDonald (1981) and used in other recent empirical studies on the subject (e.g., Trounstine and Valdini (2008), Meier and Rutherford (2014)). Our estimates recover the causal eects of conversion from at-large to ward representa- tion. The fixed eects account for any time-invariant dierences between treated and control districts that could bias the results. The assumption for identification is that there are also no unobserved time-variant sources of selection into treatment. We are confident that this is the case. The two sets of districts have statistically indistinguishable pre-treatment elec- toral outcomes even before applying any controls. However, to minimize the potential for confounding and to increase the precision of our estimates, we additionally control for a wide range of district-level demographic, financial, and socioeconomic characteristics, enumerated in the Data and Measurement section below. The Eect of Voluntary Conversion: An Instrumental Variables Approach Most of the CVRA’s eect was not through lawsuits. Fearing repercussions, most places that converted did so of their own accord. One factor that made districts more likely to con- vert, particularly early on, was the presence of legal action in the same county. According to one media report, for instance, a lawsuit in nearby Madera convinced a school superin- tendent in Fresno County to mandate reform across all the districts under his jurisdiction. 13 215 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Moreover, he faced no political opposition. “I’ve had no chafing on the part of anybody,” he said. “They said, ‘It’s the right thing to do. Let’s do it.’” 10 Litigation nearby, it seems, served as an exogenous shock to some districts that were amenable to minority incorporation but unaware of the potential problems with at-large representation or lacking in political will to enact reform; alternatively, they were fearful of the costs of litigation but previously un- aware of the legal threat posed by the CVRA. In this analysis, we use legal action in another district in the same county as a binary instrument for the treatment of voluntary conversion to ward representation. We prefer a binary instrument of same-county membership to a continuous distance measure because CVRA cases are initiated in the county courts, and because the county is the next administrative unit above school districts in local educational governance; thus, we would expect information about legal action to diuse over county-level networks rather than uniformly over geographical distance. For the IV analysis to identify a causal eect of voluntary conversion, the exclusion restriction must be satisfied: nearby legal action must only aect Latino representation in a school district by increasing its propensity to convert to ward elections, and not by any other means. This rules out, for example, the possibility that nearby legal action mobilizes Latinos to push for greater representation under their current at-large system through candidate financing or voter turnout. We do not think this is likely to be the case. The rhetoric around the CVRA cast at-large elections as a first-order barrier to minority political access, and lawyers were actively seeking plaintis to take part in legal action; it is dicult to imagine these activities mobilizing community activism for something other than electoral reform. Nevertheless, any such spillover eects should bias our results downward, as they would reduce the contrast between electoral outcomes in at-large and ward districts. 10Los Angeles Times, “Madera Unified case is changing elections throughout California,” http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/04/local/me-madera4 (last accessed 09/30/19). 14 216 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Data and Measurement Treatment We constructed a comprehensive dataset tracking the process of conversion from at- large to ward representation that was set in motion by the CVRA. To do so, we conducted an extensive search of state and local media accounts, school board minutes, and publicly available records of waiver requests from the California Department of Education. For every school district in California, we documented which electoral system was in place in every year from the CVRA’s passage in 2001 through 2016, as well as how every switch occurred: by specific type of legal action (court ruling, settlement, or threat letter) or voluntarily. We also used data that we obtained from the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights (LCCR), the organization centrally involved in CVRA litigation, to reconstruct the sample it targeted for legal action according to its own stated criteria. This dataset contains three key variables: the total number of seats on each district’s school board, the number of those seats occupied by someone with a Latino last name, and the proportion of the district’s population that was Latino. We used these variables to define a subgroup of districts where there was a sizable Latino population (over 15%) that exceeded the proportion of Latino representatives on the school board, just as the LCCR had done when they identified potential sites for legal action. Outcomes Through the Education Governance and Accountability Project at The Ohio State Uni- versity, we have obtained the names and vote counts of every candidate who ran for a school board position in California from 2001 to 2016. We aggregate these observations to construct our primary outcome as the number of school board candidates with Latino last names who won oce as a proportion of the number of seats in the district up for election in that year. 11 11Our election data only gives us names, not ethnicities, of candidates, so we identified Lati- nos using the wru package in R (Imai and Khanna 2017). This package employs a Bayesian 15 217 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. To unpack the mechanism by which more Latinos may have won oce, we also construct two secondary outcome variables: one capturing the availability of Latino candidates, and another capturing their share of the vote. To measure the former, we compute the proportion of seats up for election in a given district-year that had at least one Latino candidate on the ballot. Constructing the outcome in this way tells us how many school board seats Latino candidates could have possibly won, given how many actually ran for oce. For example, if two Latino candidates ran in an at-large election in which three seats were vacant, no more than two-thirds of the school district’s seats could be filled by Latinos. If there were two dierent ward elections in a school district in a given year, and at least one Latino ran in one of them but not the other, no more than one-half of the district’s school board seats could be filled by Latinos. Our other secondary outcome of interest is simply the vote share received by all candidates with Latino last names in each election, averaged across all races within a district-year. prediction procedure that uses data from the U.S. Census to compute the probabilities that a person is of a given ethnicity, given his last name and geolocation at the county level. There is a valid concern that surname alone may fail to accurately reflect one’s heritage, for instance as a result of someone taking their partner’s last name in mixed-ethnicity mar- riages, but for the present purposes, we do not believe this poses an issue. As ?point out, their identification method is biased only if the individual’s surname is correlated with her location or personal attributes, including the rate of interracial marriage and the likelihood of changing her last name after marriage. So long as Latina women are no more or less likely to marry non-Latino men than non-Latina women are to marry Latino men, and so long as Latina women are no more or less likely to change their surname than non-Latina women after entering into a marriage with someone of a dierent ethnicity, the phenomenon of an individual changing their last name after marriage should only introduce random noise—but no bias—into our estimates. 16 218 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Residential Segregation and Additional Controls We measure residential segregation using the index of dissimilarity between whites and Latinos, computed at the school district level. The dissimilarity index captures how evenly whites and Latinos are distributed across schools within a district, and is given by: 1 2 N i=1 wi W -li L (2) where wi and li represent the number of whites and Latinos in school i, respectively;W and L represent the total number of whites and Latinos in the district, respectively; and N represents the total number of schools in the district. Another intuitive interpretation of this measure is the proportion of Latinos that would have to move to a dierent school in order for the composition of each school to be identical to the composition of the district as a whole (Ananat 2011). In general, a low dissimilarity index is considered to be below 0.3; 0.3 to 0.6 is considered moderate; and above 0.6 is considered high (Massey and Denton 1993). We choose to measure segregation with the dissimilarity index in keeping with a large literature that has favored its use (Ananat 2011; Collins and Margo 2000; Cutler, Glaeser and Vigdor 1999; Cutler and Glaeser 1997; Massey and Denton 1993), but supplement our analyses with the Theil index, an alternative measure of residential segregation, collected at the school district level by the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA). 12 Finally, we use a vector of controls assembled from the U.S. Census and the California Department of Education. We select time-varying characteristics that are important corre- lates of Latino political participation and vote choice, including: the proportion of students who are Black, white, and Asian; financial characteristics, including property taxes collected, total current spending on instruction, and total educational revenues and expenditures, all scaled by enrollment, as well as enrollment itself; and socioeconomic factors, including me- dian income in the district among all residents and specifically among Latinos, the proportion 12Within our sample, the Theil index and the dissimilarity index are correlated at 0.79. 17 219 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. of students who receive free lunch and English Language Learner (ELL) services, the pro- portion of the district living below the poverty line as well as between 100 and 149 percent of the poverty line, the proportion of Latinos who have less than a high school education, who have completed high school, and who have attended some college, the unemployment rate among Latinos, and the proportion of Spanish speakers who speak English “very well” as opposed to “less than very well.” Finally, we include a control for the total number of school board members, since the representational consequences of winning a seat will vary with overall board size. 4 Results Validating the Selection of Control Units We empirically verify our qualitative evidence that within the targeted subgroup, districts treated with legal action were analogous in prior Latino electoral performance to those where a plainti did not step forward. In other words, we do not see any evidence that lawyers strategically pursued litigation in districts where Latinos were more politically organized or successful, or, conversely, where they were particularly underrepresented. Figure 3 shows that, for each of our three electoral outcomes, the treatment group—defined as any district that underwent conversion to ward elections through legal action at any point during the time series—is statistically indistinguishable from the control group—defined as all districts in the targeted sample that never underwent conversion over the same period. Here, we only include pretreatment data: as soon as a district converts to ward elections, it exits the sample. Table 1 summarizes our sample of districts, contrasting the main variables of inter- est across the three categories of treatment status: those districts that remained at-large throughout our entire sample period and never converted to ward elections, those that con- verted after experiencing some sort of legal action, and those that converted voluntarily 18 220 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. without any sort of legal coercion. For the latter two classes of school districts, the summary statistics were calculated using years before the treatment occurred. Figure 3: Comparing Pre-Treatment Electoral Outcomes Within Sample Targeted for Legal Action 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 2004 2008 2012 YearPre-treatment outcome Treated Control (a) Latinos elected as a propor- tion of open seats 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 2004 2008 2012 YearPre-treatment outcome Treated Control (b) Proportion of open seats with at least one Latino candi- date 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 2004 2008 2012 YearPre-treatment outcome Treated Control (c) Vote share to all Latino can- didates Notes: Loess-smoothed lines are fitted through the data, and 95% confidence intervals are shown in gray. 19 221 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Table 1: Summary Statistics (Pre-Treatment) Never Converted Legal Conversion Voluntary Conversion Min. Max. Mean (sd) Min. Max. Mean (sd) Min. Max. Mean (sd) Latino Winners (Prop.) 0 1 0.159 (0.222) 0 0.417 0.122 (0.129) 0 0.625 0.153 (0.154) Latino Candidates (Prop.) 0 1 0.296 (0.309) 0 0.708 0.346 (0.206) 0 1 0.379 (0.288) Latino Voteshare (Prop.) 0 1 0.174 (0.212) 0 0.397 0.157 (0.104) 0 0.635 0.191 (0.151) Dissimilarity Index 0 0.354 0.046 (0.066) 0 0.415 0.118 (0.108) 0 0.284 0.053 (0.064) Enrollment 11 58,780 6,110 (8,724) 2,973 48,912 16,698 (10,993) 117 79,266 8,699 (12,524) Latino VEP (Prop.) 0.062 0.580 0.250 (0.110) 0.139 0.401 0.273 (0.077) 0.042 0.739 0.274 (0.104) Household Income ($) 32,940 108,837 59,692 (15,396) 41,342 88,169 60,620 (11,689) 10,531 91,249 54,063 (11,867) Size of School Board 3 10 5.124 (0.895) 4 7 5.750 (0.989) 3 9 5.336 (1.052) N (School Districts) 322 24 112 Notes: First two columns are constructed from a subset of school districts that were “eligible” to have legal action taken against them, as is reflected in the fixed eects analysis, below. The third column is a subset of all, rather than strictly “eligible,” districts that voluntarily converted to ward elections and reflects the thrust of the instrumental variables analysis.20222 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Fixed Eects Analysis Table 2: Eect of Ward Elections on Proportion of Elected Board Members that Were Latino Dependent variable: Segregation District Size All Low High Low High (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Ward elections -0.301 1.119 -0.708 0.559 -0.873 (switch by legal threat) (0.276) (0.554) (0.223) (0.366) (0.205) Proportion Latino -0.203 -0.159 -0.528 -0.183 0.880 (voting eligible) (0.211) (0.227) (0.630) (0.220) (0.758) Ward * proportion Latino 1.050 -2.753 2.538 -1.464 3.351 (0.986) (1.415) (0.829) (1.009) (0.596) Year FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes District FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Observations 1,477 1,117 360 1,158 319 R2 0.620 0.643 0.587 0.649 0.607 Notes:p<0.05;p<0.01;p<0.001. For complete results, see Appendix Table B.1. There is no overall eect of conversion to ward districts on Latino oceholding (see col- umn 1 of Table 2). But this result masks important heterogeneities: namely, the reform leads to a closer alignment between the size of the Latino population and its descriptive rep- resentation in large and segregated districts. To construct these subgroups, we first compute the mean enrollment and dissimilarity index for each school district over the time series. We then define the threshold for inclusion in the “high” group on each condition based on the median value of each moderator among treated units. Consistent with theoretical expectations, the degree of Latino-white segregation is a key moderator of the eect of conversion to ward districts on Latino oceholding. In Figure 4, we plot the marginal eects of conversion (1 +2 proportionLatino from Equation 1) against the proportion of the over-18 population of the district that is both Latino and eligible to vote (a native-born or naturalized U.S. citizen), henceforth Latino VEP. Panel 21 223 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. (a) shows eects for the full targeted sample, and (b) and (c) disaggregate by low and high segregation subgroup, corresponding to the results reported in columns 1-3 of Table 2). The x-axis ranges over the observed distribution of Latino VEP in the data, and the histograms at top and bottom reflect these distributions in the treatment and control groups, respectively. In relatively integrated districts, there is no evidence that the reform increased minority representation. However, in segregated districts with large Latino populations, conversion had a large and positive eect on the likelihood of Latinos winning elections. For instance, in a district with a Latino VEP of 40%, conversion to ward elections increased the proportion of seats that are won by Latinos by 31 percentage points. Figure 4: Marginal Eects of Conversion to Ward Elections on Proportion of Elected Board Members that Were Latino, by Geographic Segregation 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, treatment observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Proportion Latinos elected0 25 50 75 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (a) All 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, treatment observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Proportion Latinos elected0 20 40 60 80 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (b) Low Segregation (Dissimilarity Index 0.29) 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, treatment observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Proportion Latinos elected05101520 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (c) High Segregation (Dissimilarity Index >0.29) Notes: Results correspond to those reported in columns 1, 2, and 3 of Table 2. 95% confidence intervals are shown in gray. The same pattern emerges when analyzing district size as a moderator of the eect of reform. While conversion to ward elections in small school districts has no eect on the likelihood of Latinos winning oce, there is a dramatic and precisely estimated positive eect in large districts that are composed of at least 30% Latinos (Figure 5). For example, when 22 224 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 40% of the VEP is Latino, the proportion of school board seats won by Latino candidates in large school districts increases by 47 percentage points after switching to ward elections. Figure 5: Marginal Eects of Conversion to Ward Elections on Proportion of Elected Board Members that Were Latino, by District Size 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, treatment observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Proportion Latinos elected0 25 50 75 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (a) All 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, treatment observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Proportion Latinos elected0 20 40 60 80 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (b) Small Districts (Enrollment 13,700) 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, treatment observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Proportion Latinos elected0 5 10 15 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (c) Large Districts (Enrollment >13,700) Notes: Results correspond to those reported in columns 1, 4, and 5 of Table 2. 95% confidence intervals are shown in gray. How can we account for the absence of an eect of institutional change in small districts? One likely explanation is that sheer numbers are useful for propelling minority candidates to oce. Larger constituencies are more likely to yield at least one high-quality candidate, and they allow candidates to build broader coalitions, mobilize voters more eectively, and take advantage of greater resources. According to a study of city council elections across the state by GrassrootsLab, conversions failed to translate into Latino representation in large part because of a shortage of candidates with the means to run. 13 Consistent with this claim, when we replicate our analysis on the intermediate outcome of running for, not 13https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-voting-rights-minorities-california-20170409-story. html (last accessed 09/30/19). 23 225 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. winning, oce (Appendix Figure B.2), we see a similar pattern of results to our main findings: an increase in large districts commensurate with the size of the Latino population, and no change whatsoever in small districts. In large and segregated districts with suciently small Latino populations, the reform actually had a negative eect on Latino oceholding. As the third panels of Figures 4 and 5 show, at Latino VEP of 0.20, conversions in both high-dissimilarity and high-enrollment districts decreased the proportion of seats won by Latinos by 20 percentage points (p < .05). The negative eects are not surprising: not only do these districts lack a large enough Latino minority to constitute an influential voting bloc, but, as critics of the reform have argued, introducing an ethnic gerrymander may amplify voters’ perceptions that political conflict falls along this particular dimension. The result—increasingly racially polarized voting coupled with small numbers of Latino voters relative to other groups—may create new barriers to Latino electoral victories. As the histograms at the top of Figures 4 and 5 show, not many of the treated observations were both low on Latino VEP and high on segregation and/or enrollment, and therefore not many districts experienced negative treatment eects in practice; that said, reformers ought to carefully consider moving forward with conversion eorts under this set of adverse conditions. Our data allows us to explore the pathways by which districts elected more Latino can- didates to oce when the right conditions were in place: conversion to ward representation both encouraged Latino candidates to run for oce in more school board races, and increased the share of the vote that they collectively received. In Appendix Figures B.1 and B.2, we show dramatic eects of conversion on Latino candidacy in only large and segregated dis- tricts. For instance, a large district with 40% Latino VEP saw a 48 percentage point increase in the number of elections with at least one Latino candidate in the race (as a proportion of all elections in the district that year). These candidates were also able to pull in a larger share of the vote: they received 27 more percentage points in segregated districts with a 40% Latino VEP (Appendix Figure B.3), and 38 more percentage points in large districts with a 24 226 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 40% Latino VEP (Appendix Figure B.4). Finally, we compare districts that saw an increase in Latino candidacy after conversion to those where the reform had no immediate eect. Overall, 65% of legally treated districts had more races with at least one Latino candidate after the reform than prior. As Appendix Table B.2 shows, these successful districts were significantly larger than other treated districts where Latino candidacy did not increase. Unsurprisingly, they also reflected a higher level of wealth and social capital: fewer students received free lunch and English language services and lived below the poverty line, and more of the Latino population was employed and had some college education. Robustness Checks Our key findings are robust to alternative measures of residential segregation and defini- tions of the low and high subgroups. In Appendix Figure B.5, we replicate Figure 4 using the Theil index instead of the dissimilarity index, recovering very similar estimates. Our find- ings, furthermore, do not hinge on the particular cutos that define subgroups on residential segregation and district size. For instance, when we define the high subgroups according to the top third rather than the top half of treated units, the pattern of results is unchanged, and the treatment eects increase in magnitude (see Appendix Figures B.6 and B.7). Recent methodological work identifies two potential pitfalls of interpreting coecients from a multiplicative interaction model such as the one we use for our two-way fixed eects specification (Hainmueller, Mummolo and Xu 2018). First, the model relies on a linearity assumption: the interaction eect is assumed to change at a constant rate with the mod- erator (in this case, Latino VEP). In Appendix Figures B.8-B.9, we relax this assumption, instead estimating a non-interacted model in each of three bins constructed based on the distribution of Latino VEP among treated units. We find that the eects of conversion are indeed generally increasing with Latino VEP, and statistically significantly dierent from one another; thus, our conclusions do not crucially depend on the linearity assumption. A 25 227 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. second potential danger is a lack of common support of the moderator across treatment and control groups, which can result in overextrapolation if the linearity assumption is not satisfied. To guard against this, we only report marginal eects in the region of Latino VEP where we can find both treated and control units—in practice, between the minimum and maximum values of Latino VEP in the treatment group. IV Analysis We isolate the causal relationship between voluntary conversions of school districts to ward voting and Latino political performance by utilizing an instrumental variables frame- work. We do this by treating the incidence of a legal action being initiated against a nearby school districtkc (within the same county c) as having no direct impact on the success of Latino candidates in districtic (satisfying the exclusion restriction) but as being a strong predictor of districtic’s decision to pursue its own electoral reform (satisfying the strong first stage requirement). Districtic might choose to convert after observing a legal threat being made against a neighboring school district for a number of reasons, the most salient being the fear of becoming a subsequent target for legal action. The CVRA was written in a way such that 1) litigation was virtually guaranteed to be successful in forcibly converting school districts, and 2) the cost of pursuing litigation would be essentially zero for the plainti due to the districts’ obligation to cover the plainti’s legal bills. Thus, for reform advocates, pursuing litigation was a win-win scenario: they were all but guaranteed success, their costs were covered, and the redistricting plan drawn up by the school district or county was subject to the courts’ approval before being implemented. On the other hand, if a district could manage to get ahead of what they (rightly) perceived as an impending wave of litigation, they could avoid all of the costs associated with legal action and retain control over their redistricting plans, so long as they satisfied outside legal observers. For those districts that might be especially fearful of a protracted, costly legal battle that could stoke backlash from white constituents, 26 228 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. the incentive to voluntarily and peaceably convert to ward elections designed to satisfy legal challengers would be particularly strong. As such, the eect of electoral reform on Latino representation in forcibly converted districts is likely to be considerably dierent than the eect in districts that voluntarily converted. Table 3 presents the results of the first and second stage regressions using the full sample of school districts (after removing districts that were ward for the entirety of our sample and districts that were directly threatened by civil rights groups via legal action), and the treatment eects are depicted visually in Figure 6. The instrument is a binary indicator of whether the school district resided in a county in which there occurred at least one legal action taken against another school district the year before or anytime prior, while the treatment is voluntary conversion to ward voting by non-targeted districts. The dependent variables remain the same three political outcomes from the previous section. The eect of voluntary conversion is striking. The first panel of Figure 6 shows that the number of school board seats won by Latinos increases 42 percentage points when the population is comprised of 40% voting-eligible Latinos. On average, this amounts to Latino candidates winning 29% of school board seats up for election under an at-large system versus Latino candidates winning 71% of seats under a ward system. This gain is explained both by an increase in Latino vote share and by the percentage of Latinos who run for election. Both increase by about 45 percentage points, going from 26% to 70% as a share of the vote on average and from 38% of elections having at least one Latino candidate to 83% of elections having at least one Latino candidate, on average. This positive impact of electoral reform becomes statistically significant when at least 40% of the voting eligible population is Latino. 27 229 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Table 3: Legal Action Taken Against Nearby School District as an Instrument for Voluntary Conversion from At-Large to Ward Representation First Seats won Latino Latino stage by Latinos candidates vote share (1) (2) (3) (4) In-county legal threat 0.139 (0.029) Voluntary conversion -1.219 -0.524 -0.983 (0.666) (0.650) (0.567) Proportion Latino 0.364 0.548 0.350 (0.111) (0.123) (0.105) Voluntary * Proportion Latino 4.099 2.420 3.551 (1.883) (1.804) (1.650) Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Observations 3,433 3,386 3,398 3,398 R2 0.036 0.211 0.390 0.333 F-statistic on instrument 130.6 Notes: Robust standard errors clustered by school district in parentheses. Estimated intercept and controls not reported.p<0.05;p<0.01;p<0.001 28 230 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Figure 6: Marginal Eect of Voluntary Conversion to Ward Elections: Instrumental Variables Analysis 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, instrument observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Prop. Latinos elected0 50 100 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (a) Seats Won by Latinos 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, instrument observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Prop. Latino candidates0 50 100 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (b) Elections with at Least One Latino Candidate 0 2 4 6 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, instrument observations -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Proportion Latino VEPMarginal effect, Latino vote share0 50 100 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Distribution, control observations (c) Latino Vote Share 29 231 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 5 Conclusion The research presented in this paper showed, for the first time, that there is a causal link between electoral institutions and Latino political success. Specifically, the descriptive representation of Latinos is likely to improve significantly after moving from at-large to ward elections in school districts that are large and residentially segregated, and where the Latino population is of sucient size. When all of these conditions are met, the positive impact of reform is striking, exceeding one additional oceholder for every three available seats. This is in spite of the facts that: 1) the CVRA set a relatively low bar for demonstrating racially polarized voting, so the treated districts need not have had the most egregious representation gaps to begin with; 2) the federal Voting Rights Act predated the CVRA in proactively pursuing instances of minority vote dilution, so it already eliminated the most egregious oenders; 3) Latinos had to be politically mobilized and to run eective candidates to take advantage of the electoral reforms; and 4) most instances of electoral reform under the CVRA took place as voluntary conversions in which the school board or county—and not the state—controlled the redistricting maps. Given these countervailing conditions, it is impressive to see the size and significance of these contingent eects of electoral reform under the CVRA. On the other hand, when these important conditions are not in place, moving from at- large to ward elections can actually have null, or even negative, eects on Latino descriptive representation, with the additional downsides of imposing expensive legal fees, large trans- action costs, and often divisive political conflict on already overburdened districts. The presence of these contingencies may help explain why a large and active academic literature on the subject has produced so many conflicting findings, and opens avenues for future work. While our finding on the moderating eect of residential segregation is entirely consistent with theoretical predictions based on how the respective institutions aggregate votes, more research is needed to understand the mechanisms driving our novel finding on district size. Political networks, resources, and the sheer availability of viable candidates are all plausible 30 232 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. explanations that should be investigated further. Our findings also highlight that when undertaking electoral reform, process matters for outcomes. Whereas our analysis of legally mandated conversions uncovered positive and negative eects moderated by key conditions, districts that converted voluntarily saw un- conditionally positive eects at every step of the electoral process, from candidacy to vote share to the ultimate outcome of Latino oceholding. While one might expect, a priori, that districts that select into electoral reform are already more concerned about minority representation and would therefore exhibit smaller treatment eects, it seems instead that buy-in from institutional actors contributed dramatically to the reform’s eectiveness. Taken together, we hope our findings can inform the best way forward for reformers who aim to increase the voice of minorities in the political process. A useful takeaway is that, at least on the dimension of segregation, the federal VRA seems to have gotten it right. Though the CVRA was written with the best intentions in mind, it caused a number of low-segregation school districts to convert to ward elections that would not have done so under the federal standard, and they may have done so needlessly, and at great cost to them. Additionally, both the CVRA and the federal VRA miss one of the crucial conditions necessary for improvements in representation, independent of segregation: the size of the district. Even in places that are not particularly segregated, greater enrollment strongly predicts the likelihood of successful electoral reform, an insight that may extend to other forms of local government such as city councils and municipal boards. Overall, our findings on these contingencies and on the success of reforms undertaken voluntarily suggest that, rather than a broad, sweeping legal remedy, states should consider oering information, demographic analysis, and technical assistance for conversion targeted to precisely those districts where reform is likely to have the largest impact. Finally, our work has shed light on the limitations of institutional change, and on the persistent barriers to minority political access that require even greater investments than interventions such as the CVRA. Changing the way that votes are aggregated into seats may 31 233 Author Manuscript This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. lead to some easy representational gains under certain conditions, but it does not change more fundamental realities like the propensity of minority candidates to run for oce, the resources at their disposal when they do, and the levels of voter turnout and mobilization. As we show, districts that were able to take full advantage of the CVRA had relatively low levels of poverty and unemployment and high levels of English language proficiency and education, and reformers should target these crucial constraining factors alongside institutional change. There is still much work to be done to understand the relationship between electoral institutions and substantive representation. We did not find any eect of conversion on a number of educational, achievement, or finance outcomes (not reported). At least part of this finding may be a result of the relatively short period of policy implementation that we can possibly study at this time. It is likely that the graduation and drop-out rates of Latino students, for example, are slow-moving variables that benefit from policy changes only over the long-run. 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Karnig. 1978. “Representation of Blacks on Big City School Boards.”Social Science Quarterly 59(1):162–72. 37 239 by Jessica Trounstine Department of Political Science Vanderbilt University 2024 Edition DEMOCRACY REFORM PRIMER SERIES A Practical Research Guide District vs At-Large Elections 240 The University of Chicago Center for Effective Government was founded in 2019 at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy to help solve the problems of government ineffectiveness with a multi-faceted theory of action. The Center organizes its work and activities around three key areas—ideas, education, and engagement—and builds bridges across differences between scholars, students, practitioners, leaders, journalists, and advocates. Through robust, innovative programming, the Center works to strengthen institutions of democracy and improve government’s capacity to solve public problems. About the Center for Effective Government About the Democracy Reform Primer Series Narrowing the gap between research and public dialogue, the University of Chicago Center for Effective Government's Democracy Reform Primers responsibly advance conversations and strategy about proposed changes to our political institutions. Each Primer focuses on a particular reform, clarifies its intended purposes, and critically evaluates what the best available research has to say about it. The Primers do not serve as a platform for either authors or the Center to advance their own independent views about the reform; to the contrary, they serve as an objective and authoritative guide about what we actually know—and what we still don’t know—about the likely effects of adopting prominent reforms to our political institutions. In some instances, the available evidence may clearly support the claims of a reform’s advocates. In other instances, it may cut against them. And in still others, the scholarly literature may be mixed, indeterminate, or altogether silent. Without partisan judgment or ideological pretense, and grounded in objective scholarship, these Primers set the record straight by clarifying what can be said about democracy reforms with confidence and what requires further study. 