Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T21:45:21.861Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Off-Cycle and Off Center: Election Timing and Representation in Municipal Government

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2021

ADAM M. DYNES Open the ORCID record for ADAM M. DYNES [Opens in a new window] ,
MICHAEL T. HARTNEY Open the ORCID record for MICHAEL T. HARTNEY [Opens in a new window]  and
SAM D. HAYES Open the ORCID record for SAM D. HAYES [Opens in a new window]
ADAM M. DYNES*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University
MICHAEL T. HARTNEY*
Affiliation:
Boston College
SAM D. HAYES*
Affiliation:
Boston College
*
Adam M. Dynes, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Brigham Young University, adamdynes@byu.edu.
Michael T. Hartney, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Boston College, michael.hartney@bc.edu.
Sam D. Hayes, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, Boston College, hayessl@bc.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Who governs America’s cities: organized interests or mass publics? Though recent scholarship finds that local governments enact policies that align with citizens’ preferences, others argue that it is organized interests, not mass publics that are influential. To reconcile these perspectives, we show that election timing can help shed light on when voters or groups will be pivotal in city politics. Examining 1,600 large US cities, we find that off-cycle elections affect city policy responsiveness asymmetrically, weakening responsiveness on those issues where there is an active and organized interest whose policy objectives deviate from the preferences of the median resident. Here, we focus on public employees’ interests and find that local governments that are elected off cycle spend more on city workers than would be preferred by citizens in more conservative cities. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the study of interest groups and representation in local politics.

