Identifying and Understanding Perceived Inequities in Local Politics

Abstract

Although there is widespread concern about bias in American democracy, convincing tests of differential responsiveness are rare. We use a unique data set that surveys the views of a large cross-section of urban residents to provide greater insight into this question. We demonstrate clear differences in perceived responsiveness across demographic and political groups with racial and ethnic minorities, the poor, and liberals expressing less satisfaction with local outcomes. Our analysis suggests that these differences are unlikely to be due to underlying differences in individual attitudes but instead appear to stem from real differences in local conditions and perceived governmental responsiveness.

Keywords

local politics responsiveness approval

The legitimacy of democratic government rests on the degree to which those who are charged with making and carrying out public policy represent the preferences of the governed. One of the most regularly articulated concerns about American democracy is that the system represents the interests of more privileged groups at the expense of less advantaged segments of society (American Political Science Association [APSA] 2004; Mills 1956; Schattschneider 1970; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). Nevertheless, researchers have had a difficult time providing evidence of inequality in representation. We have a great deal of evidence on the interim stages of the democratic process. These data highlight unevenness in who turns out to vote (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995), in who lobbies (Schlozman 1984), in who is elected (Hajnal and Lee 2011), and in how elected officials vote on individual bills (Bartels 2008; Griffin and Newman 2008). But measuring the fit between political outcomes and the interests of different groups in society has proven to be a harder task because we rarely have enough data to match group preferences with government actions to be able to determine which groups are most (or least) likely to have their preferences met (Hajnal 2009b, but see Gilens 2012).

However, matching outcomes and group preferences is not the only way scholars can evaluate representation. An alternative approach is to ask the American public directly for their perception of the quality of governance. After all, who should know better how well the government serves their interests, than the principals themselves. Perhaps because local governments are closer to the public and their actions tend to be more visible to the average citizen, investigations into individuals’ satisfaction with government performance have been carried out predominantly at the local level.¹ Studies of satisfaction with local government have consistently shown that racial and ethnic minorities are less satisfied with government performance than their white counterparts (DeHoog, Lowery, and Lyons 1990; Marschall and Shah 2007; Rahn and Rudolph 2005; Reisig and Parks 2000; Van Ryzin, Muzzio, and Immerwahr 2004). In almost every case, blacks tend to be substantially less happy with governmental outcomes—a pattern that suggests that American democracy may not be equally responsive to all its citizens.

Yet, despite the consistent nature of the findings on government satisfaction, questions remain. Do local residents know enough about local government to judge its performance? Are minorities and other less advantaged segments of the public unhappy with the government because policies do not favor their interests or because long-term exposure to discrimination and other aspects of inequality has left them more distrustful or less efficacious? As such, there is an ongoing debate about whether differential responsiveness is real or perceived (DeHoog, Lowery, and Lyons 1990; Howell 2007; Reisig and Parks 2000; Van Ryzin 2007; Van Ryzin, Muzzio, and Immerwahr 2004).

A second issue with existing literature is that studies tend to focus on race and ethnicity while ignoring other divisions in society. It may be that racial and ethnic minorities are the least well represented in American democracy, but it could also be that the poor or some other demographic group loses more or as regularly. Even more important is the exclusion of specifically political variables from analyses of differential satisfaction. Few of the existing studies of local satisfaction consider conventional political variables like ideology or partisanship that may shape perceptions of political outcomes (Hansen 1975 and Schumaker and Getter 1977 are exceptions). Before drawing conclusions about the predominance of race in shaping perceived responsiveness, we need to show that different groups hold different preferences and then include political variables and the entire range of demographic factors in our analysis.

In this article, we use a unique survey that includes large samples from twenty-six different communities to show that a number of factors beyond race help shape satisfaction with local government. Relative to conservative and upper class respondents, liberal and poor residents are less likely to approve of municipal government and more likely to feel unsatisfied with municipal services. Race is, however, still the largest factor governing satisfaction in the local political arena. Furthermore, we show that these racial disparities are not driven by trust or efficacy, but instead appear to be a function of local policies and municipal services. We provide evidence that when local governments hire African Americans and increase efforts at redistribution, racial disparities in satisfaction diminish.

Our findings make a number of contributions to the literatures on local politics and representation. One implication is that race remains one of the predominant divisions in the local political arena. Furthermore, it is clear that racial minorities are generally less satisfied with the government. Our analysis indicates that local democracy may be substantially less responsive to the preferences of racial minorities—particularly blacks. Our analysis also clearly demonstrates the relevance of political divisions in local democracy. Local governments may have agendas and responsibilities that differ greatly from other levels of government, but divisions along ideological lines play an important role.

Relevant Literature

Despite formal political equality for adult citizens, concern about unequal representation in American politics is one of the longest standing issues raised by scholars of American democracy. From Mills (1956) to Schattschneider (1970) to Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995), there has been a consistent worry that the actions of the government do not represent the interests of the entire public but instead favor the wishes of more privileged segments of society. However, providing evidence of unequal responsiveness has been difficult. We have significant evidence of the uneven nature of interim stages of the political process, but much less is known about the degree to which inequalities persist in overall outcomes of American democracy. For instance, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) provide evidence that political participation is skewed disproportionately toward whites and other more advantaged groups. Schlozman and Tierney (1986) demonstrate that the chorus of the interest group system sings with a decidedly upper class accent. And many studies present incontrovertible evidence that blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans are underrepresented at every level of political office. Hajnal (2009b) shows that blacks end up on the losing side of elections more regularly than members of other demographic groups. Bartels (2008) and Griffin and Newman (2008) find that individual votes in Congress are more closely aligned with the opinions of upper income white constituents than with the opinions of poor and minority constituents. But none of these analyses presents evidence showing that political outcomes are more in line with the interests of one group than they are with another group (see Gilens 2005; 2012 for a notable exception). Ultimately, what matters is not who votes, who lobbies, who is elected, or even which way individual politicians vote, but rather whether policies that are enacted align with the goals and preferences of particular groups.

