This article focuses on city officials' actions when morality issues (gay rights, pornography regulations, etc.) are at stake. Cases drawn from a systematic sample of cities reveal a continuum of local officials' actions ranging from actions unfavorable to activists to evasion of the issue to actions favorable to activists. In order to account for this variation, hypotheses are developed that identify institutional arrangements, ideol- ogy of issue activists, and the community's cultural context as key explanatory concepts. Empirical tests show that (a) officials in cities with more developed counter-cultural elements handle morality issues differ- ently than officials in cities where orthodox/traditional sub-cultural ele- ments dominate, (b) narrower measures of community demand/prefer- ences specific to particular kinds of incidents are less useful in predicting governmental action on these issues, (c) institutions (ward versus at-large council elections; mayor versus city manager executive) are important in mediating the expectations or pressures stemming from the local sub-cul- ture, and (d) official actions vary considerably depending upon the ideo- logical stance and degree of controversiality of issue activists, but this too is contingent on the mediating effects of institutional arrangements.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bailey, R.W1998. Gay Politics, Urban Politics: Identity and Economics in the Urban Setting. New York: Columbia University Press.
2.
Bell, Daniel. 1973. The Coming of Postindustrial Society. New York: Basic Books.
3.
Bell, Daniel. 1976. The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York: Basic Books.
4.
Bradley, Martin B.1992. Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990. Atlanta, GA: Glenmary Research Center.
5.
Bridges, Amy. 1997. “Textbook Municipal Reform”. Urban Affairs Review33: 97-120.
6.
Brisbin, Richard A.2001. “From Censorship to Ratings: Substantive Rationality, Political Entrepreneurship, and Sex in the Movies.” In Christopher Z. Mooney, ed., The Public Clash of Private Values, pp. 91-114. New York: Chatham House.
7.
Button, James W, Barbara A. Rienzo, and Kenneth Wald. 1997. Private Lives, Public Conflicts: Battles over Gay Rights in American Communities. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
8.
Chong, Dennis, and Anna-Maria Marshall. 1999. “When Morality and Econom- ics Collide (or Not) in a Texas Community”Political Behavior21: 91-121.
9.
Clingermayer, James C., and Richard C. Feiock. 2001. Institutional Constraints and Policy Choice. Albany: State University of New York Press.
10.
Cobb, Roger W, and Marc Howard Ross. 1997. Cultural Strategies of Agenda Denial. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
11.
Dobrzynski, Judith H.1997. “Battles Over Funds for Arts Felt at Local Level”. New York Times, August 14, 1997, (Section A) p. 1-1.
12.
Downs, Donald. 1989. The New Politics of Pornography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
13.
Elkins, David. 1995. “Testing Competing Explanations for the Adoption of Type II Policies”. Urban Affairs Review30 (July): 809-839.
14.
Feiock, Richard C., and Gregory Cable. 1992. “Need, Institutional Arrange- ments, and Economic Development Policy”Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory2 (4): 378-398.
15.
Feiock, Richard C., and James C. Clingermayer. 1992. “Development Policy Choice: Four Explanations for City Implementation of Economic Devel- opment Policies”. American Review of Public Administration22 (March): 49-64.
16.
Goetz, Edward G., and Mara S. Sidney. 1997. “Local Policy Subsystems and Issue Definition: An Analysis of Community Development Policy Change”. Urban Affairs Review32 (March): 490-512.
17.
Haider-Markel, Donald P1998. “The Politics of Social Regulatory Policy: State and Federal Hate Crime Policy and Implementation Effort”. Political Research Quarterly51 (March): 69-88.
18.
Haider-Markel, Donald P.1999. “Morality Policy and Individual-Level Political Behavior: The Case of Legislative Voting on Lesbian and Gay Issues”. Policy Studies Journal27 (Winter): 735-749.
19.
Hansen, Susan B.1993. “Differences in Public Policies Toward Abortion: Elec- toral and Policy Context.” In Malcolm L. Goggin, ed., Understanding the New Politics of Abortion, pp. 222-248. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
20.
Hunter, James Davison. 1994. Before the Shooting Begins: Searchingfor Democracy in America's Culture War. New York: Free Press.
21.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1990. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
22.
King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. P rinceton, NJ: Princeton Univer- sity Press.
23.
Kirp, David L., and Ronald Bayer. 1993. “The Politics [of Needle Exchange].” In J. Stryker and M. Smith, eds., Needle Exchange. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation.
24.
Lineberry, R. L., and Fowler, E. P1967. “Reformism and Public Policies in Amer- ican Cities”. American Political Science Review61 (3): 701-716.
