Labor-Community Coalitions Through an Urban Regime Lens

Abstract

This paper examines labor-community coalitions through an urban regime framework and focuses on three theoretically derived questions: (1) Do labor-community coalitions build “power to” in similar ways as more typical urban regimes? (2) Does the resulting policy adoption promote social change and, more conjecturally, (3) Does cooptation or ideology better explain the modest scope of change associated with labor-community coalitions? This examination of labor-community coalitions suggests partial support for urban regime theory’s assertion that power building advances through the institutionalization of cross-sectoral relationships that permit resource sharing. Relational power-building strategies have certainly helped labor-community coalitions diffuse a stable policy agenda across cities. Nonetheless, the impacts of the labor-community agenda have been modest and in line with the status quo, an outcome that may reflect more than pragmatic “going along to get along” by activists motivated to maintain access to regime-provided resources. Instead, the paper argues for maintaining the concept of ideological constraint in the explanation and practice of building power from below.