This article reviews dominant urban political theories and argues that pluralism, public choice theory, and regime theory do not pay sufficient attention to the urban state and history. By “bringing the state back [into]” urban political theory, this article reveals the extent to which each dominant theoretical perspective represents a similar theme played again and again in different historical periods and institutional contexts. I argue that city politics and urban government are shaped by economic and democratic forces, and whether, when, and how these forces influence city officials is contingent upon the design of those local organizations, their capacities, their position within broader political structures, and their position within broader economic systems. By bringing history and the urban state to the forefront of local political analysis, this essay reveals continuity across dominant urban political theories and identifies important theoretical and explanatory gaps.
AlmondGabriel A.1988. “The Return to the State.”American Political Science Review82:853–74.
2.
BachrachPeterBaratzMorton S.1962. “Two Faces of Power.”American Political Science Review56:947–52.
3.
BachrachPeterBaratzMorton S.1963. “Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework.”American Political Science Review57:632–42.
4.
BanfieldEdward C.WilsonJames Q.1963. City Politics. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
5.
BernardRichard M.RiceBradley Robert. 1983. Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth Since World War II. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
6.
BridgesAmy. 1984. A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
7.
BridgesAmy. 1997. Morning Glories: Municipal Reform in the Southwest. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
8.
BridgesAmyFortnerMichael Javen, eds. 2016. Urban Citizenship and American Democracy. New York: State Univ. of New York Press.
9.
BrowningRufus P.MarshallDale RogersTabbDavid H.1984. Protest Is Not Enough: The Struggle of Blacks and Hispanics for Equality in Urban politics. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
10.
BurnsNancy. 1994. The Formation of American Local Governments: Private Values in Public Institutions. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
11.
BurnsNancyEvansLauraGammGeraldMcConnaughyCorrine. 2009. “Urban Politics in the State Arena.”Studies in American Political Development23:1–22.
12.
BurnsNancyGammGerald. 1997. “Creatures of the State: State Politics and Local Government, 1871-1921.”Urban Affairs Review33:59–96.
13.
CaroRobert A.1974. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. New York: Knopf.
14.
CornwellElmer E.1964. “Bosses, Machines, and Ethnic groups.”Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science353:27–39.
15.
CowartAndrew T.1978a. “The Economic Policies of European Governments, Part I: Monetary Policy.”British Journal of Political Science8:285–311.
16.
CowartAndrew T.1978b. “The Economic Policies of European Governments, Part II: Fiscal Policy.”British Journal of Political Science8:425–39.
17.
DahlRobert. A.1956. A Preface to Democratic Theory: How Does Popular Sovereignty Function in America?Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
18.
DahlRobert. A.1957. “The Concept of Power.”Behavioral Science2:201–15.
19.
DahlRobert.A.1958. “A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model.”American Political Science Review52:463–69.
20.
DahlRobert. A.1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
21.
DiGaetanoAlan. 1988. “The Rise and Development of Urban Political Machines: An Alternative to Merton’s Functional Analysis.”Urban Affairs Review24:242–67.
22.
DiGaetanoAlanKlemanskiJohn S.1993. “Urban Regimes in Comparative Perspective: The Politics of Urban Development in Britain.”Urban Affairs Review29:54–83.
23.
DilworthRichardson, ed. 2009. The City in American Political Development. New York: Routledge.
24.
DownsAnthony. 1957. “An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy.”Journal of Political Economy65:135–50.
25.
DreierPeterMollenkopfJohn H.SwanstromTodd. 2014. Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
26.
DudziakMary L.2000. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
27.
EisingerPeter K.1982a. “Black Employment in Municipal Jobs: The Impact of Black Political Power.”American Political Science Review76:380–92.
28.
EisingerPeter K.1982b. “The Economic Conditions of Black Employment in Municipal Bureaucracies.”American Journal of Political Science26:754–71.
29.
EldersveldSamuel J. 1949. “The Influence of Metropolitan Party Pluralities in Presidential Elections Since 1920: A Study of Twelve Key Cities.”American Political Science Review43:1189–1206.
30.
ElkinStephen L.1985. “Twentieth Century Urban Regimes.”Journal of Urban Affairs7:11–28.
31.
ErieSteven P.1988. Rainbow’s End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840-1985. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
32.
EvansPeterB.JacobsonHarold KaranPutnamRobert D.1993. Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
33.
FainsteinNorman I.FainsteinSusan S.1983a. “New Haven: The Limits of the Local State.” In Restructuring the City: The Political Economy of Urban Redevelopment, edited by FainsteinSusan S., 27–79. New York: Longman.
34.
