State and Local Politics(Keep an eye on MS through this course,

write it down)

Instructor: Dr. Troy Gibson

I. Why study State and Local Government?A. Many, perhaps most, of the policy decisions directly

affecting U.S. citizens are made by state and local government officials.

1. Welfare to work2. Maintaining prisons (90% incarcerated in state or local

jails).3. Education (90% funding from states)B. Policy diversity (creativity, innovation, and imagination)C. State and local governments are older than the national

government.1. Colonies2. Articles of Confederation

II. Difficulties – hard to study and generalize about 50 truly distinct, highly diverse, government systems.

A. Cultural diversity (ethnic p. 8 and religious contexts; next slide)

B. Socioeconomic diversity (economic characteristics)C. Institutional diversity (political and election systems and

political cultures)http://www.progressiveviewpoints.com/2008/11/county-presidential-electoral-map.html

A. Geographic diversity (distance and terrain)B. Circumstantial diversity (different problems)F. Multiplied by the diversity of 89,000 cities, counties,

villages, school districts, congressional districts, zones, etc. III. Basic Concepts:A. Political Science: The study of who gets what, when, how in a

world of scarce resources and competing preferences.

MS highest at 85%; Vermont lowest at 42% (Gallup 2009; http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=89029

B. Government: Organization that legitimately uses force to carry out its decisions like managing conflict, allocating scarce resources, selecting between competing preferences.

IV. Who Governs? The few or the many? Social Stratification is the best way to organize the answer to this question.

A. Elite Theory: All societies (even democracies) are always dominated by a few, typically moneyed-interests (business class), who rule over the many. Public policy reflects power elite preferences. Natural?

B. Pluralism: Democracy can be achieved by the competition of many different interest groups filled by concerned citizens who compete for influence and favor. Since each group eventually is satisfied by gov’t, no one group dominates long-term. Public policy reflects the desires of interest groups and at the local level in particular, community power (broad-based pluralistic cross-section of community constituents).

C. State governments: certain interests more likely to dominate state and local gov’ts than national. Why?

1. Homogenous interests: Interests are more likely to represent larger, perhaps majority, proportions of state and local citizens (e.g., Casino lobby, evangelicals in MS).

2. Heterogeneous interests: In national government, interests almost always represent tiny minorities and very diverse groups.

3. Proliferation of interest activity at the state level has accompanied (tremendous growth of state and local government spending and activities). Which is the cause of more groups, government size or group pressure?

D. Types of interest groups (varies from state to state; name them? p. 7):

1. Ethnic/racial2. Business3. Professional associations (unions, trial lawyers)4. Citizens groups (Christian Coalition)E. Which groups dominate?: Still, no particular group or interest

dominates state politics (despite minimal media exposure; more voter ignorance at state level). But generally, those groups with more economic resources and larger numbers win more often. As the text puts it, business elites may not ‘control’ the process, but they function as the ‘backdrop’ for the process. Some states have a ‘big three’ but most are very competitive.

F. Voter apathy, bigger problem for state and local politics. Less exposure, more ignorance, less interest. Only about 2-3% of population attend town meetings concerning local policy. This is so despite the fact that voters’ may have more at stake in state and local politics.

Most people choose to leave these decisions and influences to others (usually groups).

V. Challenges for State and Local gov’t (a wide-ranging array of innovative entrepreneurial public-private sector partnershps aimed at solving problems of a more immediate type, like gang violence, failing schools, falling property values, etc. Less, it seems, stress on legal and technical, even constitutional, concerns):

1. Want gov’ts to do more with less (CA budget crisis 2009 = $50b deficit)2. Racial politics (especially in large cities like Detroit)3. Crime (7% of state spending goes to prisons)4. Poverty (inequalities within states can become fault lines for conflict)5. Education (school choice, charter, funding schemes, pre-K, merit pay,

etc.)6. Environmental concerns - Who’s responsibility? What about growth?7. Health care – medicaid burden; uninsured; federal funding, Mass..