1241 Jessica Trounstine earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from UC San Diego in 2004 and is the Centennial Chair and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. She previously served as the Foundation Board of Trustees Presidential Chair of Political Science at UC Merced and as assistant professor of politics and policy at Princeton University. She is the author of two award-winning books, Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities (Cambridge University Press) and Political Monopolies in American Cities: The Rise and Fall of Bosses and Reformers (University of Chicago Press), and numerous articles and book chapters. Professor Trounstine's work studies the process and quality of representation in American democracy. She is focused on the ways in which formal and informal local political institutions generate inequalities. Professor Trounstine's scholarship is mixed-method; reliant on historical analysis, case studies, experiments, and large-n quantitative analyses. She has served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Justice, city governments, and various community organizations; and serves on numerous editorial and foundation boards. About the Author CEG Faculty Affiliate Anthony Fowler is a Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. His research applies econometric methods for causal inference to questions in political science, with particular emphasis on elections and political representation. Fowler is currently the Co-editor in Chief of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and the co-author (with Ethan Bueno de Mesquita) of Thinking Clearly with Data: A Guide to Quantitative Reasoning and Analysis (Princeton University Press, 2021). Fowler earned his Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and completed undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. About the Series Editor 2242 Promise of the Reform At-large elections are discriminatory1. Adopting district elections will improve descriptive representation for marginalized groups, produce councilors who are closer to voters, and generate political outcomes that are more likely to address the needs of neighborhoods. Summary 3243 •District elections increase descriptive representation for racial/ethnic minorities when the group is moderately sized and segregated. •District elections can allow neighborhoods to protect their interests. •At-large elections encourage councils to consider a citywide perspective. Key Takeaways from the Research •Are local legislative districts subject to the problems of gerrymandering that have been identified at higher levels of government? •Does election type have policy consequences for local governments? •Are marginalized communities’ substantive interests best served by at-large or district elections? Important Questions We Need Better Answers To 4244 Local governments in the United States feature a wide variety of governing institutions. Some cities have elected mayors, others do not. Some cities hold elections concurrently with state and national elections, others do not. This brief explores another type of variation – the way in which local legislators are elected. Cities in the United States tend to elect their city councils using two electoral system types: single member districts or at-large elections. When councilors are elected by district, the city is divided into geographic areas of roughly equal population size that elect a single member to the city council in a plurality or majoritarian contest. An at-large system is one in which members of the city council are selected by the entire city electorate. In most cities this means that voters are offered a slate of candidates and are allowed to vote for the same number of candidates as there are seats available. In some cases, cities allow casting multiple votes for the same candidate (e.g., if three council seats are up for election, the voter can cast three votes for whichever candidates they prefer). Cities often have majoritarian requirements such that if a candidate does not receive 50% of the vote, she is forced into a run-off election. Some cities designate seats or residency requirements for at-large positions turning the election into a series of single member “ The adoption of at-large systems typically flowed from efforts to dilute Black voters’ power in Southern cities after the Civil War and the municipal reform movement that sought to promote a citywide perspective in governance.” contests, while other cities vote for only one at-large member in any given election. A small but growing number of cities use mixed-systems, electing some council members by district and others at-large. Most research on the effects of district/at-large elections is focused on general purpose local governments, e.g., cities. Cities (along with towns, villages, and boroughs) are incorporated places that are governed by elected officials, and typically have the power to raise and spend revenue, regulate the uses of land, and enforce the law. Cities are chartered by the state in which they are located, and the rules governing incorporation vary from state to state. The determination of how legislators are elected occurs when cities are incorporated. Many smaller cities are general law cities. Their governance structure, powers, and functions are set by state statute. Most mid- sized and larger cities are governed by a constitution that is approved (and amended) by the voters of the city. These charter cities have home-rule. That is, charter cities are free to enact laws without attaining state permission. They have full authority to set their own tax rates and decide how and where to provide services. Importantly, they are able to determine various institutional features, such as how the city council is elected. Charter cities can and do change the way that their legislators are elected. Introduction 5245 Introduction “ The number of cities using pure at-large systems has declined over the past 20 years, but at-large elections remain a common feature in city politics.” Up until the late 1800s, cities almost universally had district (or ward) elections.2 The adoption of at-large systems typically flowed from two sources: efforts to dilute Black voters’ power in Southern cities after the Civil War and the municipal reform movement that sought to promote a citywide perspective in governance and limit the power of parochial neighborhood concerns.3 According to one commentator, “It is contended that at best [the district system] lends itself to the election of members who will pay more attention to the needs of their district than to the larger interests of the city as a whole; and that the concentration of the worst elements of the city’s population in some wards makes inevitable the election of a number of very objectionable members.”4 At-large systems spread rapidly throughout the United States in the first decades of the 20th century. The number of cities using pure at-large systems has declined over the past 20 years, but at-large elections remain a common feature in city politics. The passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (and the 2002 California Voting Rights Act) laid the groundwork for legal contestation of at-large systems. Several court cases, including the landmark Thornburg v. Gingles,5 have found at-large systems to discriminate against Black voters by diluting their voting power under certain conditions. Voting must be racially polarized (where different racial groups vote cohesively for different candidates) and the racial group that is in the minority must be sufficiently large and compact to plausibly constitute a majority of voters in a single district. Over the last several decades, the court has required many legislative bodies to adopt district elections when these conditions are met. Nonetheless, today about 68% of cities elect their members at-large.6 The way in which members of the local legislature are elected affects who wins election to office, who is represented in the political system, and what policies are made. Generally, at-large elections shift representation toward voters rather than residents. In a districted system, regardless of the level of turnout in an area, the area receives representation on the council. In at-large systems, the voting majority selects the winners. Theoretical work by one group of researchers showed that at-large systems will be used as a disenfranchising mechanism when the minority group is small.7 When the minority group is closer to 50% of the population, the majority will prefer gerrymandered districts to maintain power. 6246 Who Wins One of the most persistent findings by scholars of urban politics is that single member district elections increase descriptive representation of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups on city councils.8 This effect has been found to be particularly strong for African Americans.9 Districts have also been found to be beneficial to Latinos.10 These statistical findings have been supported by extensive case study and historical research as well.11 In sum, “the effect of …districts is unequivocally…greater equity.”12 These consequences typically result when the minority group in question is large enough and sufficiently concentrated (e.g., segregated) to elect representatives in a districted system.13 However, one study also showed that at-large systems disadvantage Black candidates because they are more cognitively taxing for voters.14 “ Single member district elections increase descriptive representation of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups on city councils.” The literature on the representation of women finds mixed effects for single member districts. Most research has concluded that districts are either meaningless15 or disadvantageous for women candidates.16 However, one paper found that women benefit from district elections. It argued that this is because at-large elections are typically more competitive and require more campaign funds and larger mobilization efforts for candidates.17 Scholars have also sought to understand how electoral institutions affect women of color given conflicting institutional effects. Generally, scholars find that Black men, but not Black women are advantaged by districts.18 7247 Policy Consequences “ Increases in minority representation leads to higher test scores for minority students, likely because of increased funding and the hiring of more minority principals.” Furthermore, there is evidence that electing minorities in district elections produces better substantive outcomes for minority residents compared to legislatures in which minorities are elected to the council in at-large elections.24 More specifically, a study found that in at-large systems increasing the number of Black or Latino school board members has no effect on the hiring of black administrators but find a powerful effect in districted systems. The paper argued that the explanation for the difference is that in the at-large setting Black and Latino administrators must attend to the preferences of the median (usually white) voter and as a result are more constrained in producing benefits for minority communities. In districted systems, where logrolling frequently prevails, minority communities appear to be better served. This is contrary to theoretical findings by another researcher, who demonstrated that policy outcomes are more likely to favor minority preferences under at-large systems, even though districts are more likely to produce descriptive representation.25 Holding constant Black representation, another study found that at-large systems produce better representation for Black residents.26 Because district systems tend to elect more officials of color, they also tend to make policy that is more responsive to minority interests. Higher proportions of minority councilors are associated with increases in minority appointments to the bureaucracy19 and increased focus and/or spending on minority policy issues.20 Several scholars find that Black school board members are associated with more Black administrators and teachers; and that a higher proportion of Black teachers is associated with a higher proportion of Black students in gifted classes, as well as higher grades and test scores among Black students.21 Others produce similar findings for Latinos.22 One study found that increases in minority representation leads to higher test scores for minority students, likely because of increased funding and the hiring of more minority principals.23 8248 These results echo findings in the Congressional politics literature that explores the policy consequences of majority-minority districts and shows that such districts can undermine minority interests.27 This kind of outcome is produced when the minority community is packed into a small number of districts such that their representatives are typically on the losing side of legislative votes. As a result, some scholars argue that minority interests will be better served when minority voters are able to impact the election of a larger number of legislators, even if this means they will not be descriptively represented.28 We know virtually nothing about the present state of gerrymandering/district line drawing in local elections. Most municipalities hold non-partisan elections and those with partisan elections are frequently dominated by a single party. This means that it is unlikely that partisan gerrymandering shapes decisions about district lines. Given that district maps are adopted by the sitting legislature, it is likely that any bias in line drawing will tend to advantage incumbents and entrench existing hierarchies along race and class lines. So, it may be that the lessons learned from analyses of state and federal policy outcomes will be relevant at the local level. But new research is required to determine whether or not this is the case. “ Electing minorities in district elections produces better substantive outcomes for minority residents compared to legislatures in which minorities are elected to the council in at-large elections.” Policy Consequences 9249 “ At-large elections tend to promote a citywide perspective on policymaking, as opposed to a neighborhood perspective.” “ Changing from at-large to district systems depresses the total amount of housing that cities build.” What we do have evidence of in local politics is the degree to which neighborhood versus citywide interests are represented under different election systems. At-large elections tend to promote a citywide perspective on policymaking, as opposed to a neighborhood perspective. One study found that district councils are more factionalized, with more geographically focused divisions and councilors playing a greater ombudsman role compared to at- large councils.29 Another paper found that changing from at-large to district systems depresses the total amount of housing that cities build. Anti-development preferences are generally widely shared, but minority neighborhoods which tend to lack political power in at-large systems, are often saddled with new development. The implementation of districts, and thus a greater ability to dictate policy outcomes, means that minority neighborhoods are better able to resist development – and so, overall new housing declines.30 Researchers found that districted cities tend to have larger budgets (spending, debt, and taxation), likely as a result of legislator deference to neighborhood priorities (e.g., log-rolling). Policy Consequences However, another paper found that districts do not always have this effect. It showed that neighborhoods were routinely disregarded in favor of citywide needs in controversial decisions in one districted city (Los Angeles).31 Another piece of research also found that election type does not affect aggregate policy outcomes including per capita taxes and the share of taxes raised by sales tax.32 Thus, it remains something of an open question whether election type has a causal effect on policy outcomes, and for whom these outcomes are beneficial. 10250 Conclusion It is clear that district elections increase the likelihood that Black and Latino legislators will be elected when the population of Black and Latino residents is large enough to elect a councilor in a single member district and is residentially segregated. “ Having more Black and Latino legislators is correlated with city policy that reflects the interests of Black and Latino residents.” The median city council has six members, and so, this means that Black and Latino populations must typically constitute at least 10% of the population and live in neighborhoods with heavy concentrations of Black/Latino residents to see an effect from districts. Women appear to have a slight advantage in district elections as well, likely because of the lower cost of campaigning and lower levels of competitiveness in elections that cover a limited geographic area. Scholars have also provided evidence of an association between descriptive representation and substantive representation. That is, having more Black and Latino legislators is correlated with city policy that reflects the interests of Black and Latino residents. However, we do not have clear causal evidence that election type (district vs. at-large elections) generates policies that are preferred by marginalized communities. We have stronger evidence that districts do offer the opportunity for neighborhoods to protect their interests. Generally though, more research is needed on the effects of election type on policy outcomes and whose interests are served by these outcomes. Finally, it remains uncertain whether municipal legislative districts suffer from the problems of gerrymandering that plague district line-drawing at higher levels of government.   11251 1 NAACPLF, “At-large voting frequently asked questions,” 2024 https://www.naacpldf.org/wp- content/uploads/At-Large-Voting-Frequently- Asked-Questions-1.pdf 2 Fairlie, John, “American Municipal Councils,” Political Science Quarterly, 19(2) (1904):234-251 https://doi. org/10.2307/2140282 3 Liazos, Ariane, Reforming the City: the Contested Origins of Urban Government, 1890-1930 (New York, Columbia University Press, 2020) 4 Fairlie, American Municipal Councils 5 Thornburg v. Gingles: 478 U.S. 30, 1986 6 International City/County Management Association, “2018 Municipal Form of Government Survey, Summary of Results,” 2018 https://icma.org/sites/ default/files/2018%20Municipal%20Form%20of%20 Government%20Survey%20Report.pdf 7 Trebbi, Francesco, Philippe Aghion, and Alberto Alesina, “Electoral Rules and Minority Representation in U.S. Cities,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123(1) (2008): 325-357 8 Bullock, Charles S., III, and Susan A. MacManus, “Testing Assumptions of the Totality-of-the- Circumstances Test: An Analysis of the Impact of Structures on Black Descriptive Representation,” American Politics Quarterly 21, (3) (1993): 290–306 Karnig, Albert, and Susan Welch, “Sex and the Ethnic Differences in Municipal Representation.” Social Science Quarterly 60, (3) (1979): 465–81 Mladenka, Kenneth R., “Barriers to Hispanic Employment Success in 1200 Cities. Social Science Quarterly 70, (2) (1989): 391–407 9 Arrington, Theodore, and Thomas Gill Watts, “The Election of Blacks to School Boards in North Carolina,” The Western Political Science Quarterly 44, (4) (1991): 1099–1105 Davidson, Chandler, and Bernard Grofman, eds., Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1990 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994) Welch, Susan, “The Impact of At-Large Elections on the Representation of Blacks and Hispanics,” Journal of Politics 52 (1990): 1050–76 10 Bullock, Charles, and Susan MacManus, “Structural Features of Municipalities and the Incidence of Hispanic Councilmembers,” Social Science Quarterly 71, (4) (1990): 665–81 Collingwood, Loren and Sean Long, “Can Districts Promote Minority Representation? Assessing the Effects of the California Voting Rights Act,” Urban Affairs Review 57, (3) (2021) Davidson, Chandler, and George Korbel, “At-Large Elections and Minority-Group Representation: A Re-Examination of Historical and Contemporary Evidence,” The Journal of Politics 43, (4) (1981): 982–1005 Heilig, Peggy, and Robert Mundt, “Changes in Representational Equity: The Effect of Adopting Districts,” Social Science Quarterly 64, (2) (1983): 393–97 Leal, David, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, and Kenneth J. Meier, “The Politics of Latino Education: The Biases of At-Large Elections,” The Journal of Politics 66, (4) (2004): 1224–44 Polinard, Jerry, Robert Wrinkle, and Tomas Longoria, “The Impact of District Elections on the Mexican American Community: The Electoral Perspective,” Social Science Quarterly 72, (3) (1991): 608–14 Taebel, Delbert, “Minority Representation on City Councils: Impact of Structure on Blacks and Hispanics,” Social Science Quarterly 59, (1) (1978): 142–52 11 Bridges, Amy, Morning Glories: Municipal Reform in the Southwest (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997) Rice, Bradley Robert, Progressive Cities (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1977) Endnotes 12252 12 Mundt, Robert, and Peggy Heilig, “District Representation: Demands and Effects in the Urban South,” The Journal of Politics 44, (4) (1982): 1035–48 13 Abott, Carolyn and Asya Magazinnik, “At-Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government,” American Journal of Political Science 64, (3) (2020): 717-33 Marschall, Melissa J., Anirudh V. S. Ruhil, and Paru R. Shah, “The New Racial Calculus: Electoral Institutions and Black Representation in Local Legislatures,” American Journal of Political Science 54, (1) (2010): 107–24. Trounstine, J. and M. E. Valdini, “The context matters: The effects of single-member versus at- large districts on city council diversity,” American Journal of Political Science 52, (3) (2008): 554-69 14 Crowder-Meyer, M., Gadarian, S. K., Trounstine, J., & Vue, K., “A different kind of disadvantage: Candidate race, cognitive complexity, and voter choice,” Political Behavior, 42(2) (2020), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9505-1 15 Alozie NO, Manganaro LL., “Womens’ council representation - measurement implications for public-policy,” Political Research Quarterly 46, (2) (1993): 383-98 Bullock CS, MacManus SA., “Municipal electoral structure and the election of councilwomen,” The Journal of Politics 53, (1) (1991): 75-89 16 Darcy, Robert, Susan Welch, and Janet Clark, “Women Candidates in Single-Member and Multi Member Districts: American State Legislative Races,” Social Science Quarterly, 66 (4) (1985): 945–53 Hogan, Robert E., “The Influence of State and District Conditions on the Representation of Women in State Legislatures,” American Politics Research, 29 (2001): 4–24. King, James D., “Single-Member Districts and the Representation of Women in American State Legislatures: The Effects of Electoral System Change,” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 2 (2002): 161–75 Matland, Richard E., “How The Electoral System Has Helped Women Close the Representation Gap in Norway," In Closing the Gap: Women in Nordic Politics, ed. Lauri Karvonen and Per Selle (Dartmouth Press, London, 1995) Matland, Richard E., and Deborah Dwight Brown, “District Magnitude’s Effect on Female Representation in U.S. State Legislatures,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 17, (4) (1992): 469–92 Norris, Pippa, Politics and Sexual Equality (Boulder, Reinner, 1985) Rule, Wilma, “Parliaments of, by, and for the People: Except for Women?” In Electoral Systems in Comparative Perspective: Their Impact on Women and Minorities, ed. Wilma Rule and Joseph F. Zimmerman (Westport, CT, Greenwood, 1994) 15-30 Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie A., and William Mishler, “An Integrated Model of Women’s Representation,” The Journal of Politics 67 (May) (2005): 407–28 Welch, Susan, and Donley Studlar, “Multimember Districts and the Representation of Women: Evidence from Britain and the United States,” The Journal of Politics 52, (2) (1990): 391–412 Endnotes 13253 Endnotes 17 Crowder-Meyer, M., Gadarian, S. K., & Trounstine, J., “Electoral institutions, gender stereotypes, and women’s local representation,” Politics, Groups, and Identities, 3(2) (2015), 318–334 https://doi.org/10.10 80/21565503.2015.1031803 18 Darcy, Robert., Charles D. Hadley, and Jason F. Kirksey, “Election Systems and the Representation of Black Women in American State Legislatures.” Women and Politics, 13 (1993): 73–89 Herrick, Rebekah, and Susan Welch, “The Impact of At-Large Elections on the Representation of Black and White Women.” National Political Science Review 3 (1992): 62–77 Karnig, Albert, and Susan Welch, “Sex and the Ethnic Differences in Municipal Representation,” 1979 Rule, Wilma. 1992, “Multimember Legislative Districts: Minority and Anglo Women’s and Men’s Recruitment Opportunity,” In United States Electoral Systems: Their Impact on Women and Minorities, ed. Wilma Rule and Joseph F. Zimmerman (New York, Greenwood Press, 1992) 57-72 Trounstine and Valdini, “The context matters,” 2008 19 Kerr B and Mladenka KR., “Does politics matter- --a time-series analysis of minority employment patterns,” American Journal of Political Science, 38(4) (1994): 918-43 Mladenka KR., “Blacks and Hispanics in urban politics,” American Political Science Review, 83(1) (1989): 165-91 Sass, Tim and Stephen Mehay, “Minority Representation, Election Method and Policy Influence,” Economics and Politics, 15 (3) (2003): 225-341 20 Karnig, AK and Susan Welch, “Black Representatives and Urban Policy” (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980) 21 Meier KJ, and England RE., “Black representation and educational-policy--- Are they related?” American Political Science Review, 78(2) (1984): 392—403 Stewart J, England RE, and Meier KJ., “Black representation in urban school districts---from school board to office to classroom,” The Western Political Quarterly, 42(2) (1989): 287--305 22 Leal DL, Martinez-Ebers V, and Meier KJ., “The politics of Latino education: the biases of at-large elections,” The Journal of Politics, 66(4) (2004): 1224—44 Polinard JL., Wrinkle RD, Longoria T, and Binder N., Electoral Structure and Urban Policy: The Impact on Mexican American Communities (Armonk, NY, M.E. Sharpe, 1994) 23 Kogan, Vladimir, Stephane Lavertu, and Zachary Peskowitz, “How Does Minority Political Representation Affect School District Administration and Student Outcomes?” American Journal of Political Science, 65(3) (2021): 699-716 24 Meier KJ, Juenke EG, Wrinkle RD, and Polinard JL., “Structural choices and representational biases: the postelection color of representation,” American Journal of Political Science, 49(4) (2005):758--68 25 Wittman, Donald, “District versus at-large voting: Why district voting results in worse policy for minorities,” European Journal of Political Economy 81 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ejpoleco.2024.102502 14254 Endnotes 26 Sass and Mehay, “Minority Representation,” 2003 27 Brace, Kimball, Grofman, Bernard, and Handley, Lisa, “Does redistricting aimed to help blacks necessarily help Republicans?” The Journal of Politics, 49 (1987): 169–185 Epstein, David, and O’Halloran, Sharyn, “Measuring the electoral and policy impact of majority- minority voting districts,” American Journal of Political Science, 43 (1999): 367–395 Lublin, David Ian, The Paradox of Representation (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997) 28 Cameron, Charles, David Epstein, and Sharyn O’Halloran, “Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?” American Political Science Review, 90(4) (1996): 794-812 Swain, Carol, Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1993) Thernstrom, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (Simon and Schuster, 1997) Wittman, “District versus at-large voting,” 2024 29 Bledsoe, Timothy and Susan Welch, Urban Reform and its Consequences: A Study in Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988) 30 Hankinson, Michael and Asya Magazinnik, “The Supply Equity Trade-Off: The Effect of Spatial Representation on the Local Housing Supply,” The Journal of Politics, 85(3) (2021): 1033-1047 31 Burnett, Craig and Vladimir Kogan, “Local Logrolling? Assessing the Impact of Legislative Districting in Los Angeles,” Urban Affairs Review 50(5) (2014) https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087414522408 32 Tausanovitch, Chris and Christopher Warshaw, “Representation in Municipal Government,” American Political Science Review, 108(3) (2014): 605-641 15255 effectivegov.uchicago.edu Scan QR code to view all Primers in the 2024 series 256 No. 14 The Trade-Offs between At-Large and Single-Member Districts October 2018 Cong Huang Hobby School of Public Affairs University of Houston chuang23@central.uh.edu Richard Murray Hobby School of Public Affairs Department of Political Science University of Houston rmurray@central.uh.edu Scott Hofer Hobby School of Public Affairs Department of Political Science University of Houston sjhofer@uh.edu 257 Hobby School of Public Affairs White Paper Series___________________________________________________ 1   The Trade-Offs between At-Large and Single-Member Districts Scott Hofer, University of Houston Cong Huang, University of Houston Richard Murray, University of Houston This report provides a review of the existing literature about the trade-offs between at- large and single-member districts at the local offices in the United States. Overall, at- large districts were the most common form of representation in most local offices until the 1960s and the passage of Voting Rights Act in 1965. Since the 1960s single-member districts have been the method of choice for most local elections because they enable smaller, geographically situated communities to send their own representatives to larger legislative assemblies. The history behind these two electoral systems corresponds with their respective pros and cons. In general, at-large elections are found to improve diversity in gender representation on city councils with more female councilors being elected. On the other hand, single-member districts benefit the representation of some racial minority groups, including African Americans and Latinos. But the positive potential depends on context: (1) the concentration, (2) the size, and (3) the polarization of the vote. Specifically, the advantages of single-member districts are minimal in a largely homogenous community or in a community where underrepresented groups are not concentrated geographically. African Americans are found to be overrepresented on school boards with at-large elections when African Americans occupy a smaller part of the population. Keywords: at-large districts, single-member districts, gender representation, racial representation. Background The literature on structures of elections focuses on local levels in the United States because there is little variation in representation structures in higher offices (Davidson 1979; Meier and Stewart 1991; Rocha 2007; Zax 1990). The United States does have single member (hereafter: SM) districts in the 43 states that have two or more members in the House of Representatives, while U.S. senators are elected at-large (hereafter AL) in all 50 states, as are almost all executive officers at the state level. That being the case, the best opportunity to study the effects on of electoral systems are in the thousands of local offices in the U.S., specifically school districts, county commissions and city councils. Overall, at-large districts were the most common form of representation in most local offices until the 1960s and the passage of Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 1965 (Davidson 1992). The history behind SM and AL districts systems correspond with their respective pros and cons. While context is key, the following section is a broad overview of the existing literature about the trade-offs in both systems. Then we move to the discussion of more nuanced findings pertaining to gender and racial representation in these two systems. 258 At-Large and Single-Member Districts   2   At-large elections have been employed when ruling majorities attempt to emphasize the corporate identity of particular jurisdictions and to suppress partisan or ethnic factionalism. The basic idea being that those elected to AL districts will be more likely to work toward the best result for the whole community rather than pander to the specific demands in parts of the community. Work in political science broadly illustrates that substantive representation is most common in AL systems for the wealthiest and most connected in the community (Enns and Wlezien 2011; Gilens and Page 2014; Meier et al. 2005). Additionally, AL systems have the benefit of increasing the diversity in gender representation with more women being elected in these systems (Trounstine and Valdini 2008). However, people of color are less likely to be elected in AL systems because the votes of racial minorities are diluted in elections that cover a broader area (Trounstine and Valdini 2008). The importance of AL systems for diverse cities has been the focus of lawsuits and VRA compliance. In more homogenous communities, the difference between AL and SM districts are less pronounced in terms of racial representation, while the overall trends of representation patterns along gender and economic lines remain. Since the 1960s SM districts have been the method of choice for most local elections because they enable smaller, geographically situated communities to send their own representatives to larger legislative assemblies. SM systems provide the benefits of localized democracy. In cases of city councils and school boards, elected members in SM systems might only represent a small neighborhood which allows legislators to be intimately aware of the issues of the local community. This allows the elected member to focus on the needs of their localized constituency rather than the interests of all. In diverse places, especially where diversity is in highly segregated communities, the SM systems promote diversity with increasing minority representation (Leal, Martinez-Ebers, and Meier 2004; Meier et al. 2005; Trounstine and Valdini 2008; Zax 1990). Yet, this diversity in racial representation is likely to be contrasted with the loss of gender representation and the tendency for fewer women to be elected in these systems. As noted, SM systems have become more popular in the United States after passage of the VRA as a mechanism to increase representation of racial minorities (Davidson 1992). In some cases, SM systems were implemented due to lawsuits such as Thornburg v. Gingles in 1986 alleging the AL systems in place unduly discriminated against cohesive groups of people of color to participate equally in the process by electing disproportionately white officials (Kosterlitz 1986). Finally, a small, but growing number of communities have incorporated a mixed approach that combines AL and SM systems. The Houston City Council is an example of these mixed bodies. While there is variation in the impacts of mixed system (they should be thought of as a continuum between AL and SM) the conclusion in the literature is that mixed systems typically provide benefits similar to SM districts. These mixed systems and modified AL systems provide descriptive representation similar to SM districts (Brockington et al. 1998; Karnig and Welch 1982; Welch 1990). Given the proportion of SM to AL districts (11 to 5) on the Houston City Council,1 it is especially likely to produce representation outcome similar to purely SM district systems.                                                                                                                           1 https://www.houstontx.gov/council/. 259 Hobby School of Public Affairs White Paper Series___________________________________________________   3   The Voting Rights Act and Electoral Structures In the United States, AL elections were popular for local elections; especially as a mechanism to ensure that a bloc-voting white majority could deny black citizens the opportunity to choose representatives of their choice in local governments. In 1965, mass politics changed the landscape of racial diversity and racial representation through the VRA. Language allowing judicial review of minority vote dilution efforts in places with a history of disenfranchising minority voters initially helped push communities away from AL systems. However, court rulings undermined this language in the late 1970s. By 1980, the courts had established that racial minorities must prove that a challenged election structure was designed or maintained intentionally to dilute their voting power. However, the passage of the VRA of 1982 changed this standard was from racial intent to vote dilution in practice, making minority lawsuits more likely to succeed. The 1986 Thornburg v. Gingle ruling created a quicker and easier process for providing a remedy for vote dilution, resulting in widespread changes from AL elections to SM elections, through both litigation and legislation (Davidson 1992; Kosterlitz 1986). Although the courts would later reverse course on some aspects of the VRA, the legacy of the rulings in the 1980s has become the status quo. Electoral Systems and Gender Representation One major focus in the relevant literature is on the role of gender representation in AL versus SM structures. Table 1 summarizes the trade-offs between these two systems regarding gender representation in particular. While SM districts are typically seen as a remedy to a lack of diversity, AL districts are the most likely to produce female elected members (Trounstine and Valdini 2008). Unlike racial diversity, gender diversity among the population is stable across geography. The existing scholarship on gender representation overwhelmingly suggests that SM districts either lead to fewer women being elected on city councils (Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1985; Hogan 2001; Matland 1995; Matland and Brown 1992; Rule 1994; Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler 2005; Welch and Studlar 1990) or no effect (Alozie and Manganero 1993; Bullock and MacManus 1991). This result may make more sense in terms of the non-exclusive relationship between race and gender (Githens and Prestage 1977). For instance, nuanced analysis of intersectionality found that black women tend to be advantaged by AL elections in cities while black men are disadvantaged by this structure (Darcy, Hadley, and Kirksey 1993; Rule 1992). However, there is no influence of SM versus AL districts for Mexican American women or men (Karnig and Welch 1979). A more recent study (2008) by Trounstine and Valdini that focused on more than 7,000 United States cities also found that the impact of either AL or SM district on gender representation is much more significant regarding white female and black male representation than was the case for Latinas or black women. 260 At-Large and Single-Member Districts   4   Table 1. The Trade-Offs between At-Large and Single-Member Districts – Gender Representation Electoral Systems Effects Literature Single-member districts (1) Have positive effect on the representation of African American men in city councils. Karnig and Welch (1979) (2) Have negative effect on the representation of African American women in city councils. Herrick and Welch (1992) (3) Have no effect on the representation of Mexican American women or men in city councils. Karnig and Welch (1979) At-large districts (1) Promote diversity in gender representation on city councils. Trounstine and Valdini (2008) (2) Benefit African American female candidates. Darcy, Hadley, and Kirksey (1993) (3) African American male candidates are disadvantaged by this structure. Rule (1992) Note: Regarding mixed systems, they are considered to provide descriptive representation similar to single- member districts (see e.g., Brockington et al.). Same for Table 2. Electoral Systems and Racial Representation The historical transformation at the local level from AL to SM has had the expected impact. Majority-minority districts became very popular in the 1990s and the representation of underrepresented groups began to improve (Cameron, Epstein, and O’Halloran 1996). Table 2 lists the trade-offs on racial representation specifically. Numerous studies put forward that SM districts have positive effect on the representation of some racial groups in city councils, including African Americans and Latinos (Arrington and Watts 1991; Bullock and MacManus 1990; Davidson and Grofman 1994; Polinard, Wrinkle, and Longoria 1991; Welch 1990). If equity in representation is the goal, in a diverse community, then SM districts are overwhelmingly cited as a better mechanism. 261 Hobby School of Public Affairs White Paper Series___________________________________________________   5   Table 2. The Trade-Offs between At-Large and Single-Member Districts – Racial Representation Electoral Systems Effects Literature Single-member districts (1) Improve diversity in racial representation on city councils. Cameron, Epstein, and O’Halloran (1996) (2) Have positive effect on the representation of African Americans and Latinos in city councils. Davidson and Grofman (1994) (3) These effects are conditional on the context. The benefits are minimal in a largely homogenous community or in a community where underrepresented racial groups are not geographically concentrated. Trounstine and Valdini (2008) At-large districts (1) Lead to over-representation of minority voters where racial minority groups are geographically concentrated or where democratic voters make up a larger proportion of the population. Arrington and Watts (1991) (2) Lead to over-representation of African Americans on school boards where African Americans make up a smaller proportion of the population. Meier and Rutherford (2014) Despite the positive potential, the improved representation of historically underrepresented groups depends on context (Trounstine and Valdini 2008). The concentration (Sass 2000), size (Bullock and MacManus 1990; Leal, Martinez-Ebers, and Meier 2004), and polarization (Brace et al. 1988) of the vote are the key variables to consider. For instance, in a largely homogenous community or in a community where underrepresented groups are not concentrated geographically, the benefits of SM districts are minimal (Trounstine and Valdini 2008). Conversely, AL districts lead to over-representation of minority voters under some circumstances where Democratic voters make up a larger proportion of the population and racial minority groups are concentrated in the area (Arrington and Watts 1991). Similarly, African Americans are found to be overrepresented on school boards with AL elections when African Americans occupy a smaller part of the population (Meier and Rutherford 2014). 262 At-Large and Single-Member Districts   6   Houston Specific Outlook Given the trends found in scholarship on SM versus AL districts, we can make some educated predictions about the impact of these districts specifically for the City of Houston. Houston is a geographically large city with an incredibly diverse racial makeup; however, this racial diversity is also highly segregated by neighborhood (Houston Chronicle 20152). These two patterns make Houston an ideal location for a mix of AL and SM districts. The result of the concentrated pockets of different ethnic and racial groups in these districts will allow greater descriptive representation of the diverse communities within the city in the SM districts while the AL members must appeal to the broader diverse electorate of the entire city. 