The Emergence of Local Government Policy Leadership

Abstract

State and local governments traditionally exerted leadership in policy areas that directly affected their communities and citizens. The leadership of cities, however, has expanded into a number of policy areas where the states and the national government have reduced their policy footprint. This article summarizes research on local policy leadership, examines it within the context of historical state–local intergovernmental relations, and reviews three expanding policy areas. As creatures of state government, localities are subject to legislative restrictions; however, recent research reveals a significant upsurge of state governments preempting policy actions of local governments. Therefore, it can be concluded that the flame of local government policy leadership burns brightly now, but forces appear to be gathering that may cause it to flicker.

Keywords

policy leadership state–local intergovernmental relations preemption

The mantle of policy leadership in the American federal system can be described as a shared, yet complex, endeavor among the various levels of government. While the constitution describes the scope and primary responsibility for the national and state governments in many policy areas, the founders were reluctant to specify these roles in order to provide flexibility and ensure that the states retain significant policy autonomy. In particular, the Tenth Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Federalism ensures that Washington, DC, and the state capitals share policy leadership.

Since the founding of the Republic, however, dominance in many policy areas alternated between the national and state governments, especially where there is vague or unspecified leadership or responsibility. Even though the constitution provides broad boundaries between Washington and the states in many policy areas, the role of local governments in this framework remains unclear. Notably, the constitution does not mention cities and local government. Historically, state and local governments tend to exert leadership in policy areas that directly affect their communities and citizens. Periodically, the federal government intervenes, providing varying levels of support through grants and direct assistance in many policy areas.

Trends, however, seem to indicate that the policy leadership roles of state and local governments have expanded, particularly in selected policy areas, where the national government has minimized its role. In fact, in a number of arenas, local governments have elevated their leadership position, while the states and the national government have reduced their policy footprint. Devolution or the delegating of policy responsibilities from the national government to the states clearly factors in this shifting of policy leadership, but it is also evident that Washington has systematically removed itself from numerous policy areas that have significant national relevance. Local governments have stepped in to fill that policy leadership vacuum in many cases.

This article examines the implications and challenges of this shift in policy leadership to local government. How enduring is this? First, it presents a discussion of research on local policy leadership, emphasizing the relationship between top elected officials and chief administrative officers. Second, it looks at policy leadership within a state–local intergovernmental context, summarizing extant research on the institutional dynamics of policy leadership at the local level. Finally, by reviewing three policy areas, it describes trends in local government policy leadership.

Local Policy Leadership

At the junction of administration and politics, and in the center of democratic governance at the local level, sits public policy. The development and delivery of public programs requires the collaborative efforts of a collection of diverse sets of actors and institutions in a range of policy actions. In the classical description, the policy development structure is dichotomous: Elected officials craft and enact policy while administrators implement policy and deliver programs. Leadership, logically, initiates the policy development process. Policy leadership, as one would expect, is an action-oriented and purposive response by elected officials and key administrators to perceived social and economic situations. Eyestone (1971, 153) identifies three conditions that initiate policy leadership: “an opportunity or a problematic situation exists; political leaders perceive this opportunity or problem; and political leaders are legally and politically free to choose among alternative courses of action in light of this opportunity or problem.” Policy leadership, however, notably at the local level, is not solely within the hands of elected officials, as research demonstrates.

Classic studies of local government policy leadership primarily emphasize the role of individuals within local political environments. These studies find that mayors act as policy leaders in their deployment of formal and informal resources (Pressman 1972; Wilkstrom 1979), while city managers often work between political and administrative realms, rather than solely within the administrative domain (Morgan and Watson 1992). Kingdon (2003) describes policy leadership in terms of the function of a policy entrepreneur bringing various sets of actors together to develop policy. This research tradition implies shared authority and responsibility between elected and appointed officials. It challenges conventional wisdom that assumes local government policy-making occurs within at least two distinct and dichotomous realms—that is administrative and political (Boynton and Wright 1971; Svara 1985). Although these findings provide insight into policy leadership at the local level, little-to-no scholarly research on policy leadership utilizes local government as the unit of analysis. This may be due, in part, to scholars’ varied conceptualization of policy leadership praxis.

