The Mayoralty and the Democratic Creed

Abstract

The democratic creed is as ambiguous as it is ambitious, and this affords political elites numerous opportunities to maneuver for strategic policy advantage. One target of these maneuvers is the electoral process, and those who lose, or expect to lose, in this arena are free to seek changes in the formal rules of the game-to alter election procedures or to limit the scope of voter participation-in ways they believe will maximize their substantive interests. The mayoralty is a case in point. Throughout its brief history, the operative meaning of mayoral leadership has varied considerably, and much of this variation has been the result of elite efforts to capitalize on the ambiguities of the democratic creed. Debates over the existence of the mayoralty, the scope of its authority, and its role in urban governance all have been influenced by struggles over the meaning of electoral politics, and these struggles, in turn, have often been prompted by strategic policy calculations. It was thus at the beginning, and, mutatis mutandis, it is thus today.