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Cameron, C., Epstein, D., and O’Halloran, S. 1996. “Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?” American Political Science Review 90(4): 794-812. Darcy, R., Hadley, C. D., and Kirksey, J. F. 1993. “Election Systems and the Representation of Black Women in American State Legislatures.” Women and Politics 13: 73-89. Darcy, R., Welch, S., and Clark, J. 1985. “Women Candidates in Single-Member and Multimember Districts: American State Legislative Races. Social Science Quarterly 66(4): 945-953.                                                                                                                           2 https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Houston-is-both-one-of-the-most-diverse-and-most- 6236793.php. 263 Hobby School of Public Affairs White Paper Series___________________________________________________   7   Davidson, C. 1979. “At-Large Elections and Minority Representation.” Social Science Quarterly 60(2): 336-338. Davidson, C. 1992. “The Voting Rights Act: A Brief History.” In B. Grofman and C. Davidson, eds., Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective, 7-34. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Davidson, C., and Grofman, B. (eds.) 1994. Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Enns, P. K., and Wlezien, C. (eds.) 2011. Who Gets Represented? New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Gilens, M., and Page, B. I. 2014. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Perspectives on Politics 12(3): 564-581. Githens, M., and Prestage, J. (eds.) 1977. A Portrait of Marginality: The Political Behavior of American Women. New York, NY: McKay. Herrick, R., and Welch, S. 1992. “The Impact of At-Large Elections on the Representation of Black and White Women.” National Political Science Review 3: 62-77. Hogan, R. E. 2001. “The Influence of State and District Conditions on the Representation of Women in US State Legislatures.” American Politics Research 29(1): 4-24. Karnig, A., and Welch, S. 1979. “Sex and the Ethnic Differences in Municipal Representation.” Social Science Quarterly 60(3): 465-481. Karnig, A., and Welch, S. 1982. “Electoral Structure and Black Representation on City Councils.” Social Science Quarterly 63(1): 99-114. Kosterlitz, M. J. 1986. “Thornburg v. Gingles: The Supreme Court’s New Test for Analyzing Minority Vote Dilution.” Catholic University Law Review 36(2): 531-563. Leal, D., Martinez-Ebers, V., and Meier, K. 2004. “The Politics of Latino Education: The Biases of At-Large Elections.” Journal of Politics 66(4): 1224-1244. Matland, R. E. 1995. “How the Electoral System Structure Has Helped Women Close the Representation Gap.” In L. Karvonen and P. Selle, eds., Closing the Gap, Women in Nordic Politics, 281-312. London, UK: Dartmouth. Matland, R. E., and Brown, D. D. 1992. “District Magnitude’s Effect on Female Representation in U.S. State Legislatures.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 17(4): 469-492. Meier, K. J., and Stewart, J. Jr. 1991. “Cooperation and Conflict in Multiracial School Districts.” Journal of Politics 53(4): 1123-1133. 264 At-Large and Single-Member Districts   8   Meier, K. J., Juenke, E. G., Wrinkle, R. D., and Polinard, J. L. 2005. “Structural Choices and Representational Biases: The Post-Election Color of Representation.” American Journal of Political Science 49(4): 758-768. Meier, K. J., and Rutherford, A. 2014. “Partisanship, Structure, and Representation: The Puzzle of African American Education Politics.” American Political Science Review 108(2): 265- 280. Polinard, J., Wrinkle, R., and Longoria, T. 1991. “The Impact of District Elections on the Mexican American Community: The Electoral Perspective.” Social Science Quarterly 72(3): 608-614. Rocha, R. R. 2007. “Black-Brown Coalitions in Local School Board Elections.” Political Research Quarterly 60(2): 315-327. Rule, W. 1992. “Multimember Legislative Districts: Minority and Anglo Women’s and Men’s Recruitment Opportunity.” In W. Rule and J. F. Zimmerman, eds., United States Electoral Systems: Their Impact on Women and Minorities, 57-72. New York, NY: Greenwood Press. Rule, W. 1994. “Parliaments of, by, and for the People: Except for Women?” In W. Rule and J. F. Zimmerman, eds., Electoral Systems in Comparative Perspective: Their Impact on Women and Minorities, 15-30. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Sass, T. R. 2000. “The Determinants of Hispanic Representation in Municipal Government.” Southern Economic Journal 66(3): 609-630. Schwindt-Bayer, L. A., and Mishler, W. 2005. “An Integrated Model of Women’s Representation.” Journal of Politics 67(2): 407-428. Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 US 30. 1986. Trounstine, J., and Valdini, M. E. 2008. “The Context Matters: The Effects of Single-Member versus At-Large Districts on City Council Diversity.” American Journal of Political Science 52(3): 554-569. Welch, S. 1990. “The Impact of At-Large Elections on the Representation of Blacks and Hispanics.” Journal of Politics 52(4): 1050-1076. Welch, S., and Studlar, D. 1990. “Multimember Districts and the Representation of Women: Evidence from Britain and the United States.” Journal of Politics 52(2): 391-412. Zax, J. S. 1990. “Election Methods and Black and Hispanic City Council Membership.” Social Science Quarterly 71(2): 339-355. 265 Wards, At-Large Systems and the Focus of Representation in Canadian Cities Author(s): Royce Koop and John Kraemer Source: Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, September 2016 septembre, Vol. 49, No. 3 (September 2016 septembre), pp. 433-448 Published by: Canadian Political Science Association and the Société québécoise de science politique Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26291378 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a widerange of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and.facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available athttps://about.jstor.org/terms Canadian Political Science Association and are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 266 Wards,At-Large Systems and the Focus of Representation in Canadian Cities Royce Koop University ofManitoba John Kraemer Queen's University Ward politics tends to keep issues on a local rather than on a city wide basis.When a city undertakes to reconstitute its political system by dropping ward in favour of at-large elections,the change is fondamental,not procedural;elected officials find that they must represent the city,not the ward. This quotation from the classic text on city politics by Banfield and Wilson (1963:52)illustrates a foundational point ofagreement between opponents in the ongoing debate over the use of ward versus at-large systems of elec tion for city councillors.The point of agreement is that the system of elec tion influences the subsequent representational perceptions and behaviours ofcouncillors.The use of wards incentivizes a representational preoccupa tion with neighbourhoods and geographically defined areas within cities.In contrast,at-large systems lead councillors to diversify their representational activities in order to represent what they perceive to be the best interests of their cities as wholes (see Berger,2004:28),which may in fact cloak repre sentational preoccupations with privileged city interests such as land-based private business interests (Elkin,1987:36-60).To employ the terminology ofthe literature on representational attitudes,the unit ofelection is expected to shape the representationalfocus ofcouncillors (which is defined simply as the population councillors choose to represent),with ward councillors focused on certain geographic segments of the city and at-large councillors focused on their cities as wholes (on the focus of representation,see,for example,Eulau and Karps,1977). Royce Koop,Department of Political Studies,University of Manitoba,532 Fletcher Argue,Winnipeg MB R3T 2N2,royce.koop@umanitoba.caJohnKraemer,Department of Development,Faculty of Arts and Science,Queen's University,94 University Avenue,Kingston ON K7L 3N6,j.kraemer@queensu.ca Canadian Journal ofPoliticalScience/Revuecanadienne de sciencepolitique 49:3 (September /septembre 2016)433-448 doi:10.1017/S0008423916000512 ©2016 Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 267 434 Royce Koop and John Kraemer The representational consequences of electoral institutions are well accep ted by advocates of both ward and at-large systems of elections;indeed,it is these consequences that make up a significant portion of both sides'argu ments in favour of their preferred systems.Beginning in the late eighteenth century,the US municipal reform movement advocated at-large systems of election explicitly to rid cities ofwhat members viewed as party-associated corruption and the shortsighted parochialism of councillors focused on par ticular geographic segments of their cities.The use of at-large systems,it was thought,would root out neighbourhood machines and force councillors to take a wider,citywide view in their representational activities;in other words,the change to at-large systems was thought to lead to a necessary and desirable alteration to councillors'foci of representation. In contrast,defenders ofward systems note that at-large systems privi lege particular segments of cities and allow councillors to ignore entire tracts of their cities,and can point to judicial decisions ruling that at large systems discriminate against minority communities (Dhindsa,2012; Packer,1982;Scarrow,1999:557;Smith and Stewart,1998;Trounstine and Valdini,2008).These defenders see the perpetuation of both non-par tisan local politics and at-large systems as an outcome ofthe self-interest of sitting elected officials rather than any idealistic focus of representation (Magnusson,1983:10).The goal of ward systems of elections is therefore explicitly to incentivize representational focus on certain geographic sec tions of the city in order to ensure that all citizens,including underprivile ged sections ofthe city,are represented at city hall.The substantial literature focused on the descriptive representation of African Americans,Hispanics and women on US city councils supports this particular consensus,as at large systems are understood to produce poor representational outcomes for these groups (Bullock and MacManus,1991;Herrick and Welch, 1992;Sass,2000;Taebel,1978;Tolley,2011;Welch,1990;but also see Clark and Krebs,2012). Other studies directly test the relationship between elective institutions and foci of representation.Early work such as the study by Eulau and Prewitt (1973)found that the vast majority of councillors surveyed in American cities held a citywide representational focus;however,Eulau and Prewitt do not control for unit of election,and the vast majority ofcoun cillors surveyed were elected in at-large systems. In contrast,Welch and Bledsoe (1988)provide evidence that institu tions do shape representational foci.They draw on a survey of American councillors across a range of institutional settings and find that councillors are most likely to report either a citywide or geographic community focus of representation as "Very Important"(79%and 49%respectively).Further more,Welch and Bledsoe demonstrate that differences in representational foci are clearly related to institutional differences.At-large units ofelection are positively related to citywide foci,but are negatively related to This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 268 Abstract.Proponents ofboth wardand at-large systems agree that these systems ofelection play a role in shaping the representational foci (that is,who representatives seek to represent)of city councillors and,in so doing,affect the quality of local democracy.Canadian cities employ both ward and at-large systems ofelection,and therefore provide an opportunity to explore the relations hip between elective systems and focus ofrepresentation.We draw on data derived from both 52 interviews with and a survey of councillors in Canadian cities to test the proposition that cities' systems of election influence the representational foci of councillors.We find strong evidence that ward systems are related to arepresentational focus on geographically defined neighbourhoods, whereas councillors in at-large systems report prioritizing representation of their cities as wholes. Résumé.Les promoteurs des deux modes de scrutin par quartier et de type at large conviennent que ces systèmes électoraux jouent un rôle dans l'établissement des objectifs de représentation des conseillers municipaux (c.-à-d.les groupes que les représentants cherchent à représenter)et que,ce faisant,ils ont une incidence sur la qualité de la démocratie locale.Les villes canadiennes appli quent aussi bien des modes de scrutin par quartier et at large et offrent donc la possibilité d'exa miner la relation entre systèmes électifs et objectifs de représentation.Nous nous appuyons sur des données issues d'un sondage et de 52 entrevues auprès de conseillers de villes canadiennes pour vérifier l'hypothèse selon laquelle les systèmes électoraux influent sur les objectifs de représentation des conseillers.De solides éléments probants révèlent que les modes de scrutin par quartier sont liés à une représentativité axée sur des districts délimités géographiquement, tandis que dans les modes de scrutin at large les conseillers indiquent accorder une priorité à la représentation de leurs villes considérées comme des ensembles. neighbourhood orientations.These studies of representational foci are related to the broader literature outlined above,which is concerned with the linkage between elective institutions on the one hand and democratic responsiveness on the other (Brack et al.,2012;Clark and Krebs,2012; Pilet et al.,2012). In this study,we add empirical evidence from Canada to the existingacademicliterature,which demonstrates the importance of elective institu tions to shaping councillors'representational perceptions.This research builds upon a vibrant homegrown literature that explores and assesses the benefits and drawbacks of both at-large and ward systems of election in Canadian cities (Berger,2004;Dhindsa,2012;Mellon,1993).We draw on 52 original interviews and a survey of Canadian councillors to test the proposition that electoral institutions shape councillors'representationalfocus.We address the following research question:To what extent do the presence of ward and at-large units of election in Canadian cities influence the adoption by councillors of representational foci on specific geographicareaswithincitiesversustheircitiesaswholes? This research is grounded in an institutionalist framework. Institutionalist approaches explain the behaviours of political actors by exploring the roles ofinstitutions in shaping both the perceptions and beha viours ofthose actors (Thelen,1992).In this study,city councillors as representativesaresituatedininstitutionalcontexts(particularly related to the This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 269 436 Royce Koop and John Kraemer system of election present)that produce strong incentives for certain repre sentational foci over others.Canada is a particularly useful laboratory in order to study the influence of institutions on representational foci ofcoun cillors because,like the US,city government in Canada is characterized by diversity in the institutions used to elect councillors (Sancton,2011:ch.9).In addition to their election in wards or at-large,councillors may,for example,represent very populous or sparsely populated wards.Further, some councillors act as representatives within the shadow ofamalgamations that created "super cities,"such as Toronto and Montreal,whereas other councillors,such as those in Vancouver,act as representatives within insti tutional settings characterized by local governments that are much smaller in scope (Sancton,2008).Further,elective institutions have consequences for democratic outcomes of crucial importance,particularly turnout, which have been understudied in the Canadian context (but see Couture et al.,2014). Both the framework and the relevant literature generate two easily tes table hypotheses.First, Hj:Councillors elected in wards are more likely to have a geographic representational focus. And,conversely, H2:Councillors elected in at-large systems are more likely to have a citywide representational focus. This study adds further empirical clarification for the role of institu tions in shaping both the representational perceptions and behaviours of city councillors.This is achieved in a non-traditional context for the study of city councillors,Canada,and therefore expands this topic of study to different comparative contexts.Furthermore,this study expands our understanding of institutions and the roles of councillors in local demo cracy:in contrast to members of Parliament,there is very little understand ing ofthe day-to-day perceptions and activities ofCanadian city councillors (Mévellec,2009;Taylor and Eidelmann,2010).While this paper does not report on the activities of councillors,it elucidates an important psycholo gical orientation of councillors that affects their subsequent behaviours. We first describe the interviews and survey that make up the data for this multi-method project.The analysis tests the above hypotheses,first, through a bivariate analysis,then in a multivariate analysis where several control variables are included.The conclusion ends by outlining the paper's contribution to both the literature and the ongoing debate on ward and at-large systems of representation in Canada and elsewhere. This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 270 Wards,At-Large Systems and the Focus ofRepresentation 437 Methodology and Case Selection A multi-method research design involving interviews with and a survey of municipal councillors in Canada was developed for this project.A multi method design was used to leverage the unique advantages of both small n and large-n approaches.Very little has been written about processes of representation in Canadian cities;as a result,a qualitative approach employ ing interviews was appropriate to generate theory regarding this phenome non (see,for example,Lijphart,1971:685).The data collected through these interviews,however,were not representative of all Canadian council lors.Furthermore,hypotheses concerning the influence of elective institu tions on councillors'focus of representation could not be adequately tested with only interview data.Accordingly,a survey was employed to achieve these goals. The multi-method approach employed is a sequential exploratory multi method design (Creswell,2003:211).Such a multi-method approach is desi gned in such a way that qualitative data collection and analysis takes places prior to quantitative data collection.The advantages of such an approach for this research are threefold.First,phenomena uncovered during the explora tion ofa small number ofcases can inform the design ofthe subsequent quan titative inquiry.Second,causal relationships suggested through qualitative data analysis can be further explored and,more importantly,tested through the use of large-n data in subsequent quantitative analysis.Finally,triangula tion—comparing results from different data sources or by using different methods of data collection (Mays and Pope,2000:51)—can strengthen the validity of findings in qualitative research. Interviews with councillors were conducted both in person and by tele phone throughout 2012 and 2013.The interview schedule was semi-struc tured in order to ensure comparable data were produced but also so that new themes could be explored.The danger of an unstructured interview format is that data cannot be compared;this potential problem was addressed by the addition of a structured component to the interviews (Small,2009). Councillors were asked to speak to a number of themes but,in accordance with the semi-structured approach,were given wide latitude to expand on their answers and take the interviews in unanticipated directions.All inter views were recorded and subsequently transcribed. Councillors were invited to participate in order to achieve variation on a number of institutional and ecological variables related to the cities theyservedwithin.All 179 sitting councillors from Montreal,Ottawa,Toronto and Greater Vancouver (Burnaby,Coquitlam,Delta,Richmond,Surrey and Vancouver)were invited to participate in the interviews for this study.1 Fifty-two councillors agreed to be interviewed for the project,for a response rate of 29 per cent.Variation on all key variables—including individual level variables such as gender and time spent in office—was achieved. This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 271 438 Royce Koop and John Kraemer The second phase of data collection involved an online survey of all sitting councillors in Canadian cities with populations over 20,000 resi dents.The survey was conducted in February 2014;589 out of 1841 coun cillors responded to the invitation to participate,for a total response rate of 32 per cent.An online survey format was selected because the vast majorityofcouncillorsinCanadiancitieswithpopulationsover20,000 provideemailaddressesoncitywebsites.The potential for bias to result from under-reporting of councillors without email addresses or online access, which is a potential problem associated with online surveys,was therefore ruled out (Van Selm and Jankowski,2006:436). Councillors were asked a range of questions about their representatio nal perceptions and practices.2 During the interviews for this project,repre sentational foci were probed through asking three types ofquestions.First, direct questions were designed to elicit groups that councillors were parti cularly focused on (for example,"Who do you seek to represent as a coun cillor?Do you see yourself as representing any particular group of people within your city?").Second,one question related to conflict between ward and citywide interests was employed to determine the extent to which ward councillors prioritized the needs of their wards versus those of their cities (for example,"Has there ever been a time when what's best for the city and what's best for the ward came into conflict?How did you deal with that?").Finally,open-ended policy questions were designed to elicit the policy priorities of councillors,which could then later be coded as primarily geographic or citywide in nature. The responses to these questions informed three sets ofquestions in the survey that explored councillors'representational foci.The first was a direct question asking councillors how important their representation ofparticular groups was,including "a geographical area of the city or a neighbourhood" and "the city as a whole."Second,a conflict question asking "When voting, do you feel you should be more concerned with the needs ofyour ward/dis trict or the needs of the city as a whole"was put to councillors elected in wards.Finally,a closed policy question was formulated by combining res ponses to the opened-ended question asked in the interviews:"In your opinion,how important are each of the following policy areas to you as a council member?"In this and other closed questions asked in the survey, the options available to respondents were generated inductively from semi-structured questions asked during the interviews with councillors that came beforehand. While we had three measures of representational foci available to us from the survey,we have selected the direct measure for analysis only for three reasons.First,the conflict question in the survey was asked only of councillors elected in wards and so could not be used to address the research questions in this paper.Second,it was not always clear in coding responses to our policy questions which answers indicated a This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 272 Wards,At-Large Systems and the Focus ofRepresentation 439 geographic focus and which indicated a citywide focus.Finally,the use of the direct measure only was conducive to addressing our research questions within the context of a relatively short article. Analysis The research question for this paper is to what extent does the presence of ward and at-large units ofelection in Canadian cities influence the adoption by councillors of representational foci on specific geographic areas within cities versus their cities as wholes.This section provides two examples of these different foci and tests the two hypotheses presented in the first section. The interviews for this project revealed examples of both geographic and citywide representational foci.The interviews also provide anecdotal evidence in support of our two hypotheses.When asked whom they sought to represent,councillors elected in wards tended to mention citizens within the geographic confines oftheir wards whereas councillors elected at large tended to mention all residents of their cities.There was,however, important nuance evidence in councillors'replies to these questions. In the 2004 report of the Vancouver Electoral Reform Commission, Justice Berger wrote,"I have come down in favour of wards because... they provide for neighbourhood representation and accountability"(Berger,2004:49).Councillors who were elected in wards often affirmed Berger's argument by reporting geographic foci of representation.Councillor Adam Vaughan,elected in a Toronto ward,provides a good example ofa councillor with a local geographic focus."My job is to represent the residents who live in the neighbourhoods that comprise Ward 20 that I represent.And myjob is to make sure that they get city services they have been promised and have paid for and created through their taxes but also to make sure the city services they need or want are delivered to them...in the best way possible."In contrast,councillors may also take a citywide focus of representation.The Vancouver Electoral Reform Commission found local support for councillors adopting this representational focus,reporting, "Supporters of the at-large system argue that it results in the election of city councillors with a citywide vision.This was,aside from the more general assertion that the present system was working well,the most force fully advanced endorsement of the present system"(Berger,2004:28).Councillor Bruce Hayne,who was elected at large in the British Columbia city of Surrey,emphasizes just such a citywide focus. "[I represent]all of the city as a whole,absolutely.We have to make deci sions that are absolutely in the best interest of all of Surrey." Geographic and citywide foci ofrepresentation are not mutually exclu sive;councillors may not view themselves as concerned with the interests of This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 273 440 Royce Koop and John Kraemer the city as a whole over particular geographic areas or vice versa.Instead, councillors often explained how they reconcile their representational concern for these two units of representation.Councillor Frank Di Giorgio from Toronto,for example,exhibits concern for both units,but, despite his being elected in a ward,ultimately he identifies a citywide focus as his primary focus of representation."First of all,you're an elected representative of people in an area in the city so you represent the interests of that area.But you also serve as a member of a larger group, council,which presumably has the interests of the city at large at heart. So,notwithstanding that you represent the interests of a particular sub group,I believe that...your main responsibility is to look after the interests of the larger group." Councillor Rick Chiarelli from Ottawa similarly balances the needs of his ward and the city as a whole.For Chiarelli,representation of ward inter ests takes place through his own work on citywide issues,and his primary representational focus,in contrast to that of Di Giorgio,is undoubtedly on his own ward:"I think my role is to protect the interests of my ward resi dents and to promote individual strategic initiatives within the ward.... So in every major city issue,there will be nuances that impact each ward differently.So I have to be on top of that.But [I]also find out where indi vidual ward initiatives fit within the city's overall plans and make sure they get [addressed]in a way that has the best chance of succeeding." Councillor Peter Chernushenko,also from Ottawa,identifies a clear geographic focus ofrepresentation,but presents this as a logical implication ofhis residence in the area rather than as a result of any electoral imperati ves."It's only natural that I would be aware ofand have a soft spot for the issues that are closest to home.That's the neighbourhood,the street that I like to shop on,so I want it to do well.That's the route that I cycle on fre quently or the park that my kids play at.There will naturally be a desire to defend,protect and improve those sorts of things." Similarly,even when councillors are elected at large,they may report a representational preoccupation with geographic areas they have a particular connection to,especially those in which they reside.Councillor Sylvia Bishop from Delta provides an example of such a representative."I live in Tsawwassen so I get the mood of Tsawwassen just by being out in the community.To get the same feeling from North Delta is more difficult because I'm not there every day....[But]at the end of the day,I think the role is to represent the whole community." Even Councillor Hayne,who identified a citywide representational focus within the context of Surrey's at-large system,alluded to a particular representational connection to his own geographic community."I think everybody has some affinity to the geography of where they live.I live in Cloverdale so I tend to be around Cloverdale a lot,shop around Cloverdale.That sort of thing."These results suggest that while at-large This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 274 Wards,At-Large Systems and the Focus ofRepresentation 441 Figure 1 Representational Foci of Councillors Elected in Wards and At-Large QElected in Ward E3 Elected At-Large n =283 n =32 n =291 n =134 Focus on Geographic Area Focus on City as Whole systems may provide incentive for a citywide focus of representation,coun cillors may still find themselves focusing their representational efforts on certain geographic areas of their cities,which reinforces some critiques of the at-large system (see,for example,Dhindsa,2012). As noted,our interviews hinted at the presence of a relationship between electoral institutions and representational foci,which would confirm the finding of Welch and Bledsoe (1988)from their survey of American councillors.However,these findings are not representative and,furthermore,it is possible that self-serving bias may result from coun cillors'own accounts of their representational foci.We therefore further explore our research question through the use of our survey dataset,speci fically /-tests,to determine whether differences in representational foci are statistically significant between councillors elected in wards and at large and subsequently in a multivariate logistical regression model. Figure 1 summarizes the percentages of councillors who report a geo graphic or citywide focus of representation as "Very Important"divided into two groups,those who were elected in wards and those who were elected at-large.There are significant differences in the extents to which councillors elected in wards and at large rate geographic and citywide foci ofrepresen tation as very important to them.Seventy per cent of councillors elected in wards report a geographic focus,whereas only 21.6 per cent of councillors elected at large report such a focus.The difference between the two groups is 48.4 per cent,and the difference is statistically significant in a /-test (p = 0.00,two-tailed).In addition,95 per cent of councillors elected at large n =283 n =32 Focus on Geographic Area QElected in Ward S Elected At-Large 95.0 n =291 n =134 Focus on City as Whole This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 275 442 Royce Koop and John Kraemer reported a citywide focus ofrepresentation,whereas 72.6 per cent of coun cillors elected in wards reported such a focus.The difference is 22.4 per cent,and the difference is again statistically significant in a ?-test (p = 0.00,two-tailed). While these bivariate tests substantiate both hypotheses,it is possible that other variables are related to the distinction between geographic and citywide foci of representation.It is therefore necessary to include several control variables to test the strength of ward and at-large systems on focus of representation.This is achieved through the estimation of two binary logistical regression models with several control variables included as independent variables in addition to an indicator for unit of election to explore the main effects of interest.All control variables have been found in previous studies to affect both representational attitudes and behaviour. These control variables can be separated into three groups:institutional, ecological and individual level. Three institutional variables are included.First,Population by Chamber Size is a measure ofrepresentational load derived by dividing the city popu lation by the size of the council chamber (Downey and Williams,1998). Second,councillors'salary is one indicator ofprofessionalized legislative ins titutions,with higher pay associated with both full-time employment and pro fessional rather than amateur councillors (Squire,2007). Third,we argue that the presence ofparties or slates in city elections is an institutional characteristic of those cities that may act to shape council lors'representational perceptions.Parties and slates add both structure and a need for co-operation to councillors'elective and representational beha viours.Furthermore,local voters may use party labels as heuristics in guiding their vote choice (Cutler and Matthews,2005:363-64),rendering the representational behaviours of individual councillors less important for re-election than in cities where parties or slates are characteristics of local democracy.There is substantial diversity in the presence of parties and slates in Canadian cities;among the largest cities in this sample,for example,Montreal and Vancouver are characterized by entrenched party systems,whereas Toronto is not. One ecological variable is included:the population ofthe city in which councillors are elected.Large and small cities impose different representa tional requirements and obligations on representatives and so are expected to lead to different representational perceptions on the part of councillors. (Ellickson and Whistler,2001;Johannes,1984;Thomas,1992).Stewart (1997)makes this point in a Canadian context,finding that population is related to citizen engagement and thus the expectations of local representa tives.Accordingly,a variable is included indicating the population of the city councillors are elected in (by 1000). Finally,five individual-level variables are included in the model.First, councillors'gender is included as a variable since gender influences overall This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 276 Wards,At-Large Systems and the Focus ofRepresentation 443 Table 1 Influence of Ward Election on Likelihood to Adopt Geographic Area and City as Whole Focus of Representation (Binary Logistical Regression) Model 1 Model 2 Geographie Area Focus City as Whole Focus B S.E.Sig.B S.E.Sig. Institutional Elected in ward Pop.by chamber (by 1000) Councillor salary Party or slate 2.21 0.30 0.00 -2.68 0.73 0.00 0.02 0.02 0.38 0.01 0.02 0.54 0.00 0.00 0.62 0.00 0.00 0.16 -0.54 0.33 0.12 -0.23 0.36 0.51 Ecological Population (by 1000)0.00 0.00 0.53 -0.00 0.00 0.91 Individual Gender Years in office Style 0.15 0.27 0.57 0.06 0.02 0.01 -0.17 0.08 0.04 0.41 0.24 0.09 0.19 0.31 0.54 0.01 0.02 0.61 0.11 0.09 0.23 Static ambition Progressive ambition 0.82 0.38 0.03 Constant N Pseudo R2 -1.52 0.53 0.01 381 0.30 3.36 0.87 0.00 374 0.21 Note:Bolded values are significant at the P <0.05 level. representational approaches (Richardson and Freeman,1995).Second,the total years served in office by councillors is included.Third,the represen tational style of councillors is included.Style is understood in the literature on representational attitudes to address the extent to which representatives consider themselves delegates—faithful servants ofconstituents'opinion— or trustees who are tasked with using their judgment in approaching repre sentational challenges (Eulau et al.,1959).Finally,two variables measuring the ambition of councillors are included.Static ambition refers to council lors who intend to remain in their current positions,whereas progressive ambition refers to councillors who wish to advance to higher office (Herrick,2011).Table 1 illustrates two logistical regression models with the binary res ponse of "Very Important"for geographic areas and cities as wholes inclu ded as dependent variables.Model 1 uses geographic focus as the dependent variable,whereas Model 2 employs a citywide focus as the dependent variable.Descriptions of all variables included can be found in appendix 1. Both models perform reasonably well in explaining variation in the dependent variables,although the first model performs better at explaining B Institutional Elected in ward 2.21 Pop.by chamber (by 1000)0.02 Councillor salary 0.00 Party or slate -0.54 Ecological Population (by 1000)0.00 Individual Gender 0.15 Years in office 0.06 Style -0.17 Static ambition 0.41 Progressive ambition - Pnnctnnt —1 S9 S.E.Sig.B S.E. 0.30 0.00 0.02 0.38 0.00 0.62 0.33 0.12 0.00 0.53 0.27 0.57 0.02 0.01 0.08 0.04 0.24 0.09 0 53 noi -2.68 0.73 0.01 0.02 0.00 0.00 -0.23 0.36 -0.00 O.OO 0.19 0.31 0.01 0.02 0.11 0.09 0.82 0.38 3 36 0.87 This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 277 444 Royce Koop and John Kraemer variation in focus on geographic areas (31%)than the second model per forms in explaining variation in citywide focus (21%). This multivariate analysis confirms the substantiation of both hypothe ses.The presence of wards (and,conversely,at-large systems)has a statis tically significant effect on the likelihood of councillors adopting either geographic or citywide foci of representation.Furthermore,both coeffi cients are in the anticipated direction,with a positive coefficient indicating that wards increase the likelihood of geographic focus and a negative coef ficient indicating that at-large systems increase the likelihood of citywide focus.The finding of a relationship between elective institution and focus of representation withstands the inclusion of control variables. It is worth pointing out the presence ofthree control variables that also exercised statistically significant effects on the dependent variables.First is years in office,which is related to a higher likelihood ofadopting a geogra phic focus of representation.Second is representational style.Given the coding of this variable (see appendix 1),the positive direction on this coef ficient suggests that a willingness to follow one's conscience in making representational decisions is also related to increased focus on geographic areas.Finally,progressive ambition is related to a citywide focus of repre sentation.It is likely that councillors who envision themselves in higher office expand their overall focus of representation to include new groups and neighbourhoods in cities to court future electors.This intriguing preli minary finding is further interrogated below. Conclusion This paper explored the role of elective institutions—particularly the use of ward and at-large systems of election—in shaping the representational foci of councillors in Canadian cities.This research provides substantiation for the view that elective institutions are crucial to shaping the representational foci of city councillors.Furthermore,this understanding is derived from an analysis ofcouncillors in a democracy in which the representational percep tions and behaviours of city councillors have not often been studied.The addition ofthis comparable case reiterates the finding that elective institu tions matter for councillors'foci of representation,with consequences for their representational priorities and behaviours.Further research could expand this finding to other states and institutional settings in order to enhance our understanding of the role ofinstitutions in shaping representa tives perceptions and behaviours. The multivariate research in this article also suggests a further avenue of research:the role of ambition in shaping the representational foci of councillors.It was found that progressive ambition—aspiring to higher office—is related to a citywide focus of representation among Canadian This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 278 Wards,At-Large Systems and the Focus ofRepresentation 445 councillors.Councillors who hope to run for higher office as mayor or perhaps to sit in the provincial or federal legislatures as elected officials are more likely to focus their representational activities on their cities as wholes than are councillors who lack such ambition.The explanation underlying this is likely that rational councillors are laying the groundwork for higher office while still in their present positions by reaching out to communities beyond individual wards or geographic areas and that this is reflected in councillors'own representational foci.Future research could explore the interaction of institutions and individual ambition in shaping representational perceptions and behaviours in city politics. 