The underlying problem facing researchers is that responsiveness is extremely difficult to measure (Hajnal 2009b). Some scholars have assessed differential responsiveness by seeking to measure the fit between each group’s preferences and governmental output. Two problems typically arise. First, we rarely have data on group preferences and government actions apart from a specific policy arena or across a large number of communities (but see Schumaker and Getter 1977). The result is that studies of substantive representation tend to focus on a single locality or a specific policy question. For example, important research has looked at the effects of an expanded black electorate on policy outcomes in specific states (Keech 1968; Parker 1990) or the effect of expanded descriptive representation on a particular policy outcome (like community policing) across cities (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Kerr and Mladenka 1994). More recently, studies have examined the correspondence between minority opinion and the voting records of individual legislators (Bartels 2008; Griffin and Newman 2008; Lublin 1999). These studies provide insight into one office, one location, or one aspect of policy, but they do not provide an overall evaluation of representation. Judging by these studies, it is hard to know how well American democracy generally serves minorities or other groups that lack political power. As a consequence, there remains considerable debate as to whether inequalities in representation persist along race lines or whether outcomes are largely evenhanded.

The other underlying problem in measuring responsiveness of the government to different groups is a lack of unanimity within each group. When a group is not unanimous in its opinion—as is almost always the case—determining how well represented that group is becomes a complicated issue. Is a group well represented, for example, when a policy is passed after 70 percent of a group expresses a preference for the policy and 30 percent express opposition? Existing studies of substantive representation typically do not consider the fact that minorities are rarely of one mind on policy or that individuals are always members of multiple groups (Cameron, Epstein, O’Halloran 1996; Lublin 1999). Unless we can take into account the diversity of opinions within each group and measure responsiveness in such a way that gives weight to individual opinions (and accounts for cross-pressured identities), we cannot really know how well a “group” is represented.

One of the more fruitful means of overcoming these problems is to focus on the opinions of individual Americans. We can simply ask the principals in this matter—the American public—how they feel about the actions of the government and how well those actions represent their interests. The premise is that individuals should know better than anyone else how well they are being served by the government. In addition to being measurable, this strategy allows us to avoid determining, a priori, what counts as responsive or representative government. It can be difficult to know whether a legislature that moves policy incrementally toward public opinion should qualify as responsiveness. By focusing on satisfaction and service evaluation, we allow residents themselves to report how well the government serves their interests. To be sure, satisfaction is not equivalent to representation, so we briefly discuss the meaning we assign to these terms.

We think of representation as “acting in the interest of the represented, in a manner that is responsive to them” (Pitkin 1967, p. 209). That is, representation requires that government officials respond to the preferences of constituents. We assume that constituents are more likely to say that they are satisfied with the government and evaluate services highly when they believe that elected officials are being responsive to their preferences. At the local level, responsiveness to preferences is likely to be tightly linked to performance. This is because of the nature of local government responsibilities and activities. Although residents can and do disagree over the prioritization and ideal levels of services like public safety, clean water, and efficient waste disposal, poor performance is more likely to be considered uniformly negative. As a result, differences in perceived responsiveness have a substantial potential to reflect differences in performance. Although not perfectly correlated, scholars (Licari, McLean, and Rice 2005; Van Ryzin, Immerwahr, and Altman 2008) have shown that residents’ perceptions of government performance do correspond to objectively measured outcomes. And Van Ryzin (2007) shows that perceived government performance has a significant, positive effect on satisfaction.² As a result, we think it reasonable to use individual reports of satisfaction and service evaluation to measure representation across different demographic and ideological groups.

Although a plethora of polls gauge public satisfaction with national and state governments, research on national and statewide approval seldom analyzes approval across different socioeconomic or racial groups. The underlying goal is typically to see whether changes in public sentiments can be traced to changes in economic conditions or other real-world events (Fiorina 1981; MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson 1989). At the local level, efforts to assess and understand group-level responsiveness are more common (e.g., Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Hansen 1975; Schumaker and Getter 1977; Verba and Nie 1972). We continue this tradition of focusing locally for two reasons. First, because local governments are closer to the public, their actions may be more visible. The average citizen may or may not know whether the national parks service is doing an effective job of managing national parks, but they do know whether their garbage was picked up on time. Second, as explained above, the responsibilities and activities of local government are often less subjective and more concrete than those of the federal government, allowing for a clearer relationship between performance evaluations and representation.

Studies of individual perceptions of responsiveness at the local level are, at least at first glance, fairly clear. Asked in different ways across a wide range of circumstances, there are wide gaps in the degree to which different segments of the public feel they are represented. In particular, study after study has shown that minorities—and most specifically African Americans—are much less happy than white Americans about the policies that governments pursue (DeHoog, Lowery, and Lyons 1990; Durand 1976; Marschall and Shah 2007; Rahn and Rudolph 2005; Reisig and Parks 2000; Van Ryzin, Muzzio, and Immerwahr 2004). If these perceptions are accurate, then American democracy is far from equally responsive to all its citizens.

There are, however, real questions about the accuracy of the perceptions of individual Americans. One issue is that survey respondents may not have enough information to effectively evaluate the government (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996). Another concern is that a history of discrimination and exclusion will lead certain groups—regardless of the current actions of the government—to be skeptical of American democracy and disapproving of governance. And on this point, there is ample evidence that African Americans (and some other minorities) tend to be particularly distrustful and feel less efficacious (Marschall and Shah 2007).

As a consequence, there is a reasonable debate as to whether differential responsiveness is real or perceived. Some contend that racial gaps in satisfaction are based on actual performance (e.g., DeHoog, Lowery, and Lyons 1990; Howell 2007; Howell and McLean 2001; Howell and Perry 2004). Similarly, Marschall and Shah (2007) find that substantive changes in policing policy are associated with predictable changes in black and white trust in local police. An extensive literature on minority empowerment shows that black efficacy, trust, and participation all increase after blacks win office, presumably because black elected officials are more likely to serve the interests of black constituents (Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Howell and Fagan 1988, but see Swain 1995).³

But others contend that factors that are largely unrelated to performance dominate individual evaluations (Parks 1984; Stipak 1979). Reisig and Parks (2000) show no reduction in the racial gap in the evaluation of the police when neighborhood conditions are included in their models. Roch and Poister (2006) find no reduction of the gap when respondents’ expectations regarding service levels are taken into account. Van Ryzin, Muzzio, and Immerwahr (2004) also find that a substantively large and statistically significant racial gap in evaluation of city services remains after controlling for some aspects of neighborhood conditions.

