Mayors, Partisanship, and Redistribution: Evidence Directly from U.S. Mayors. Issue 1 (January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Einstein, Katherine Levine; Glick, David M.
• Is Part Of: Urban affairs review. Volume 54:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 74
• Page End: 106
• Publication Date: 2018-01
• Subjects: urban politics -- redistribution -- partisanship; City planning -- Periodicals; Aménagement urbain; Développement urbain; Planification urbaine; Politique urbaine; Recherche; Sociologie urbaine; Urbanisme; Ville; États-Unis; Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme); Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme); 307.76
• DOI: 10.1177/1078087416674829
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1078-0874

Abstract

Policymakers and scholars are increasingly looking to cities to address challenges including income inequality. No existing research, however, directly and systematically measures local political elites' preferences for redistribution. We interview and survey 72 American mayors—including many from the nation's largest cities—and collect public statements and policy programs to measure when and why mayors prioritize redistribution. While many of the mayors' responses are consistent with being constrained by economic imperatives, a sizable minority prioritize redistributive programs. Moving beyond the question of whether mayors support redistribution, we find that partisanship explains much of the variation in a mayor's propensity for redistribution. Moreover, the impact of partisanship very rarely varies with institutional and economic contexts. These findings suggest that national political debates may be shaping local priorities in ways contrary to conventional views, and that they may matter even more than other recent findings conclude.