Jonathan Colner (APRW)

This Week's Speaker

Jonathan Colner (NYU), "Ward Against Ward? District Elections and Particularism in U.S. City Councils”

Abstract

How does the adoption of district elections affect the legislative attentions of city councilmembers? Using an original method for extracting and categorizing agenda items from city council meeting records and a regression discontinuity design, I find that councilmembers elected from city districts spend less time on particularistic issues compared to those elected at-large. Furthermore, this shift in attention is at least partially caused by a change in candidate entry dynamics, with fewer business leaders and lawyers and more activist candidates running in council elections following the switch. Finally, I find the shift is operationalized by a decreased focus on more administrative ordinances and an increased focus on more national and ideological topics. These findings challenge prevailing wisdom regarding both how we think about particularism in the local context and how issue attention is affected by the choice to elect councilmembers by district or at-large. While traditionally the decision to implement at- large or district elections has been portrayed as a choice between a particularistic or citywide focus, here I find it may be more accurately portrayed as a choice between a politicial/activist or administrative focus.

The American Politics Research Workshop (Gov 3004) meets all academic year, Tuesdays, 12:00 - 2:00 PM, in CGIS K354. This workshop presents an opportunity for graduate students and Harvard faculty to present and receive feedback on their current research. The workshop highlights key theoretical and empirical findings from Harvard affiliates on topics related to American politics.

All interested Harvard affiliates are invited to attend.