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Appendix 1:Descriptive Statistics and Survey Questions for Independent Variables Table 2 Descriptive Statistics Variable Obs Dependent Variables Geographic area focus 555 City as whole focus 545 Institutional Elected in ward 568 Population by chamber (by 1000)589 Councillor Salary (by 1000)519 Ran with party or slate 547 Ecological Population (by 1000)589 Individual Gender 539 Years in office 527 Style 567 Static ambition 433 Progressive ambition 433 M SD Min Max 0.57 0.78 0.50 0.41 0.73 12.40 39.16 0.22 0.44 13.01 24.63 0.41 0 1.68 11.50 0 216.44 391.81 20.08 0.30 7.71 4.78 0.55 0.23 0.46 6.79 1.53 0.50 0.42 1 37 7 1 1 jraphic area focus as whole focus onal ed in ward lation by chamber (by 1000) icillor Salary (by 1000) with party or slate :cal lation (by 1000) ial ler s in office 555 0.57 545 0.78 568 0.73 589 12.40 519 39.16 547 0.22 589 216.44 539 0.30 527 7.71 0.50 0 0.41 0 0.44 0 13.01 1.6! 24.63 11.5( 0.41 0 391.81 20.0S 0.46 0 6.79 1 This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 281 448 Royce Koop and John Kraemer Elected in Ward.Survey question:"Are you elected at large or in a ward/ division?" Councillor Salary.Survey question:"What is your annual gross salary as a council member?" Party or Slate.Survey question:"In the last election,did you run as a can didate with a particular party or slate?" Years in Office.Survey question:"Including the current year,how many years in total have you served as a council member?" Style.Survey question:"When you think there is a conflict between what you think is best and what you think people want,do you think you should follow your conscience or follow what the people want?" Responded answered on a 7-point scale where "1"meant "Always what the people want"and "7"meant "Always conscience."The wording for this question is from Herrick (2011). Progressive and Static Ambition.Survey question:"Which of the follow ing best describes what you plan to do be doing five years from now?"The available responses include "Remain on council,""Hold a higher elected office,""Hold a lower elected office,""Hold no elected office,""Don't know."This variable was recoded into two dichotomous variables.For the variable indicating progressive ambition,"Hold a higher elected office"was recoded into "1"whereas all other responses were recoded into "0."For the variable indicating static ambition,"Remain on council,"was recoded into "1"whereas all other responses were recoded into "0."The wording for this question is from Herrick (2011:156). This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:12:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 282 The Context Matters: The Effects of Single-Member versus At-Large Districts on City Council Diversity Jessica Trounstine Princeton University Melody E. Valdini Portland State University Scholars continue to debate the degree to which electoral institutions matter for representation. The literature predicts that minoritiesbenefitfromdistrictswhilewomenbenefitfromat-largeelections.Themechanismsbywhichinstitutionsaffectthe ability of traditionally underrepresented groups to win seats have been understudied. Using an analysis of over 7,000 cities and interviews with city councilors, we find that compared to at-large systems, district systems can increase diversity only when underrepresented groups are highly concentrated and compose a substantial portion of the population. In addition, we find that the electoral system has a significant effect on representation only for African American male and white female councilors; the proportion of African American women and Latina councilors is not affected by the use of either district or at-large systems. Extensiveresearchhasbeendevotedtounderstand- ingthecontinuingunderrepresentationof women and people of color in legislatures. At the city level scholars have found mixed results for the effect of single- member district elections in increasing descriptive repre- sentation. Particularly in places where citywide elections were implemented to dilute the vote strength of racial groups, districts have been seen as a key factor in increas- ing racial and ethnic diversity. Alternatively for women, districtshavebeenfoundtobedetrimentaltotheelection of female councilors. Scholars have proposed numerous, contradictoryexplanationsforthesefindings.Forminori- ties the focus has been on residential segregation and size of the group, while women are said to benefit from the multicandidate setting of at-large elections. For women of color these explanations are in direct conflict. This ar- ticle contributes to this large literature by exploring the mechanisms by which institutions affect the representa- tionof differentgroups,concurrentlytestingthesegrega- tion and group size hypotheses and taking into account the joint relationship between race and gender. Many of our findings confirm conventional wisdom, but advance ourknowledgeinthisareabyofferingempiricalestimates Jessica Trounstine is assistant professor of politics and public affairs, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School, 303 Robertson Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 (jessica@trounstine.com). Melody E. Valdini is assistant professor of political science, Portland State University, Division of Political Science, Hatfield School of Government, P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR 97207 (mev@pdx.edu). TheauthorswouldliketothankZoltanHajnalforthegeneroususeofhisdata.TheywouldalsoliketothankChrisAchen,ChuckCameron, DavidLewis,DougMassey,NolanMcCarty,andMelodyRoseforextremelyhelpfulcommentsondraftsofthearticle,andGretchenKafoury for her very helpful advice on securing interviews with city council members. Benjamin Tagoe provided excellent research assistance. of the effect of different demographic contexts in varied institutional environments. As the Supreme Court anticipated in the landmark case Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), we demonstrate that compared to citywide elections, districts increase repre- sentation when a group is geographically concentrated andmoderatelysized.Further,wefinddistrictsonlyben- efit black men. That is, the positive effect of districts is conditional on the context. Districts can increase oppor- tunities for representation, but in some cases districts are nothelpful.Onlyrarelydodistrictshaveasubstantialim- pact. Taking advantage of variation among city institu- tional structures, council composition, and demograph- ics, we use quantitative and qualitative methods to study these relationships. We analyze data from surveys of city clerksandelectionresultsfrommorethan7,000citiesand connect this analysis to the experience of local legislators through interviews with city councilors. While the existing literature on underrepresentation is vast, our article makes several contributions to the un- derstanding of the relationship between electoral institu- tions and representation. First, we offer a methodologi- cal contribution. While no model is perfect, our analyses American Journal of Political Science,Vol. 52, No. 3, July 2008, Pp. 554–569 C2008, Midwest Political Science Association ISSN 0092-5853 554 283 THE CONTEXT MATTERS 555 improve on previous research by taking into account the large number of cities with no female or minority coun- cilors, allowing us to make more precise predictions. We usetobitmodelstopredict,first,thelikelihoodthatacity will elect any women or people of color and then, to esti- mate the proportion of female and minority councilors. Second, while existing research on electoral systems and underrepresentation has tested the effects of either seg- regation or group size, we are the first to include both variables in our analysis. Further, much of the work on the effect of districts studies councils at or before 1990 and/or is limited to a small sample of cities; we use re- cent data on a large number of cities to analyze patterns across time and place. Finally, most previous research as well as the Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) decision assumes that the effect of electoral systems on the election of peo- ple of color is constant across gender. For example, the justices refer to the effect of districts on the representa- tion of “minority groups”or “black citizens,”but there is no discussion of the possibility that electoral institu- tions work differently for men as opposed to women of color.Thefourthcontributionofourarticleistoquestion this assumption, and, although we have limited data, we present evidence that the effect of electoral institutions is significantly different for men versus women of color. Even after decades of progress there remain sub- stantial disparities in the representation of black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, and women city council members compared to their population proportions. 1 Theaveragecityinourdatasethasapopulationthatis8% AfricanAmerican,7.6%Latino,and52%femalewhilethe averagecitycouncilhasamembershipthatis4.8%African American, 2.3% Latino, and 20.5% female. Yet, there is wide variation among municipalities and across time. A clearquestionemerges:whydosomecitiesdobetterthan others at electing women and people of color? Single-Member Districts: An Institutional Solution? One of the most persistent findings by scholars of urban politics is that single-member district elections increase descriptiverepresentationof underrepresentedracialand ethnic groups on city councils. 2 This effect has been found to be particularly strong for African Americans 1We use the terms black/African American and Hispanic/Latino in- terchangeably. Due to data limitations we are not able to study the effect of electoral institutions for Asian Americans. 2Descriptive representation and substantive representation are not interchangeable. See Guinier (1992) and Tate (2003) for in-depth discussions. (see, for example, Arrington and Watts 1991; Bullock andMacManus1990;DavidsonandGrofman1994;Poli- nard,Wrinkle,andLongoria1991;Welch1990).3 Districts have also been found to be beneficial to Latinos (e.g., Davidson and Korbel 1981; Heilig and Mundt 1983; Leal, Martinez-Ebers, and Meier 2004; Taebel 1978). 4 These statistical findings have been supported by extensive case study and historical research as well (Bridges 1997; Rice 1977). In sum, the literature concludes that “the effect of ...districtsisunequivocally ...greaterequity”(Mundt and Heilig 1982, 1035). The literature on the representation of women finds precisely the opposite effect for single-member districts. While there are some exceptions, the vast majority of the research has concluded that districts are either meaning- less(AlozieandManganero1993;BullockandMacManus 1991) or disadvantageous for women candidates (see, for example,Darcy,Welch,andClark1987;Hogan2001;King 2002; Matland 1995; Matland and Brown 1992; Norris 1985;Rule1994;Schwindt-BayerandMishler2005,Welch and Studlar 1990). Because race and gender are not mutually exclu- sive categories, a handful of scholars have also sought to understand how electoral institutions affect women of colorgiventhattheyfaceapotentialdoubledisadvantage (Githens and Prestage 1977) and conflicting institutional effects.Existingresearchfindsthatblackwomenaremost likely to be elected in state multimember districts (anal- ogous to at-large elections in cities) while black men are disadvantagedbythisstructure(Darcy,Hadley,andKirk- sey1993;Rule1992).Similarly,HerrickandWelch(1992) andKarnigandWelch(1979)findthatblackmen,butnot blackwomen,areadvantagedbydistricts.Further,Karnig and Welch (1979) find no effect of districts for Mexican American men or women. This suggests that the effect of districts should be conditional on the characteristics of the group as well as the candidate in question. In addition to academic work, the process of vote dilution and the effect of institutional structures on rep- resentation have been the subject of intense legal analy- sis. The United States Supreme Court held in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) that in challenging at-large or multi- member districts minority plaintiffs must demonstrate (among other things) that the group in question is suffi- cientlylargeandcompactenoughtoconstituteamajority of a single-member district. While these criteria are con- sistentlyusedinlegalandscholarlywork,therehavebeen 3Others find that districts are not superior (e.g., Bullock and Mac- Manus 1993) or that the effect of districts has substantially weak- ened over time (Welch 1990). 4Others find that at-large systems offer better representation for Latinos (e.g., Mladenka 1989) 284 556 JESSICA TROUNSTINE AND MELODY E. VALDINI no studies that have determined whether or not districts servetoincreaserepresentationwhentheseconditionsare met at the local level. We begin to do so here. CitiesintheUnitedStatestendtoelecttheircitycoun- cils using two electoral system types: single-member dis- tricts or at-large elections. When councilors are elected by district, the city is divided into geographic areas of roughly equal population size that elect a single member to the city council in a plurality or majoritarian contest. An at-large system is one in which members of the city council are selected by the entire city electorate. In most cities this means that voters are offered a slate of candi- dates and are allowed the same number of votes as there areseatsavailable.Citiesoftenhavemajoritarianrequire- ments such that if a candidate does not receive 50% of the vote she is forced into a run-off election. Some cities designateseatsorresidencyrequirementsforat-largepo- sitionsturningtheelectionintoaseriesofsingle-member contests,whileothercitiesvoteforonlyoneat-largemem- ber in any given election. A small but growing number of cities use mixed systems, electing some council members by district and others at-large. Scholars have found that these mixed systems as well as modified at-large systems that employ different vote count procedures lead to de- scriptive representation at levels closer to single-member districts(Brockingtonetal.1998;KarnigandWelch1982; Welch 1990). The number of cities using pure at-large systems has declined over the past 20 years, but at-large elections remain a common feature in city politics. The majorityofcitiesinourstudyelecttheirmembersat-large. In order for district elections to increase the propor- tion of councilors relative to the population size of an underrepresented group, previous literature has posited that three factors might come into play: concentration, size,andpolarizationof thevote.First,thegroupmustbe geographicallyconcentratedtotakeadvantageofdistricts (Sass2000;VedlitzandJohnson1982).If groupmembers are spread throughout the city so that they do not com- pose a simple majority of any one district, presumably districts would not increase representation of the group compared to an at-large system. The size of the group (of voting age citizens) should alsoimpacttheefficacyofdistricts(Braceetal.1988;Bul- lock and MacManus 1990; Grofman and Handley 1989; Leal, Martinez-Ebers, and Meier 2004). At minimum, if the group represents less than one-half of the population needed to elect a single council seat, districts are unlikely toensuregreaterrepresentationthanat-largesystems.Al- ternatively, if a group composes a majority of the city population in a majoritarian, at-large system, the group maybeabletowinallof thecouncilseats.Districtsmight evendecreasethegroup’srepresentationonthecitycoun- cil.Wepredictthatgeographicallyconcentrated,midsized groups will benefit most from district elections. Finally, these expectations rely on an assumption of polarized voting. The group must vote in a substantial bloc for candidates who are members of the group, and other groups must be substantially unwilling to vote for members of the group (Brace et al 1988; Davidson and Korbel1981;EngstromandMcDonald1982).Ifeitherone of these does not hold, it is unclear whether the electoral systemwillhaveanydirecteffectongrouprepresentation. Polarized voting affects different racial and ethnic minorities to different degrees. For instance, the more heterogeneous the group is, the less likely they may be to vote as a bloc, which is particularly important for Latino communities (Pachon 1999). For this reason we expect the effect of districts to be less pronounced for Latinos relative to African Americans. However, we still expect districts to have some impact. Research has found that Latinos share a significant number of characteristics that encourage ethnically based voting, including discrimina- tion, immigrant experiences, Latin American heritage, and Spanish language (see Barreto 2004 for a literature review). Further, due to the lack of partisan identifica- tion in most city-level contests, candidate characteristics like race, ethnicity, or gender may take on additional im- portanceforvoterslookingforinformationalcues(Bobo 1988; Kaufmann 2004; Popkin 1991; Tate 2003; Valdini 2006). Nearly all of the research on racially polarized voting hasconcentratedonstate-andfederal-levelelections(see Hutchings and Valentino 2005 for a review). At the lo- cal level, Hajnal and Trounstine (2005) found that blacks and Latinos tended to vote most cohesively for the same candidate. Across 10 of the United States’largest cities, 74% of blacks and 72% of Latinos voted for the group’s majority preferred candidate. This was compared to 67% of whites voting for the group’s first choice. Additionally they find a significant racial/ethnic divide in votes for the winning candidate, with a 39 percentage point gap be- tweenwhitesandAfricanAmericans,anda20percentage point gap between whites and Latinos. These figures bol- ster our prediction that districts will be most helpful for African Americans. The logic of concentration and group size also works toexplainpotentialdifferentialeffectsofdistrictsforpeo- pleofcolorandwomen.Womenarerarely(ifever)highly concentrated in a community. The same can be said for group size and the representation of women. Because womenarenearlyalwaysbetween48%and52%ofacom- munity’s population, we cannot expect that they will be aided by districts. Furthermore, there is little evidence of gender-polarizedvoting.Anumberof studieshavefound 285 THE CONTEXT MATTERS 557 that voters evaluate female candidates drawing on gen- dered stereotypes (e.g., Dolan 2004; Huddy and Terkild- sen 1993; McDermott 1997; Valdini 2006) and that these stereotypescanaffectperceptionsaboutcandidates(Koch 2000)andvotechoice(Brown1994;Brown,Heighberger, and Shocket 1993; Sanbonmatsu 2002). However, stereotyping only equates to polarized vot- ingwhentherearegendereddifferencesinthejudgments of voters. Some research has determined that women are morelikelytopreferfemalecandidatesandmentoprefer malecandidates(Sanbonmatsu2002).But,otherscholars argue that there is little evidence of gender group con- sciousness (Conover 1988; Gurin 1985) and that women are equally if not more unlikely to vote for female can- didates as men (Darcy and Schramm 1977; Karnig and Walter1976).Intheaggregate,thegendergap(whileper- sistent)tendstobesmallwithregardtosupportforparties and candidates (see Norrander 2003 for a review). So although it is likely that women are treated differ- entlyfrommeninelections,itisunclearhowthesediffer- encesshouldinteractwithinstitutionalvariation.Accord- ingtothecriteriaspecifiedinThornburgv.Gingles (1986), womenareunlikelytobenefitfromdistricts.Scholarshave suggested, among other reasons, that women might do better in multimember elections (such as at-large sys- tems) because the competition is not zero-sum, mean- ing that voters need not choose women at the expense of men (Karnig and Welch 1979; Matland and Brown 1992; Matland and Studlar 1996). On the other hand, scholars have not proposed that the zero-sum calculation applies toracialandethnicminorities.5 Thisimpliesthattheelec- toral structure is predicted to affect racial and ethnic mi- norities in a different way and for different reasons than women. So how should our expectation change when we are talking about women of color; do the predictions for multimember elections only apply to white women? There is some evidence that racial bloc group vot- ing does not apply to women of color, particularly when menofcolorarealsorunning.McClain,Carter,andBrady (2005) find that black women have a harder time gain- ing the support of race-based organizations compared to blackmen,andPhilpotandWalton(2007)findthatblack women are the strongest supporters of black female can- didates.Giventhatourconcentrationandsizehypotheses dependonpolarizedvoting,wemightnotexpectdistricts to help black women. On the other hand, some scholars havefoundthatblackwomenandLatinasare better repre- 5Clearly more research should be done to determine the extent to whichzero-sumcalculationsapplytodifferentgroups.Itispossible that even in at-large settings such a calculation could be invoked, particularly when cities use designated post systems or staggered elections. sented than white women (Darcy and Hadley 1988; Gar- ciaBedolla,Tate,andWong2005;Montoya,Hardy-Fanta, and Garcia 2000). Garcia Bedolla, Tate, and Wong (2005) explain this finding as potentially resulting from block group voting. This would also be supported by Philpot and Walton’s (2007) finding that black men tend to be strongersupportersofblackfemalecandidatesthanwhite women or white men. Further, a number of studies have found that race trumps gender in determining voting be- havior and attitudes (Gay and Tate 1998; Lien 1998) and thatthegendergapisessentiallythesameacrossracialand ethnic groups (Welch and Sigelman 1992). In sum, while weexpectwhitewomentobenefitfromat-largeelections, andblackmentobenefitfromdistricts,therearenoclear hypothesesthatemergeforblackwomenandLatinaswith regard to the effect of institutional structure. Testing the Effects of the Electoral System on Representation To understand more about why single-member districts help certain underrepresented groups and not others, we begin by testing the relationship between electoral struc- ture and diversity in cities. Our data come from surveys by the International City/County Manager’s Association (ICMA) conducted in 1986, 1992, 1996, and 2001. The ICMA survey is mailed to city clerks in approximately 7,500 cities including all municipalities with more than 2,500 residents. The average survey response rate for the years we analyze is 63%. 6 Thesurveyprovidesdemo- graphic information about council members and insti- tutional variables for the cities. To control for city-level demographicsweuse1990censusdataforall1986obser- vations, 2000 census data for all 2001 observations, and linearly interpolate values for 1992 and 1996. In total we have 7,174 unique cities in the data set. 6Determining the effect of response rates to the ICMA is difficult because no other source contains institutional data for the same time period; but we can use data from the 1987 Census of Govern- ments (COG) as a comparison for our main independent variable. The proportions of councilors elected in each type of system are similar in the two data sets. In the 1986 ICMA data 72.3% of cities elected councilors at-large, 11.6% used districts, and 16.2% used a mixed system. The COG reports 74.2% of cities elected councilors at-large, 13.5% used districts, and 12.3% used a mixed system. It does appear that western and southern cities are underrepresented intheICMAcomparedtothecensus.Thecontrolvariablesincluded in our analyses should mitigate the effect of this underrepresenta- tion; nonetheless we add the caveat that our findings are most di- rectlyapplicabletothetypesofcitiesincludedintheICMAsample. Weighting by region does not change our conclusions. Summary statistics for all variables are available from the authors. 286 558 JESSICA TROUNSTINE AND MELODY E. VALDINI In addition to the statistical analysis, we present re- sponses from interviews of current city councilors from a sample of cities with mixed electoral systems. 7 These interviews served a number of purposes in our investi- gation. First, they helped us to identify the contextual factors that interact with institutions and affect the elec- tion of women and minority councilors. Secondly, they provide useful examples of our empirical findings. Fi- nally, they offer face validity of our findings from people working in city politics. As we had hoped, all of the in- terviewees in our sample were familiar with both types of electoral systems and made a decision to run in one type rather than the other. Of the 174 councilors serv- ing in 2006, 98 (or 56%) were female and/or persons of color. We randomly selected one-third of these members foraninterview.Elevencouncilorschosetoparticipatein a phone interview in which we asked respondents open- ended questions regarding the effect of electoral institu- tionsforelectingwhitewomen,womenofcolor,andmen of color. 8 In the quantitative analysis our dependent variables are the proportion of city councils that are black, Latino, and female. Unfortunately, the ICMA survey data do not specify the race of women councilors or the gender (or ethnic background) of those in the included racial cate- gories.Whileitwouldbeidealtoaugmentourdiscussion of womenof colorwithICMAdata,wecannot.However, using data from a different source for 1986 we are able to perform a separate analysis of the effect of districts for blackwomenversusblackmenandLatinasversusLatinos. In all of the analyses our primary independent variable is thepercentageofcouncilorselectedbydistrictineachcity. The majority of cities in our data set have a city council that is either elected wholly by districts or at-large, but somehavemixedsystemsinwhichaportionof thecoun- cil is elected by district and a portion elected at-large. To capture this variation we use a continuous version of the variable. We add to these regressions a number of other insti- tutionalvariablesthathavebeenlinkedtominoritycoun- cil representation either directly or indirectly through turnout and mobilization effects. These controls include nonpartisanversuspartisanelections,mayorcouncilver- 7Thecitiesarethe10largestmixedsystemcities:Houston,Philadel- phia, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Boston, Washington DC, Denver, Nashville, and New Orleans. 8Weinterviewedsixwhitewomen,twoAfricanAmericanmen,one African American woman, one Latino, and one Latina. Prior to each interview we requested permission to record and quote each councilor. We received consent from all but one council member who is not quoted by name in this manuscript. Transcripts are available from the authors upon request. suscouncilmanagersystems,9 thesizeofthecitycouncil,10 thepresenceof termlimits,andadummyvariablenoting whethercityelectionsareheldconcurrentlywithnational elections.11 Because some city institutions are subject to closer scrutiny as a result of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and our primary independent variable (elections by dis- trict)mayinfactbetheresultofchallengesbroughtunder the VRA, we include a dummy variable indicating juris- dictions required to secure preclearance as per Section 5. We include citywide socioeconomic variables to account forthepossibilitythatfemaleorminoritypresenceonthe council is linked to wealthier or more educated commu- nities.12 We control for potential region effects and the racial and ethnic makeup of the city population. Latinos have lower citizenship rates and younger populations than whitesandAfricanAmericans,perhapslimitingtheirabil- ity to affect election outcomes (Jones-Correa 1998). To control for this we include a measure of the total propor- tion of the city population that are noncitizens and the proportionthatis18andolder.Toaccountforliberallean- ingcommunitiesthatmightbemorelikelytoelectwomen and minorities, we include a measure of the countywide vote for the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988 andadummyvariableforcentralcities.Tocontrolforthe likelyrelationshipbetweentimeandourindependentand dependent variables, we include year fixed effects (with 2001 as the base category). Finally, in all models we in- clude the population proportions of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians in each city. 13 As was true with our dependentmeasureofracialandethnicrepresentation,we 9Using a more nuanced version of this variable allowing for mayor council systems with a city manager makes no difference to the results. 10Scholarshavearguedthatinsmallercouncilsthevalueofeachseat is greater and therefore less likely to be represented by minorities or women (see Welch and Karnig 1979). 11Ideally we would have also included controls for the city’s vote- countprocedure,butthesedataarenotcollectedbyICMA,andthe large size of the data set precluded us from collecting it. 12Unfortunately, group-specific versions of these demographic variables are not available from the 1990 census so we were unable to test the alternative argument that group resources determine representation (see, for example, Cole 1974; Karnig 1979). 13Ideallytheseproportionswouldbeinreferencetothepopulation of citizens over the age of 18. However, the census did not provide data for citizens over the age of 18 by race/ethnicity for our en- tire time period. We tested alternative formulations of population measures assuming in 2000 a constant citizenship rate across age groups and in 1990 a constant citizenship rate across racial and ethnic groups. The alternative specification made little difference to the results and is available from the authors. 287 THE CONTEXT MATTERS 559 cannot account for racial and ethnic group heterogeneity in these models. 14 Likemostresearchonthistopic,werestrictourresults to cities with substantial minority populations. Rather than select an arbitrary minimum for the size of groups, we allow the threshold to vary by city depending on the size of the city council. An observation is included if the group in question composes at least one-half of the per- centagethatasinglecouncilseatrepresents.15Ouranalysis assumesthatblackresidentswillbethestrongestsupport- ers of black candidates and Latino residents for Latino candidates.Thelargerthecitycounciltheeasieritshould be for any group to win representation. Using a varying threshold takes this into consideration. The mean number of council seats is six, so on av- erage a city is included if the underrepresented group is at least 8% of the city’s total population. We apply this selection criterion regardless of the electoral system em- ployed. When we test the hypothesis that the size of the groupmattersfortheeffectivenessoftheelectoralsystem, werelaxthisselectioncriterionandrestricttheanalysisto citiesthathavenonzeropopulationsofthegroupinques- tion. This allows us to directly test the assumption that a groupwillbenefitmostfromdistrictswhenitspopulation islargerthanone-halfofthepercentageofasinglecouncil seat but less than a majority of the total population. Duetotheextremelylargenumberof citiesthathave nofemaleorminoritycouncilors,weusearandom-effects tobit model to estimate the effects of districts on council representation [yi∗=xi +εi∗,whereyi =yi∗if yi∗>0 &yi =0ifyi∗≤0].16 The model, a maximum-likelihood estimation censored at zero, combines the logic of probit and multiple regression to estimate both the probabil- ity of a council having any female or minority members, andgiventhis,predictstheexpectedproportionoffemale councilors and councilors of color. DodistrictsincreasetheproportionofAfricanAmer- ican,Latino,andwomencouncilors?Theresultsdisplayed in Table 1 confirm that district elections continue to aid minority members in getting elected and are a nominal 14Scholars find that assuming ethnic or racial group homogeneity severelybiasesestimatesofrepresentation(DeSipio1996;Sass2000; Tam 1995), but we have no fix for this problem. 15We repeated the analyses using a 5% threshold of the group in question instead of allowing the threshold to vary based on coun- cil size (available upon request from the authors). The results are extremely similar and our conclusions hold in all cases. 16The likelihood function for each unit is computed using the Gauss-Hermite quadrature. The estimates were stable in multiple tests.AlternatespecificationsusingatobitmodelwithHuber/White clustered standard errors are nearly identical. We further tested weighted models to correct for heteroskedasticity and got similarly strong results. detrimenttowomen.Avarietyofsimulationshelptoclar- ify the relationships between district elections and repre- sentation. We predict the marginal effect of the electoral systemontheproportionofwomenandminoritycouncil members when moving from a system in which a major- ity of the council is elected at-large to a system in which a majority of the council is elected by district, holding all other variables constant at their mean values. First, we predict the effect of districts on the probability of a city having any members of the underrepresented group on the council. Then, we predict the effect of districts on the expected proportion of female and minority council members, weighted by the probability that this value is positive.17 For African Americans, having a majority of coun- cil members elected by district increases the probability of electing any African Americans to the city council by more than 10 percentage points, from 73% in at-large cities to 84% in district cities. 18 The expected propor- tion of African American councilors increases by about five percentage points under districts, from 13% to 18%. Because the average city in our data set has six council members, in order for a group to gain an additional seat districts need to provide about a 16-point advantage. In our model, districts clearly fall short of this threshold for African Americans. The key factor in increasing African American rep- resentation is the proportion of the city that is black. For Latinos, districts have a weaker effect on representation. For both at-large and district systems the probability of having any Latino councilors at all is low; 27% in at-large systems and 33% in district systems. When this is taken into consideration the relationship between district sys- temsandtheexpectedproportionoftheLatinocouncilors islimitedtoabout11 2 percentagepoints,goingfrom4.1% in at-large systems to about 5.5% in district systems. The Latino population in a city plays a key role in the election of Latino council members. Nearly equal in effect is the percentage of the city that has the rights of citizenship. Echoing the results of our regression analyses, nearly every interviewee in our sample agreed that district sys- tems were better than at-large systems for electing peo- ple of color. For example, Councilman Jamie Isabel, an African American member on the Nashville City Coun- cil, explained,“It’s happened again and again where African Americans can’t get enough votes to win at- large.”Susan Burgess, a white woman serving in an at-large seat in the Charlotte City Council, echoed his 17Effects on uncensored observations are also available from the authors. 18Predictions calculated using Stata/SE 9.2 mfx command. 288 560 JESSICA TROUNSTINE AND MELODY E. VALDINI sentiments, stating that districts are “absolutely”better than at-large seats for electing people of color. Coun- cilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez, a Latina serving on the Denver City Council, believes so strongly in the posi- tive consequences of district elections for increasing the representation of people of color that she worked for electoral reform for other local offices in her city. She explains:“I actually persuaded the legislature to adopt single-member districts for Denver for a majority of the school board seats so that we could try to achieve His- panic representation. And ever since that bill was passed, TABLE 1 Tobit Regression on the Percentage of Minority and Female Council Members % Black % Latino % Women Coefficient St Err Coefficient St Err Coefficient St Err % District 0.06∗∗0.01 0.05∗∗0.02 −0.02∗∗0.01 Demographics % Latino 0.18∗∗0.07 1.68∗∗0.08 −0.00 0.03 % Black 0.85∗∗0.03 0.17∗0.09 0.12∗∗0.02 % Asian −0.41∗∗0.21 0.53∗∗0.16 0.08 0.07 % Women 0.43∗∗0.16 −0.53∗0.32 −0.16 0.10 Total Pop (mil) 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.05 0.05∗0.03 %Poor 0.29∗∗0.10 −0.00 0.18 −0.07∗0.04 Med. Income (ths)−0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 −0.00 0.00 % Coll. Grad 0.23∗∗0.07 0.26∗∗0.13 0.21∗∗0.03 % Noncitizens −0.05 0.15 −1.26∗∗0.14 0.00 0.07 % Pop Over 18 0.02 0.11 −0.02 0.15 0.18∗∗0.05 Democratic Vote −0.14∗∗0.05 0.15∗0.09 −0.01 0.02 Institutions Term Limits −0.00 0.01 0.03 0.02 0.02∗∗0.01 Nonpartisan 0.00 0.01 −0.01 0.03 −0.00 0.01 Mayor Council −0.00 0.01 0.02 0.02 −0.00 0.00 Council Size 0.00 0.00 0.01∗∗0.00 0.00∗∗0.00 Concurrent −0.01 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.01∗0.01 VRA 0.00 0.01 0.04 0.03 Geography Central City 0.07∗∗0.01 0.08∗∗0.02 0.02∗∗0.01 West 0.08∗∗0.03 0.05∗0.03 0.10∗∗0.01 Northeast 0.02 0.02 −0.03 0.04 0.02∗∗0.01 Midwest −0.00 0.01 0.00 0.04 0.04∗∗0.01 1986 −0.07∗∗0.01 −0.03 0.03 −0.07∗∗0.01 1992 −0.02∗∗0.01 −0.01 0.02 −0.02∗∗0.01 1996 −0.01 0.01 −0.00 0.03 0.07∗∗0.01 Constant −0.37∗∗0.15 −0.46∗0.26 0.03 0.06 N 3042 2749 11537 Wald 2 1670.83∗∗1258.24∗∗1668.51∗∗ ∗p <.10,∗∗p <.05. Source: International City/County Manager’s Association (ICMA) surveys of 1986, 1992, 1996, and 2001. we have had a Hispanic member elected to the school board.” The Effect of Institutions for Women For women, the results in Table 1 suggest that the prob- ability of a council having at least one female councilor is high: about 83% in at-large systems and about 80% in district systems, with the expected proportion of female 289 THE CONTEXT MATTERS 561 councilors going from 20% in at-large cities to 18% in cities with district elections. None of the other variables perform particularly well predicting women’s represen- tation. The model suggests that increasing the propor- tion of women in a city negatively impacts the chance of having women on the council. Women are also aided by larger city councils. To test whether or not this finding reflects the benefit of increased district magnitude that other scholars identify, we interact this variable with a dummy variable indicating whether the majority of the councilorsareelectedat-largeorbydistrict.Ourfindings reflect the conventional wisdom (e.g., Alozie and Man- ganaro 1993); women do better with larger city councils, butinat-largecitiesthiseffectismuchmorepronounced. Once the interaction is included, the independent effect of at-large elections actually disappears. This offers indi- rect support for the argument that women benefit from a nonzero-sum setting. The opinions of our interviewees reflect these mud- dled findings of the effects of at-large versus district elections for women. Councilperson Carol Boigon felt strongly that at-large seats are better for electing women candidates. She explained that in her council,“the two at-large seats run at the same time—no differentiation occurs—onerace,twotopvotegettersgetseated.Sothere were seven men and me. So you win by a plurality, which reallystrengthensthehandofwomen.”Councilmembers JamieIsabel,GloriousJohnson,SusanBurgess,andAnna Verna,ontheotherhand,allfeltthatdistrictsarethebet- ter choice for increasing the number of women in office. However, when asked why they felt that district elections are better for electing women, every respondent gave a different answer. CouncilwomanJohnsonexplaineddistrictswerebet- terbecauseoftheabilityofwomentobeactiveandknown within their districts, stating that the women currently serving in district seats on her council “have ...clout when it comes to that district because they have been knownsincetheywerechildren.”CouncilwomanBurgess suggestedthatdistrictsarebetterforwomenbecausethey are less competitive. She explained,“Once you win a dis- trictelection,manytimesthedistrictrepresentativesdon’t even have competition in their subsequent elections. At- large is always competitive. Very tough races, to be truth- ful and we have only one woman and three men.”Three other council members all argued, however, that it was a toss-up and/or that the election of women depended on factors specific to each electoral contest, not the electoral system. Councilwoman Sanders of Indianapolis stated, “Idon’t know that there’s really much difference [be- tweenat-largeversusdistrictelections],atleastnotinmy experience.” Clearly, the variety of responses and opinions given on this subject is quite different from the nearly uniform responses given on the effects of district elections for the election of people of color. The wide range of responses regarding the effect of institutions on the representation ofwomenisnottoosurprisinggivenourstatisticalresults. Wefoundthatwomenarenegativelyaffectedbydistricts, but the results were small, with the predicted proportion of women increasing only about 2% in at-large cities. In sum, after controlling for a variety of factors, it appears that districts have a limited but distinctly positive effect on increasing representation for underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and a small negative effect for women that appears to be driven by the multimember nature of at-large elections. The Intersection of Race and Gender Giventhatracialandethnicminoritygroupsseemtoben- efit from districted systems while women seem to do bet- ter in at-large systems, how do black women and Latinas fareinthesecities?Ourmaindatasetdoesnotprovidethe racialandethnicbackgroundbygenderofcitycouncilors; however, the United States Census of Governments col- lected these statistics in one year that matches our data— 1986.Inthisyearabout16%ofwhiteandblackcouncilors and about 18% of Hispanic councilors were women. For the following analyses we use as dependent variables the proportion of the city council that is black women, black men,Latinas,Latinos,andwhite(non-Hispanic)women. We include all of the controls described above. As above we only include cities with substantial minority and fe- male populations. 