Some research, however, points toward a collaborative leadership arrangement between the chief elected official, such as the mayor, and the chief administrative officer, such as a city manager or city administrator (Zhang and Feiock 2009). Shared policy leadership at the local level was among the range of topics explored by a team of researchers in the mid- to late 1990s as Europe underwent a series of structural changes in local government (Mouritzen and Svara 2002). The researchers surveyed 4,300 chief appointed administrators from fourteen countries including the United States. They examined a number of questions, but the one most relevant to policy leadership asked: “How do politicians and administrators engage in local government leadership?” Their research identified leadership at the local government apex as the “…point in the government process at which the perspectives and contributions of top politicians and administrators are blended” (Mouritzen and Svara 2002, 107). In terms of policy leadership, the researchers concluded that the elected officials and administrators form an interdependent and shared leadership structure that results in extensive and creative exchange of policy proposals. They noted that the political and administrative dimensions in local government can complement each other, resulting in a more democratic governance system, and that this partnership of leaders can result in expanded capacity for cities (Mouritzen and Svara 2002), notably in a range of policy domains. Based on their research, they conclude that policy leadership in municipalities consists of a merger of democratic mechanisms with administrative excellence and professional commitment. In other words, the emphasis of chief elected officials on political responsiveness complements the administrator’s focus on programmatic efficiency creating an effective policy leadership structure.

Scholars characterize the local government policy leadership structure in the federalist system and within intergovernmental relations in a number of ways such as bottom-up federalism (Riverstone-Newell 2012), intergovernmental politics (Sbragia 1996), local defiance (Fisk 2016), municipal defiance (Bowman 2017), and local activism (Riverstone-Newell 2012). These types of local policy activism then point to “a category of political behavior reserved to local officials who use their positions of authority to purposefully—pointedly—challenge higher government laws and policies to bring about policy change” (Riverstone-Newell 2012, 402). Therefore, on all accounts, local policy leadership refers to situations wherein local government leaders, both political and administrative, respond to social and economic situations by enacting policies or taking actions that are discordant with actions and/or policies of higher governments (i.e., state and/or federal). These locally developed policies may not be intentional and direct challenges of authority; rather, they can be viewed as attempts to fill policy gaps left by higher levels of governments (Riverstone-Newell 2017). In summary, the limited amount of research that focuses specifically on local policy leadership concludes that it can be a contentious issue in a chaotic intergovernmental system of policy design and implementation. In the next section, this article examines the pertinent issues and challenges related to policy leadership in an intergovernmental environment.

Local Policy Leadership in an Intergovernmental Context

Conflict between states and localities is as old as the founding of the United States (Krane, Ebdon, and Bartle 2004). The long-standing tension in state and local government relations revolves around the central issue of the locus of power (Bowman 2017). That is, which government has the power to make local decisions? Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara (2017, 2) explicate the issue in terms of the following: “which people exercise this authority in their geographic area, in their particular branch of government, and over the public responsibilities assigned to their unit of government.” Unlike federal–state relations within the federalist system wherein the states created a national government through the U.S. Constitution, local governments are creations of their respective state and normally lack independent formal constitutional authority. Therefore, “through its constitution, statutes, court rulings, and practices, state government decides how much power and authority its local governments will possess” (Bowman 2017, 1120). Because local governments are products of the state government, their legal and political powers are provided by the states that incorporate them.

Many local governments are not the small rural settlements that existed in the early years of the Nation’s founding. Cities grew and transformed into large urban enclaves and vast metropolitan regions that deliver a complex range of public goods and services through a complex set of intergovernmental collaborative relationships (Parlow 2008; Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara 2017). They play a pivotal role in the governance of the state and, while often lacking significant levels of autonomy and formal authority, continue to amass and exercise considerable economic and political influence in the state, region, national, and increasingly, international arenas. Many American cities have emerged as major players on the global stage, possessing economies exceeding those of many nation-states. Berman (2003, 1) argues that, contrary to federalism’s conventional wisdom, and despite lacking formal constitutional power, local government harnesses the ability “to defend or promote its interests in the intergovernmental system.” Riverstone-Newell (2012, 401) adds, the very nature of the intergovernmental system, where governments depend on one another to govern, is less coercive and more collaborative in which “federal, state, and local leaders lobby, bargain, partner, and negotiate to accomplish mutually agreeable ends.” In sum, although local governments often lack formal and structural power in the federal–state–local governmental relationship, they still possess informal powers that allow them to promote and protect their interests.

It can be argued that because of their unique position in the intergovernmental structure of the United States, local governments are fertile grounds for policy innovation and social change since their legal structures are not as intractable as higher levels of governments (Bowman 2017; Parlow 2008; Riverstone-Newell 2017). This structural flexibility encourages the expansion of democratic and economic values and responsiveness. Although many scholars acknowledge the many advantages of making policy decisions at the local level, this type of decision-making also includes many hazards. For example, Sharp (2012) found that local social programs negatively affect citizen engagement and stifle citizen participation. Policy-making at any level of government in the United States includes many challenges, but the state–local intergovernmental system contains a special set of complexities.

As cities emerged as major players in the political, economic, and social fabric of the nation, and a key member of the intergovernmental system, relations between local and state government grew increasingly complex. Two competing legal principles traditionally served as interpretive frames for determining the level of local government autonomy in terms of state authority. The first, Dillon’s Rule, a legal interpretation by a nineteenth-century Iowa state judge, views local governments as primarily administrative apparatuses in service to state’s missions and policy goals (Parlow 2008; Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara 2017). Dillon’s Rule posits local governments only have powers that are “expressly granted to them by the states” (Parlow 2008, 102).