Type
Letter
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 115 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 1097 - 1103
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anzia, Sarah F. 2011. “Election Timing and the Electoral Influence of Interest Groups.” Journal of Politics 73 (2): 412–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anzia, Sarah F. 2012. “Partisan Power Play: The Origins of Local Election Timing as an American Political Institution.” Studies in American Political Development 26 (1): 24–49.10.1017/S0898588X11000149CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anzia, Sarah F. 2013. Timing and Turnout: How Off-cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anzia, Sarah F. 2019. “Looking for Influence in All the Wrong Places: How Studying Subnational Policy Can Revive Research on Interest Groups.” Journal of Politics 81 (1): 343–51.10.1086/700726CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anzia, Sarah F. 2021. Local Interests: Politics, Policy, and Interest Groups in U.S. City Governments. Book Manuscript.Google Scholar
Anzia, Sarah F., and Moe, Terry M.. 2015. “Public Sector Unions and the Costs of Government.” Journal of Politics 77 (1): 114–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anzia, Sarah F., and Moe, Terry M.. 2019. “Interest Groups on the Inside: The Governance of Public Pension Funds.” Perspectives on Politics 17 (4): 1059–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bawn, Kathleen, Cohen, Martin, Karol, David, Masket, Seth, Noel, Hans, and Zaller, John. 2012. “A Theory of Political Parties: Groups, Policy Demands and Nominations in American Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 10 (3): 571–97.10.1017/S1537592712001624CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin. 2018. “Off-cycle and out of Office: Election Timing and the Incumbency Advantage.” Journal of Politics 80 (1): 119–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berkman, Michael B., and Plutzer, Eric. 2005. Ten Thousand Democracies: Politics and Public Opinion in America’s School Districts. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Berry, Christopher R. 2009. Imperfect Union: Representation and Taxation in Multilevel Governments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511808524CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burstein, Paul. 2006. Why Estimates of the Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy are Too High: Empirical and Theoretical Implications.” Social Forces 84 (4): 2273–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Daniel M., and Dynes, Adam M.. 2016. “2016 AMOS.” American Municipal Officials Survey. http://www.municipalsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/AMOS2016_details-of-sample.pdf.Google Scholar
Dahlberg, Matz, and Mörk, Eva. 2006. “Public Employment and the Double Role of Bureaucrats.” Public Choice 126 (3–4): 387–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Disalvo, Daniel. 2018. “Medicaid Politics in New York: Vested Interests and Policy-focused Analysis.” Political Science Quarterly 133 (2): 291–317.10.1002/polq.12770CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dynes, Adam M., Hartney, Michael T, and Hayes, Sam D.. 2021. “Replication Data for: Off Cycle and Off Center: Election Timing and Representation in Municipal Government.” Harvard Dataverse. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QTJGR5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Einstein, Katherine Levine, and Kogan, Vladimir. 2016. “Pushing the City Limits: Policy Responsiveness in Municipal Government.” Urban Affairs Review 52 (1): 3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., and Pierson, Paul. 2014. “After the ‘Master Theory’: Downs, Schattschneider, and the Rebirth of Policy-focused Analysis.” Perspectives on Politics 12 (3): 643–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajnal, Zoltan L. 2010. America’s Uneven Democracy: Race, Turnout, and Representation in City Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hajnal, Zoltan L., and Trounstine, Jessica. 2005. “Where Turnout Matters: The Consequences of Uneven Turnout in City Politics.” Journal of Politics 67 (2): 515–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajnal, Zoltan L., and Trounstine, Jessica. 2010. “Who or What Governs? The Effects of Economics, Politics, Institutions, and Needs on Local Spending.” American Politics Research 38 (6): 1130–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hersh, Eitan. “How Democrats Suppress the Vote.” FiveThirtyEight, November 3, 2015. Accessed February 17, 2021. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-democrats-suppress-the-vote/.Google Scholar
Hyytinen, Ari Jaakko Meriläinenb, Saarimaac, Tuukka, Toivanend, Otto, and Tukiainene, Janne. 2018. “Public Employees as Politicians: Evidence from Close Elections.” American Political Science Review 112 (1): 68–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kogan, Vladimir, Lavertu, Stéphane, and Peskowitz, Zachary. 2018. “Election Timing, Electorate Composition, and Policy Outcomes: Evidence from School Districts.” American Journal of Political Science 62 (3): 637–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moe, Terry M. 2015. “Vested Interests and Political Institutions.” Political Science Quarterly 130 (2): 277–318.10.1002/polq.12321CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). 2016. “The Canvass: Election Dates May or May Not Matter.” NCSL, May 3, 2016. https://www.ncsl.org/blog/2016/05/03/the-canvass-election-dates-may-or-may-not-matter.aspx.Google Scholar
Niskanen, William A. 1971. Bureaucracy and Representative Government. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Oliver, J. Eric, and Ha, Shang E.. 2007. “Vote Choice in Suburban Elections.” American Political Science Review 101 (3): 393–408.10.1017/S0003055407070323CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Paul E. 1981. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Kawika, Hand, Michael L., and Thompson, Fred. 2015. “The Government Finance Database: A Common Resource for Quantitative Research in Public Financial Analysis.” PLoS ONE 10 (6): 1–22. Accessed June 8, 2020. http://www.willamette.edu/mba/research_impact/public_datasets/.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schneider, Mark. 1989. “Intermunicipal Competition, Budget-maximizing Bureaucrats, and the Level of Suburban Competition.” American Journal of Political Science 33 (3): 612–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sieg, Holger, and Wang, Yu. 2013. “The Impact of Unions on Municipal Elections and Urban Fiscal Policies.” Journal of Monetary Economics 60 (5): 554–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spizman, Lawrence M. 1980. “Unions, Government Services, and Public Employees.” Public Finance Quarterly 8 (4): 427–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tausanovitch, Chris, and Warshaw, Christopher. 2013. “Measuring Constituent Policy Preferences in Congress, State Legislatures, and Cities.” Journal of Politics 75 (2): 330–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tausanovitch, Chris, and Warshaw, Christopher. 2014. “Representation in Municipal Government.” American Political Science Review 108 (3): 605–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tiebout, Charles M. 1956. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” Journal of Political Economy 64 (5): 416–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warshaw, Christopher. 2019. “Local Elections and Representation in the US.” Annual Review of Political Science 22: 461–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, James Q. 1973. Political Organizations. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Dynes et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QTJGR5
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Dynes et al. supplementary material

Dynes et al. supplementary material

Download Dynes et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 589.1 KB