19 The results in Table 2 suggest differential effects of districtsforblackwomenandLatinas.Wheredistrictelec- tions have no significant effect on increasing the propor- tion of councilors who are black women, black men get a significant boost from this institutional structure. In fact allofthepredictedincreaseinrepresentationfoundinTa- ble1isattributabletoblackmen.Thepredictedprobabil- ityofacouncilhavinganyblackwomenisabout13%,and the expected proportion of black women is about 1.6% regardless of the electoral system. The probability of a council having any black men is much higher, about 53% 19We chose not to select cities on the combined basis of race and gender (e.g., only including cities with a substantial population of blackwomen)becausepreviousscholarshiphasindicatedthatrace is a more important predictor of vote choice than gender. Thus we assume that the presence of black men and Latinos are important for the election of black women and Latinas. 290 562 JESSICA TROUNSTINE AND MELODY E. VALDINI TABLE 2 Tobit Regression on the Percentage of Council Members of Color by Gender % Black Women % Black Men % Latinas % Latinos % White Women Coefficient St Er Coefficient St Er Coefficient St Er Coefficient St Er Coefficient St Er % District −0.00 0.03 0.08∗∗0.02 0.04 0.09 −0.01 0.05 −0.02 0.01 Demographics % Latino 0.29 0.28 0.08 0.15 0.97∗∗0.27 1.63∗∗0.15 −0.15∗∗0.05 % Black 0.54∗∗0.10.58∗∗0.05 0.67∗∗0.33 0.27 0.19 −0.08∗∗0.04 % Asian 1.36∗∗0.63 −0.03 0.36 0.43 0.60.21 0.36 −0.09 0.13 % Women −0.19 0.57 0.49 0.31 −0.02 1.22 0.58 0.78 −0.36∗0.19 Total Pop (mil)−0.06 0.11 0.01 0.05 0.07 0.13 −0.04 0.08 0.06 0.05 %Poor 0.01 0.36 0.42∗∗0.19 0.67 0.60.25 0.36 −0.03 0.07 Med. Income (ths)−0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00∗0.00 % Coll. Grad 0.42∗0.23 0.01 0.13 0.06 0.54 0.13 0.32 0.19∗∗0.05 % Noncitizens −0.61 0.64 −0.07 0.34 −0.70.46 −1.21∗∗0.26 0.00 0.14 %PopOver18 −0.09 0.45 −0.07 0.24 0.25 0.79 0.17 0.47 0.32∗∗0.09 Democratic Vote −0.03 0.15 −0.20∗∗0.08 −0.35 0.35 0.15 0.18 0.03 0.03 Institutions Term Limits 0.12∗∗0.06 −0.04 0.04 −0.04 0.11 0.08 0.06 0.04∗∗0.02 Nonpartisan 0.01 0.04 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.12 −0.04 0.06 0.00 0.01 Mayor Council −0.03 0.03 −0.03∗∗0.02 −0.13 0.09 0.03 0.04 −0.02∗0.01 Council Size 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.03∗0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01∗∗0.00 Concurrent 0.03 0.05 0.00 0.03 0.06 0.08 0.04 0.05 0.01 0.01 VRA −0.03 0.04 −0.01 0.02 −0.03 0.10 0.04 0.06 Geography Central City 0.12∗∗0.04 0.08∗∗0.02 0.01 0.09 0.10∗0.05 0.04∗∗0.01 West −0.14 0.11 0.03 0.05 0.03 0.10 0.09 0.06 0.12∗∗0.01 Northeast 0.06 0.06 0.00 0.03 −0.12 0.19 −0.15 0.11 0.01 0.01 Midwest 0.00 0.05 −0.02 0.02 −0.15 0.20 −0.02 0.10 0.04∗∗0.01 Constant −0.35 0.55 −0.38 0.3 −1.44 1.03 −1.45∗∗0.63 −0.13 0.12 N 893 893 698 698 3563 Wald 2 62.12∗∗303.92∗∗30.31 321.97 ∗∗430.62∗∗ ∗p <.10,∗∗p <.05. Source: United States Census of Governments 1986. in at-large councils and nearly 70% for district councils. The expected proportion goes from 8% in at-large cities to 14% in districted cities. For Hispanics the story is different. The electoral structure has no significant effect on the proportion of the council that is Latino or Latina. However, Latinos are muchmorelikelytoberepresentedoncouncils.Theprob- ability of having any Latinos on the council is about 21% andtheexpectedproportionabout3.5%,whiletheproba- bilityofhavingLatinasonthecouncilisabout4%andthe expectedproportionlessthan1%.Finally,intheseresults itappearsthatthepositiveeffectof at-largeelectionsisall goingtowardwhitewomen,althoughthecoefficientdoes not quite reach statistical significance. The probability of a council having any white women increases from 64% underdistrictsto67%inat-largecities,withtheexpected proportion increasing from 12% to 13%. In sum, black men and white women are the only groups in our analysis that are substantively and signif- icantly affected by electoral institutions, and the biggest benefit of the system appears to be increasing the prob- ability of having any black men or white women, rather than the proportion. Concentration of Population Matters The reason that the electoral system may have a relatively small overall effect for racial and ethnic minorities may 291 THE CONTEXT MATTERS 563 lieinpopulationsizeandresidentialconcentrationof the groups.Wenowlooktoseewhetherdistrictshavealarger effect if these factors are taken into consideration. As op- posed to women, African American and Latino voters can be heavily concentrated. The theory that concentra- tiondrivestherelationshipbetweendistrictelectionsand representation of racial and ethnic minorities has a sub- stantial number of subscribers (Brace et al. 1988; David- son and Korbel 1981; Engstrom and McDonald 1982; Mladenka 1989; Vedlitz and Johnson 1982). Yet there have been few attempts to actually test this claim directly (Sass 2000 is an exception). We use 1990 and 2000 census data on concentration in 331 metropolitan areas to do so here.20 Demographersrelyonavarietyofdifferentmeasures of racial and ethnic concentration and segregation calcu- latedusingdemographicdatacollectedatthecensus-tract level (Massey and Denton 1988). One measure is the iso- lation index, which ranges from 0 to 1 and represents the probability that group members will meet members of their own group in their census tract. A score of .6 for AfricanAmericansmeansthattheaverageAfricanAmer- ican lives in a census tract that is 60% black. This mea- sure has the benefit of being sensitive to a group’s size in addition to the distribution of the group throughout a community. It would be impossible to have a high isola- tion score unless a group composes a substantial portion of the total community. Both factors are likely impor- tant for a group to transform membership into voting strength. Inordertoanalyzetheeffectofconcentration,wesplit our data into four samples based on the isolation index for each group and run the same tobit models presented aboveforeachquartile.21 Wehypothesizethatthebenefits of district elections should be most likely if a group can reasonably generate a voting majority in some neighbor- hoods. In other words we predict increasingly significant effectsastheisolationindexincreases.Thefollowinganal- yses are restricted to cities with nonzero populations of AfricanAmericansandLatinos.Wepresentonlythevari- ablesofinterest,butthemodelsincludeallofthecontrols listed in Table 1. The full models are available from the authors. 20Thecensusdidnotproduceconcentrationdataatthemunicipal- ityleveluntil2000,andthenonlyforlargecities.Toshowtheeffects of concentration across time for as many cases as we can, we rely on the MSA-level statistics, but because of the potential mismatch between MSA- and city-level concentration, we rerun the analysis using 2000 data at the city level for 596 cases. 21Weelectednottopresentaninteractionmodelbecausetheeffect is nonlinear. We had enough data to estimate the effect in a split sample allowing the coefficients to vary. The results in Table 3 are clear. Only when a group is concentrated will districts promote increased descrip- tive representation on the council. For African Ameri- cans, the effect of districts goes from being negative at very low levels of concentration to significantly positive at high levels. Districts have the largest effect for cities in the third quartile, where moving from an at-large sys- tem to a district system increases the estimated probabil- ity of electing an African American council member by about 10 percentage points, from 14% to 24%. This is a powerful effect compared to the first quartile, where dis- trictsdecreasedboththeprobabilityofhavinganyAfrican American councilors (from 7% to 3%) and the expected proportion from .9% to .3%. When the isolation index is very high for African Americans the effect of districts becomes insignificant. This could indicate the decreased importance of the electoral system when a group makes up a majority of the electorate. The size of the black pop- ulation is most dominant in the first and fourth models, suggesting that African American council representation in cities at the two ends of the isolation spectrum is best predicted by the size of the minority group itself. We repeated this analysis with the 1986 census data using the proportion of black men and the proportion of black women as dependent variables. As expected the re- sultsholdsystematicallyfortheelectionofblackmen,but not black women. For black men districts have a negative effect in the first quartile and an increasingly powerful effect in the second through fourth quartiles. For black women the electoral institution has no effect in the first through third quartiles, but districts are extremely pow- erful and positive in the fourth quartile. When blacks compose a majority of a city’s population, districts—not at-large elections—help black women. As shown in the bottom half of Table 3, for Latinos, the effect of the interaction between districts and con- centration is even more striking. The effect of districts is small and highly insignificant in the first and second quartiles.Theeffectinthethirdquartileissubstantialbut not quite statistically significant. Unless Latinos are ex- tremely concentrated, districts make little difference for representation. In the fourth quartile, the impact is large. DistrictsincreasetheprobabilityofelectingLatinostothe council to 98% from 75% under at-large systems. 22 The predicted proportion of Latinos on the council increases by more than 25 percentage points from 19% in at-large cities to 48% in district systems. 23 22WecouldnotrunthesemodelsonLatinosandLatinasseparately because of a lack of data. 23Using city-level isolation measures from 2000 for large cities, the resultsareextremelysimilarthoughnotexactlythesame.Forblacks 292 564 JESSICA TROUNSTINE AND MELODY E. VALDINI TABLE 3 TobitRegressiononProportionofAfricanAmericanCouncilMembers,Controllingfor Concentration 0 ≤isolation <.25 .25 ≤isolation <.50 .50 ≤isolation <.75 .75 ≤isolation ≤1 Coefficient StErr Coefficient StErr Coefficient StErr Coefficient St Err % District −0.13∗∗0.05 0.04∗∗0.02 0.08∗∗0.02 0.06 0.04 % Black 3.15∗∗0.48 1.29∗∗0.08 1.22∗∗0.06 1.31∗∗0.10 VRA 0.14∗∗0.06 −0.03∗∗0.02 0.06∗∗0.03 −0.90 73.3 Constant −0.92 0.60 −0.05 0.22 0.13 0.26 1.44 0.68 N 1373 2247 2735 908 Wald 2 94.15∗∗680.00∗∗902.92∗∗383.65∗∗ TobitRegressiononProportionofLatinoCouncilMembers,ControllingforConcentration 0 ≤isolation <.25 .25 ≤isolation <.50 .50 ≤isolation <.75 .75 ≤isolation ≤1 Coefficient StErr Coefficient StErr Coefficient StErr Coefficient St Err % District 0.03 0.11 −0.00 0.04 0.06 0.05 0.32∗∗0.16 % Latino 4.63∗∗0.94 1.53∗∗0.17 1.53∗∗0.15 2.14∗∗0.40 % Noncitizens −4.98∗∗1.67 −1.22∗∗0.35 −0.97∗∗0.23 −0.64 0.67 Constant −2.80 1.73 −0.35 0.48 −0.53 0.46 1.61 1.19 N 4542 1966 968 133 Wald 2 163.28∗∗241.99∗∗427.35∗∗198.88∗∗ ∗p <.10,∗∗p <.05. Source:U.S.CensusBureau1990&2000;InternationalCity/CountyManager’sAssociation(ICMA)surveysof 1986,1992,1996,and2001. Thereareatleasttworeasonsthattheeffectofdistricts occurs only at the highest levels of isolation for Latinos. First, Latinos have lower levels of turnout compared to their population proportions than African Americans or whites. This may indicate that Latinos need to be a larger share of the population before they can affect electoral outcomesasagroup.Secondly,theseresultsmayindicate a lower level of polarized voting and bloc group voting until Latinos are highly concentrated and a large portion ofthepopulation.Itisplausiblethatethnicgroupidentity would be associated with a higher degree of segregation and a larger minority group presence. In general though, thesedataprovidestrongsupportforourhypothesisthat thebenefitofsingle-memberdistrictelectionsforminor- ity groups operates through patterns of concentration. Furthermore, the negative results for African Americans in the first quartile of isolation suggest that underrepre- sented groups may fare better in at-large elections when they are highly dispersed throughout the community. the effect of districts is negative in the first quartile, small and insignificantinthesecondquartile,andincreasinglypositiveinthe third and fourth quartiles. For Latinos the effect is negative in the first quartile, nearly zero in the second and fourth quartiles, and very powerful in the third quartile. This is precisely the conclusion drawn by one of our interviewees, Councilman Felix Arroyo, the first Latino elected to the Boston City Council. Councilman Arroyo statedthathechosetorunforanat-largeseatratherthan the district seats also available because “it is very difficult to win if you are a person of color by district except for two districts which are actually communities of colors.” Further,heexplainedthatbecauseofthedemographicsof thecity,theat-largeseatwasbetterforelectingLatinosin Boston,“becausemostoftheLatinocommunityisspread across the city, as well as the immigrant community and the progressive groups.”For Arroyo, the lack of concen- tration of his primary constituency means that districts do not offer him the best opportunity for election. Councilor Carol Boigon, a white woman serving on the Denver City Council, also emphasized the power of district elections when groups are concentrated. She ex- plains: ...in a district seat...some of the ethnic con- centrations have an opportunity to be repre- sented ....That’stheadvantageIsee.Wehavetwo seats that could reliably elect a black council per- son, the 8 th and 11 th. And those of us who feel 293 THE CONTEXT MATTERS 565 that it’s important to have diverse voices at the table and who are not black, you would say “Why would you run from one of those seats then?”I wouldn’t. CouncilwomanBoigon’spointisclear:AfricanAmerican council members benefit electorally in areas of the city that have large concentrations of black voters. Size of the Group Interacts withDistricts We hypothesized that the effect of districts should inter- act with group size, being most effective when groups are moderately sized. Our use of the isolation variable in theprevioussectiontestedthisindirectly,butbecausethe indexcombinesconcentrationwithgroupsize,inthissec- tionwetestthishypothesisdirectlybysplittingoursample by the size of the underrepresented group. 24 We divided ourdataintothreesubsamplesforAfricanAmericansand Latinos.Thefirstsampleincludescitiesthathaveminority populations greater than zero, but less than the one-half of the percentage that a council seat represents. The sec- ond sample includes cities with minority groups equal to or larger than one-half of the percentage the council seat represents,butlessthanamajorityofthepopulation.The third sample includes cities where the group in question composes a majority of the population. The results confirm our expectations. Districts mat- ter most for groups that are a moderate proportion of the population. For very small and very large groups the electoral system has no significant effect on representa- tion in the models. Rather than present these as regres- sion results, we have included a graph of the benefit of districts compared to at-large systems for African Amer- icans and Latinos depending on the size of the black or Latino population. The results in Figure 1 suggest that districts have a muchstrongereffectforAfricanAmericansthanLatinos, as would be expected given the differences in concentra- tionandblocvotingbetweenthegroups.Forbothgroups the only statistically significant differences between elec- toral systems occur when the group is moderately sized. 24Asinglemodelincludingtheinteractionsbetweendistricts,group size, and dummy variables for subsamples also generated signifi- cantresults.Thereisnosignificantdifferencebetweenat-largeand district systems when a group is very small; increasing the group population increases the proportion of minority group members anddistrictsenhancethisresult.Wepresentthesplitsampleanalysis because the results are easier to interpret. In no case does the electoral system bring a group to representational parity, but in cities where there are very largepopulationsofAfricanAmericansandLatinos,there is virtually 100% probability of at least a single council memberbeingAfricanAmericanorLatino.Thissuggests that African Americans and Latinos are breaking into the politicalsystemwhentheycommandasubstantialvoting bloc. Inourinterviewsanumberofcouncilorsemphasized groupsizeincombinationwithconcentrationintheirdis- cussion of the superiority of district for electing people of color. Councilman Jamie Isabel, an African American memberontheNashvilleCityCouncil,explainedthatdis- trictsarebetterbecauseat-largesystems “dilutethevotes.” Similarly,CouncilorSusanBurgess,awhitewomanonthe Charlotte City Council, stated that ...the reason is because we have drawn our dis- tricts to make sure we have minority represen- tation. Three [out of seven] of our districts are majority-minority. And there’s always a minor- ity elected there. We have had difficulty electing minoritiesat-large,evenwhentheyareextremely qualified...We’ve had awesome African Ameri- cancandidateswhohavetriedtogofromdistricts to at-large and lost citywide. Councilperson Joanne Sanders, a white woman serving in the Indianapolis council (which is consolidated with the county), nearly repeated the sentiments of Council- woman Burgess, stating that because of the demographics of the county, I think that the district level was better for peo- ple of color ...we still have heavily black areas, in our communities, where it’s easily a seventy- thirty Democrat district. So for people of color that’smucheasierthantryingtoruncounty-wide where some of the outlying areas are predomi- nantlywhite.Although,theblackpeoplewhohave runontheat-largetickethavebeensuccessfulbut again you can tell by the numbers unfortunately theydon’talwaysgleanthemostamountofvotes. Councilor Sanders’s response hints at the presence of raciallypolarizedvotinginIndianapolis.Otherinterview- ees expressed similar sentiments. When asked why black candidates had been unsuccessful in winning at- large seats, Councilman Isabel ascribed the outcome to polarization: 294 566 JESSICA TROUNSTINE AND MELODY E. VALDINI FIGURE 1 EstimatedBenefitofDistrictsComparedtoAt-LargeElectionsbyGroup Population Size, 1986–2001 -0.02 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 Difference in ProbabilityTiny Population Moderate Population Majority Population -0.01 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 Difference in ProportionAfrican American Latino Probability of Having Any Black or Latino Councilors Predicted Proportion of Black and Latino Councilors Source:U.S. Census Bureau 1990 & 2000; International City/County Manager’s Association (ICMA) surveys of 1986, 1992, 1996, and 2001. IthinkwhiteshaveareluctancetovoteforAfrican Americans.We’reinthesouth,Ithinkupnorthor back where you are out west, there may be some differences.ButIthinkhereinthesouthwhitesre- allyhaven’tcometotherealitythatAfricanAmer- icans can represent them well. Similarly, Councilor Burgess suggested that “subtle racism”kept African Americans from winning citywide elections. A number of our interviewees also insinuated thatsomegroupsformedmorecohesivevotingblocsthan others.CouncilorRodriguezfromDenverhighlightedthe benefits of districts for Latino candidates because of the strategy of “single-shot[ting]”where voters pool votes in a multicandidate, at-large race for a single candidate. She told us that the African American community used thisapproachsuccessfullytoelectrepresentativeswhereas Latinos tended to divide their votes among a slate of can- didates and so “every time a Hispanic candidate would run, they would be defeated.”According to these coun- cil members, racially polarized voting continues to be a significant factor in city council elections, and different groupsareaffectedindifferentwaysbythesetypesofvote patterns. Conclusions One final possibility in explaining the benefit of districts for female and minority council membership is the at- traction of running in a district versus citywide election. Districts might aid racial and ethnic minorities because more traditionally underrepresented candidates choose to run in district races. If the organizing, fundraising, 295 THE CONTEXT MATTERS 567 and campaign costs are substantially different between districtsandcitywideraces,thismaywellbeafactor.Fur- thermore,itremainstobeexplainedwhysomecitieselect more women than others: it does not appear to make a substantial difference whether women run in district or at-largeelectoralsystems.Nonetheless,webelievethatwe have taken a step forward in explaining the effect of elec- toral systems on underrepresented groups. By taking advantage of the institutional variation across cities in the United States, we have gained a more nuanced understanding of the representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities. Single-member district systems can increase diversity only when underrepre- sentedgroupsarehighlyconcentratedandcomposemod- erate portions of the population. 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Welch, Susan, and Donley Studlar. 1990.“Multimember Dis- tricts and the Representation of Women: Evidence from BritainandtheUnitedStates.”JournalofPolitics 52(2):391– 412. 298 At-Large versus Ward Elections: Implications for Public Infrastructure Author(s): Douglas R. Dalenberg and Kevin T. Duffy-Deno Source: Public Choice , 1991, Vol. 70, No. 3 (1991), pp. 335-342 Published by: Springer Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30025474 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Public Choice This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 299 Public Choice 70: 335-342, 1991. @ 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. At-large versus ward elections: Implications for public infrastructure* DOUGLAS R. DALENBERG Department of Economics and Finance, John Carroll University, University Heights, OH 44118 KEVIN T. DUFFY-DENO Department of Economics, Weber State University, Ogden, UT 84408 Submitted 1 August 1989; accepted 26 March 1990 1. Introduction Since Gordon Tullock's (1959) seminal piece on logrolling, economists and po- litical scientists have attempted to find empirical support for the argument that vote trading leads to larger municipal expenditure levels. In order for logrolling to occur there must be clear potential gains from trade, negotiations must be feasible and less costly than the value of the trade, and enforcement must be possible (Buchanan and Tullock, 1962; Mueller, 1979). The city council en- vironment appears to satisfy these requirements. Apart from Zax (1985), how- ever, who examined municipal employment and compensation, no empirical evidence of the effect of logrolling on municipal expenditures levels has been uncovered. Different institutional structures may provide different incentives to trade votes. In particular, ward election systems may provide a greater incentive to logroll than at-large systems (Bradford, 1911; Goetz, 1977). Ward councilors rely on neighborhood loyalties for their re-election. Thus, they are interested in providing public services whose benefits are geographically concentrated but whose costs are spread city-wide. At large councilors, whose constituency is city-wide, are more concerned with city-wide benefits. This difference in loyal- ties suggests that ward councilors are more apt to engage in vote trading be- havior than are at-large councilors. One reason for the lack of empirical evidence of this behavior is that researchers have not examined the appropriate measure of municipal output. The local public good whose provision is most likely to be affected by logrol- * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Public Choice Society Meetings in March 1989. The authors wish to acknowledge the valuable comments of Stephen Mehay and David Weimer. Partial funding was received from the Southeastern Massachusetts Research Committee. This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 300 336 ling behavior is public infrastructure. The benefits of public capital projects (e.g., street and sidewalk repair, libraries, police and fire stations, sewer and water supply) are primarily concentrated in individual communities while the costs are borne by the entire city. Moreover, since capital projects are highly visible and durable, councilors can maintain a high profile in their community by working behind the scenes to procure such projects. Thus, as Goetz (1977) argues, evidence of logrolling under the ward election system may be found by examining a municipality's public investment decisions. Evidence of logrolling under the ward system can be detected by examining a cumulative measure of local decisions. Unfortunately both operating budgets and capital budgets fluctuate dramatically from year to year and are not strictly cumulative processes. However, public infrastructure which is the accumula- tion of year to year capital investments should capture the cumulative effect of such vote trading behavior. The stock of public infrastructure contains a record of political decisions and deals over the history of the city. The study provides such evidence by examining the effect of city council representation on municipal capital stocks. A cross-section of cities over time shows that cities with ward representation do have higher per capita stocks when other demand and supply factors are held constant. This increase in capi- tal stocks results from a capital bias rather than a proportional increase in both public capital and public labor. 2. Empirical model We are not aware of any previous study that has examined the effect of local institutions on public capital stocks.1 Thus, we hypothesize that per capita public capital (PCSTOCK) can be explained by time (TDUMs), the region of the country in which the city is located (RDUMs), various demographic and city characteristic variables, prices, and the form of city council representation. Demographic factors which may influence PCSTOCK include city density (DEN), whether or not city population is growing (POPCHG), per capita in- come (INCOME), median age (AGE), median education (EDUC), and percent of population that is white (WHITE). We also include the number of manufac- turing firms per person (MANUF) in the SMSA to account for the differing requirements and tastes of manufacturing sectors. SMSA population relative to city population (SPOP) is included in order to control for the importance of the city to the SMSA.2 The percentage of the city's housing stock built be- fore 1950 (HSG50) is used to proxy city age since older cities had a headstart in accumulating public capital. We also include intergovernmental aid per per- son (AID) and the number of municipalities per person (MUNI) within the SMSA (to capture local competition for residents and businesses). Price effects are captured through two variables. Cities often raise signifi- This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 301 337 cant portions of their budgets through property taxes. As the percentage of residents who own their homes rises, more residents may perceive the actual tax burden, and demand lower tax rates and lower expenditures. We include the percentage of owner occupied housing (OWN) to account for this price ef- fect on capital outlays. We also include the ratio of the price of public capital to the price of public labor (INPUT P) to account for the cost of public capital to municipal governments.3 Finally, WARD is a dummy variable indicating whether or not city coun- cilors are elected by wards (= 1) or at-large (= 0). By estimating the model in log form the coefficients become elasticity estimates and heteroscedasticity problems are reduced (Theil, 1971). The resulting capital equation is: In PCSTOCK = a + aiE TDUMs + bjE RDUMs + ckE In Xk + di WARD + e, (1) where X is a vector of explanatory variables described above and e is the error term. If there is a greater degree of logrolling on capital projects in ward cities, then the cumulative effect of this process should cause di to be significantly positive. 3. Data Equation (1) is estimated using data for 30 cities for the years 1960 through 1981. A list of cities, regional definitions, and relevant descriptive data appears in Table 1. The sample of cities was selected randomly subject to two constraints. The sample was chosen such that there would be the same number of ward cities as at-large cities.4 The sample was also constrained to cities that remained large over time so that a public investment data series could be constructed back to 1910.5 This was necessary in order to apply the perpetual inventory technique to the public investment series to generate capital stock estimates for the years 1960 through 1981.6 Data for the public investment series are found in the City Finances series published by the U.S. Census Bureau. Public investment was constrained to functions common to all cities such as sewer construction, road construction, hospital construction, water supply work, etc. All nominal values are convert- ed into real values using 1972 as the base year.7 4. Empirical results The per capita public capital stock estimation results appear in column I of Ta- ble 2.8 The adjusted R-squared statistic of 0.74 indicates that the model fits This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 302 338 Table 1. Cities, regions, council form, and public capital 1981 council Public capital City State form per resident New England Region (7 cities) Boston MA AL $4556 Bridgeport CT W' 2425 Hartford CT AL 4375 New Haven CT W 4519 Providence RI W 4415 Springfield MA AL 3608 Worcester MA AL 3528 Middle Atlantic Region (3 cities) Erie PA AL 2388 Pittsburgh PA AL 4452 Utica NY W 4217 Southern Region (4 cities) Baltimore MD W' 5880 Birmingham AL AL 2832 Louisville KY AL 4730 Oklahoma City OK W' 2909 Midwest 1 Region (8 cities) Chicago IL W 3506 Cleveland OH W 5709 Columbus OH AL 2352 Dayton OH AL 3594 Flint MI W 3752 Grand Rapids MI W' 2991 Toledo OH AL 2413 Youngstown OH W 3324 Midwest 2 Region (4 cities) Milwaukee WI W 3887 Minneapolis MN W 3499 St. Louis MO W' 4484 Wichita KS AL 4169 Western Region (4 cities) Los Angeles CA W 4113 Portland OR AL 2952 San Diego CA AL 1649 Spokane WA AL 1893 W = ward elections; AL = at-large elections; W' = one member elected at-large, treated as a ward election. Public capital per resident is 1981 real stock per resident measured in 1972 dollars. the data well. Moreover, most of the explanatory variables are statistically sig- nificant and have the expected signs. For example, cities that are relatively This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 303 339 Table 2. Regression results In PCSTOCK In STOCK/EMPLOYMENT Variable Coefficient Std. error Coefficient Std. error CONSTANT 6.427*** 0.547 12.924*** 1.408 NE - 0.004 0.005 - 0.088*** 0.016 MIDATL 0.005 0.005 - 0.137*** 0.021 SOUTH 0.028*** 0.005 -0.007 0.016 MIDWEST 2 0.012*** 0.004 -0.020 0.014 WEST - 0.015*** 0.005 0.038** 0.016 20 TIME DUMMIES 20 TIME DUMMIES In DEN - 0.048*** 0.017 - 0.185*** 0.059 POPCHG - 0.015*** 0.003 - 0.003 0.011 In SPOP 0.013 0.015 -0.074 0.049 In INCOME 0.032 0.310 -0.029 0.099 In AGE 0.060 0.071 - 0.209 0.202 In EDUC -0.017 0.112 - 0.914*** 0.267 In WHITE - 0.123** 0.052 0.115 0.144 In MANUF 0.008 0.013 -0.112*** 0.031 In HSG50 0.492*** 0.035 -0.103 0.094 In AID 0.031*** 0.005 - 0.126*** 0.014 In MUNI 0.032*** 0.010 0.215*** 0.025 In OWN - 0.343*** 0.048 -0.491*** 0.102 In INPUT P -0.007 0.011 - 0.643*** 0.035 WARD 0.010*** 0.003 0.019** 0.008 Observations 630 630 F 46.49*** 33.35*** R-squared 0.75 0.69 Adjusted R-squared 0.74 0.67 Autocorrelation corrections were made for each city using the OLS residuals. Midwest 1 and 1961 are the omitted dummy variables. * indicates significant at the 10% significance level. ** indicates significant at the 5% significance level. *** indicates significant at the 1% significance level. older, receive greater intergovernmental aid, and face a higher degree of com- petition from neighboring cities are characterized by larger per capita public capital stocks. As hypothesized, cities which elect their council members through ward elec- tions rather than through at-large elections have significantly higher public capital stocks at the 1 percent significance level. Ward elections are associated with a 1.0 percent increase in per capita public infrastructure over time and across cities, ceteris paribus. The 1.0 percent increase in per capita stocks can be applied to those cities which elect their representatives at large to estimate the potential gain in capital This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 304 340 Table 3. Municipal capital stock additions for at-large cities if they had used a ward system Additions to 1981 municipal capital measured in: City 1972 dollars 1987 dollars Birmingham $ 8,070,000 $20,346,000 Boston 24,832,000 62,606,000 Columbus 13,547,000 34,154,000 Dayton 7,404,000 18,667,000 Erie 2,818,000 7,105,000 Hartford 6,038,000 15,223,000 Louisville 13,717,000 34,583,000 Pittsburgh 18,609,000 46,917,000 Portland 10,626,000 26,790,000 San Diego 14,874,000 37,500,000 Spokane 3,218,000 8,113,000 Springfield 5,340,000 13,463,000 Toledo 8,541,000 21,543,000 Wichita 11,798,000 29,745,000 Worchester 5,681,000 14,323,000 Average 10,341,000 26,072,000 stocks that could have resulted if the city had originally instituted a ward sys- tem and had experienced the associated capital bias. These results are presented in Table 3 which shows increases in 1981 capital stocks ranging from $2.8 mil- lion in Erie to $24.8 million in Boston measured in 1972 dollars. In the case of Boston this inflates to $62.6 million dollars in 1987 dollars which is enough money to pay for a significant capital project.9 While the results of the estimation of equation (1) indicate that cities with ward election systems do have more public capital when other factors are held constant, the results do not distinguish between two possible cases. Cities with ward election systems could be spending proportionately more on both public capital and public labor, or they could be spending proportionately more on public capital, generating a capital bias. The visibility of many public capital projects may make them more attractive for logrolling than increases in public employment. In order to investigate this hypothesis we re-estimated equation (1) replacing PCSTOCK with the ratio of public capital stock to public employ- ment. The empirical results are shown in column 2 of Table 2. The positive and statistically significant coefficient on WARD indicates that such a capital bias does exist. Cities with ward election systems are associated with a 1.9 percent higher public capital - public labor ratio. This capital bias parallels the Averch-Johnson effect found in the regulation literature (Averch and Johnson, 1962) and is the direct result of the differing incentives under ward and at-large systems. This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 305 341 5. Summary of findings and implications While city council members elected at large wish to form city-wide special in- terests groups to help keep them in office, councilors elected through ward elec- tions rely on neighborhood loyalties for their re-election. These differences lead to different incentives for councilors. In particular, ward councilors are biased toward large capital projects which are visible and have concentrated neighborhood benefits. A cumulative measure of public decisions, public capi- tal stock, captures this bias. In our sample of 30 large, U.S. cities during the 1960 to 1981 period, we find that cities which elect their councilors by wards are characterized by a 1 percent larger stock of public infrastructure. In terms of cities' 1981 capital stock, this translates into, on average, $26 million dollars (measured in 1987 dollars). Government officials, politicians, and economists are recognizing the vital role public capital plays in a local economy. Providing an adequate level of public capital is crucial to the economic development and health of cities. The findings of this study suggest that the structure of city government may play an important role in cities' attempts to deal with their deteriorating public in- frastructure. Notes 1. McEachern (1978) examined the effect of referendum voting rules on community debt patterns. Holcombe and Zardkoohi (1980) analyzed the impact of differences in state legislatures on capi- tal outlays. 2. While the cities of Cleveland and Columbus Ohio have similar population sizes, Cleveland serves as the center of a much larger SMSA and therefore needs more public capital. 3. The price of public capital is proxied by the rate of return on Moody's general obligation bonds for the relevant city divided by the expected inflation rate. The expected inflation rate is as- sumed to equal the previous year's inflation rate. 4. Five of the cities (Bridgeport, Baltimore, Oklahoma City, Grand Rapids and St. Louis) elect one council member at large and the remainder by wards. These cities are counted in the sample as ward cities, giving 15 at-large and 15 ward cities. 5. 48 percent of U.S. cities with a population greater than 100,000 residents used an at-large system, 16 percent used a ward system, and 36 percent used a combination system in 1980 (Sanders, 1983). 6. See Faucett (1977) and Usher (1980) for a discussion of the perpetual inventory technique. 7. A complete data appendix describing variable definitions and data sources can be obtained from the authors upon request. 8. Since we employ a pooled cross-sectional and time-series sample, heteroskedasticity and au- tocorrelation may be a problem. We avoid the problem of heteroskedasticity by analyzing per capita values and using a logarithmic form. In order to correct for autocorrelation, we estimated the equation for the full sample and used the residuals to estimate separate autocorrelation parameters for each city, via a Cochrane-Orcutt estimation procedure (Kmenta, 1986). We then used these parameters to quasi-difference the data, which required the 1960 observations be dropped. The transformed sample for 1961 through 1981 was then reestimated. 9. For example, this is more than the amount of money needed for the proposed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to be built in Cleveland. This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 306 342 References Averch, H. and Johnson, L. (1962). Behavior of the firm under regulatory constraint. American Economic Review 52 (December): 1052-1069. Bradford, E. (1911). Commission government in American cities. New York: Macmillan Press. Buchanan, J. and Tullock, G. (1962). The calculus of consent. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Faucett, J.(1977). Capital stock estimates for input-output industries: Methods and data. BLS Bulletin 2034 Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor. Goetz, C. (1977). Some influences of the form of political representation on majority rule fiscal choices. In P.B. Downing (Ed.), Local service pricing policies and their effect on urban spatial structure, 217-229. Victoria: University of British Columbia Press. Holcombe, R. and Zardkoohi, A. (1980). Public investment in a democracy. Southern Economic Journal 47 (July): 210-217. Kmenta, J. (1986). Elements of econometrics. New York: McMillan. McEachern, W. (1978). Collective decision rules and local debt choice: A test of the median-voter hypothesis. National Tax Journal 31 (June): 129-135. Mueller, D. (1979). Public choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reid, G. (1987). Logrolling and the median voter: Pork barrel at the local level? Unpublished manuscript. Sanders, H. (1983). The government of American cities: Continuity and change in structure. In International City Management Association, Municipal yearbook 1983, 179-184. Washington, DC: ICMA. Theil, H. (1971). Principles of econometrics. New York: Wiley. Tullock, G. (1959). Problems of majority voting. Journal of Political Economy 67 (December): 571-579. Usher, D. (1980). Introduction. In D. Usher (Ed.), The measurement of capital, 1-21. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Zax, J. (1985). Economic effects of municipal government institutions. National Bureau of Eco- nomic Research working paper No. 1657. This content downloaded from 153.90.18.165 on Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:12:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 307 1 INFORMATIONAL BRIEF Hybrid City Council Election Systems Francisco Jasso,PhD,Pat Brown Institute –California State University,Los Angeles Timothy Krebs,PhD,University of New Mexico Core Question This brief explores different types of election systems (district,at-large,mixed),the prevalence of hybrid/mixed city councils and their accompanying pros and cons,effects of multimember districts,and ends with an exploration of nested regional seats. Summary of Topline Findings The limited amount of research on hybrid city councils suggests a hybrid council made up of mostly district seats will provide as much representation as we may expect from a purely district-based system and may have the added benefit of providing greater gender diversity via its inclusion of at-large seats.Most current hybrid city councils are majority district-based arrangements and as such the force of arguments against purely at-large systems may be mitigated.With precedent in the California state constitution,the nesting of state Senate, Assembly,and Board of Equalization seats may provide a guide for the Los Angeles city council in designing a nested city council system. Background &Information Across the US,and particularly in California,many cities have transitioned away from at-large elections toward district-based elections on the basis of greater representation and influence for racial/ethnic groups and neighborhoods.California cities’transition from at-large to district-based elections began in the 1920s and dramatically accelerated after the implementation of the 2002 CA Voting Rights Act.To this day,many cities continue to transition and adopt district-based systems.While many cities retain at-large electoral systems,several of the largest cities and many smaller cities,are structured through a hybrid of at-large and district-based seats. Cities began to abandon at-large systems in favor of district-based or hybrid systems mainly since the 1965 Voting Rights Act (MacManus 1999).At the present,several American cities elect their city council through a mixture of at-large and district-based seats,see Table 1. 308 2 Table 1.US City Councils using Hybrid of District and At-Large Elections. Population (Approximate)City District Seats At-Large Seats 2.3 million Houston,TX 11 5 2 million Metro Council of Nashville & Davidson County 35 5 1.57 million Philadelphia,PA 10 7 955k Jacksonville,FL 14 5 907k Columbus,OH Currently 7 at-large seats,but will transition to 9 at-large general election seats to be first voted on by-district in a primary election* 880k Charlotte,NC 7 4 734k Seattle,WA 7 2 713k Washington,D.C.8 5 711k Denver,CO 11 2 655k Boston,MA 9 4 641k Portland,OR Currently 4 at-large seats,but in 2024 will expand to 3 ranked-choice seats per each of 4 districts 633k Detroit,MI 7 2 508k Kansas City,MO 6 6 496k Atlanta,GA 13 3 470k Raleigh,NC 5 2 434k Oakland,CA 7 1 300k Greensboro,NC 5 3 377k New Orleans,LA 5 2 285k Durham,NC 3 3 210k Rochester,NY 4 5 112k Peoria,IL 5 5 53k Wheaton,IL 4 2 Note:Table created by Francisco Jasso,PhD.Cities that describe their structure as hybrid in reference to having their mayor elected at-large are excluded. *This election system is also referred to as a “from district”system. Where are Hybrid Election Systems Situated in the Literature? There is very little literature on the prevalence or dynamics of hybrid city councils despite many cities across the nation using this hybrid structure.Research on this seems to be limited to early research from the 1970s-1990s on the emergence of hybrid city council systems post-1965 Voting Rights Act and greater representational outcomes relative to at-large election systems (see MacManus 1990).Research focusing on southern cities in the 1970s found cities adopting hybrid systems produced increases in representation and minority influence (MacManus 1999).In general,hybrid systems were found to yield greater Black &Latino representation than at-large systems (MacManus 1978),certainly if the Black population was smaller than 20%of the city population (Welch 1990). 309 3 Apart from a handful of school district studies (Leal,Martinez-Ebers,&Meier 2004;Meier & Rutherford 2014),most research thereafter focuses on the representational benefits from transitioning away from at-large election systems toward district-based systems.In general,the literature finds district-based elections to increase racial/ethnic representation,particularly if the group in question constitutes a large enough share of the city population (Collingwood &Long 2021;Marschall,Ruhil,&Shah 2010;Trounstine &Valdini 2008).Although,modified at-large elections have also been found to yield representational gains akin to district-based elections (Brockington,Donovan,Bowler,&Brischetto 1998). Analysis of new jurisdictions transitioning to district-based elections post-2002 California Voting Rights Act finds increases in Latino representation (Abott &Magazinnik 2020;Hertz 2023; Levitt &Johnson 2016).Nonetheless,while district-based elections increase racial/ethnic representation,at-large systems increase gender representation (Trounstine &Valdini 2008;See Huang,Murray,&Hofer (2018)for a review on the racial and gender trade-offs between at-large and district-based elections). The dominant critique in the literature against purely at-large systems is racial/ethnic vote dilution and underrepresentation (see Davidson &Korbel,1981),while the dominant critique against purely district-based elections is the fear and incentive of logrolling and parochialism – privileging their district to the detriment of the city’s general interests (Banfield &Wilson 1963). Burnett &Kogan (2014)challenge this critique leveraging roll call votes from the LA City Council and argue that council members rather practice a norm of conditional deference where they defer to council members on legislation affecting their districts but are very willing to oppose bills from individual members that negatively affect the whole city.This may be the only relevant study that focuses on the LA City Council. There may be other representational costs to the addition of at-large councilors.Again,with the caveat that most research compares pure district systems to pure at-large ones,at-large city councilors spend less time helping constituents,and are focused more on citywide issues and business concerns compared to district councilors (Welch and Bledsoe 1988;see also Polinard, Wrinkle,Longoria,and Binder 1994).Communities of color also may feel less efficacious and voter engagement may suffer as a consequence of at-large seats (Hajnal and Trounstine 2005; Lindgren 2007;Welch and Bledsoe 1988,110).At-large seats may also produce councilors of considerably higher socioeconomic status (Welch and Bledsoe 1988),and cause overall levels of campaign spending to increase (Lindgren 2007). Potential Questions That May Arise A proposal for a hybrid city council for LA can raise a few questions,namely: 1.Would a hybrid system stand Constitutional scrutiny? 2.How would a hybrid system affect current representation? 3.How would a hybrid city council change behavior between city council members? There is very little research on hybrid city councils to offer confident answers to these questions. However,a 2016 National League of Cities document on at-large,district-based,and hybrid 310 4 election systems suggests hybrid systems would be more likely to stand Constitutional scrutiny provided that most seats were district-based.The document does not provide justification for this expectation but given that the literature’s critiques of at-large systems refer to purely at-large systems,their application to majority district-based hybrid systems should be mitigated.A recent report on San Francisco’s governance structure additionally explored mixed systems concluding that “While this system has been less studied,the available evidence is that mixed systems provide governing boards with a more balanced policy perspective that accounts for both neighborhood and citywide needs.Mixed systems are not immune from suit under the CVRA, but are likely to be less vulnerable than purely at-large systems.”1 As Table 1 shows,most current hybrid councils are majority district-based arrangements and as such the force of arguments against purely at-large systems may be weaker. A bit of research on hybrid city councils suggests a hybrid council made up of mostly district seats will provide as much representation as we may expect from a purely district-based system and may have the added benefit of providing greater gender diversity via its inclusion of at-large seats.As such,LA communities worried that an expanding City Council would mean loss of their current representation may be more willing to support an expanded council with at-large seats they could additionally compete for.This of course calls for an LA-specific consideration given the uniqueness of LA and its small council relative to its population. At-large councilors will provide a citywide focus to policy problems,which may prove beneficial to local policymaking (Welch and Bledsoe 1988;Polinard,Wrinkle,Longoria,and Binder 1994).At-large seats would align the constituencies of the mayor and the at-large members of the city council,which may result in greater policy action and success.On the other hand,however,with their constituencies aligned,at-large members may confront powerful incentives to challenge an incumbent mayor for reelection thus reducing the incentive to cooperate on policy.Interviews with key informants in Philadelphia and Seattle suggest little for this proposition,however (see Krebs_mixed_ystem_interview summaries).Within the council, at-large seats reduce district-based turf battles,and engender less policymaking conflict (Welch and Bledsoe 1988).For less geographically concentrated communities of color,namely Latinos, at-large seats may produce opportunities to gain seats (Trounstine and Valdini 2008). On the 3rd question raised,it seems that the only article we can draw from is Burnett &Kogan (2014).We cannot say how council member behavior would change from the addition of at-large seats,but we can expect that a proposal for a hybrid LA City Council with majority district-based seats would not negatively affect the norm of conditional deference and general concern for the city’s interests that Burnett &Kogan find. Effects of Multi-Member State Legislative Districts At-large city councilors can be thought of as representing a multi-member district (MMDs),the boundaries of which are the city as whole.But at-large elections,whether they are part of a mixed electoral structure or a stand-alone system of representation,are not present just at the city level.In fact,the use of MMDs was quite common at the state level until the 1960s when court 1 See Heidorn,N.,Miller,K.P.,Nadon,B.,&by TogetherSF,C.(2023).Re-Assessing San Francisco’s Government Design. 311 5 decisions about their legality under the federal Voting Rights Act motivated state legislatures to adopt single-member districts (SMDs).Today,only nine states use multi-member districts to select the representatives of at least one of their legislative chambers,and only four –Arizona, New Jersey,South Dakota,and Washington—use this format to elect members of both chambers.2 The literature on state politics sheds light on a number of things relevant to the current proposal for a mixed system in LA.For example,scholars have examined whether the incumbent electoral advantage was greater in MMDs relative to SMDs.Cox and Morgenstern (1995)examined 16 years’worth of election data in 40 states and found that while the incumbent advantage grew under both systems,the rate of growth in MMDs was slower than that of SMDs,suggesting a greater incumbency advantage in SMDs.Hirano and Snyder (2009),however,showed that incumbent advantages were substantial in multi-member districts relative to SMDs and that the source of the advantage was officeholder benefits (e.g.,committee assignments,leadership positions)and incumbent quality.They also found that the effect of district office holder benefits is greater in more professionalized legislatures,which characterizes the LA city council. Research on the electoral effects of MMDs on the election of women and minorities to state legislatures suggests that women candidates are advantaged (Darcy,Welch,and Clark 1985; King 2002),while minority candidates,especially African American,candidates are not (Bullock and Gaddie 1993;Gerber,Morton,and Rietz 1998).The latter view may be changing,however. In a recent study of state legislative elections in Maryland,Herrnson,Rouse,and Taylor (2020) demonstrate that African American candidates may not be hindered by MMDs in patterns of candidate emergence,or primary and general election vote share.They attribute this break with conventional wisdom to several factors,including a reduction in racial gerrymandering and racial intimidation in more recent election cycles;deracialized campaign strategies on the part of African American candidates;“single shot”voting whereby African American voters select only African American candidates in multi-member contests;and greater willingness on the part of non-black voters to support black candidates.Not surprisingly,partisan polarization also plays a role in reducing the negative effect of candidates’race;since most African American candidates are Democrats,they benefit from increases in polarization among party voters. In addition to effects associated with descriptive representation,research on MMDs has focused on substantive representation.Larimer (2005)found that higher concentrations of MMDs in upper state legislative chambers negatively affected the generosity of welfare programs,while the concentration of MMDs in lower chambers had no effect on generosity,controlling for minority and female descriptive representation in state legislatures.More generally,evidence suggests that representation in MMDs is more ideologically diverse than in SMDs (Adams 1996; Bertelli and Richardson 2008;Hale 2019). Another topic is collaboration,or the willingness of representatives from MMDs to cooperate on shared policy and district objectives.According to research by Snyder and Ueda (2007)counties receive more in state intergovernmental transfers when represented by people elected in MMDs compared to SMDs.This is so because members cooperate to deliver district improvements,thus 2 See https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_chambers_that_use_multi-member_districts#cite_note-26,accessed October 22,2023. 312 6 solving the collective action problems expected in these representation schemes.Research by Kirkland (2012)also shows that legislators representing MMDs collaborate effectively. Scholars also have examined the effects MMDs on civic engagement.According to Herrnson, Taylor,and Curry (2015),MMDs may experience higher levels of voter roll-off or the tendency of voters to submit incomplete ballots.Candidates’campaign donor bases are also more diverse in MMDs than SMD elections (Curry,Herrnson,and Taylor 2013). Nested Regional Seats -An L.A.Solution to an L.A.Problem? One difference between district and at-large seats is the geographic constituency that casts votes. At-large seats encompass the entire city jurisdiction while districts encompass a very limited geographic area.We can imagine however the possibility of seats that compromise between the geographic scope of district and at-large seats:regional seats.Regional seats would be larger than individual districts,yet smaller than the city-wide jurisdiction.It is important to note that regional seats are best understood in the presence of districts.In the absence of districts,the concept of regional seats is indistinguishable from districts as they serve the same purpose in relation to at-large seats. There does not appear to be any research on regional seats as the bulk of the literature regards at-large systems,district systems,and the transition from the former to the latter.An additional, large area of research that is not explored in this brief regards alternative voting formulas such as ranked choice or proportional ranked choice formulas.Table 1 above shows two alternatives to the plurality-winner,single member districts system where at-large elections occur but initiate from districts (Columbus,OH)or have multi member ranked choice district elections (Portland, OR).San Francisco,Berkeley,Oakland,and San Leandro use a single-member ranked choice voting system and Albany,CA uses a multi-member ranked choice version.3 Fifty-one US jurisdictions including 2 states and 3 counties use ranked choice voting.4 A proposal for Los Angeles to have a mixed system of districts and regional (instead of at-large) seats would be a unique configuration not found in other cities of comparable size and likely not practiced in any smaller city either.This would amount to an LA solution to an LA problem: regional seats superimposed over districts.In the case of LA,regional seats may aim to fulfill the purpose of at-large seats in terms of policy focus but would ensure diversity of geographic representation by preventing geographic areas of the city from having a near monopoly on these seats. The California State Constitution,however,does provide precedent for the use of nesting.5 Proposition 11,voter-approved in 2008,added language to the California Constitution in Article 21 ranking state redistricting criteria in order of priority.After the redistricting requirements of 5 Other than Article 21 of the California State Constitution,Special Masters appointed by the state Supreme Court in the 1970s and 1990s also nested their districts (see Kogan &McGhee,2012). 4 See FairVote,“Where is Ranked Choice Voting Used?” https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting-information/,accessed November 22,2023. 3 See Heidorn,N.,Miller,K.P.,Nadon,B.,&by TogetherSF,C.(2023).Re-Assessing San Francisco’s Government Design. 313 7 equal population,compliance with the VRA,district compactness,etc.,it includes the nesting of state Assembly,Senate,and Board of Equalization districts: “To the extent practicable,and where this does not conflict with the criteria above,each Senate district shall be comprised of two whole,complete,and adjacent Assembly districts,and each Board of Equalization district shall be comprised of 10 whole, complete,and adjacent Senate districts.”6 For the state 2010 redistricting cycle,perfect nesting was not required nor achieved given compliance with higher ranked criteria.Tension can exist between the different ranked criteria and therefore the pursuit of one higher ranked criterion will limit the extent to which a lower ranked criterion is met,hence “to the extent practicable.”7 In the case of Los Angeles,there may be a lower chance of tension given the smaller geography of Los Angeles relative to the entire state. Nonetheless,tension among the criteria was less pronounced than otherwise expected in the state 2010 cycle.8 The maps drawn in the 2010 redistricting cycle achieved 3 nested Senate districts in the high 60s percent range,15 in the 70 percent range,10 in the 80 percent range,9 in the 90 percent range,and 3 100%nested seats.9 The maps drawn in the 2020 cycle achieved 1 district nested at 52.3%,3 in the high-60s percent range,16 in the 70s range,7 in the 80s range,12 in the 90s range,and 1 100%nested district.10 If modeled on the practice of California state redistricting,the California Constitution establishes the legal framework for drawing districts in a nested manner. 10 See California Citizens Redistricting Commission.(2021).Report on Final Maps,page 49. 9 See State of California Citizens Redistricting Commission Final Report on 2011 Redistricting (2011): https://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/64/2011/08/crc_20110815_2final_report.pdf,page 25. 8 See Kogan &McGhee (2012),pages 14-16. 7 See Barabas &Jerit (2004)and Cain &MacDonald (2007). 6 https://law.justia.com/constitution/california/article-xxi/section-2/ 314 8 References Abott,C.,&Magazinnik,A.(2020).At‐Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government. 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Hirano,S.,&Snyder,Jr,J.M.(2009).Using multimember district elections to estimate the sources of the incumbency advantage.American Journal of Political Science,53(2), 292-306. Huang,C.,Murray,R.,&Hofer,S.(2018).The Trade-Offs between At-Large and Single-Member Districts. 316 10 King,James D.(2002).“Single-Member Districts and the Representation of Women in American State Legislatures:The Effects of Electoral System Change.”State Politics and Policy Quarterly 2(2):161–75. Kirkland,Justin H.2012.“Multimember Districts’Effect on Collaboration between U.S.State Legislators.”Legislative Studies Quarterly 37(3),329-353 Kogan,V.,&McGhee,E.(2012).Redistricting California:An evaluation of the citizens commission final plans.California Journal of Politics and Policy,4(1). Larimer,Christopher W.2005.“The Impact of Multimember State Legislative Districts on Welfare Policy.”State Politics &Policy Quarterly 5(3):265-282. 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Meier,K.J.,&Rutherford,A.(2014).Partisanship,structure,and representation:The puzzle of African American education politics. American Political Science Review, 108(2), 265-280. National League of Cities.(2016,December 2014).Cities 101 –At-Large and District Elections. https://www.cityofws.org/DocumentCenter/View/13991/Cities-101---District-v-At-Large- Elections---National-League-of-Cities-pdf Polinard,J.L.,Robert D.Wrinkle,Tomas Longoria,and Norman E.Binder 1994.Electoral Structure and Urban Policy:The Impact on Mexican-American Communities.New York: Routledge. 317 11 Snyder,Jr.James M.and Michiko Ueda.2007.“Do Multimember Districts Lead to Free-Riding?”Legislative Studies Quarterly 32(4):649-679. State of California Citizens Redistricting Commission Final Report on 2011 Redistricting (2011). https://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/64/2011/08/crc_20110815_2final _report.pdf Trounstine,J.,&Valdini,M.E.(2008).The context matters:The effects of single‐member versus at‐large districts on city council diversity. American Journal of Political Science, 52(3),554-569. Welch,S.(1990).The impact of at-large elections on the representation of Blacks and Hispanics. The Journal of Politics, 52(4),1050-1076. Welch,Susan,and Timothy Bledsoe.1988.Urban Reform and Its Consequences:A Study in Representation.Chicago:University of Chicago Press. 318 Government Characteristics Anaconda- Deer Lodge Butte-Silver Bow Belgrade Billings Bozeman Columbia Falls Great Falls Havre Helena Kalispell Lewistown Livingston Missoula Polson West Yellowstone Whitefish Santa Fe Seattle Eugene At-Large/Wards (AL/W)5 Districts 12 Districts 3 Wards 5 Wards At-Large At-Large At-Large 4 Wards At-Large 4 Wards 3 Wards + 1 AL At-Large 6 Wards 3 Wards At-Large At-Large 4 Wards 9 Wards 2 AL 4 Council Terms 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years 4 Years Number of Council Members + Mayor/PO as part of Legislative Branch 5 12 6+M 10+M 4+M 6+M 4+M 8 4+M 9+M 7/PO*5/PO*12 6+M 5/M*6+M 8+M 9 8 Mayor/Presiding Officer (CEO/Mayor/PO)CEO CEO Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor PO PO Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor Mayor/Deputy Mayor Split Term (Y/N)No No No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No Mayor/P.O. Term of Office 4 yr 4 yr 2 yr 4 yr 2+2 4 yr 2 yr 4 yr 4 yr 4 yr 4 yr 4 yr 4 yr 4 yr 1 yr 4 yr 4 yr 4 yr 4 yr Com-Mgr/Com-Ex Structure Com-Ex Com-Ex Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Ex Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Ex Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Mgr Com-Ex w CAO Com-Ex Com-Mgr SG Charter/General Gov Charter Charter Charter Charter Charter Gen Gov Charter Charter Charter Gen Gov Charter Gen Gov Charter Charter Charter Charter Charter Charter Charter EO Vacancy**120 days 60 days 60 Days 30 days 30 days 30 days 30 days**30 days**30 days**30 days 30 days 30 days 30 days 30 days 30 days 30 days 30 days 20 90 Neighborhood Councils No Kind of No No Yes No Yes No Yes No No No Yes No No No Voter Turnout 2025 34%47%34%54%52%NA 42% Voter Turnout 2023 26%29%26%NA 23%NA 45% *Mayor is elected by the council from its membership **Charter states "as may be provided by law", does not specify a timeline (and MCA defaults) or the commission has passed an ordiance outlining a specific timeline for filling an EO position. 319 Voter Turnout in At-Large vs. Ward-Based Elections To meet the Study Commission’s request for a rapid assessment of how at-large versus ward-based election systems affect voter turnout, I used artificial intelligence to synthesize peer-reviewed academic articles previously referenced in discussions of election structure, along with additional relevant research. The following summarizes the results of that synthesis. Overall, the research finds that ward-based election systems do not consistently increase total voter turnout. However, they do reduce turnout inequality and increase meaningful participation among communities that typically vote at lower rates. Theoretical Expectations Political participation theory indicates that district magnitude and perceived voter influence play an important role in shaping voter turnout. Ward systems reduce constituency size, which tends to make it: • Easier for voters to believe their vote matters, • Easier for candidates to engage in face-to-face and neighborhood-level campaigning, • Easier for voters to identify “their” representative. Classic rational-choice and voter mobilization theories predict higher participation where information costs are lower and mobilization is more targeted (Downs, 1957; Rosenstone & Hansen, 1993). These dynamics align more naturally with ward-based elections than with citywide at-large elections. Although these expectations originate in theory, they have been repeatedly examined and supported in empirical research on local government elections. Evidence from U.S. Municipal Elections The strongest evidence from the United States comes from comparative studies that exploit variation in electoral institutions across cities. Ferraz and Finan (2011) find that elections with smaller constituencies and clearer lines of accountability produce higher participation and political engagement. Subsequent research extends these findings to U.S. municipal contexts, where the effects are strongest in low-information elections such as city council contests. Trounstine (2018) and related studies show that at-large systems are associated with lower participation among geographically concentrated groups, in part because turnout incentives are diluted within large, citywide electorates. While this work focuses primarily on representation, turnout inequality consistently appears as an underlying mechanism. 320 Historical analyses further show that many at-large systems—particularly in the U.S. South—were adopted during periods explicitly aimed at restricting participation by certain groups, contributing to long-term disparities in political engagement. Conclusions for the United States Taken together, peer-reviewed research generally finds equal or lower turnout under at-large systems, with ward-based systems producing higher participation among voters whose turnout is otherwise fragile. The strongest consensus in the literature is that ward-based municipal elections tend to produce modestly higher voter turnout among lower-income and minority voters, though this effect is conditional rather than universal. The turnout advantages of ward systems are most evident when: • Elections are low-salience and receive limited public attention and engagement compared with high-salience elections such as presidential or gubernatorial races and are often stand-alone; • Campaigns are less expensive and more localized; • Voters perceive clearer geographic accountability and responsiveness. At the same time, the research consistently emphasizes that election structure alone does not determine turnout. Election timing, competitiveness, and broader social and political context often matter as much as and often or more than the choice between at-large and ward-based systems. 321 Vol.:(0123456789) Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09720-y 1 3 ORIGINAL PAPER Correlates of Voter Turnout Richard W. Frank1  · Ferran Martínez i Coma2 Accepted: 11 May 2021 / Published online: 20 May 2021 © The Author(s) 2021 Abstract Despite decades of research, there is no consensus as to the core correlates of national-level voter turnout. We argue that this is, in part, due to the lack of com- prehensive, systematic empirical analysis. This paper conducts such an analysis. We identify 44 articles on turnout from 1986 to 2017. These articles include over 127 potential predictors of voter turnout, and we collect data on seventy of these vari- ables. Using extreme bounds analysis, we run over 15 million regressions to deter- mine which of these 70 variables are robustly associated with voter turnout in 579 elections in 80 democracies from 1945 to 2014. Overall, 22 variables are robustly associated with voter turnout, including compulsory voting, concurrent elections, competitive elections, inflation, previous turnout, and economic globalization. Keywords Elections · Turnout · Extreme bounds analysis · Meta-analysis Introduction A common challenge in the study of comparative politics is balancing theoretical and empirical comprehensiveness with substantive importance. Consider voter turn- out. If we ask what the most statistically significant and substantively important pre- dictors of national-level voter turnout in democratic elections are, even after more than 50 years of comparative voter turnout research, there are few certainties beyond the fact that compulsory voting increases turnout. For example, several studies including Radcliff and Davis (2000) find larger district magnitudes increase turnout while others like Tavits (2008) find either no significant relationship or even a nega- tive one (Fumagalli & Narciso, 2012). * Richard W. Frank richard.frank@anu.edu.au 1 School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia 2 People, Elections and Parties Research Group, Centre for Governance and Public Policy, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia 322 608 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 One possible reason for these sorts of contradictory findings is that a topic has not received enough research attention for a consensus to emerge. This is not the case for voter turnout; it is one of the most studied topics in the discipline. Indeed, Cancela and Geys (2016, p. 264) suggest “turnout scholarship witnessed a verita- ble explosion” in the last 15 years. A second possibility is that we lack a thorough understanding of the underlying explanatory factors. Again, this does not seem to be the case here given the profusion of turnout meta-analyses. A recent meta-analy- sis of 130 journal articles identifies over a hundred explanatory factors (Stockemer, 2017). Geys’s (2006) earlier meta-analysis of 83 studies focuses on fourteen corre- lates but identifies several dozen more; and more recently Cancela and Geys (2016) examine 102 studies and identify several dozen correlates. Therefore, although there are myriad possible factors driving voter turnout, it has been difficult to reach solid empirical conclusions. A third possibility is that the world’s contextual heterogene- ity explains why some variables behave differently in certain contexts, driving con- tradictory findings. Although empirical conflicts can definitely arise from contextual differences, they do not tell the whole story. For if a goal of comparative politics is reaching solid and generalizable conclusions across contexts, it is important to sys- tematically approach competing explanations for comparable outcomes while recog- nizing important contextual differences. The comparable outcome we explore here is national-level voter turnout. In the national-level voter turnout literature, it is uncommon to claim that one empirical model trumps others (Temple, 2000). However, there are developed tech- niques to systematically evaluate the proposed factors for a political outcome includ- ing meta-analyses and extreme bounds analyses. Given the sizable, established literature on voter turnout, this paper’s contribution is synthesizing the recent litera- ture and evaluating its proposed correlates of national-level voter turnout using an extreme bounds analysis. Extreme bounds analysis (EBA) has been used in a wide variety of contexts to evaluate factors driving a number of political and economic outcomes (Leamer, 1983; Levine & Renelt, 1992; Sala-i-Martin, 1997). For example, it has been used to evaluate over 50 predictors of economic growth (Levine & Renelt, 1992), 20 pos- sible factors contributing to human rights violations (Hafner-Burton, 2005), 59 pre- dictors of democracy (Gassebner, Lamla, & Vreeland, 2013), 59 electoral integrity predictors (Frank & Martínez i Coma, 2017), 43 covariates of life expectancy and infant mortality (Carmignani et al., 2014), 53 determinants of health care expendi- tures (Hartwig & Sturm, 2014), and 23 factors behind the diffusion of coups (Miller, Joseph, & Ohl, 2018). While many proposed proxies in these areas are statistically significant when considered in isolation, when tested with other predictors such findings are often fragile (Leamer, 1983). Extreme bounds analysis allows us to sys- tematically evaluate what factors are robust to different model specifications. Hence, a primary EBA goal is to show that the “assumed model specification is largely inconsequential for statistical inference” (Gassebner, Gutmann, & Voigt, 2016, p. 295). Another goal is to reconcile the literature’s several (sometimes contradictory) findings. To collect possible predictors of national-level electoral turnout, we analyze 44 articles on voter turnout published between 1986 and 2017 in leading political 323 609 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 science journals. We identified 127 unique independent variables that may affect turnout, and we were able to collect data and run models using seventy of these vari- ables in 579 elections in 80 democracies from 1945 to 2014. We then run over two million regressions with different combinations of these seventy predictors. Each variable was included in up to 41,660 models with various combinations of other variables. If a variable is a significant predictor across models, then we can conclude that its statistical significance is unlikely to be an artefact of model specification. To determine robust turnout predictors, we used the two most common EBA decision criteria proposed by Leamer (1983) and Sala-i-Martin (1997), and we find 7 and 22 variables respectively are robust according to these 2 sets of criteria across 2 model specifications.1 The first series of models includes country fixed effects to control for unobserved country-level factors; the second series of models includes random effects which allows for the inclusion of sluggish or stationary country-level factors the literature suggests affects turnout. We also run a number of further sensitivity analyses excluding a lagged dependent variable, using a dependent variable with a different denominator (voting age population rather than registered voters), and run- ning models on eight election subsamples. This research is theoretically significant because we still lack a systematic and parsimonious explanation of voter turnout that can address the current inconclusive and sometimes contradictory nature of the literature’s empirical results. The aim of this paper is, therefore, threefold: (1) to shed light on the dozens of factors that can affect turnout; (2) assess the empirical robustness of the different explanatory fac- tors; and (3) provide insight on which controls may be worth including in future work on voter turnout.2 We proceed as follows. The next section briefly summa- rizes the current voter turnout literature. The third section examines meta-analysis’s strengths and weaknesses and describes how extreme bounds analysis compliments it. The research design section discusses our election sample, the dependent and independent variables, and several estimation considerations. Our main results are then presented and are followed by a series of further analyses. We then conclude with a discussion of our main findings and areas for future research. What Do We Know About Voter Turnout? The first national-level turnout studies explain variations in voter turnout by focus- ing on a selected sample of lower house elections in OECD countries. For example, Jackman (1987) analyzes 19 democracies, Jackman and Miller (1995) analyze 23, and Blais and Carty (1990) and Powell (1986) include 20. Normally, these studies 1 Using extreme bounds analysis, we examine the most robust factors correlated with turnout. Like pre-vious studies using this methodology, we do not estimate a structural model, theorize the relationship between different variables, establish specific causal mechanisms, or improve turnout measurements.2 Existing meta-analyses present contradictory results. In fact, Stockemer (2017, p. 15) states “the fact that the influence of many factors … on turnout is inconclusive demands more contextual analysis.” While we agree with the need for context bound analysis, our research shows that even at the most gen-eral level there are common voter turnout correlates in democratic countries. 324 610 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 focus on a series of factors such as “socio-economic environment, the constitutional setting, and the party system,” (Blais & Dobrzynska, 1998, p. 241). Recent years have seen a proliferation of potential theoretical factors shaping turnout as well as an expansion of coverage. For instance, voter turnout is depressed with the size of a political community (Remmer, 2010), economic globalization (Steiner, 2010), corruption (Stockemer, LaMontagne, & Scruggs, 2013), and ethnic diversity (Martínez i Coma & Nai, 2017). Terrorism, in turn, increases the elector- ates’ attention on national politics and, consequently, turnout increases (Robbins, Hunter, & Murray, 2013). Similarly, while previous studies focused mostly on eco- nomically developed democracies, Blais and Dobrzynska (1998) were the first to have a truly global collection of democratic elections. More recent analyses focus on other regions including Latin America (Fornos, Timothy Power, & Garand, 2004), post-Cold War Eastern Europe (Kostadinova, 2003), Africa (Kuenzi & Lambright, 2007), and Muslim-majority countries (Stockemer & Khazaei, 2014). These works share a number of similarities including the use of three general types of independent variables: socioeconomic, institutional, and political (Geys, 2006; Blais & Dobrzyinska, 1998). Socioeconomic variables include factors like economic growth and urbanization. Institutional variables capture the institutional arrangements under which the election take place (e.g., electoral formula). Finally, political variables account for specific electoral outcomes (e.g., the margin of victory).3 The literature’s limitations appear when comparing their results. For example, one of the most cited studies by Blais and Dobrzyinska (1998) find that turnout is significantly affected by economic development, literacy rates, population size and density, compulsory voting laws, minimum voting ages, the electoral system, the number of political parties seeking seats, and the election’s competitiveness. End- ersby and Krieckhaus (2008) reach similar empirical conclusions but suggest that context is important. Along the same lines, Martínez i Coma (2016) confirms some of Blais and Dobrzyinska’s (1998) findings but not others—notably those relating to electoral systems and economic development. Furthermore, and more important for the purpose of this paper, a consensus does not yet exist on the robustness of these variables and, consequently, on what vari- ables should be considered for a core model of cross-national aggregate voter turn- out. For example, of the eight socio-economic factors used in the three articles men- tioned above, only one variable is considered in all three—population.4 Put simply, comparative studies provide mixed evidence for the robustness of particular factors affecting voter turnout. In summary, after over 50 years of research the literature still has not coalesced around a core model of turnout; different sets of variables are used in different analysis.5 The literature, “draw[s] on relatively small samples, differing 3 Such categorizations are neither exhaustive nor exclusive; rather they can be seen as a useful theoreti- cal heuristic.4 The other variables are population density, gross domestic (or national) product per capita, gross domestic product, literacy rate, life expectancy, and ethnic diversity.5 Even when studies include the same variables, there is no consensus on how to measure some con-cepts. See below for a broader measurement discussion. 