However, each of these studies has limitations. One is an almost exclusive focus on race and ethnicity over other potentially relevant political divisions.⁴ This focus on race is easy to understand, but race is not the only variable that could affect perceived responsiveness or satisfaction. For instance, it is possible that low socioeconomic status could be the real driver of dissatisfaction with the government (as Gilens 2005; 2012 might predict). The fact that race is often correlated with a host of other demographic variables suggests that conclusions about the importance or irrelevance of race need to wait until other potentially relevant factors like class are incorporated and the relative impact of each of the different factors is compared.

The most important omission in studies of local government approval is the absence of specifically political variables. Although some view local politics as largely issue-less or devoid of ideological content (Peterson 1981) and it is true that political parties often do not play the central role at the local level that they play in national politics, it is hard to imagine that there is no room for politics in local government decision making. Indeed, a long line of scholars starting with Dahl (1961) has demonstrated how political interests shape outcomes at the local level (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Clark and Ferguson 1983; Hajnal and Trounstine 2005; Trounstine 2008). Because most local analyses of responsiveness do not account for respondent ideology or partisanship, it is difficult to know the degree to which demographic divisions are actually driven by other identities (Rahn and Rudolph 2005 is an exception). For instance, it is possible that liberal interests might be less well served by local governments if policy tends to be dictated by a coalition of elected officials and business leaders (Peterson 1981; Stone 1989). Failing to incorporate politics into an analysis of government approval may lead to an incomplete story.

A final hurdle that has proven difficult to overcome is empirical breadth. Existing studies tend to investigate a small number of communities (DeHoog, Lowery, and Lyons 1990; Hero and Durand 1985; Van Ryzin, Muzzio, and Immerwahr 2004) or a single policy area (Sharp and Johnson 2009). As DeHoog, Lowery, and Lyons (1990) explain, “this failure is due not to a lack of theoretical imagination but to limitations in our tools of investigation” (p. 808). Simply put, very few cross city surveys of local political opinion exist.

We offer insight into the topics of responsiveness and citizen satisfaction in three ways: (a) by explicitly incorporating a core set of socioeconomic, demographic, and political variables, and comparing the impact of these factors with the effects of race and ethnicity, (b) by determining whether differences in perceived responsiveness across groups are a function of attitudes unrelated to local government or are related to local conditions and basic services, and (c) by testing these different accounts against a unique data set of local public opinion that contains large samples of respondents across a broad set of American cities. In the sections that follow, we determine the extent to which perceived responsiveness varies across social groups, analyze the relative importance of different group memberships for perceived responsiveness, and then turn to an analysis of city-level factors that affect approval of local governments.

Data for Analyzing Perceived Responsiveness

To study perceptions of local government responsiveness, we use a series of surveys carried out by Princeton Survey Research Associates for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Conducted in 1999 and 2002, the surveys intended to document the quality of life in twenty-six communities where the Knight-Ridder Corporation published newspapers and the foundation provided community initiative grants.⁵ The surveys of these communities were supplemented with data from a national random sample in both years. The total number of respondents is just above 35,000. A list of communities surveyed as well as the total number of respondents for each survey year is included in the Appendix Table 1 (see online appendix at http://prq.sagepub.com/supplemental/).⁶ To correct for the survey’s deliberate oversampling of racial and ethnic minorities as well as biases in response rates, we use the sample weights provided with the data for all our analyses. While these cities are not a random sample of U.S. cities, they are fairly representative of medium- to large-sized cities on a range of demographic measures (see Appendix Table 2).

Although not specifically focused on political evaluation, the Knight survey included two sets of questions that allow us to analyze local government satisfaction and responsiveness. We use these as our dependent variables. First, the survey asked respondents to evaluate their local government. The question was,

I’m going to read a list of local institutions and organizations. For each one, please tell me if you think they are doing an excellent job, a good job, a fair job, or a poor job serving your community. (First/How about) YOUR CITY OR TOWN GOVERNMENT—are they doing an excellent job, a good job, a fair job, or a poor job?

Second, the survey asked for feedback on specific local government services. Question wording was identical to the general government approval measure. Respondents were asked to rate the quality of their LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT, their LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENT, their LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS, and their LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARIES. All these approval variables were re-coded so that higher values reflected higher approval. We added the four service evaluations together to create a service evaluation index for each respondent that was also rescaled to take a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of 1.

For our independent variables, we garnered data on race, class, other core demographic characteristics, and political divisions from the survey. In terms of race, respondents were asked whether they identify as Hispanic or Latino, and then their race. We coded respondents as Latino regardless of their race and coded the remaining respondents as White non-Latino, Black non-Latino, Asian non-Latino, and Other non-Latino.

To assess the impact of class on approval and responsiveness, we used measures for income, education, and home-ownership. Specifically, we included one measure for education (coded with seven categories from less than a high school education to postgraduate schooling), one for home-ownership (home owner or not), and one for Income Stressed. Because only the 1999 survey asked a complete question on family income, we used three different survey questions to create the Income Stressed variable.⁷

Political ideology is measured with a scale that ranges from very conservative to very liberal and is derived from responses to the following question: “In general, would you describe your political views as very liberal, liberal, moderate, conservative, or very conservative?” We also include controls for employment status (employed or not), age (in years), religiosity (measured as frequency of church attendance), gender, whether there are children in the household, and length of residence in the city (in years), and whether the interview was conducted in English or Spanish. Summary statistics for the whole sample and by race are included in Appendix Table 3.

Inequities in Satisfaction with Municipal Policy

Table 1 presents basic data on differences in overall government satisfaction and perceived responsiveness across four areas of government activity. The table displays satisfaction divides by race, class, ideology, and other demographic characteristics. For each group, we calculated the proportion of respondents who said that the government is doing a good/excellent job to represent satisfaction and perceived responsiveness. We then took the difference in approval between pairs of groups and calculated the statistical significance in the difference of these proportions.

Table 1.

Inequities in Resident Satisfaction.

