Municipal Reform and the Changing Pattern of Urban Party Politics

Abstract

This study discusses the contribution of municipal reform structures to the decline of old-style party politics and to the rise of group politics. Through an analysis of a nation wide survey of chief executives in American cities 50,000 and over in population, a typol ogy permits us to speculate, first, on the decline of old-style politics and the relative emergence of alternative political styles predicted in the local government literature: nonpluralist, group, or coalition politics. Second, the typology permits us to assess the relative contribution of municipal reform structures as compared with national reforms, ethos, socioeconomic, and regional factors in shaping the distribution of com munity group influence.