On the other end of the autonomy spectrum, home rule is a legal principle that contends local governments should have legislative authority for matters concerning their respective localities that are not reserved as matters of state authority (Parlow 2008; Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara 2017). Although the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed Dillon’s Rule as the law of the land, the vast majority of states have adopted some variation of the home rule (Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara 2017). Still, home rule does not grant localities full autonomy. Dillon’s Rule, as the preeminent legal doctrine, still enables states to preempt local government (Parlow 2008; Riverstone-Newell 2017). In a federal system of government, then, where states have significant levels of autonomy, it is difficult to sort their legal relationships with local units of government into two distinct categories: Dillon’s Rule or home rule. The states widely differ in the manner in which they provide legal and policy authority to their local governments.

How states relate to their component units of local government is understandably complex and varied when it comes to the granting of local authority. According to a Discussion Paper Prepared for The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy (Richardson, Gough, and Puentes 2003, 13),

In general, the literature treats Dillon’s Rule and home rule as polar opposites with respect to local government autonomy and assumes that either one or the other exists in a state. But both of these assumptions are incorrect. The two doctrines often coexist with one another and neither implies any particular degree of local government autonomy.

In other words, the operative words for state–local relations in terms of the authority of localities are “it depends.” Dillon’s Rule and home role, then, primarily guide ideologies and function less as opposing legal principles. While most states employ some measure of Dillon’s Rule, they do not implement it in a uniform manner. However, recent evidence indicates an apparent strengthening of the application of Dillon’s Rule—preemption.

Preemptive actions by state government are part of the relationship between state and local government. Preemption refers to “a higher level government us[ing] its legal authority to cancel out a lower level government’s actions” (Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara 2017, 6). Legislative actions, executive orders, and administrative mandates all comprise varieties of preemption. While preemption has a long history in terms of intergovernmental relations, much of it involved the national government nullifying policy actions of states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Recent research reveals a significant upsurge of state government preempting policy actions of many local governments, as they grasped the mantle of policy leadership in a number of critical areas where the national government has relinquished its policy primacy.

Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara (2017) presented their research on preemption, a Big Ideas Work Paper (2017), to the Alliance for Innovation, Local Research Collaborative, and the Research Seminar at the Annual Conference of the International City/County Management Association in October 2017. Their work reveals a growing trend where state governments across the country engage in efforts to curtail and restrict the ability of municipalities to “serve and improve their communities.” Research released by the National League of Cities (DuPuis et al. 2017) mirrors the trends noted in the Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara’s work. While many local government policy leaders will share the concern of state preemption raised by the Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara, and the National League of Cities research, others may claim that this movement is merely reaffirming historic state–local relationships established by the constitution. Dillon’s Rule, they say, is consistent with the principles of federalism. Russell and Bostrom (2016, 3) write that “While local governments play an important role in states, it is unfounded for local jurisdictions to contend that they are equal to the states…[L]ocal governments must belong to the states and the people inside them.”

The next section explores three brief examples of the emerging role of local government policy leadership in selected policy areas. This occurs, of course, within the context of state–local intergovernmental relations as described above.

Trends in Local Policy Leadership

Local governments, like other governmental units, develop policies to adapt to changes in their environment, addressing such policy issues as population increases and/or the development of new social issues (Swindell, Stenberg, and Svara 2017). The examples discussed below show that in addition to responding to the needs and desires of their citizens, some states appear to be raiding local government coffers and shirking their policy responsibilities (Bowman 2017). Local governments not only provide many of the essential public services to citizens, in recent years but have also taken on the leadership role in various policy areas. Some of those policies include minimum wage, immigration, and sustainability/climate change, among others. The following section briefly explores these three policy issues in light of local policy leadership.

Minimum Wage

For most Americans, wage increases struggle to keep pace with inflation (Piketty and Saez 2003). While public welfare programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program help support families and persons in need, income inequality continues to grow (Soss, Hacker, and Mettler 2007; Brookings Institute 2016). Federal minimum wage policy does very little in the way of helping to close the gap. By passing local ordinances to increase the minimum wage, local governments have taken up the task of improving the quality of life for the working class. Many of these cities are acting within their own interest as they discover the federal and/or state minimum wage does not sufficiently meet their cost of living (Parlow 2008). Local governments have also passed other labor ordinances such as paid leave, fair scheduling, and prevailing wage in order to help support the working class. Some states have responded by enacting laws preempting these local ordinances. As of July 2017, twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages above the federal amount (Jones and Ell 2017), and twenty-five states have passed laws preempting local minimum wages above the state and/or federal level (Economic Policy Institute 2017). Although state preemption is always a possibility, local governments have other options for supporting the working class. Local governments have the means to improve the labor relations system, thereby supporting low-wage workers through policies that do the following: leverage their economic resources as purchasers, consumers, and contractors; support and partner with workers organizations; and/or uplift and enforce equitable labor and wage standards (Center for American Progress 2017). Although lower governments’ formal legislative powers may be preempted, informally they can mobilize their own economic resources and collaborate with nongovernmental organizations to promote their political aims.