	Police	Fire	Libraries	Schools	Government approval
Race
Black–white	−21.3***	−8.1***	−4.8***	−8.2***	−10.1***
Latino–white	−9.3***	−2.3***	−4.7***	−2.2	−0.5
Asian–white	−2.8***	−4.6***	−2.3***	5.3***	9.3***
Class
Income stress–no income stress	−8.4***	−2.7***	−1.5***	0.3	−2.9***
Low vs. high education	−12.0***	−4.3***	−1.4**	1.0	−4.8***
Renter vs. home owner	−7.6***	−1.8***	−2.1***	−0.3	−0.2
Politics
Liberal/conservative ideology	−8.0***	−1.8***	−2.3***	−2.3*	−4.0***
Other demographics
Unemployed vs. employed	2.8***	0.0	1.2***	2.9***	3.6***
Under 65 vs. 65 and older	−9.2***	−1.6***	−4.0***	−6.8***	−7.0***
Gender (male vs. female)	−5.8***	−1.3***	−2.5***	−1.2***	−6.1***
Church attendance (never vs. weekly+)	−6.6***	−0.3	−2.6***	−4.7***	−6.0***

Number of observations ranges from 28,768 to 36,694. Cells show the difference between demographic groups in proportion approving of government/service. Sampling weights used.

p < .20. **p < .10. ***p < .05.

Table 1 makes clear that satisfaction with local government is substantially divided along several dimensions. Racial differences are, however, clearly the largest. Compared with white respondents, blacks are significantly less likely to be satisfied with the performance of the police department, the fire department, local schools, and local libraries, and are significantly less likely to approve of their local government overall. In each case, the difference is substantial, ranging from about 5 to more than 21 percentage points. For instance, when asked how well the police served their community, 82 percent of white respondents said that they felt the police were doing a good or excellent job, compared with only 60 percent of blacks who felt that way. This means that 40 percent of blacks said that the police were doing a poor or fair job. Latinos feel almost as underserved by local government services—the gap to whites ranges from about 2 to more than 9 percentage points. Similar to blacks, close to 30 percent of Latinos felt that the police were doing a poor or fair job serving their community. Latinos, however, do not rate local government as a whole, any worse than do whites. Asian Americans fall somewhere near the middle, rating some services worse than whites but then providing a higher overall grade for local government than do whites.

Akin to the black/white and Latino/white divides, those who are on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum tend to feel underserved by local government. Respondents who are income stressed, those who have not graduated from high school, and those who do not own their homes are more likely to rate government services poorly and less likely to approve of the government relative to their more well-off counterparts. But the gaps are generally smaller than the gaps by race. Finally, although there may be good reasons to think that ideology will not play a role in local politics, we find substantial differences on this dimension. Liberals are generally more apt to feel that local government services are not sufficient and significantly less likely to approve of local government overall. The fact that liberals tend to be less satisfied with municipal government and its services lends credence to a long line of urban studies that claim that local elites tend to feel pressures to pursue development-focused agendas (Logan and Molotch 1987; Peterson 1981). Conservatives, more than liberals, appear to be achieving their policy goals in local democracy.

To analyze these gaps in satisfaction more rigorously and to control for the interrelationships between race and income, and the other measures of status, in Table 2, we regress a Service Evaluation Index and Government Approval on the range of individual-level factors discussed above.⁸ The Service Evaluation Index is an additive index of the four service evaluations in Table 1 (police, fire, schools, and libraries).

Table 2.

The Determinants of Inequities in Service Evaluation and Government Approval.

	Service Evaluation Index				Overall government approval
	Basic model		Adding efficacy and trust		Basic model		Adding efficacy and trust
	Coefficient	SE	Coefficient	SE	Coefficient	SE	Coefficient	SE
Race
Black	−0.055***	0.010	−0.055***	0.010	−0.030**	0.015	−0.029**	0.014
Latino	−0.020***	0.008	−0.020***	0.007	−0.004	0.012	−0.004	0.012
Asian	−0.011*	0.007	−0.012*	0.007	0.035***	0.011	0.036***	0.012
Other race	−0.041***	0.010	−0.031***	0.009	−0.045***	0.015	−0.028**	0.015
Class
Income stress	−0.007**	0.004	−0.003	0.004	−0.014***	0.006	−0.008*	0.006
Education	0.015***	0.006	0.013***	0.005	0.022***	0.009	0.022***	0.009
Own home	−0.002	0.003	−0.006**	0.003	−0.003	0.006	−0.009*	0.006
Ideology
Ideology	−0.018***	0.007	−0.010*	0.007	−0.031***	0.010	−0.020***	0.009
Other demographics
Employed	−0.004	0.003	−0.004	0.003	−0.007	0.005	−0.006	0.005
Religiosity	0.034***	0.005	0.024***	0.004	0.054***	0.008	0.039***	0.007
Age	−0.005	0.036	0.058*	0.037	−0.351***	0.055	−0.250***	0.053
Age squared	0.092***	0.045	0.041	0.046	0.468***	0.067	0.384***	0.063
Female	0.023***	0.002	0.018***	0.002	0.039***	0.004	0.032***	0.004
Length residence	0.008	0.006	0.007	0.006	−0.039***	0.013	−0.039***	0.013
Kids 5−17	0.011***	0.003	0.008***	0.003	−0.003	0.005	−0.007**	0.004
Spanish interview	0.022**	0.012	0.027***	0.010	0.031*	0.021	0.042***	0.018
Efficacy/trust
Efficacy			0.114***	0.005			0.163***	0.009
Trust local news			0.059***	0.005			0.117***	0.007
Trust local TV			0.066***	0.006			0.071***	0.008
Rate racial tensions			−0.057***	0.005			−0.085***	0.007
Constant	0.668***	0.014	0.523***	0.011	0.557***	0.016	0.342***	0.015
n	22,301		22,301		21,859		21,859
R²	.08		.16		.05		.13

OLS = ordinary least squares. OLS regressions with Taylor-linearized standard errors, sampling weights used; fixed effects for city and year included but not presented.

p < .20. **p < .10. ***p < .05.