FainsteinNorman I.FainsteinSusan S.1983b. “Regime Strategies, Communal Resistance, and Economic Forces.” In Restructuring the City: The Political Economy of Urban Redevelopment, edited by FainsteinSusan S., 245–82. New York: Longman.
35.
FortnerMichael Javen. 2013. “The Carceral State and the Crucible of Black Politics: An Urban History of the Rockefeller Drug Laws.”Studies in American Political Development27:14–35.
36.
FortnerMichael Javen. 2014. “‘The Silent Majority’ in Black and White: Invisibility and Imprecision in the Historiography of Mass Incarceration.”Journal of Urban History40:252–82.
37.
FortnerMichael Javen. 2015. Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
38.
FortnerMichael Javen. 2016. “Urban Autonomy and Effective Citizenship.” In Urban Citizenship and American Democracy, edited by BridgesAmy B.FortnerMichael Javen. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.
39.
FriedenJeffryMartinLisa L.2002. “International Political Economy: Global and Domestic Interactions.” In Political Science: State of the Discipline, edited by KatznelsonIraMilnerHelen V., 118–46. New York: W.W. Norton.
40.
FriedlandRogerPalmerDonald. 1984. “Park Place and Main Street: Business and the Urban Power Structure.”Annual Review of Sociology10:393–416.
41.
FrugGerald E.1979. “City as a Legal Concept.”Harvard Law Review93:1057–1154.
42.
FuchsEster R.1992. Mayors and Money: Fiscal Policy in New York and Chicago. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
43.
GammGeraldKousserThad. 2013. “No Strength in Numbers: The Failure of Big-City Bills in American State Legislatures, 1880–2000.”American Political Science Review107:663–78.
44.
GlazerNathanMoynihanDaniel P.1963. Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City. Cambridge: MIT Press.
45.
GourevitchPeter. 1978. “The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics.”International Organization32:881–912.
46.
GridleyMark C.1990. Jazz Styles: History and Analysis. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
47.
GuelkeAdrian. 2005. Rethinking the Rise and Fall of Apartheid: South Africa and World Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
48.
GurrTed RobertKingDesmond S.1987. The State and the City. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
49.
HajnalZoltan L.LewisPaul G.2003. “Municipal Institutions and Voter Turnout in Local Elections.”Urban Affairs Review38:645–68.
50.
HajnalZoltan L.TrounstineJessica. 2005. “Where Turnout Matters: The Consequences of Uneven Turnout in City Politics.”Journal of Politics67:515–35.
51.
HajnalZoltan L.TrounstineJessica. 2010. “Who or What Governs? The Effects of Economics, Politics, Institutions, and Needs on Local Spending.”American Politics Research38:1130–63.
52.
HallPeter A.1986. Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France. Cambridge: Polity Press.
53.
HarrisRichard A.2016. “Farewell to the Urban Growth Machine: Community Development Regimes in Smaller, Distressed Cities.” In Urban Citizenship and American Democracy, edited by BridgesAmy B.FortnerMichael Javen. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.
54.
HecloHugh. 1978. “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment.” In The New American Political System, edited by KingAnthony, 87–124. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.
55.
HintzeOtto. 1975. “Military Organization and the Organization of the State.” In The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, edited by GilbertFelix, 178–215. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
56.
HunterFloyd. 1953. Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
57.
ImbroscioDavid L.1998. “Reformulating Urban Regime Theory: The Division of Labor Between State and Market Reconsidered.”Journal of Urban Affairs20:233–48.
58.
JonesBryan D.GreenbergSaadia R.KaufmanCliffordDrewJoseph. 1978. “Service Delivery Rules and the Distribution of Local Government Services: Three Detroit Bureaucracies.”Journal of Politics40:332–68.
59.
Jones-CorreaMichael. 1998. Between Two Nations: The Political Predicament of Latinos in New York City. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
60.
JuddDennis R.1988. The Politics of American Cities: Private Power and Public Policy. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman.
61.
JuddDennis R.2005. “Everything Is Always Going to Hell: Urban Scholars as End-Times Prophets.”Urban Affairs Review41:119–31.
62.
KahlerMiles. 2002. “The State of the State in World Politics.” In Political Science: State of the Discipline, edited by KatznelsonIraMilnerHelen V., 56–83. New York: W.W. Norton.
63.
KantorPaul. 1987. “The Dependent City: The Changing Political Economy of Urban Economic Development in the United States.”Urban Affairs Review22:493–520.
64.
KantorPaul. 1995. The Dependent City Revisited: The Political Economy of Urban Development and Social Policy. Boulder: Westview Press.
