Conflict and Cleavages in US Cities

By: Katy O’Loughlin

On Wednesday, April 4th, 2018 Peter Bucchianeri, a Ph.D Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, joined the Initiative on Cities to share research in progress on Conflict and Cleavages Under Democratic One-Party Rule.

Democratic Dominance in Big-City Politics

Recent trends of increasingly democratic city councils and mayoral leadership have been seen across larger cities in the United States. In some cities, it appears that democrats essentially control some governments uniformly. Mr. Bucchianeri claims that with one party rule, efficient, conflict-free government may be seen. However, it may be important to note that local governments are indeed complex entities and there is significant potential for conflict. If two debating sides normally shape how policy is being made, what happens when one of those sides is absent? How does one party rule change how policy is formed? Mr. Bucchiarneri’s research looks further into what cleavages underlie city council politics that have an absence of party competition; he also explores how these cleavages impede or enable mayoral leadership.

Council Politics in New York City

Mr. Bucchianeri started his research by using New York City as a case study. The city makes a good study subject for multiple reasons— it is the largest city in the country, the government is highly professionalized, there is a long history of racial conflict, and there is lots of potential for political divides that may include issues related to boroughs, ideology, class, development issues, and inequality.

A coalition that Mr. Bucchianeri thought would be important as to how and why the city’s politics changed over time, was the New York City Progressive Caucus. The Caucus works towards a more just and equal city. It formed in 2010, and by 2014, one member had become the speaker of city council. This Progressive Caucus which ascended to power very quickly had the potential as a case study to find relationships and understand the dynamics between city politics and one party rule.

Mr. Bucchianeri started by looking at all proposals and bills given to the New York City council since 2002, noting sponsors, committees that passed bills, and how members voted on them— who votes in what direction, and who sponsors which bills? He analyzed this data through the use of optimal classification to compare similar patterns of voting, which allowed him to observe particular trends. In 2002, there was a clear difference between how republicans and democrats voted. The data collected for 2004, 2006, 2010, and 2014 showed that republicans were still offset from democrats with little overlap between voting trends, although less stark than the differences observed in 2002. His general takeaway from the preliminary analysis was that the biggest difference in voting patterns were noticed within the republican members of the city council, with some appearing as outliers from fellow republican votes— but what about the democrats? It appeared that they often voted together, but was there individual dissent that was not portrayed by the council member’s ultimate vote? As outsiders, Mr. Bucchianeri notes that the public is not seeing what happens internally, and there is no access to a good measure of preferences. Although it is likely that many had grievances, they ultimately voted with the party to show unity, so we are unable to see the individual divergence within the democratic council members.

After his analysis of city council votes, Mr. Bucchianeri looked into bill cosponsorship to see if he could find any more evidence of divergence within the city council’s democrats. Using the same methods as he did for voting, he observed that in general, republicans still stuck with their party besides the occasional member working with democrats. He noticed that things got more interesting when looking at race. In 2002, there was a greater tendency for co-racial members to sponsor bills together— white members sponsored bills with white members, and non-white members with other non-white members. However, this trend starts to disappear in 2006 with the overlap between white and non-white members becoming more noticeable. As council member bill co-sponsorships were becoming less racially divided, Mr. Bucchianeri noticed that something else was becoming more divided— beginning with its formation in 2010, the Progressive Caucus is observed to have become more and more separated internally. The largest takeaway associated with these observations, was that what used to be a race-based divide evident early on has become less apparent, and a greater ideological cleavage has become more noticeable.

Progressivism at Large in City Politics

As Mr. Bucchianeri observed these findings, he took a step back to ask the question: if this is happening to democrats in New York City, how widespread is this trend throughout the country? To start he examined roll calls of city councils in both San Francisco and Chicago. He was surprised to see that in San Francisco, votes were separated along party lines with a strong divide, similar to what can be seen in the United States Congress, but is relatively rare in city governments. Based on the roll calls in Chicago, he saw that it was similar to New York City, as a Progressive Caucus had been established in 2013.

Since Mr. Bucchianeri was able to observe some similar trends in bigger cities like Chicago, he decided to see if the trends were noticeable in smaller cities that were also deemed progressive. Through newspaper coverage, he analyzed the frequency of the word, “progressive” that was written in articles related to city councils. His thought process was that if progressive groups are being covered frequently, it means that media considers it important to cover. In newspapers analyzed from New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Seattle, upticks of the term were seen over time, with the word skyrocketing in cities after a progressive caucus was formed. Other cities considered progressive where trends were not as noticeable included Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Boston. This led Mr. Bucchianeri to think that these trends in which ideological cleavages become more noticeable is not limited to the three original cities he started observing, but it is also not  universal. He notes that coalitions may have greater influence in certain cities, and that it would be interesting to look further into the councils and mayorships of cities where these trends are less noticeable.

Implications of Future Progressivism in Cities

The evidence that Mr. Bucchianeri has found regarding the growing ideological cleavages within big cities shows that this could be a part of a broader phenomenon across cities in the United States. Although cities are generally deemed progressive compared to the more rural or suburban surrounding areas, some note the dangers of one party rule in big cities. Some politicians argue that it limits diversity in policy, with potentially good but moderate legislation being ignored; it may even diminish participation in government, as well as make it challenging for mayors to improve cities that are more enclosed from the rest of the state.

Although progressive mayors may increasingly find allies within councils who will help to facilitate major policy change, other mayors that are less progressive may have to navigate gridlock within local councils. Even with absent mayoral intervention, progressive caucuses may be able to push the bounds of their own legislative agendas. Mr. Bucchianeri finished his presentation by pointing out that as coalitions grow and become more widespread, the scope of conflict could grow to include state governments— what kind of state influence on local policy could arise, and will there be constraints on city power in the future?