Because we are first and foremost concerned about differences in perceived responsiveness across demographic groups within a city, our analysis incorporates fixed effects for each city (with the national sample as the excluded category) as well as year fixed effects.⁹ Including city fixed effects focuses our analysis on the differences in perceived responsiveness across demographic groups within cities. This is equivalent to calculating the average difference between perceived responsiveness of each group living in the same community. The regression analyses reveal whether these differences are statistically different from zero. Including fixed effects controls for all city-level factors (like the race/ideology of elected officials, differences in municipal institutions, metropolitan fragmentation, unemployment levels, or crime rates) that might lead to different approval rates across cities.¹⁰ Later in the article, we directly assess the impact of a number of city-level factors that we think could shape intergroup differences in perceived responsiveness, but because we do not have measures of every city-level factor that might interact with race to affect government approval, we take a conservative approach here and include city-level fixed effects. The errors are clustered by city–year.

The results in columns 1 and 3 reveal patterns that are similar to those displayed in Table 1. The table clearly shows that race matters in local democracy. Black, Latino, and Asian American respondents are significantly less likely than white respondents to be satisfied with city services. All else equal, blacks rate local services about 5.5 points lower than whites. On average, whites rated local services as “good” to “excellent,” while blacks rated local services as “fair” to “good.” This means that black respondents rated about one city service more poorly at serving their community than a similar situated white respondent. Latinos rate services about 2 percentage points lower than whites, and Asian Americans rate them about 1 point lower. Blacks also stand out in terms of government approval. Blacks feel substantially worse served by city government overall than do whites. Latinos fall near whites on this measure, while Asian Americans, all else equal, tend to rate city government more highly than do whites. Class effects are once again smaller and less consistent than the racial effects, but the direction is clear. Those on or near the bottom end of the socioeconomic spectrum are significantly more apt to feel undeserved by the government and to believe that government services are poorer than those who are more advantaged. The predicted differences here are on the order of 1/5th of a percent to 2 percentage points.

The results in Table 2 also reveal that liberal respondents continue to be less satisfied than conservative respondents with municipal government and the services that it delivers. The gap in satisfaction across the ideological spectrum is nearly 2 points on the service index and about 3 points for overall approval. In the end, columns 1 and 3 of Table 2 lead to two conclusions. The first is that there is a clear perceived bias to local democracy. More privileged members of society tend to rate local government and its services well, while those at or near the bottom feel underserved. And of all the demographic inequalities, race is by far the most severe. Second, it is also clear that perceived differences in responsiveness by race cannot be explained by the lower socioeconomic status of blacks and Latinos or by the left leaning nature of these groups. According to these respondents, the performance of city government is uneven and decidedly favors white Americans. Bias may indeed be a problem for local democracy.

Uncovering the Source of Racial Difference—Testing Underlying Attitudes

But can the views of residents be believed? Are perceived differences in government satisfaction driven by real biases in government performance? One possibility is that racial minorities have different underlying attitudes about the world that may shape their perceptions about city government regardless of how well or poorly local governments act on their behalf. Ongoing racial discrimination outside the governmental process and a history of discriminatory practices within American democracy could certainly lead to a host of more negative attitudes among the minority population, which could in turn shape attitudes toward local government. As we have noted, there is considerable evidence that blacks are less trusting and less politically efficacious than whites. To capture these possibilities, we add a series of measures of underlying attitudes to our model in Table 2. The first is a basic measure of local Efficacy, which is derived from the question, “Overall, how much impact do you think people like you can have in making your community a better place to live . . . a big impact, a moderate impact, a small impact, or no impact at all?” We also incorporate two measures of trust. We include Trust of Local Television and Trust of Local News to capture individuals’ trust in local institutions that are distinct from the government.¹¹ Finally, we add a measure that assesses perceived racial tensions in the local area.¹² If minorities are merely expressing their grievances about preexisting racial conflict or racial inequality when they evaluate city government, then such sentiments should be picked up by this measure. The second and fourth columns of Table 2 present the results of adding these variables to the base models.¹³

The results suggest that perceived differences in responsiveness by race are not due to respondents’ concerns about society or to attitudes that pre-date the actions of local government. When these additional controls are added to the models, the impact of race on service evaluations and government approval remains intact and quite powerful. While efficacy and trust serve as important drivers of residents’ evaluations, race still matters.¹⁴

Experiences Drive Satisfaction with Municipal Government

To determine the degree to which government approval is based on individual experiences with local government and to see whether racial differences disappear after taking into account perceptions of local conditions, in Table 3, we add a series of measures that assess individuals’ evaluation of their local environment. First, to our analysis of government approval, we added respondents’ evaluations of Police, Fire, Schools, and Libraries. If poor and minority residents are more disapproving of local government because they have worse experiences with city services, these variables will positively predict government approval and reduce the effect of race and income. The second column of Table 3 provides strong support for this contention.

Table 3.

The Concrete Sources of Racial Inequalities in Political Outcomes.

	Overall government approval
	Basic model with efficacy and trust		Controlling for service evaluations		Controlling for local conditions
	Coefficient	SE	Coefficient	SE	Coefficient	SE
Race
Black	−0.029**	0.014	0.011	0.009	−0.009	0.013
Latino	−0.004	0.012	0.008	0.009	0.008	0.011
Asian	0.036***	0.012	0.039***	0.011	0.050***	0.017
Other race	−0.028**	0.015	−0.004	0.013	−0.007	0.012
Class
Income stress	−0.008*	0.006	−0.005	0.005	−0.001	0.006
Education	0.022***	0.009	0.014**	0.007	0.007	0.010
Own home	−0.009*	0.006	−0.007*	0.004	−0.017***	0.005
Ideology
Ideology	−0.020***	0.009	−0.010*	0.008	−0.019***	0.009
Other demographics
Employed	−0.006	0.005	−0.003	0.005	−0.012***	0.005
Religiosity	0.039***	0.007	0.020***	0.007	0.036***	0.007
Age	−0.250***	0.053	−0.291***	0.050	−0.164***	0.065
Age squared	0.384***	0.063	0.352***	0.061	0.275***	0.080
Female	0.032***	0.004	0.021***	0.004	0.042***	0.004
Length residence	−0.039***	0.013	−0.031***	0.011	−0.035***	0.012
Kids 5-17	−0.007**	0.004	−0.012***	0.004	−0.012***	0.005
Spanish interview	0.042***	0.018	0.024**	0.014	0.040***	0.013
Efficacy/trust
Efficacy	0.163***	0.009	0.084***	0.008	0.140***	0.009
Trust local news	0.117***	0.007	0.073***	0.007	0.097***	0.008
Trust local TV	0.071***	0.008	0.026***	0.008	0.065***	0.009
Rate racial tensions	−0.085***	0.007	−0.041***	0.006	−0.016**	0.009
Local service evaluation
Police			0.260***	0.008
Fire			0.058***	0.011
Schools			0.212***	0.008
Library			0.078***	0.008
Local conditions
Crime					−0.013*	0.008
Unemployment					−0.035***	0.007
Schools					−0.089***	0.007
Affordable housing					−0.018***	0.006
Safe at home					0.093***	0.012
Safe in neighborhood					0.063***	0.010
Constant	0.342***	0.015	−0.053***	0.015	0.274***	0.017
n	21,859		21,859		19,618
R²	.13		.30		.16