325 611 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 sets of observations, divergent operationalizations of turnout, and a wide array of theoretical models, the literature has mainly converged around relatively common- sensical observations” (Remmer, 2010, p. 277). Why a Meta‑analysis is Not Enough One popular means of evaluating a literature’s lessons is a meta-analysis, which basically assesses whether (or not) an independent variable affects a dependent vari- able.6 A meta-analysis, or an “analysis of analyses” (Glass, 1976, p. 3), normally employs two procedures: “vote-counting” and “combined tests.” The former counts the number of times a given coefficient is significant and in the expected direction. In such cases, it is counted as a ‘success’; otherwise, it is considered an anomaly. The higher the success rate, the more likely it is that we are to be observing a real association between the variables. A combined test is “based on the summation of the actual test statistics provided in each study” (Geys, 2006, p. 640).7 Such meta-analyses have been done in the voter turnout literature. For example, Geys (2006, p. 641) identifies twelve significant socio-economic, political, and insti- tutional factors affecting turnout, while highlighting that none are “omnipresent in the literature.”8 This is “partly due to the lack of a firm theoretical model at the basis of variable selection,” and he argues for the “construction of a ‘core’ model of turnout” (Geys, 2006, pp. 641, 653). Along similar lines, Stockemer’s (2017, p. 712) meta-analysis of 135 studies from 2004 to 2013 identifies over 100 potentially salient variables, thoroughly analyzes 10 of them, and concludes “no variable is omnipresent or appears in most studies. Rather, different variables are used in vari- ous contexts.” The divergence pointed out by Stockemer (2017) explains the differ- ent results from his and Geys’ (2006) meta-analysis. They assess the “success” or robustness of 18 variables, 5 of those common in both works. Even for those five common variables,9 when comparing the studies’ success rates, there are three com- mon results: compulsory voting and population size impact turnout while income inequality does not. They diverge on the impact of election closeness and PR system because Geys (2006) finds they affect turnout, while Stockemer (2017) does not. Unsurprisingly then, Stockemer (2017, p. 712) acknowledges that the “literature is far from establishing a core turnout model.” 6 In discussing meta-analyses, we are not referring to quantitative analysis of a variable’s average treat- ment effect because this literature’s focus is on a broad spectrum of possible causes rather than any one particular cause. 7 A limitation of such an approach is it requires consistent reporting across the studies, but there are solutions. For example, see Geys (2006) and Smets and van Ham (2013). 8 Cancela and Geys (2016) expand on Geys’ (2006) by adding 102 new studies and differentiating between national and subnational elections. 9 The variables that only Geys (2006) considers are: population concentration, population stability, population homogeneity (ethnic diversity), previous turnout, campaign expenditures, political fragmen-tation, proportional representation electoral system, concurrent elections, and registration requirements. The variables that only Stockhemer (2017) considers are district magnitude, effective number of parties, important elections, education, and literacy rate. 326 612 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 Meta-analysis’s main limitation is not procedural but conceptual. In the end, even the most exhaustive meta-analyses like those above are circumscribed by their sam- ples. This implies that we are unsure about the robustness of such results, given that most researchers’ robustness checks are ad hoc. “They identify a set of competing explanations and see if their empirical results hold once they control for some vari- ables that might be consistent with those explanations” (Hegre & Sambanis, 2006, p. 509). In other words, given all possible variable combinations, we cannot be sure that the selected model and the results presented are the ‘right’ ones. Usually, sensitivity (or robustness) checks estimate a series of regressions with alternative specifications. However, the number of possible alternative specifications is, of course, substantially higher. For example, without assuming any initial knowledge of variable selection, 5 variables lead to 32 possible model specifications, 6 variables have 64 combinations, 7 variables have 5040, 8 have 40,320, etcetera. The number of permutations increases exponentially as the number of variables increases; therefore, any particular study is likely showing a tiny proportion of the possible combinations. Hence, even the most demanding and detailed meta-analysis will only cover a tiny percentage of the multiple possible combinations that may affect voter turnout. The standard regression framework on which meta-analyses rely has two other limi- tations. First, a particular variable’s statistical significance may be sensitive to the inclu- sion/exclusion of other variables. As Leamer (1983, p. 38) concludes, “an inference is not believable if it is fragile, if it can be reversed by minor changes in assumptions.” Second, even when theories point to particular mechanisms, they are not “refined enough to inform the choice of the empirical measure to be used to proxy for such fac- tors/mechanisms” (Carmignani et al., 2014, p. 516). For example, should we use GDP per capita (as four studies considered in this paper do) as a proxy, the log of GDP per capita (two studies), or the log of GDP at purchaser’s price parity (two studies)? Should we use one measure or two? How would results change, for example, if instead of using Laakso and Taagepera’s (1979) effective number of parties, one decides to use the dis- aggregated number of parties or the number of parties weighted by their vote share? Why Extreme Bounds Analysis? By contrast, one of extreme bounds analysis’ key characteristics is that it estimates all possible combinations of a set of predictors showing how slight changes in the included variables affect estimation results. Therefore, rather than focusing on a specific set of variables, by considering all possible variable combinations, EBA can suggest which predictors are systematically robust. What EBA cannot do as well as meta-analysis is theoretically and empirically highlight the relationship between a particular out- come and explanatory variable, including possible mediation and moderation by other factors. An extreme bounds analysis estimates a set of regressions with the following func- tional form: =+++, 327 613 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 where Y is the dependent variable (in our case, voter turnout), I is a vector of core variables included in all models, M is the variable of interest, Z is a set of controls, and u is the error term (Levine & Renelt, 1992). I is the set of variables always included—the “base” or “core” variables—because the literature suggests a well- established relationship with the dependent variable. What is the I vector of vari- ables for electoral turnout? Unfortunately, as we show below, less than those that one, a priori, may think. EBA repeatedly estimates the equation with a different set of Z controls in each regression. Since every regression produces a coefficient for all included variables, all the regressions create a distribution of such coefficients. In order to decide whether the coefficients are robust, researchers have relied on two main criteria. The first by Leamer (1983) suggests that a variable should be considered robustly related to the outcome variable if, and only if, the lower and upper extremes of a variable’s coefficients have the same sign.10 Specifically, the extreme upper (lower) bound is defined by the maximum (minimum) value of the variable of interest plus (minus) two standard deviations. If the variable of interest remains of the same sign at both upper and lower bounds, then such relation among the variables is said to be “robust.” When the variable of interest does not keep the same sign at both upper and lower bounds, then such relation among the variables is said to be “fragile.” In short, only after running all possible regressions including all variables and only if all estimates are in the same direction, are results considered robust. Sala-i-Martin (1997) finds Leamer’s standard to be overly restrictive in most cases because it is likely that if enough model specifications are analyzed, and assuming that the dis- tribution of β has both some positive and negative support, it is likely that the signs of the coefficients will change at least once. In fact, following Leamer’s criteria if a single regression produces a coefficient of the opposite sign large enough to shift one of the bounds, then the variable is considered not robust. Sala-i-Martin (1997) proposes to look at the entire distribution of coefficients and conclude a variable is robustly related to the outcome variable when a large percentage—say 90–95%—of the coefficient’s distribution is either above or below zero. These criteria, then, can lead to different substantive conclusions. In the extreme, if enough regressions are run and the distribution of the estimators have some “posi- tive and some negative support, then one is bound to find one regression for which the estimated coefficient changes signs” (Sala-i-Martin, 1997, p. 179). Indeed, by following Leamer’s approach, we may conclude that the knowledge about many social phenomena is scarce and thereby make a consequential Type-II error. In con- trast, as Plümper and Traunmüller (2020, p. 149) recently show, Leamer’s EBA has “an extremely low probability of producing false positives” while, Sala-i-Martin is “more likely to suffer from identifying false positives than the inferential rule it replaced” (Plümper & Traunmüller, 2020, p. 149). Previous works have, in the main, relied on Sala-i-Martin’s rather than Leamer’s approach.11 However, both criteria 10 A criterion used by Levine and Renelt (1992). 11 Sala-i-Martin’s (1997) focus on the entire coefficient distribution is a common approach used by Hegre and Sambanis (2006), Gassebner, Lamla and Vreeland (2013), Hartwig and Sturm (2014), Gassebner, Gutmann and Voigt (2016), and Miller, Joseph and Ohl (2018). 328 614 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 are informative, so we follow Hafner-Burton (2005) and report results according to both criteria. As is clear below, there are substantive differences in what is consid- ered robust predictors of turnout using these different criteria, and we compare our results using both criteria. Research Design In the turnout literature, there has been a thorough discussion of how to best opera- tionalize the phenomenon of interest. The two main options are the number of votes cast as a percentage of the voting age population (VAP) or the voting registered population (VRP). There are arguments for both. For example, Blais and Dobrzyn- ska (1998) use the latter and argue that VAP is not adjusted for the alien population, which artificially downplays turnout. Endersby and Krieckhaus (2008, p. 602), by contrast, recommend VAP because if registration is not automatic, and registration and voting are correlated, “then the ratio of voters to registered voters is a biased measure of citizen’s motivation to vote.” Among our 44 studies, 16 use VAP, 18 use VRP, 5 use both, 4 use other definitions12 and 1 (Siaroff & Merer, 2002) does not provide a definition. In this article, we primarily use VRP, but we also use VAP measures in a series of robustness checks.13 If after applying the same analysis on two related but different dependent variables, the results of the independent vari- ables are similar, this would be a clear signal of a variable’s strength. Turnout data are from International IDEA (2017). According to IDEA, their data comes from the national election management bodies (EMBs) and national statistical bureaus. EMBs provide data from their official reports and web portals. IDEA’s population data comes from secondary sources. In order to be included in the dataset, the elec- tion has been held after 1945; must have been for national political office in an inde- pendent nation state; there must more than one party contesting the election; and the franchise must be universal.14 In our data, the VAP and VRP turnout measures correlate at 0.68. Consistent with the literature we limit our sample to lower house elections in democracies (defined as a Polity value of six and above in the year before the observed election). Overall, our sample includes 579 elections in 80 democratic countries from 1945 to 2014. 12 Such definitions measure turnout as “the total votes cast divided by the size of the electorate” (Blais & Carty, 1990, p. 169); “the average turnout of each country” (Colomer, 1991, p. 319); the proportion of the eligible electorate voting (Radcliff, 1992, p. 445); and “the percentage of eligible voters that turned out at the respective country’s national election” (Stockemer, 2015, p. 87).13 This debate is not new. In the United States, McDonald and Popkin (2001) proposed another measure, but no cross-national data for this measure exists. More recently, Stockemer (2016) created VEP for 500 elections in 116 countries. Given our focus here, we rely on the established measures. 14 Despite all the efforts, IDEA’s data are not perfect. For example, when two elections were held in a single year, IDEA does not report which election is captured. We thank a reviewer for highlighting this fact. 329 615 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 Independent Variables In order to identify the most common predictors of voter turnout, we rely on Geys (2006), Geys and Cancela (2016), and Stockemer (2017) meta-analyses of 83, 185, and 130 works, respectively. For our analysis, we included all English language, national-level, comparative, peer-reviewed journal articles focused on voter turnout published between 1980 and 2017. We therefore exclude case studies, studies focus- ing on local, regional, or provincial elections, book-length studies, and studies not in English. We focus on the national level because local dynamics are likely dis- tinct from those at the national level. Furthermore, logistically it also makes sense to exclude works where the underlying data are not comparable to other cases: for example, exploring the effects of Norwegian school referendums (Kaniovski & Miller, 2006) on voter turnout in non-Norwegian countries is not possible. This decision implies that some factors, like campaign expenditures, cannot be examined given the almost total lack of available data outside the US. The 44 included studies are listed in the Appendix.15 As mentioned above, turnout predictors are usually organized into three groups: socio-economic, institutional, and political; and we follow this approach when organizing 127 independent variables derived from the 42 articles we examine.16 We find 41 socio-economic factors, 48 institutional factors, and 38 political factors. Such a large number of independent variables reinforce the diversity of empirical approaches in the literature and the need to clearly determine what robustly affects turnout (and what does not). Tables 1, 2 and 3 summarizes each group of variables. The first column presents the number of times a variable is used in the literature; the second column includes the variable name or concept; the third column show the ways in which the variable has been measured (if available); the fourth column present the directional effect in turnout—sub-divided in four sub-columns, one accounting for each possible result. When the variable had a positive impact for turnout, it is labelled as ‘positive’, ‘neg- ative’ when the contrary; ‘NS’ suggests a non-significant result, while ‘mixed’ cap- tures those results when the results vary depending on the model. Table 1 includes 48 institutional factors. The most frequent factor is compulsory voting, which is measured in three different ways. Twenty-eight studies find that compulsory voting has a positive and significant effect while five find it not signifi- cant. Two other variables—the number of political parties and proportional repre- sentation (PR)—are the next frequent (19 times each). This illustrates the literature’s differences in measurement; the former is operationalized in 10 different ways, the latter in two. We have created a straightforward measure of agreement among stud- ies by dividing the most frequent result by the number of studies that use such meas- ure and multiplying it by 100. The higher the percentage, the more established the 15 Appendix Table A1 lists the 285 studies that were excluded and the reasons for exclusion. 16 For example, see Geys (2006) and Blais and Drobzinska (1998). 330 616 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 finding.17 For compulsory voting, the degree of agreement is over 84%. Other vari- ables are less established. For example, the agreement on the impact of the number of parties or the impact of proportional representation electoral systems is unclear, with about 53% agreement. Regarding the former, while 10 cases find that higher number of parties, lead to lower turnout, 8 do not find it significant. Likewise, 10 studies show that countries under proportional representation systems show higher turnout while 7 find it not significant. Table 2’s socio-economic variables include two sub-groups, socioeconomic characteristics and geographical dummies. First, the indicators gathering relevant socio-economic characteristics of a given society, such as size of population, GDP, GDP growth, and urbanization. Twenty-two studies include GDP as an independent variable. Eight find that GDP has a positive impact on turnout, while seven show a non-significant relationship, three report a negative influence, and four show mixed results. Results are not much better for the rest of such variables. Second, there are geographical dummies for specific countries or regions. Most notable about these variables is that including a variable for Switzer- land and/or for the US almost always are negatively related to turnout. There are two patterns worth mentioning when discussing Table 3’s political variables. First, not many political variables appear in the articles we examined. This is surprising given the fundamentally political nature of turning out to vote. An exception is “closeness/ competitiveness” that appears in 21 studies (almost half of our sample). Further- more, the level of agreement for this variable is below 50%. Second, we only find a high level of agreement for the previous election turnout level (though such variable only appears in five studies). In sum, three important findings arise from this initial literature review. First, out of 127 distinct variables, less than half (44%) appear more than once. Even the most frequently used indicator, compulsory voting, was included in less than 75% of the examined studies. Second, among the 55 variables that appear in more than 1 article, over half (57%) are measured in more than one way. Third, it seems more generally that turnout studies face a paradox—while voting is mainly a political act, the most common empirically tested arguments in the literature are of institutional or socio- economic mechanisms. Only recently have some articles examined the impact of terrorist attacks (Robbins et al., 2013), corruption (Stockemer et al., 2013) or elec- toral dynamics (Martínez i Coma & Trinh, 2017) on turnout. Table 4 condenses this information and also offers an overview of the distribu- tion of the 70 variables for which we have data. These results strongly suggest that a standard model of turnout does not yet exist, and few factors—especially institu- tional and socioeconomic—have a consistently established effect on voter turnout. 17 This points us to a degree of agreement about a specific covariate. We define 70% or more as a “high level of agreement.” When comparing the common variables from Geys (2006) and Stockemer (2017), only compulsory voting shows a high level of agreement (84%), followed by income inequality (60%), PR (53%), vote closeness (47%) and population size (44%). 331 617 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 Table 1 Institutional predictors of voter turnout Frequency Indicator # of ways of measure- ment Results % Agree Positive Negative NS Mixed 33 Compulsory voting 3 28 5 84 19 # Parties 10 10 8 1 53 19 Proportional representation 2 10 1 7 1 53 18 Concurrent/Simultaneous 2 13 4 1 72 13 Unicameralism 3 4 1 7 1 54 9 Disproportionality 6 3 6 67 9 District Magnitude 5 3 1 5 55 8 Automatic (voluntary) registra-tion 2 3 1 4 50 8 Legal voting age 3 1 4 3 50 5 Federalism 3 1 4 80 4 Age percentages 3 1 1 2 50 4 Plurality 3 1 2 1 50 4 Majority 1 3 1 75 4 Female suffrage 3 2 1 1 50 4 Mixed/semi-presidential system 1 4 100 2 Leg. party/parl. fractionaliza-tion 2 1 1 50 2 One-party majority govern- ment 1 2 100 2 New voter expansion 1 2 100 2 Effective electoral threshold (ln)1 2 100 2 Cumulative executive respon-siveness 1 1 100 2 Cumulative absentee ballots 1 2 100 1 Parliamentary system 1 1 1 Relevant elected president 1 1 1 Voting holiday 1 1 1 Size of legislature (ln)1 1 1 Majority (multi-member)1 1 1 # of parties, squared 1 1 1 % Market of state-owned enterprises 1 1 1 Private broadcast system 1 1 1 Mixed system (definition #1)1 1 1 Mixed system (definition #2)1 1 1 Partisan press 1 1 1 Public broadcasting audience 1 1 1 Newspaper subscriptions 1 1 Campaign funding limits 1 1 332 618 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 Estimation Considerations Including all 127 predictors discussed above in our empirical models is not possible due to data availability—several variables are available for only a short span of time, specific region (i.e., Europe) or a clear set of countries (i.e., OECD members).18 The final line in Table 4 describes the distribution of the seventy variables we include, and Appendix Tables A2, A3 and A4 present these variables’ summary statistics, operationalization, and sources. Given the absence of a commonly accepted model of voter turnout, in our selec- tion of core variables we rely on several theoretical assumptions consistent with the literature and empirical regularities to include five variables in all of our models. From an institutional perspective, compulsory voting has been found to affect turn- out. 84% of our 44 studies find that compulsory voting increases turnout, which is likely the literature’s most commonly accepted finding. The electoral system is also a recurrent variable of study under the (challenged) assumption that voter turnout is usually higher in proportional representation systems (Blais & Carty, 1990). We also include two socio-economic factors—per capita gross national income and popula- tion (both logged to control for outliers). The former accounts for the literature’s finding that economic development fosters turnout while the latter controls for the NS not significant Table 1 (continued) Frequency Indicator # of ways of measure-ment Results % Agree Positive Negative NS Mixed 1 Public direct funding 1 1 1 Free TV access 1 1 1 Access to paid TV ads 1 1 1 Cohabitation 1 1 1 % Legislators elected in national districts 1 1 1 Proportional representation seats (%)1 1 1 Strong regional governments dummy 1 1 1 Party membership 1 1 1 Polarized party system dummy 1 1 1 Personal vote 1 1 1 Direct election 1 1 1 Compulsory voting enforced 1 1 1 Cumulative female empower- ment 1 1 18 Over 80% of excluded variables appear in only one study. 333 619 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 Table 2 Socio-economic predictors of voter turnout NS not significant Frequency Indicator # of ways of measurement Results % Agree Positive Negative NS Mixed 22 GDP/GNI 14 8 3 7 4 36 16 Population size 3 1 7 7 1 44 10 Switzerland dummy 2 10 100 9 GDP/GNI growth 8 1 1 7 78 8 Urbanization 2 3 4 1 50 7 Literacy rate/illiteracy/education/secondary school enrolment 5 1 4 2 57 5 Inequality 3 2 3 60 5 USA dummy 1 4 1 80 3 Population density 1 1 1 1 33 3 Average life expectancy 2 3 100 3 Public expenditure 2 1 1 1 33 3 Ethnic fractionalization 1 2 1 67 3 Electorate size 2 1 2 67 2 Latin America dummy 1 2 100 2 Africa dummy 1 1 1 50 2 Asia dummy 1 2 100 2 Oceania dummy 1 2 100 2 West dummy 1 2 100 2 Socioeconomic development/Human Development Index 2 1 1 50 2 Ethno-ling. fractionalization 2 1 1 50 2 Inflation 2 1 1 50 2 Unemployment 1 2 100 2 Unionization 2 2 100 2 Corruption 2 2 100 1 GNP growth 1 1 1 South America 1 1 1 Authority/Decentralization 1 1 1 Revenue/Decentralization 1 1 1 Spending/Decentralization 1 1 1 Sweden 1 1 1 New Zealand 1 1 1 Norway 1 1 1 OECD 1 1 1 Media exposure 1 1 1 Union density 1 1 1 KOF economic globalization 1 1 1 Islamic majority nation 1 1 1 Eastern Europe 1 1 1 Linguistic fragmentation 1 1 1 Religious fragmentation 1 1 1 Major religions 1 1 334 620 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 relationship between community size (an element assessed both by Geys, 2006 and Stockemer, 2017) and turnout. Finally, we include the level of turnout in the previ- ous election because the literature suggests that turnout may be habit forming and has its own inertia (Geys, 2006).19 While we acknowledge that more core variables could be included, we believe our core turnout predictors are consistent with the literature we survey. Given that several variables measure similar concepts and/or that the measure- ment of such variables may be related, multicollinearity may be a risk when includ- ing such a large number of predictors. Levine and Renelt (1992, p. 945)20 rely on three common strategies to reduce this risk: (1) they limit the total number of explanatory variables to eight at most; (2) they limit the number of Z controls to seven; (3) and they further restrict their Z variables by excluding variables that a pri- ori may measure the same phenomenon. Similarly, Hartwig and Sturm (2014) drop some variables when they are highly correlated. To avoid artificially inflating our estimates, we have followed their first and third strategies (we limit the total number of core and independent variables to eight and we exclude multiple measures of the same underlying phenomena).2122 The final estimation consideration is what type of model to run. The most com- monly used method in the 44 reviewed studies was ordinary least squares (OLS) with robust standard errors clustered by country (15 articles). Regression models with fixed effects and random effects were used in several (6 articles and 7 arti- cles respectively) of the 44 articles examined in the literature review above.23 Nev- ertheless, there are reasons to expect with eight predictors that there is the real risk of unobserved variable bias and risk of unmeasured unit-effects. Furthermore, like most of the literature we are interested in the reasons for differences in turnout both between and within countries. There is an ongoing methodological debate about which is appropriate for time-series cross-section data such as ours that is outside the scope of this article.24 Therefore, we estimate two series of models. The first series of OLS models with fixed effects focuses on time-varying explanations for turnout. Our I vector includes 5 variables, and the Z vector has 53 variables. The second series of models use random effects and clustered standard errors by country to include time-invariant variables. A random effects approach relies on the strong assumption that the included predictors are uncorrelated with country-specific inter- cepts (i.e., unobserved factors), but it does allow for time-invariant factors’ effects 19 We are aware of Achen’s (2001) warning regarding the inclusion of a lagged dependent variable. Our further analyses below address this concern.20 This article examines economic growth and over 50 independent variables. 21 The third strategy to avoid multicollinearity is included in our design by default because we rely only on the most frequent source and variable operationalization.22 We also lag time-varying independent variables to reduce the risks of endogeneity or reverse causal- ity.23 Models took an average of 12.5 days to run 2,433,115 regressions using Stata 16.1 on an Amazon Web Service Elastic Compute Cloud c3.large instance running 2019 Windows Server Edition.24 See for example Bell and Jones (2015), Bell, Fairbrother and Jones (2019), Clark and Linzer (2015), Dieleman and Templin (2014), Imai and Kim (2019), and McNeish and Kelley (2019). 335 621 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 Table 3 Political predictors of voter turnout NS not significant Frequency Indicator # of ways of measurement Results % Agree Positive Negative NS Mixed 21 Closeness/competitiveness 5 3 9 9 45 11 Democracy 9 5 1 5 45 5 Previous turnout 1 4 1 80 4 Founding elections 1 3 1 75 3 Number of elections 3 1 2 67 2 New democracy 1 2 100 2 Third election 1 2 100 2 Fourth election 1 2 100 2 Short term majority status of gov’t 1 2 2 Short-term margin of victory 1 2 2 Short-term cohesiveness 1 2 1 Recent threat to democracy 1 1 1 Second election 1 1 1 Third or fourth election 1 1 1 Fifth or sixth election 1 1 1 Electoral volatility 1 1 1 Voting share of left parties 1 1 1 Frequent changes in executive 1 1 1 Average strength of party group linkages 1 1 1 Party polarization 1 1 1 Post-materialist party in parlia-ment 1 1 1 Prior democratic experience 1 1 1 Terrorist attack 1 1 1 Party replacement 1 1 1 Two-party vote concentration 1 1 1 Seat ratio—first to second parties 1 1 1 Number pre-electoral coalitions 1 1 1 Dispersion 1 1 1 Opposition harassment 1 1 1 Opposition ban 1 1 1 Boycott 1 1 1 Violence 1 1 1 Party linkages 1 1 1 Seventh or eighth election 1 1 1 Decisiveness 1 1 1 Short-term mean margin 1 1 1 Authoritarian path 1 1 1 Democratization path 1 1 336 622 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 on turnout to be estimated. Our I vector for the random effects models includes 5 variables, and the Z vector has 65 variables. In both series of models, continuous independent variables are standardized in order to aid the comparability of coeffi- cients and a number of continuous predictors were log-transformed to reduce the effects of extreme values.25 Results After running 1,170,324 regressions with fixed effects, the 5 core variables, and 22,096 unique combinations of 53 independent variables, nine variables are robust according to Sala-i-Martin’s criteria [the area under the general cumulative density function (CDF) that are on either side of zero is less than 0.05].26 One variable (eco- nomic globalization) also meets Leamer’s (1985) more demanding criteria. Table 5 summarizes the results for the variables our fixed effects analysis suggests are robustly associated with voter turnout.27 The nine robust predictors are evenly split between institutional, socio-economic, and political factors. The three institutional variables are proportional representation, concurrent elections, and the number of years since universal suffrage was introduced—the first two increase turnout, while the last decreases turnout. As for socioeconomic conditions, economic globalization decreases turnout and inflation, and spending decentralization increases it. Among the three political factors (competitiveness, a dummy for elections before 1995, and a time trend variable), the most interesting result is that higher levels of competitive- ness (measured as the difference between the first and the second party’s vote share) decreases turnout. Only one (proportional representation) of the core five variables Table 4 Variable overview Frequencies in parentheses Socio-economic Institutional Political Total Variables 41 48 38 127 % of common variables 58 (24)44 (21)29 (11)44 (55) % of common variables measured differently 62 (15)66 (14)27 (3)57 (32) Note: Absolute figures in parentheses  Variables mentioned 41 48 38 127  Variables included in EBA models 33 16 21 70 25 There are two possible sources of variation: (1) substantively important results to small changes in the variables included and (2) how fragile the inferences are to small changes in operationalization. Given that some variables appear nineteen times but are operationalized in ten different ways, we focus on the first source of variation. Even in this case, 70 variables in the random effects models lead to over 2 mil- lion regressions. We leave for future research the analysis of different operationalizations.26 Sala-i-Martin (1997, pp. 179–180) looks at both normal and generalized CDFs. Histograms of the 1.2 million estimated coefficients (available on request) suggest most coefficients are not normally distrib-uted, so we use the generalized CDF. 27 Table A7 summarizes results for all 58 variables. 337 623 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 was found to be robust. Finally, it is notable that several variables our analysis finds significant have been largely overlooked by the existing literature. For instance, eco- nomic globalization and spending decentralization were each included in only 1 of the 44 articles we analyze, yet they are both robust predictors in these and other models discussed below. Our fixed effects model results suggest that 9 out of the 53 time-varying variables we measure are robustly associated with national-level turnout. However, as men- tioned above these models exclude 12 time-invariant or sluggishly changing vari- ables that previous research has found important. Therefore, we run an additional 2.9 million regressions with random effects that allow us to capture important vari- ation in turnout across countries and regions. Our findings (summarized in Table 6) suggest that seven variables meet Leamer’s robustness criterion and 14 variables meet Sala-i-Martin’s.28 Seven are location dummies—Eastern Europe, Latin Amer- ica, and Switzerland dummies depress national-level voter turnout while Norway, New Zealand, Oceania, and Sweden dummies have the opposite effect. From the socio-economic indicators, higher ethnic fractionalization and levels of inequality are robustly associated with lower electoral turnout while inflation increases turnout. Additionally, the lagged dependent variable is a robust turnout predictor (unlike in the fixed effects models). Finally, two institutional factors (concurrent elections and compulsory voting) are also robustly associated with higher turnout. The results for these two institutional variables (concurrent elections and com- pulsory voting) are also interesting because they highlight the different substantive conclusions that would be reached depending on which robustness threshold is cho- sen. Both variables are significant using Sala-i-Martin’s criterion but not Leamer’s. Let us explore for a bit why this is the case. In almost three million regressions using random effects, the concurrent election variable never has an estimated coefficient below zero (the smallest is 0.04). This is why this variable’s CDF never includes negative values and therefore why Sala-i-Martin would consider this variable a robust predictor of turnout. At the same time, because of concurrent election’s aver- age standard deviation (7.01) is similar in size to its average coefficient (7.89), its lower extreme bound (two standard deviations below the mean) is less than zero and therefore not robust for Leamer. The story behind compulsory voting’s results is different because (out of 2.9 million random effects models) 9775 models (0.003%) do indeed produce a negative coefficient for this variable. Is there something sys- tematically different about these 9775 models that lead to such a counter-intuitive result? Several things stand out.29 First, the inclusion of several variables substan- tially reduce the sample size. Union density is in 9430 (96%) of these 9775 mod- els, followed by human development index (6616, 68%) and the Oceania dummy (1500, 15%). Second, democracies with union density data are relatively rare (17 of 80) leading to the possibility that outliers can have undue effects on estimated coefficients. This might help explain why the average number of observations (40) in these 9775 models are significantly lower than for the other 2.9 million models 28 Complete results available in Table A8. 29 Table A15 includes the variables included in these 9775 models. 338 624 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 including compulsory voting (360).30 Figure 1 provides a striking visual of this dif- ference in sample size. It is worth noting that (as in all articles using EBA that we are aware of) our regressions include varying sample sizes due to data availabil- ity. This is one of EBA’s main strengths—if a variable significantly affects turnout across a range of samples, this is a clear signal of the robustness of the estimated relationship. Turning now to other ways our results are consistent (or not) with the previous work summarized in Tables 1, 2 and 3, we reach several main conclusions. First, the mixed results for two of our core variables (population and GNI) is consistent with the literature. Take population. Table 2 suggests that population size has an incon- clusive effect on turnout—seven studies find a negative effect and another seven find no significant effect. Our fixed effects and random effects results also suggest that population and economic development have no robust effect on turnout. Simi- larly, we do not find significant effects for several common socioeconomic variables including economic growth (nine studies) and literacy (seven studies). Regarding institutional variables, we do not find robust results for the number of parties, the different electoral formulae, the magnitude of the electoral district, the level of dis- proportionality, and the legal voting age, among others.31 By contrast, our results suggest that economic globalization (one study) and inflation (two studies) affect turnout while receiving nowhere near as much attention as a number of institutional Table 5 Fixed-effects extreme bounds analysis of voter turnout Ave β the average coefficient value, SE standard error, % Sign. percentage of models with a statistically significant (p < 0.05) coefficient, CDF cumulative density function below 0 *Variable significant using Leamer’s criteria. Complete results reported in Table A7 Variable Models Ave. β Ave. SE % Sign CDF < 0 Competitiveness 22,096 − 1.64 1.16 15.62 0.975 Concurrent 22,048 10.15 6.45 31.14 0.007 Economic globalization*22,096 − 4.27 1.82 75.11 0.998 Inflation 22,096 0.89 0.68 15.61 0.029 Spending decentralization 22,096 4.77 8.89 10.16 0.032 Suffrage 21,987 − 2.02 1.27 15.81 0.964 Time trend 22,096 − 6.87 8.87 61.25 0.987 Years 1945–1994 22,096 1.73 0.98 12.02 0.043 Core model Compulsory voting 1,038,770 8.62 7.96 27.91 0.160 GNI per capita, ln 1,170,324 − 12.02 11.77 37.58 0.908 Lagged dep. var 1,170,306 − 0.06 0.27 14.03 0.429 Population, ln 1,169,987 2.45 1823.88 3.75 0.658 Proportional representation 1,128,068 5.18 3.31 33.90 0.026 30 Negative coefficient model average sample size: 40 (s.d. 33.8); all models: 360 (s.d. 179.3). 31 It is important to note that all of these variables also had mixed results in the literature. 339 625 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 Table 6 Random-effects extreme bounds analysis of voter turnout Ave β the average coefficient value, SE standard error, % Sign. percentage of models with a statistically significant (p < 0.05) coefficient, CDF cumulative density function below 0 *Variable significant using Leamer’s criteria. Complete results reported in Table A8 Variable Models Ave. β Ave. SE % Sign CDF < 0 Concurrent 41,600 7.88 7.01 23.63 0.000 E. Europe*34,220 − 4.46 1.43 64.06 0.992 2nd election*35,750 − 6.11 1.35 82.69 0.998 Ethnic fractionalization 41,660 − 1.89 12.64 16.85 0.987 GINI index 41,537 − 4.24 7.85 35.26 0.989 Inflation 41,658 0.96 0.45 12.70 0.010 Latin Am. and Caribbean 34,220 − 4.84 1.90 62.24 0.992 Norway*41,303 2.10 1.33 23.23 0.035 New Zealand*35,990 5.06 2.10 73.25 0.041 Oceania 41,599 6.55 4.47 80.89 0.002 Sweden*41,303 5.41 1.70 74.25 0.003 Switzerland*41,231 − 12.41 4.44 90.08 1.000 Core model Compulsory voting 2,955,366 4.87 9.61 63.95 0.003 GNI per capita, ln 2,956,512 − 0.65 6.05 20.20 0.311 Lagged dep. var.