25.
Meier, Kenneth J.1994. The Politics of Sin: Drugs, Alcohol, and Public Policy. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
26.
Meier, Kenneth J., and Deborah R. McFarlane. 1993. “The Politics of Funding Abortion: State Responses to the Political Environment”. American Politics Quarterly21: 81-101.
27.
Miranda, R., and D. Rosdil. 1995. “Development Policy Innovation in American Cities.” In N. Walzer, ed., Local Economic Development: Incentives and Inter- national Trends, pp. 181-207. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
28.
Mooney, Christopher Z.2001. “The Public Clash of Private Values.” In C. Mooney, ed., The Public Clash of Private Values, pp. 3-20. New York: Chatham House.
29.
Mooney, Christopher Z., and Mei-Hsien Lee. 1995. “Legislating Morality in the American States: The Case of the pre-Roe Abortion Regulation Reform”. American Journal of Political Science39 (August): 599-628.
30.
Mooney, Christopher Z., and Mei-Hsien Lee. 2000. “The Influence of Values on Consensus and Contentious Morality Policy: U.S. Death Penalty Reform, 1956-1983”. Journal of Politics62 (1): 223-240.
31.
Morgan, David R., and Michael W Hirlinger. 1991. “Intergovernmental Service Contracts: A Multivariate Explanation”. Urban Affairs Quarterly27 (Septem- ber): 128-144.
32.
Morgan, David R., and John P Pelissero. 1980. “Urban Policy: Does Political Struc- ture Matter?”American Political Science Review74 (December): 999-1005.
33.
Norrander, Barbara, and Clyde Wilcox. 2001. “Public Opinion and Policymak- ing in the States: The Case of Post-Roe Abortion Policy” In Christopher Z. Mooney, ed., The Public Clash of Private Values, 143-159. New York: Chatham House.
34.
Peterson, Paul. 1981. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
35.
Pierce, Patrick A., and Donald E. Miller. 1999. “Variations in the Diffusion of State Lottery Adoptions: How Revenue Dedication Changes Morality Poli- tics”. Policy Studies Journal27 (Winter): 696-706.
36.
Podorohetz, Norman. 1979. “The Adversary Culture and the New Class.” In B. Bruce-Biggs, ed., The New Class? pp. 19-32. New York: McGraw-Hill.
37.
Rosdil, Donald L.1991. “The Context of Radical Populism in U.S. Cities: A Com- parative Analysis”. Journal of Urban Affairs13 (1): 77-96.
38.
Rosdil, Donald L. 1998. “Rethinking Local Policy Analysis: The Challenge of Culture to Polit- ical Economy”. Paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Palmer House, Chicago, April 23-25.
39.
Schneider, Mark, and Paul Teske. 1992. “Toward a Theory of the Political Entre- preneur Evidence from Local Government”. American Political Science Review86 (September): 737-747.
40.
Schneider, Mark, and Paul Teske. 1993a. “The Progrowth Entrepreneur in Local Government”. Urban Affairs Quarterly29 (December): 316-327.
41.
Schneider, Mark, and Paul Teske. 1993b. “The Antigrowth Entrepreneur: Challenging the ‘Equilibrium’ of the Growth Machine”. Journal of Politics55 (August): 720-736.
42.
Sharp, Elaine B.1996. “Culture Wars and City Politics: Local Government's Role in Social Conflicts”. Urban Affairs Review31 (July): 738-749.
43.
Sharp, Elaine B.1997. “A Comparative Anatomy of Urban Social Conflict”. Political Research Quarterly50 (June): 261-280.
44.
Sharp, Elaine B., ed. 1999. Culture Wars and Local Politics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
45.
Sharp, Elaine B., and Steven Maynard-Moody1991. “Theories of the Local Wel- fare Role”. American Journal of Political Science35 (November): 934-950.
46.
Smith, Kevin B.1999. “Clean Thoughts and Dirty Minds: The Politics of Porn”. Policy Studies Journal27: 723-723.
47.
Stone, Clarence. 1989. Regime Politics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
48.
Tarrow, Sidney1994. Power in Movement. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univer- sity Press.
49.
Teske, Paul, and Mark Schneider. 1994. “The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: The Case of City Managers”. Public Administration Review54 (July-August): 331-340.
50.
Welch, Susan, and Timothy Bledsoe. 1988. Urban Reform and Its Consequences: A Study in Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
51.
Wong, Kenneth K.1990. City Choices. Albany: State University of New York Press.