OLS = ordinary least squares. OLS regressions with Taylor-linearized standard errors, sampling weights used; fixed effects for city and year included but not presented.

p < .20. **p < .10. ***p < .05.

When we take into account evaluations of the police department, the fire department, local schools, and local libraries, these different, specific evaluations greatly drive overall government approval, and more importantly for our purposes, their inclusion eliminates racial and class differences in approval.¹⁵ In fact, the coefficient on black respondents changes sign and falls well away from statistical significance. These results suggest not only that the degree to which individuals feel that their local government is doing a good job is mostly a function of their satisfaction with the outcomes local governments produce but also that racial and class differences in responsiveness are a function of perceived differences in the quality of city services that they receive.

Finally, we substitute into the model general measures of local conditions. We include respondents’ views on the severity of four problems facing their city: “crime, drugs, or violence,” “unemployment,” “the quality of education,” and “not enough affordable housing.”¹⁶ And, we add two variables capturing respondents’ evaluations of their neighborhoods. The first variable, Safe at Home, measures the respondent’s feeling of safety in her own home at night.¹⁷ The second variable, Safe Walking, reflects the respondent’s feeling of safety “when walking in [her] neighborhood after dark.” The results displayed in the third column of Table 3 once again suggest that racial differences in satisfaction are based on real differences in experiences with municipal government. As before, local conditions strongly shape evaluations of local government. When respondents feel that crime, unemployment, schools, and a lack of affordable housing are significant problems in their cities, they are less approving of municipal government.¹⁸ Similarly, feeling unsafe at home or walking after dark leads to dissatisfaction with local democracy. More importantly, when measures of local problems are added, race and class differences disappear.¹⁹ After controlling for the local environment, the racial coefficients become tiny and insignificant (as do the coefficients measuring socioeconomic status). The bottom line is that race and class differences appear to be real. Blacks, Latinos, and poor residents feel less well served than white and wealthier members of their communities.

Understanding the Connection between Policies and Perceived Inequality

Although the results to this point raise concerns about local democracy, some readers may not be convinced that the differences in perceived responsiveness accurately reflect reality. We have shown that the inclusion of perceived local government actions in our model eliminates racial differences. But what if members of different racial groups perceive these local actions differently?

One way to address this concern directly is to see whether perceived racial differences in responsiveness mirror differences in concrete, objective measures of local policy. In other words, are African American residents happier than whites with local government when the concrete policy choices of the local governments more closely reflect the preferences of the black community? Adding city-level variables to our fixed-effect models above is not feasible. So, in this final empirical section, we use a hierarchical model to analyze the interaction between race of the respondent and policy measures at the city level to determine whether racial differences in evaluations of local services and governments vary systematically and understandably across cities.

Before embarking on this analysis, we look to see whether there is any variation in perceived racial disparities across cities. If blacks are consistently unhappy with their local governments across all of our different cities and years, then it raises questions about just what black residents are evaluating. A quick glance at our cities indicates, however, that there is great variation across cities and years in the degree to which blacks and whites differ in their approval of local government. As evidenced by Appendix Table 1, across cities, our measure of uneven responsiveness ranges from −0.23 to 0.20. At one extreme, blacks are 20 percent more likely than whites to approve of city government. At the other, whites are 23 percent more likely to approve. A closer look shows that while blacks are more often than not less satisfied than whites with their local government, in 20 percent of the city–years in the data set, blacks are more apt than whites to believe that local government is responsive to their needs. Blacks are not universally less happy or less enthusiastic than whites—a pattern that suggests that black and white respondents could be evaluating local policies when assessing local government.

But are these racial differences in perceived responsiveness tied to actual and measurable differences in racial responsiveness across cities? Or put a different way, are African Americans relatively more satisfied with their local government when that local government enacts programs that favor the black community and spends money on policies that African Americans are likely to prefer? To answer that question, we focus on two regularly highlighted aspects of pro-black policy: affirmative action in hiring and spending on redistributive programs.

For local hiring practices, we look to see whether government approval increases among black respondents when local governments hire a greater share of blacks for the public workforce. A number of scholars have used the racial makeup of public employees as an indicator of substantive representation (e.g., Meier and Stewart 1992; Meier, Stewart, and England 1989). Drawing on this work, we expect that an increased presence of blacks in public employment will increase black perceptions of responsiveness and thus approval of government. Given the disproportionate impact of police practices on the black community and the high degree of attention paid to the racial makeup of local police forces, we control for the proportion of blacks on the local police force in our analysis.²⁰

We also analyze the effect of local government spending on government approval among black respondents. Given that local governments spend more than a trillion dollars annually, local politics, at its core, is often a battle over who gets those dollars (U.S. Census Bureau 2012). No racial/ethnic group unanimously prefers one spending area overall, but a range of surveys of urban residents indicates that spending priorities do diverge across racial groups. Welch et al. (2001), DeLeon (1991), and Lovrich (1974) all find that black residents are especially concerned about redistribution and social services, whereas whites are especially concerned about reducing taxes and attracting businesses and other aspects of development. In light of these divergent racial preferences, we look to see whether perceived responsiveness among blacks increases with greater local spending on social services (measured as the proportion of city expenditures on welfare, health, and housing) and reductions in developmental spending (measured as highway, parking, and general construction spending).²¹

In evaluating the impact of local policies on racial differences in government approval, we would also like to control for other city-level factors that could affect black perceptions of local governments’ responsiveness, and which may be correlated with spending and employment patterns. One of the most prominent set of factors that could matter is local institutions. Reform structure like at-large elections, the council manager form of government, nonpartisan elections, and staggered electoral contests are all viewed by at least some urban scholars as reducing the responsiveness of local government to minority or lower-class interests (Banfield and Wilson 1967; Bridges 1997; Hansen 1975; Hawley and Wirt 1974; Mladenka 1989), and have been found in some cases to be associated with different spending patterns (Trounstine 2008).