*2,956,512 0.63 0.16 92.50 0.008 Population, ln 2,956,017 − 1.47 6.40 4.85 0.928 Proportional representation 2,936,444 0.80 1.92 2.86 0.246 0 2,000 6,000 4,000 Frequency0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 0 50000 100000 150000 200000 Frequency0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 Number of observations Fig. 1 Sample sizes for 384 models with negative coefficients for compulsory voting (top) and in all (2,955,366) random effects models with compulsory voting (bottom) 340 626 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 and political factors (e.g., 19 articles include the number of political parties in their models). It is also notable that (regardless of the criteria we rely upon and exclud- ing geographical dummies) the most robust turnout predictors are political while (as we saw above) previous research focuses more on institutional and socioeconomic factors. Finally, it is worth highlighting our models’ average substantive effects. Figure 2 summarizes the coefficient distributions for Table 5’s robust predictors. Each square represents a variable’s average estimated impact on national-level voter turnout, and the bars on either side of these coefficients represent Leamer’s upper and lower extreme bounds. Holding all else equal, concurrent elections increase turnout 7.9% over elections without candidates competing for executive office. Proportional rep- resentative election systems are associated with higher levels (5.2%) of voter turnout than states without this electoral system. The variables that (on average) depressed turnout the most in the fixed effects models are the time trend (which estimated a lowering of average turnout by 6.9% from 1945 to 2014) and economic globaliza- tion (− 4.3% average effect across its observed range). Time trend Econ. globaliz. Sufferage Closeness/compet. Inflation Years 1945-94 Spending decent. Concurrent 1.5 Proport. represent. * GNI pc, const. (ln) * Compulsory voting * Lagged D.V. * -40 -35 -30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 Coefficient Fig. 2 Robust predictors of voter turnout, mean coefficients and extreme bounds. Note Results from fixed effects models reported in Table 5. Table A7 includes complete results. *Identifies core variables in all fixed effects models. The only core variable found to be (Sala-i-Martin) robust is proportional repre- sentation. Population is a core variable but not included in figure due to the disproportionate size of its extreme bounds 341 627 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 Further Analyses Our empirical results taken from over four million regressions using fixed and ran-dom effects provide compelling evidence for the robustness of a number of predic-tors of national-level voter turnout. These results, however, vary more in the vari-ables the models included than their model specifications themselves, which lead to several potential limitations. First, we run our main models using fixed and random effects rather than the literature’s most common model specification—OLS regres-sion using robust standard errors clustered by country. Second, they include a lagged dependent variable, which some (e.g., Achen, 2001) argue depress predictors’ sta-tistical significance. Third, we focus on registered voter turnout, while the literature also suggests turnout as a percentage of voting age population could lead to differ-ent results. Fourth, these seventy factors may work differently in different types of countries (e.g., developed/developing, Western/non-Western), and fifth there may be over-time variation that is not captured by our time trend variables. We, therefore, re-run all or part of our analyses with fourteen additional model or sample varia-tions. Figure 3 summarizes the results from these additional 11.8 million models for the variables included in Tables 5 and 6.32 Using robust standard errors First, we run 2,433,115 models using robust clus-tered standard errors the core 5 variables, and 65 alternating M and Z variables. 11 and 20 variables were significant using either Leamer or Sala-i-Martin’s criteria. Fourteen of these 20 (70%) variables were also significant in either the fixed effects or random effects models. Six variables (boycott, a fifth or sixth election dummy, GNI growth, quality of democracy, union density, and unionization) were robust in these new models but not in our main models, although four of these six (fifth or sixth election, quality of democracy, union density, and unionization) would be considered robust in either the fixed or random effects models if we use a 0.1 level rather than 0.95. Thus, our first set of further analyses suggest that the majority of our results using fixed effects and random effects hold if we use robust standard errors clustered by country.33 Removing the lagged dependent variable Next, we run an additional 4,228,480 regressions identical to the three series of models described above except that we lagged turnout. We included it above because the literature suggests today’s turnout is systematically related to previous turnout. However, as Achen (2001) explains, lagged dependent variables may suppress the explanatory power of relatively time-invariant independent variables, such as compulsory voting or population size. The results for models without a lagged dependent variable do vary in a few ways, a few variables lose robustness, while more than double are now found to be robust. Spe-cifically, in the fixed effects models without a lagged dependent variable, concurrent elections now meet the Leamer robustness criteria while suffrage is no longer signif-icant at either level. Otherwise, the other 54 variables in these fixed effects models 32 Appendix Tables A7 to A18 includes more detailed results for these analyses. 33 70% of variables in fixed effects models and 83% of random effects variables. 342 628 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 (96%) have substantively identical results. Turning to the random effects models, economic globalization, the time trend, the 1945–1994 dummy, and competitive- ness are now significant and in the same direction as the fixed effects models. Our population variable is also now significant, while the second election dummy loses significance. Overall, 57 of 69 variables (83%) have substantively identical results. Finally, in the models with robust standard errors and no lagged dependent vari- able concurrent elections and the second election loses significance without lagged dependent variable while population gains significance. Here, 58 of 69 variables (84%) have substantively similar results. Overall, these three series of models with- out lagged dependent variables produce quite substantively similar results as those models with a lagged term. Changing denominators Next, we re-estimate the lagged dependent variables and clustered standard errors models using a different dependent variable denomi- nator (voting aged population instead of registered voters). The literature summa- rized above splits almost evenly in its use of these denominators. Given that these variables’ correlation coefficient is 0.67, results may significantly vary depending on which denominator used. Overall, we find 51 of 70 (73%) variables’ robustness unchanged. Twelve of seventy variables are robust according to both criteria. Four are geographical dummies (Sweden, Switzerland, Easter Europe, and Latin Amer- ica/Caribbean), and the others are now familiar (compulsory voting, concurrent election, ethnic fractionalization, inflation, previous turnout, second election, fifth or sixth election, time trend, and union density). Eight variables are no longer robust (boycott, GNI growth, the Latin American and Oceania dummies, quality of democ- racy, spending decentralization, unionization, and years 1945–1994), while 11 are now considered robust (the Asia, Norway, and USA dummies, economic globaliza- tion, female suffrage, plurality system, radios per capita, third election dummy, leg- islative seats, share of voters aged 30 to 69, and violence) in this series of over 2.3 million models. Splitting samples Different samples of countries may also have systematically different correlates of national-level voter turnout (Stockemer, 2015). Therefore, we ran an additional 2,647,887 analyses breaking up our sample into different groups—democracies and all states, Western and non-Western states, established and newer democracies, and above and below median income states.34 Our results (see Appendix) suggest that while we limit our main analysis to democratic states, turnout drivers are overwhelmingly similar in non-democracies.35 Indeed, 64 of 70 variables’ robustness does not substantively change in models including anocracies and autocracies (i.e., states with a Polity score of less than six). Of the six variables with changes, four are robust in all-states models and not in democracy-only models (Asia, revenue decentralization, urban population, and violence), while two are no longer robust (boycott, and the 1945–1994 dummy). The vast majority (12 of 15) of variables in Western and non-Western democracies did not significantly change 34 States that had Polity2 scores of six or greater for 20 years or more are considered “established”.35 Turnout in non-democracies is rarely studied in a comparative framework. Exceptions include Mar-tínez i Coma (2016) and Martínez i Coma and Morgenbesser (2020). 343 629 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 from the original models. For those that did change, boycotts, per capita GNI, and spending decentralization were robustly associated with turnout in Western states but not in non-Western states. The results for the latter are likely to be at least partly driven by increased data availability in Western states. The most notable differ- ences in these series of split sample models were found between countries that had more or less than two decades since democratization. Take, for example, the East- ern Europe dummy that is robust in the main models, it robustly decreases expected turnout in established democracies but not in the new democracies. Relatedly, once the analysis is performed in newer democracies, regional differences fade away— a result consistent with previous studies (e.g., Kostadinova & Powers, 2007).36 Additionally, the original findings hold for a number of variables by countries with above the median income than below it. Of the 22 robust predictors described above, the richer country models had 9 significant predictors while the poor states had 4. VTA VAP VTNL (l, s) VT (l, s) VTNLRE (l, s) VTNLFE (s) VTRE VTFE (s) 0 5 10 Years 1945-1994 VTA VAP VTNL VT VTNLRE (s) VTNLFE (s) VTRE VTFE (s) -10 -5 0 5 Closeness/competitiveness VTA (s) VAP (l, s) VTNL (l, s) VT (s) VTNLRE (l, s) VTNLFE VTRE (s) VTFE -20 -10 0 10 20 30 Compulsory voting VTA (s) VAP (s) VTNL VT (s) VTNLRE (s) VTNLFE (l, s) VTRE (s) VTFE (s) -10 0 10 20 30 Concurrent elections VTA VAP (s) VTNL VT VTNLRE (l, s) VTNLFE (l, s) VTRE VTFE (l, s) -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 Economic globalization VTA VAP VTNL VT VTNLRE VTNLFE VTRE VTFE -40 -20 0 20 GNI pc, ln VTA (s) VAP (l, s) VTNL (l, s) VT (s) VTNLRE (l, s) VTNLFE (s) VTRE (l, s) VTFE (s) -1 0 1 2 3 4 Inflation VTA (s) VAP (l, s) VTNL VT (l, s) VTNLRE VTNLFE VTRE (l, s) VTFE -.5 0 .5 1 Lagged dependent var. VTA VAP VTNL (s) VT VTNLRE (s) VTNLFE VTRE VTFE -15-10 -5 0 5 10 Population VTA VAP VTNL VT VTNLRE VTNLFE (s) VTRE VTFE (s) -5 0 5 10 15 PR VTA (l, s) VAP (l, s) VTNL VT (l, s) VTNLRE VTNLFE VTRE (l, s) VTFE -40 -20 0 20 40 2nd election VTA (s) VAP VTNL (s) VT (s) VTNLRE VTNLFE (s) VTRE VTFE (s) -10 0 10 20 30 Spending decentral. VTA VAP VTNL VT VTNLRE VTNLFE VTRE VTFE (s) -5 0 5 Sufferage VTA (s) VAP (l, s) VTNL (l, s) VT (s) VTNLRE (l, s) VTNLFE (s) VTRE VTFE (s) -30-20-10 0 1020 Time trend VTA VAP VTNL VT VTNLRE VTNLFE (s) VTRE VTFE (s) -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 Unicameralism Fig. 3 Further analyses checks, coefficient and extreme bounds plots. Note Y-axis abbreviations represent distinct model series. Horizontal lines represent extreme bounds (+/− two standard deviations). All mod-els (except those marked VTA) are limited to democracies. VTFE registered voters with fixed effects and lagged dependent variable (DV), VTRE registered voters with random effects and lagged DV, VTNLFE registered voters with fixed effects and no lagged DV, VTNLRE registered voters with random effects and no lagged DV, VT registered voter turnout, robust standard errors clustered by country, and lagged DV, VTNL registered voter turnout, robust standard errors clustered by country, and lagged DV, VAP voting aged population voter turnout, robust standard errors clustered by country, and lagged DV, VTA regis-tered voter turnout, robust standard errors clustered by country, lagged DV and including all countries. Population’s extreme bounds for VTFE and VTNLFE models excluded due to their disproportionate size (− 3666.2 and 3681.1 for VTFE) 36 We follow Kostelka (2017) in believing that the differences here require an in-depth exploration of alternative explanations of voter turnout. 344 630 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 1 3 Specifically, compulsory voting increases turnout in rich states but not poor states. So too did ethnic fractionalization, economic growth, spending decentralization and inflation. Poorer states’ national voter turnout was robustly associated with boycotts (as in Western states) and concurrent elections while rich states’ turnout was not. Variation over time Finally, there may be over-time variation that is not captured by the time-trend variables in our original analyses. We therefore ran two additional series of models, one with a linear time trend and a time squared variable in all models and the second with time, time squared, and time cubed. Substantive results for the other variables were virtually identical to our main model, and the time trend variable and time cubed variables are robust in their respective model series. Take as a whole, the results of over 15 million regressions of national-level voter turnout on 70 unique variables using 16 distinct model (or sample) variations sug- gest that there are indeed a recurring series of country-level factors shaping national- level voter turnout. Some of these factors are consistent with a wide swath of the turnout literature (e.g., institutional factors like compulsory voting or concurrent elections) while others have only been included in one or two studies (e.g., socio- economic factors like economic globalization and inflation). The implications of our findings are twofold. First, our results suggest that there is room for theoretical reas- sessments of several frequently used institutional variables (e.g., electoral formulae or the number of parties). Second, our results provide a comprehensive evidence base for future turnout research. Discussion and Conclusion In this article we establish which social, institutional, and political factors driving national-level voter turnout are empirically robust using a wide vary of model speci- fications. This has three implications. First, it sheds light on what national politi- cal, institutional, or socio-economic factors are significantly associated with turn- out. Second, it provides fodder for further inductive theory development. Third, our results suggest a set of potentially useful control variables for future turnout studies. Below, we develop these three points further. First, robust results are essential to discriminate among the dozens of proposed mechanisms driving national-level voter turnout. When over a hundred factors potentially affecting turnout, it is hard to determine what robustly shapes turn- out. We collect 127 literature-derived factors and empirically analyze 70 of them. We find that some of the literature’s results are highly sensitive to small changes in model specification while others are not. Overall, we find that compulsory vot- ing, competitive elections, concurrent elections, economic globalization, inflation, previous turnout, proportional representation, spending decentralization, and some geographical dummies are robust predictors of turnout. Similar to other empirical assessments (e.g., Gassebner et al., 2013’s study of the emergence and survival of democracy) our results are humbling but provide an empirical foundation for future research. Second, from a theory-building perspective, fragile results are important because they force us to reassess both the theoretical underpinnings of our hypotheses as 345 631 1 3 Political Behavior (2023) 45:607–633 well as “reconsider whether it is theoretically reasonable to expect robustness across the various sample populations being considered” (Hafner-Burton, 2005, p. 696). Furthermore, reassessing the theories that generate our hypotheses requires taking into account other possible causes that have not received much attention in previ- ous studies. For example, several economic factors (e.g., economic globalization and inflation) are robust in our models but have yet to receive much theoretical attention in the turnout literature. We conclude by highlighting a number of possible areas for future research. For example, our data contain several different measures for the same concept. For prac- tical reasons, we have relied on the most commonly used measures. A logical next step would be to use other sources and operationalizations and compare results. Relatedly, including all or some of the remaining 57 variables included in Tables 1, 2 and 3 but not analyzed in this paper is a possibility. Furthermore, like previous studies (e.g., Hegre & Sambanis, 2006), we did not include any interaction effects in our models. Including theoretically informed interactions may provide for a more comprehensive analysis of the interplay of different explanatory factors and the way they may mediate or moderation certain relationships. Certainly, then, our analysis is limited and, by no means, definitive, but it is the largest systematic evaluation of factors shaping national-level voter turnout to date. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https:// doi. org/ 10. 1007/ s11109- 021- 09720-y. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Ignacio Lago, Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh, participants of the 2017 Australian Society of Quantitative Political Science Conference, the 2018 Doctores Miembro and former Post-Doctoral Fellows of Juan March Institute Conference, the Editor, and the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Replication materials are available at: https:// datav erse. harva rd. edu/ datav erse/ richa rdwfr ank. All remaining errors are our own. Author Contributions The authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally. Funding The authors acknowledge support for this research from the Australian Research Council’s Dis- covery Project Scheme (DP150102398, DP190101978). Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Com- mons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ licen ses/ by/4. 0/. References Achen, C. (2001). Why lagged dependent variables can suppress the explanatory power of other inde-pendent variables. 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Electoral turnout in Muslim-majority states: A macro-level panel analysis. Politics and Religion, 7, 79–99.Tavits, M. (2008). Direct presidential elections and turnout in parliamentary contests. Political Research Quarterly, 62(1), 42–54.Temple, J. (2000). Growth regressions and what the textbooks don’t tell you. Bulletin of Economic Research, 52(3), 181–205. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. 348 City of Seattle 1 Seattle Districting Commission Seattle City Charter Article IV, Sec. 2, Subdivision D. COUNCIL REDISTRICTING. (1) By October 31, 2022, and of each tenth year thereafter, a five-member Districting Commission shall be appointed. The Mayor shall appoint two members, and by a two-thirds vote the City Council shall appoint two members. The fifth member shall be appointed by majority vote of the first four members. The Commission shall elect a chair from among its members. No person may serve on the Commission who is an elected official (except precinct committee officer), a registered lobbyist, a candidate for elective office, or a City employee. (2) The Districting Commission shall no later than two months after appointment, or November 30, whichever occurs first, appoint a districting master who shall be qualified by education, training and experience to draw a districting plan. If the Commission is unable to agree upon the appointment of a districting master by November 30, the Mayor shall appoint a districting master. All meetings of the Commission shall be open to the public, and the Commission shall conduct public forums around the City before adopting any plan. At least one public forum shall be held in each existing District. (3) District boundaries shall be drawn to produce compact and contiguous districts that are not gerrymandered. The population of the largest district shall exceed the population of the smallest by no more than one percent. To the extent practical, district boundaries shall follow existing District boundaries, recognized waterways and geographic boundaries, and Seattle communities and neighborhoods. In drawing the plan, neither the Commission nor the districting master shall consider the residence of any person. (4) The districting master shall draw a districting plan for the City, and submit it to the districting Commission by March 15 of the year following their appointment. The Commission shall develop, approve by majority vote, and make public a draft districts proposal and then after public comment, approve by majority vote a final districts plan; and shall have all powers reasonably necessary to carry out its purpose, may employ experts, consultants and attorneys not employed by the city, and shall prepare financial statements and compose and turn over to the City Clerk an official record of all relevant information used. Upon adoption, the districting plan shall be filed with the City Clerk. The plan shall become effective upon filing and cannot be amended by the City Council except to correct data errors upon request by the districting Commission. (5) The City Council shall take all steps necessary to enable the Commission to function, including appropriations sufficient to provide a reasonable per diem for Commission members, compensation for staff and contractors, and reasonable expenses. Current as of: September 2018 349 City of Seattle 2 www.localredistricting.org 350 SAN DIEGO CITY CHARTER II. 1 ARTICLE II NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS SECTION 4: DISTRICTS ESTABLISHED For the purpose of electing members of the Council, the City shall be divided into nine Council districts as nearly equal in population as practicable. The boundaries of such districts shall be subject to alteration and change under the provisions of this Charter. In any redistricting plan adopted by the Redistricting Commission pursuant to Section 5.1 or ordinance adopted by the Council establishing, changing or altering the boundaries of any Council district, the redistricting plan or ordinance may describe the new boundaries by reference to a map on file in the office of the City Clerk; a metes and bounds description of the new boundaries need not be contained in the redistricting plan or ordinance. (Amendment voted 03-10-1953; effective 04-20-1953.) (Amendment voted 09-17-1963; effective 02-11-1964.) (Amendment voted 11-06-1990; effective 02-19-1991.) (Amendment voted 06-02-1992; effective 07- 13-1992.) (Amendment voted 06-08-2010; effective 07- 30-2010.) (Amendment voted 06-07-2016; effective 07- 18-2016.) SECTION 5: REDISTRICTING In the event that any voting precinct established is located partly within two or more Council districts, the precinct shall be allocated to the Council district in which a majority of the voters within the precinct resides, and the district boundaries shall be changed accordingly. The City shall be redistricted pursuant to Section 5.1 of this Charter at least once in every ten years, but no later than nine months following the City’s receipt of the final Federal Decennial Census information. The term “Federal Decennial Census,” as used in this Charter, shall mean the national decennial census taken under the direction of the United States Congress at the beginning of each decade. Any territory hereafter annexed to or consolidated with The City of San Diego shall at the time of such annexation or consolidation be added to an adjacent district or districts by an ordinance of the Council. However, if any territory annexed, deannexed or consolidated upsets the approximate equality of the populations of the established districts, a redistricting shall be conducted pursuant to Section 5.1 of this Charter, except that the nomination period for appointment to the Redistricting Commission shall commence on the May 1 immediately succeeding the annexation, deannexation or consolidation and the Redistricting Commission shall be constituted no later than the next November 1. In any redistricting, the districts shall be comprised of contiguous territory and made as equal in population as shown by 351 SAN DIEGO CITY CHARTER II. 2 the census reports, and as geographically compact as possible, and the districts formed shall, as far as possible, be bounded by natural boundaries, by street lines and/or by City boundary lines. (Amendment voted 06-02-1992; effective 07- 13-1992.) (Amendment voted 06-07-2016; effective 07- 18-2016.) SECTION 5.1: REDISTRICTING COMMISSION The members of the City Council shall be elected by districts. Subject to the provisions of the City Charter relating to referendum and initiative powers of the people, the sole and exclusive authority to adopt plans which specify the boundaries of districts for the City Council is vested in the Redistricting Commission, to be established by this Section. Commencing in the year following the year in which the Federal Decennial Census is taken at the beginning of each decade, the Redistricting Commission shall adopt plans that redistrict the City into nine Council districts designated by numbers 1 to 9, inclusive. Those districts shall be used for all elections of Council members, including their recall, and for filling any vacancy in the office of member of the Council (and until new districts are established). No change in the boundary or location of any district by redistricting as herein provided shall operate to abolish or terminate the term of office of any member of the Council prior to the expiration of the term of office for which such member was elected. Districts formed by the Redistricting Commission shall each contain, as nearly as practicable, one-ninth of the total population of the City as shown by the Federal Decennial Census immediately preceding such formation of districts. Each redistricting plan shall provide fair and effective representation for all citizens of the City, including racial, ethnic, and language minorities, and be in conformance with the requirements of the United States Constitution and federal statutes. To the extent it is practical to do so, districts shall: preserve identifiable communities of interest; be geographically compact - populous contiguous territory shall not be bypassed to reach distant populous areas; be composed of whole census units as developed by the United States Bureau of the Census; be composed of contiguous territory with reasonable access between population centers in the district; and not be drawn for the purpose of advantaging or protecting incumbents. The Redistricting Commission shall be composed of nine members who shall be appointed by a panel of three retired judges who served in any of the following courts: the Superior Court of the State of California, an appellate court of the State of California, or a U.S. District Court located within California. Names of the retired judges willing to serve will be submitted to the City Clerk and drawn at random by the City Clerk, using procedures for judicial nominees and 352 SAN DIEGO CITY CHARTER II. 3 appointees as set forth in the San Diego Municipal Code. The City Clerk shall also draw at random the name of one additional retired judge to be designated as an alternate, who will be appointed to serve on the panel if another member is unable or unwilling to serve. The term “Appointing Authority,” as used herein below, shall refer to the panel of retired judges acting to appoint the Redistricting Commission pursuant to the provisions of this paragraph. The City Clerk shall solicit nominations for appointment to the Redistricting Commission in accordance with this Section and shall distribute to the news media the announcement of a sixty-day nomination period (which shall commence on May 1 of every year in which a Federal Decennial Census is taken) and the guidelines for selection of Commission members. Individuals or organizations desiring to nominate persons for appointment to the Commission shall submit application materials to the City Clerk within the nominating period, using procedures set forth in the San Diego Municipal Code. The City Clerk shall transmit the names and information regarding all nominees with the names of nominating individuals and organizations to the Appointing Authority immediately upon the close of nominations. After receiving Commission member applications from the City Clerk, the three members of the Appointing Authority shall hold a public meeting to appoint the nine Commission members and two alternates. The public meeting shall be held as promptly as possible to ensure the appointments are timely made. The Appointing Authority shall appoint the members constituting the Commission no later than November 1 of every year in which a Federal Decennial Census is taken. In the event that a complete panel of three retired judges is unable or unwilling to serve as the Appointing Authority, the City Clerk will serve as the Appointing Authority. The City Clerk will conduct a ministerial review of Commission member applications to determine which persons are qualified to serve, using the requirements of this Charter and procedures set forth in the San Diego Municipal Code. After all qualified applicants are identified and notified, the City Clerk will randomly select the Commission members and alternates from the pool of qualified applications in a public place. The Appointing Authority shall appoint members who will give the Redistricting Commission geographic, social and ethnic diversity, and who, in the Appointing Authority’s judgement, have a high degree of competency to carry out the responsibilities of the Commission. The appointees shall include individuals with a demonstrated capacity to serve with impartiality in a nonpartisan role. The Appointing Authority shall attempt to appoint one Commission member from each of the nine Council districts to the extent practicable, given the other requirements of this Charter Section, and considering the extent of the applicant pool and an individual’s qualifications to 353 SAN DIEGO CITY CHARTER II. 4 serve. The Appointing Authority shall also attempt to appoint Commission members who possess working knowledge of the geography and neighborhoods of The City of San Diego. Each member of the Commission shall be registered to vote in The City of San Diego. The Appointing Authority shall also appoint two alternate Commission members from the same applicant pool, who will be available to serve if a Commission member cannot serve or resigns. The alternates shall have a duty to remain informed of Commission business so they are prepared to serve if called upon to do so. Persons who accept appointment as members of the Commission, at the time of their appointment, shall file a written declaration with the City Clerk stating that within five years of the Commission’s adoption of a final redistricting plan, they will not seek election to a San Diego City public office. Alternates shall sign the declaration if and when they become members of the Commission. The members of the Redistricting Commission, and the alternates, shall serve until the redistricting plan adopted by the Commission becomes effective and the referendary deadline for the Final Redistricting Plan has passed. If the Final Redistricting Plan is rejected by referendum or by a legal challenge, members of the Commission shall resume their service and shall create a new plan pursuant to the criteria set forth in Sections 5 and 5.1. Within thirty days after the Commission members are appointed, the Commission shall hold its first meeting at a time and place designated by the City Clerk. Within sixty days after the Commission members are appointed, the Commission shall adopt a budget and submit it to the Appointing Authority. If approved, the budget shall be forwarded to the City Council for its prompt consideration. The City Council shall appropriate funds to the Commission and to the City Clerk adequate to carry out their duties under this Section. All Commission meetings shall be open to the public and Commission records, data and plans shall be available, at no charge, for public inspection during normal business hours in the office of the City Clerk. Copies of records and plans shall be provided, for a reasonable fee, to any interested person. The Commission shall elect a chair and a vice chair and shall employ a chief of staff, who shall serve at the Commission’s pleasure, exempt from Civil Service, and shall contract for needed staff, technical consultants and services, using existing City staff to the extent possible. Aye votes by six members of the Commission shall be required for the appointment of its chief of staff, the election of its chair, and the adoption of the Final Redistricting Plan. A majority vote of the Commission shall be required for all other actions. A majority of the entire Commission shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business or exercise of any power of the Commission. 354 SAN DIEGO CITY CHARTER II. 5 The Commission shall make every reasonable effort to afford maximum public access to its proceedings. It shall solicit public comment and shall hold at least nine public hearings in various geographic areas of the City before the preparation of a preliminary redistricting plan. At least thirty days prior to the adoption of a final plan, the Commission shall file a preliminary plan with the City Clerk, along with a written statement of findings and reasons for adoption, which shall include the criteria employed in the process and a full analysis and explanation of decisions made by the Commission. During the thirty day period after such filing, the Commission shall hold at least five public hearings in various geographic areas of the City before it adopts a final plan. The Final Redistricting Plan shall be effective thirty days after adoption by the Commission and shall be subject to the right of referendum in the same manner as are ordinances of the City Council. If rejected by referendum, the same Commission shall be empaneled to create a new plan pursuant to the criteria set forth in Sections 5 and 5.1. The Final Redistricting Plan document, including all maps, will be final as set forth herein; however, the boundaries of the Council districts in the Final Redistricting Plan shall not be adjusted and effective until after the next regularly scheduled general election for Council seats following the redistricting. If any part of these amendments to Sections 4, 5, or 5.1 of the Charter or their application to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications which reasonably can be given effect without the invalid provision or application. (Addition voted 06-02-1992; effective 07-13- 1992.) (Amendment voted 06-08-2010; effective 07- 30-2010.) (Amendment voted 06-07-2016; effective 07- 18-2016.) SECTION 6: QUALIFIED ELECTORS The qualifications of an elector at any election held in the City under the provisions of this Charter shall be the same as those prescribed by the general law of the State for the qualification of electors at General State Elections. No person shall be eligible to vote at such City election until he has conformed to the general State law governing the registration of voters. SECTION 7: ELECTIVE OFFICERS RESIDENCY REQUIREMENT An elective officer of the City shall be a resident and elector of the City. In addition, every Council member shall be an actual resident and elector of the district from which the Council member is nominated. The office of a Councilmember shall be vacated if he or she moves from the district from which the Councilmember was elected. Redistricting that occurs during a Councilmember’s term shall not operate to create a vacancy. The Council shall establish by ordinance 355 SAN DIEGO CITY CHARTER II. 6 minimum length of residency requirements for candidacy to elective office, whether by appointment or election. (Amendment voted 09-17-1963; effective 02-11-1964.) (Amendment voted 11-04-1969; effective 01-29-1970.) (Amendment voted 11-06-1979; effective 12-17-1979.) (Amendment voted 11-08-2016; effective 12-19-2016.) SECTION 8: ELECTION CODE Within ninety (90) days after this amendment has been ratified by the State Legislature the Council shall adopt an election code ordinance, providing an adequate and complete procedure to govern municipal elections, including the nomination of candidates for all elective offices. All elections provided for by this charter, whether for choice of officers or submission of questions to the voters, shall be conducted in the manner prescribed by said election code ordinance. (Amendment voted 04-22-1941; effective 05-08-1941.) SECTION 9: NOMINATIONS Nominations of candidates for all elective offices shall be made in the manner prescribed by the election code ordinance provided for in Section 8 of this article. (Amendment voted 04-22-1941; effective 05-08-1941.) SECTION 10: ELECTIONS Elective officers of the City shall be nominated and elected by all of the electors of the City except that City Council members shall be nominated and elected by the electors of the district for which elective office they are a candidate. Commencing with the year 1996, the municipal primary elections to the office of Council member for Districts 1, 3, 5, and 7 shall be held on same date in each election year as the California State primary election, and the general municipal election for these offices shall be held on the same date as the California State general election for that year. Commencing with the year 2012, the election to the office of Council member for District 9 shall be held on the same date as the election to the office of Council member for Districts 1, 3, 5, and 7. Commencing with the year 1998, the municipal primary elections to the offices of Council member for Districts 2, 4, 6, and 8 shall be held on same date in each election year as the California State primary election, and the general municipal election for these offices shall be held on the same date as the California State general election for that year. Commencing with the next municipal primary and general elections following the redistricting occurring after the 2010 national decennial census, and every four years thereafter, the municipal primary and general elections to the office of Council District 9 shall be held. Commencing with the year 1984 the elections to the offices of Mayor and City 356 SAN DIEGO CITY CHARTER II.7 Attorney shall be held every four (4) years. The municipal primary election for the offices of Mayor and City Attorney shall be held on the same date in each election year as the California State primary election, and the general municipal election for these offices shall be held on the same date as the California State general election for that year. All other municipal elections which may be held under this Charter shall be known as special municipal elections. All elective officers of the City shall be nominated at the municipal primary election. The two candidates receiving the highest number of votes for a particular elective office at the primary shall be the candidates, and only candidates, for such office and the names of only those two candidates shall be printed upon the ballots to be used at the general municipal election. In the event only one candidate has qualified for the ballot in the municipal primary election for a particular elective office, the sole qualified candidate receiving votes in the municipal primary election shall be deemed to be, and declared by the Council to be, elected to such office after the primary election results are certified. At the general municipal election held for the purpose of electing Council members, the electors of each Council district shall select from among the candidates chosen at the primary election in that district one candidate for the office of the Council member whose term expires the succeeding December. At the general municipal election held for the purpose of electing any other elective officer, there shall be chosen by all of the electors of the whole City from among the candidates chosen at the primary one candidate to succeed any other elective officer whose term expires in December succeeding the election. After the result of an election for any office is declared, or when an appointment is made, the City Clerk, under his or her hand and official seal, shall issue a certificate therefor, and shall deliver the same immediately to the person elected or appointed, and such person must within ten days after receiving such certificate file his official bond, if one be required for his office, and take and subscribe to the oath of office required of him by this Charter, which oath must be filed with the City Clerk. (Amendment voted 04-22-1941; effective 05-08-1941.) (Amendment voted 06-05-1956; effective 01-10-1957.) (Amendment voted 11-06-1962; effective 01-21-1963.) (Amendment voted 11-04-1975; effective 12-01-1975.) (Amendment voted 11-08-1988; effective 04-03-1989.) (Amendment voted 11-03-1992; effective 12- 18-1992.) (Amendment voted 06-08-2010; effective 07- 30-2010.) (Amendment voted 06-03-2014; effective 07- 24-2014.) (Amendment voted 11-08-2016; effective 12- 19-2016.) 357 Memorandum REPORT TO:Study Commission FROM:Caeleb Heinen, Recording Secretary Mike Maas, Ex Officio SUBJECT:Discussion for April 30 MEETING DATE:April 24, 2026 AGENDA ITEM TYPE:Citizen Advisory Board/Commission RECOMMENDATION:The Study Commission can plan and organize what is still missing before reviewing a draft charter language and submitting for legal review. STRATEGIC PLAN:1.1 Outreach: Continue to strengthen and innovate in how we deliver information to the community and our partners. BACKGROUND:This is an opportunity for Study Commissioners to discuss what further materials or education they will need on the aforementioned topic. UNRESOLVED ISSUES:None identified ALTERNATIVES:As per the Study Commission FISCAL EFFECTS:None identified Report compiled on: April 17, 2026 358