65.
KantorPaulDavidStephen. 1988. The Dependent City: The Changing Political Economy of Urban America. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman.
66.
KantorPaulSavitchHank V.HaddockSerena Vicari. 1997. “The Political Economy of Urban Regimes: A Comparative Perspective.”Urban Affairs Review32:48–77.
67.
KarnigAlbert K.McClainPaula D.1985. “The New South and Black Economic and Political Development: Changes from 1970 to 1980.”Western Political Quarterly38:539–50.
68.
KarnigAlbert K.WelchSusan. 1980. Black Representation and Urban Policy. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
69.
KatznelsonIra. 1976. Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics, and Migration in the United States, 1900-1930, and Britain, 1948-1968. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
70.
KatznelsonIra. 1981. City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
71.
KatznelsonIra. 1985. “Working-Class Formation and the State: Nineteenth-Century England in American Perspective.” In Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research, edited by EvansPeter B.RueschemeyerDietrichSkocpolTheda, 257–84. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
72.
KeckMargaret E.SikkinkKathryn. 1998. Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
KingGaryKeohaneRobert O.VerbaSidney. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
75.
KryderDaniel. 2000. Divided Arsenal: Race and the American State During World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
76.
KuhnThomas S.1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
77.
LasswellHarold D.1935. World Politics and Personal Insecurity. New York: Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book.
78.
LewisPaul GeorgeNeimanMax. 2009. Custodians of Place: Governing the Growth and Development of Cities. Washington, DC: Georgetown Univ. Press.
79.
LindblomCharles Edward. 1977. Politics and Markets: The World’s Political-Economic Systems. New York: Basic Books.
80.
LoganJohn R.MolotchHarvey Luskin. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
81.
MertonRobert King. 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.
82.
MilkisSidney M.1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System since the New Deal. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
83.
MillsC. Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
84.
MladenkaKenneth R.1980. “The Urban Bureaucracy and the Chicago Political Machine: Who Gets What and the Limits to Political Control.”American Political Science Review74:991–98.
85.
MladenkaKenneth R.1981. “Citizen Demands and Urban Services: The Distribution of Bureaucratic Response in Chicago and Houston.”American Journal of Political Science25:693–714.
86.
MladenkaKenneth R.1989. “Blacks and Hispanics in Urban Politics.”American Political Science Review83:165–91.
87.
MollenkopfJohn H.1983. The Contested City. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
88.
MollenkopfJohn H.1992. A Phoenix in the Ashes: The Rise and Fall of the Koch Coalition in New York City Politics. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
89.
MolotchHarvey. 1976. “The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place.”American Journal of Sociology82:309–32.
90.
MoravcsikAndrew. 1994. Why the European Community Strengthens the State: Domestic Politics and International Cooperation. Cambridge: Center for European Studies, Harvard Univ.
91.
MorganDavid R.PelisseroJohn P.1980. “Urban Policy: Does Political Structure Matter?” American Political Science Review74:999–1006.
92.
MossbergerKarenStokerGerry. 2001. “The Evolution of Urban Regime Theory the Challenge of Conceptualization.”Urban Affairs Review36:810–35.
93.
NiceDavid C.FredericksenElizabeth D.1995. The Politics of Intergovernmental Relations. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
94.
NordhausWilliam D.1975. “The Political Business Cycle.”Review of Economic Studies42:169–90.
95.
OliverJ. Eric. 2001. Democracy in Suburbia. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
96.
OliverJ. EricShangE. HaCallenZachary. 2012. Local Elections and the Politics of Small-Scale Democracy. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
97.
OrloffAnn SholaSkocpolTheda. 1984. “Why Not Equal Protection? Explaining the Politics of Public Social Spending in Britain, 1900-1911, and the United States, 1880s-1920.”American Sociological Review49:726–50.
98.
OrrMarion E.StokerGerry. 1994. “Urban Regimes and Leadership in Detroit.”Urban Affairs Review30:48–73.
99.
PageEdward C.1991. Localism and Centralism in Europe: The Political and Legal Bases of Local Self-Government. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
100.
PetersonPaul E.1981. City Limits. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
101.
PiersonPaul. 1993. “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change.”World Politics45:595–628.
102.
PiersonPaul. 1995. Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
103.
PiersonPaul. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.”American Political Science Review94:251–67.
104.
PinderhughesDianne Marie. 1987. Race and Ethnicity in Chicago Politics: A Reexamination of Pluralist Theory. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.
105.
PivenFrances Fox. 1984. “Federal Policy and Urban Fiscal Strain.”Yale Law & Policy Review2:291–320.
106.