Other scholars have highlighted the critical role that minority representation can play in responding to the concerns of racial and ethnic minorities. Descriptive representation has been associated with differences in local policy making and support for government among racial and ethnic minorities (Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Marschall and Ruhil 2007, but see Swain 1995). Others have highlighted the specifically political bases of racial responsiveness (Dahl 1961; Hansen 1975; Schumaker and Getter 1977; Stone 1989; Verba and Nie 1972, but see Mladenka 1980). Three measures of the local political arena have been shown to matter. The overall political leaning of the city has been linked to policy outcomes (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984). The level of competitiveness—especially between parties—has been shown to have consequences for different racial groups (Hansen 1975; Schumaker and Getter 1977). In addition, there is compelling evidence that higher rates of local participation can reduce responsiveness bias (Dahl 1961; Hajnal 2009a; Verba and Nie 1972). Still others view politics as a direct struggle between racial communities for power (Bobo 1983). As a result, groups with larger numbers and more resources are more apt to hold sway in local government. Finally, city characteristics like population size have been shown to be related to the receptivity of local governments to minority concerns (Schumaker and Getter 1977). We do not claim that this is a complete list of factors that could increase or diminish responsiveness to minority interests. Rather, we believe that this is a set of the most often mentioned factors and thus some of the most likely candidates for explaining race-based differences in government approval.

Given the relatively small number of cities in our sample, we have to limit the number of city-level independent variables. Thus, our regression model includes one measure from each of these different theoretical perspectives in addition to the policy and spending measures of interest. To represent institutions that may benefit racial and ethnic minorities, we include a dummy indicator noting whether the majority of city councilors are elected by districts (vs. at large).²² We measure minority representation with a dummy variable noting whether the city has a black mayor. We measure racial demographics with the proportion of residents who are nonwhite (including Black, Latino, Asian, and Other groups). We measure political bias using the mean ideology of the white residents (calculated from Knight Survey responses to a standard question that asks respondents to place themselves along the liberal–conservative ideological scale).²³ Finally, we control for city size using the log of total population (from the Census of Population and Housing, and the American Community Survey).

We begin with the model of government approval presented in column 1 of Table 3, but instead of using fixed effects for cities, we use random intercepts for city–year. Our dependent variable is the respondent’s approval of government. Our main independent variables are measures of the proportion of public employees that are African American, the proportion of the city budget spent on social services, and the proportion spent on development. We interact each of these variables with the race of the respondent. To focus on the difference between black and white approval levels, we restrict the analysis to respondents in these two racial categories (with white as the excluded category).

Are perceived racial differences in responsiveness real? Figure 1 suggests that they are. The figure shows the difference in average predicted government approval for black versus white respondents for each of our independent variables (e.g., the marginal effect of respondents’ race on government approval at different fixed values of each policy variable). All other variables are held at their mean value. Positive values indicate that blacks are more approving of the government than are whites, while negative values indicate the reverse.²⁴ The full model is reported in Appendix Table 4.

Figure 1.

Effect of local policy on black versus white government approval.

What we see is that blacks tend to think local government is more responsive than do whites when local governments favor the black community, and vice versa. Local government hiring practices have a clear and substantively large impact on government approval. The more local governments hire African Americans, the more responsive the government is perceived to be by blacks and the less responsive it is perceived to be by whites. Increasing the proportion of public employees that are black from the minimum to the maximum value (from 0.007 to 0.466) decreases white approval of government by about 9 percentage points and increases black approval by about 14 percentage points. Similarly, local government spending patterns seem to influence views. Localities that spend more on redistribution and less on development are viewed more highly by blacks and more negatively by whites. The model suggests that compared with a city that spends very little on development (3% of the budget), in those that spend the maximum (28% of the budget), whites are about 2 percentage points more approving, while blacks are about 3 percentage points less approving. Although the difference between black and white approval of government does not meet traditional significance standards at high levels of social service spending, the overall pattern is clear. At the lowest levels of social service spending, whites are more supportive of government than are blacks. This relationship reverses as social spending increases; in cities that spend a large share of their budget on programs like welfare, health, and housing, blacks appear to be more supportive of city government than do whites.²⁵ Blacks perceive greater responsiveness when governments begin to favor blacks, and whites perceive less responsiveness when resources shift to the black community. This has two clear implications. First, all this reinforces existing concerns about bias in American democracy. Perceptions of racial inequality in local government responsiveness appear to be systematic. Blacks in most cities feel underserved by their local governments, and those perceptions appear to follow reality. Second, what a government does matters. When local governments spend money on the policy areas that blacks tend to favor and when local governments shift resources to the black community, black residents begin to feel like local government is responsive. In a few cases, albeit a small fraction of our cities, blacks are relatively happier than whites with local government. Moreover, we have identified a specific set of policies that help to overcome these racial disparities in perceived responsiveness. In particular, redistributive spending and affirmative action are two policies that appear to make a real difference to members of the black community.

Conclusion

In sum, we find substantial evidence that poor, minority, and liberal residents feel less satisfied with their local governments than more privileged residents. They have lower levels of approval and more negative evaluations of basic city services. These gaps in evaluation persist even when controlling for trust and efficacy. We also find evidence that satisfaction with municipal policy appears to be explained by concrete experiences. Approval of city government is driven by evaluations of city services and concrete measures of local policy making. These results indicate that when constituents feel that the government is not providing the quality or range of services that they want, they judge their elected officials negatively. While the gap in satisfaction along racial lines for race appears to be the most severe, perceptions of responsiveness also differ along class and ideological lines. Those who are white, well-off financially, and more conservative, are the most likely to feel well represented in the local democratic arena.

