Prospects for Regional Governance Lessons from the Miami Abolition Vote

Abstract

Circumstances surrounding the 1997 city dissolution vote in Miami were ideal for establishing a metropolitan government, based on arguments from the traditional urban politics literature. Yet it did not happen. How did the issue make it onto the public agenda but fail to be adopted? The author argues that changes in metropolitan governance need to be understood as the outcomes of an agenda-setting process and not solely based on the distribution of winners and losers, as suggested by the public-choice/metropolitan reform literature. The Miami case clearly illustrates the importance of focusing events, a skilled policy entrepreneur, and timing of events as interest fades and the window of opportunity closes. It also illustrates the power of a policy image to trigger emotional attachments that can mobilize inattentive publics.