PolsbyNelson W.1963. Community Power and Political theory. New Haven: Yale University Press.
107.
RaeDouglas W.2003. City Urbanism and Its End. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
108.
RastJoel. 2012. “Why History (Still) Matters: Time and Temporality in Urban Political Analysis.”Urban Affairs Review48:3–36.
109.
ReedAdolphJr.1988. “The Black Urban Regime: Structural Origins and Constraints.” In Power, Community, and the City, edited by SmithMichael Peter, 138–89. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
110.
ReedAdolphJr.1995. “Demobilization in the New Black Political Regime: Ideological Capitulation and Radical Failure in the Postsegregation Era.” In The Bubbling Cauldron: Race, Ethnicity, and the Urban Crisis, edited by SmithMichael PeterFeaginJoe R., 182–208. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
111.
SapotichneJoshuaJonesBryan D.WolfeMichelle. 2007. “Is Urban Politics a Black Hole? Analyzing the Boundary Between Political Science and Urban Politics.”Urban Affairs Review43:76–106.
112.
SavitchH. V.KantorPaul. 2002. Cities in the International Marketplace: The Political Economy of Urban Development in North America and Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
113.
SavitchH. V.ThomasJohn Clayton. 1991. “Conclusion: End of the Millennium Big City Politics.” In Big City Politics in Transition, edited by SavitchH. V.ThomasJohn Clayton, 235–51. Newbury Park: SAGE.
114.
SchulmanBruce J.1991. From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
115.
ScottJames C.1969. “Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change.”American Political Science Review63:1142–58.
116.
ShefterMartin. 1976. “The Emergence of the Political Machine: An Alternative View.” In Theoretical Perspectives on Urban Politics, edited by HawleyWillis D.LipskyMichael, 14–44. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
117.
ShefterMartin. 1985. Political Crisis, Fiscal Crisis: The Collapse and Revival of New York City. New York: Basic Books.
118.
ShefterMartin. 1986a. “Political Incorporation and the Extrusion of the Left: Party Politics and Social Forces in New York City.”Studies in American Political Development1:50–90.
119.
ShefterMartin. 1986b. “Trade Unions and Political Machines: The Organization and Disorganization of the American Working Class in Late Nineteenth Century.” In Working-Class Formation: Nineteenth-Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States, edited by KatznelsonIraZolbergAristide R., 197–276. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
120.
SitesWilliam. 1997. “The Limits of Urban Regime Theory: New York City Under Koch, Dinkins, and Giuliani.”Urban Affairs Review32:536–57.
121.
SkocpolTheda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
122.
StoneClarence N.1980. “Systemic Power in Community Decision Making: A Restatement of Stratification Theory.”American Political Science Review74:978–90.
123.
StoneClarence N.1982. “Social Stratification, Nondecision-Making, and the Study of Community Power.”American Politics Research10:275–302.
124.
StoneClarence N.1988. “Preemptive Power: Floyd Hunter’s ‘Community Power Structure’ Reconsidered.”American Journal of Political Science32:82–104.
125.
StoneClarence N.1989. Regime Politics: Government Atlanta, 1946–1988. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
126.
StoneClarence N.1993. “Urban Regimes and the Capacity to Govern: A Political Economy Approach.”Journal of Urban Affairs15:1–28.
127.
SwanstromTodd. 1988. Crisis of Growth Politics: Cleveland, Kucinich, and the Challenge of Urban Populism. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.
128.
TeafordJon C.1984. The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870-1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
129.
ThompsonJ. Phillip. 2006. Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black Communities, and the Call for a Deep Democracy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
130.
TieboutCharles M.1956. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.”Journal of Political Economy64:416–24.
131.
TrounstineJessica. 2009a. “All Politics Is Local: The Reemergence of the Study of City Politics.”Perspectives on Politics7:611–18.
132.
TrounstineJessica. 2009b. Political Monopolies in American Cities: The Rise and Fall of Bosses and Reformers. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
133.
WeirMargaretWolmanHaroldSwanstromTodd. 2005. “The Calculus of Coalitions Cities, Suburbs, and the Metropolitan Agenda.”Urban Affairs Review40:730–60.
134.
WilliamsMason B.2013. City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York. New York: W.W. Norton.
135.
WilsonJames Q.1961. “The Economy of Patronage.”Journal of Political Economy69:369–80.
136.
WolfingerRaymond E.1973. The Politics of Progress. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
137.
WolmanHaroldGoldsmithMichael. 1990. “Local Autonomy as a Meaningful Analytic Concept Comparing Local Government in the United States and the United Kingdom.”Urban Affairs Review26:3–27.