Immigration

The United States has a long and sordid history with immigration policy; however, scholars remain hopeful that local governments can help atone past misdeeds (McKanders 2017). The increasing number of sanctuary cities and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protests and lawsuits characterizes today’s local resistance to federal immigration policy. Having first appeared in the United States in the 1980s (Ridgley 2013) and still without a universal definition or criteria, the term sanctuary city refers to localities with policies that delimit interactions between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents (Lee, Omri, and Preston 2017). More specifically, Robbins (2017, A17) says these cities “generally do not comply with federal requests to detain undocumented immigrants who have been arrested on charges unrelated to their immigration status and turn them over to the federal authorities for possible deportation.” Sanctuary cities are but one manifestation of the commitment local governments have made to their immigrant residents—a commitment that resists and defies higher governments.

In 2012, the Obama Administration established the DACA program that made concessions for undocumented persons living in the United States whom immigrated to the nation as children (National Immigration Law Center 2017; Immigration Equality 2015). The program outlines specific conditions (e.g., age at arrival, age at time of request, continuous residency, criminal history) for which these persons can remain in the United States. The program grants temporary residency and work permits at the discretion of the Department of Homeland Security. As is common among the trends in intergovernmental relations mentioned in the earlier sections of this article, the DACA program is a federal directive with no federal resource allocation and is dependent upon local implementation. Researchers found that the program’s implementation often occurs in the form of public–private partnerships at the local level (de Graauw and Gleeson 2016). In 2017, when the Trump Administration announced its decision to repeal DACA, local governments began to respond. For example, California’s Sonoma County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution in support of DACA recipients, thereby reaffirming its commitment to immigrants (County of Sonoma 2017). The Atlanta City Council passed an emergency resolution calling for “limited cooperation with the U.S. Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in order to show that Atlanta opposes the decision to end DACA” (Merilan 2017). Again, local governments are taking a stand against higher governments in favor of immigrant communities.

Sustainability/Climate Change

Whereas with other environmental issues the federal government leads the way by setting baseline standards, climate change gained momentum as a state and local initiative (Engel 2006). Despite the absence of state and federal policies, in the 1990s, localities across the United States began to join the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Betsill 2001). Researchers found that, when the Bush Administration rejected the terms of the international climate change treaty, “action within the US”—meaning state, local, and regional—sought to advance climate protection (Byrne et al. 2007, 4556). Extant literature identifies correlations between economic, demographic, socioeconomic, and civic participation variables and local governments’ commitment to climate-change policy initiatives (Zahran et al. 2008). Consistent with Bowman (2017) and Parlow’s (2008) claims that local governments are amenable to policy innovation, Krause (2010, 45) concluded, “local-level characteristics are the dominant drivers of cities’ decisions to commit to climate protection.” Additionally, cities often commit to these initiatives without influence of or regard for states (Rosenthal et al. 2015). In other words, the decision to participate in the CCP was largely dependent upon the unique characteristics and interests of each city—again, illustrating how local governments act within the interests of their citizenry, despite higher governments’ decision to act otherwise.

Conclusion

This article briefly summarizes the emerging policy leadership role that local governments are assuming in a dynamic environment of intergovernmental relations played out within a federal system of government. Clearly, cities function as key units of government in the United States. They serve as focal points for addressing many social, economic, and political challenges of the day, as seen from a description of a very small sample of local government policy initiatives presented above. At the same time, there is evidence that other levels of government, especially the national government, seem reluctant to tackle the difficult policy issues, instead resorting to devolving them to the next level. Taking the torch of policy leadership by local government seems a logical next step. But, as noted above, there are many challenges and obstacles to navigate. Some are historical in nature; others are more recent. Most relate to the complicated relationship between states and local governments.

While some states delegate significant levels of policy autonomy to cities and local government, this does not seem to be a growing trend. In fact, current research, as outlined above, shows that most state governments are in a preemptive mode of operation. The ability of many city governments to chart their own course in the policy waters appears to be at risk. Of course, each state varies in the scope of policy autonomy it grants to local governments, but that too seems to be waning, according to current research. Cities, then, play an important, but uncertain, role in the U.S. federal system of government.

At this point, it is appropriate to ask the critical question: Is the emergence of local government policy leadership a roaring torch or a flickering flame? The flame of local government policy leadership is burning brightly now, but the state government fire hoses are lining up. Do they have sufficient water pressure? Of course, time will tell.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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