POLITICAL STRUCTURE AND POLITICAL REPRESENTATION ON URBAN CITY COUNCILS

Most of the previous studies examining the consequences of different political structures among U.S. cities have analyzed some indicator of aggregate policy results. Using a nationwide sample of almost 1,000 city council members in cities over 50,000 population, this dissertation looks at the consequences of structure at the individual level in terms of who is elected to office, and their behaviors and attitudes. District versus at-large and partisan versus nonpartisan local election structures are compared across several dimensions of political representation as they affect the individual office holder. Council members are evaluated in terms of descriptive representation, service representation, representational focus, policy representation, and allocative representation. After controlling for environmental differences among the cities, election structure was found to have a bearing upon each of the dimensions of representation except for policy representation. Structure seemed to be of greatest consequence on what might be termed styles of behavior, especially the tendency for the representative to act as an ombudsman for constituents and to adopt one constituency focus or another. Otherwise, either or both structural dimensions had a relatively modest impact on the socio-economic characteristics of those elected, their partisan identity (under some conditions), and the amount of conflict on the council. Particularly noteworthy were differences in the role of a Democrat v. Republican cleavage in legally partisan as opposed to legally nonpartisan cities. Such a cleavage was the most often cited as the principal source of factionalism on the council by partisan elected representatives but the least likely cited source of factionalism among nonpartisan council members. Since no differences are found in the level of conflict between the two groups, a strong argument could be made that partisan systems are conducive to the establishment of a more coherent and accountable policy process