What Mayors Think: National Politics in Local Policy

In their new study, Assistant Professors Katherine Einstein and David Glick, lead-authors of the 2014 and 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors, will combine extensive mayoral interview data with municipal capital expenditures, mayoral support for city ordinances and mayoral demographic data. They will seek to evaluate the extent to which national policies influence local politics, how closely mayoral policymaking follows national guidelines, and if mayoral policy agendas are influenced by national agendas.

Einstein and Glick will use two rounds of survey data to illustrate mayors’ policy priorities and investigate whether they are indeed prioritizing traditionally national issues. Subsequently, they will use data on budgets and city ordinances to explore the extent to which these priorities are translated into local policies.

Publications:

Einstein, Katherine Levine and Glick, David M. (2016). Mayors, Partisanship, and Redistribution. Urban Affairs Review.

Press:

Florida, Richard. (2017, Jan 5). How Do Mayors Think About Inequality?. The Atlantic at CityLab.

View more projects funded through our Early Stage Urban Research Awards