Understanding the mechanisms that lead to dissatisfaction among different social groups is an important research agenda for scholars of local politics and representation more generally. The results in the final section of our article contribute to this project. We find that when cities hire more diverse workforces and spend money on redistributive programs, the gap in government approval decreases. But even as one group becomes more satisfied with government outcomes, others become less so. In the end, we can offer no easy solutions. What we can offer is evidence that policy change may be able to ameliorate perceptions of unequal representation in American cities.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

References

American Political Science Association. 2004. American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.

Banfield

Edward C.

Wilson

James Q.

1967. City Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Bartels

Larry M.

2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Bobo

Lawrence

. 1983. “Whites’ Opposition to Busing: Symbolic Racism or Realistic Group Conflict?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45 (6): 1196–210.

Bobo

Lawrence

Gilliam

Franklin D.

Jr.

1990. “Race, Sociopolitical Participation, and Black Empowerment.” American Political Science Review 84 (2): 377–93.

Bridges

Amy

. 1997. Morning Glories: Municipal Reform in the Southwest. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Brown

Karin

Coulter

Philip B.

1983. “Subjective and Objective Measures of Police Service Delivery.” Public Administration Review 43 (1): 50–58.

Browning

Rufus R.

Marshall

Dale Rogers

Tabb

David H.

1984. Protest Is Not Enough. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Cameron

Charles S.

Epstein

David

O’Halloran

Sharyn

. 1996. “Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Black Substantive Representation in Congress?” American Political Science Review 90 (4): 794–812.

10.

Clark

Terry N.

Ferguson

Lorna C.

1983. City Money. New York: Columbia University Press.

11.

Dahl

Robert A.

1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in the American City. New Haven: Yale University Press.

12.

Dehoog

Ruth H.

Lowery

David

Lyons

William E.

1990. “Citizen Satisfaction with Local Governance: A Test of Individual, Jurisdictional, and City-Specific Explanations.” Journal of Politics 52 (3): 807–37.

13.

Deleon

Richard

. 1991. “The Progressive Urban Regime: Ethnic Coalitions in San Francisco.” In Racial and Ethnic Politics in California, edited by Jackson

B. O.

Cain

, 157–92. Berkeley: Institute for Governmental Studies.

14.

Delli Carpini

Michael X.

Keeter

Scott

. 1996. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven: Yale University Press.

15.

Durand

Roger

. 1976. “Some Dynamics of Urban Service Evaluations among Blacks and Whites.” Social Science Quarterly 56 (4): 698–706.

16.

Fiorina

Morris P.

1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven: Yale University Press.

17.

Gilens

Martin

. 2005. “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69 (5): 778–96.

18.

Gilens

Martin

. 2012. Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

19.

Griffin

John D.

Newman

Brian

. 2008. Minority Report: Evaluating Political Equality in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

20.

Hajnal

Zoltan L.

2009a. America’s Uneven Democracy: Turnout, Race, and Representation in City Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

21.

Hajnal

Zoltan L.

2009b. “Who Loses in American Democracy? A Count of Votes Demonstrates the Limited Representation of African Americans.” American Political Science Review 103 (1): 37–57.

22.

Hajnal

Zoltan

Lee

Taeku

. 2011. Race, Immigration, and (Non)Partisanship in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

23.

Hajnal

Zoltan

Trounstine

Jessica

. 2005. “Where Turnout Matters: The Consequences of Uneven Turnout in City Politics.” Journal of Politics 67 (2): 515–35.

24.

Hansen

Susan Blackall

. 1975. “Participation, Political Structure, and Concurrence.” The American Political Science Review 69 (4): 1181–99.

25.

Hawley

Willis

Wirt

Frederick M.

1974. The Search for Community Power. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

26.

Hero

Rodney E.

Durand

Roger

. 1985. “Explaining Citizen Evaluations of Urban Services: A Comparison of Some Alternative Models.” Urban Affairs Review 20 (3): 344–54.

27.

Howell

Susan E.

2007. Race, Performance, and Approval of Mayors. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

28.

Howell

Susan E.

Fagan

Deborah

. 1988. “Race and Trust in Government: Testing the Political Reality Model.” Public Opinion Quarterly 52:343–50.

29.

Howell

Susan E.

McLean

William

. 2001. “Performance and Race in Evaluating Minority Mayors.” Public Opinion Quarterly 65:321–43.

30.

Howell

Susan E.

Perry

Huey L.

2004. “Black Mayors/White Mayors: Explaining Their Approval.” Public Opinion Quarterly 68 (1): 32–56.

31.

Keech

William R.

1968. The Impact of Negro Voting: The Role of the Vote in the Quest for Equality. Chicago: Rand McNally.

32.

Kerr

Brinck

Mladenka

Kenneth R.

1994. “Does Politics Matter? A Time-Series Analysis of Minority Employment Patters.” American Journal of Political Science 38 (4): 918–43.

33.

Licari

Michael J.

McLean

William

Rice

Tom W.

2005. “The Condition of Community Streets and Parks: A Comparison of Resident and Nonresident Evaluations.” Public Administration Review 65 (3): 360–68.

34.

Logan

John R.

Molotch

Harvey L.

1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley: University of California Press.

35.

Lovrich

Nicholas

. 1974. “Differing Priorities in an Urban Electorate: Service Priorities among Anglo, Black, and Mexican-American Voters.” Social Science Quarterly 55 (2): 704–17.

36.

Lublin

David

. 1999. The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

37.

MacKuen

Michael

Erikson

Robert

Stimson

James

. 1989. “Macropartisanship.” American Political Science Review 83:1125–42.

38.

Marschall

Melissa J.

Ruhil

Anirudh V. S.

2007. “Substantive Symbols: The Attitudinal Dimension of Black Political Incorporation in Local Government.” American Journal of Political Science 51 (1): 17–33.

39.

Marschall

Melissa J.

Shah

Paru R.

2007. “The Attitudinal Effects of Minority Incorporation Examining the Racial Dimensions of Trust in Urban America.” Urban Affairs Review 42 (5): 629–58.

40.

Meier

Kenneth J.

Stewart

Joseph

Jr. England

Robert E.

1989. Race, Class, and Education: The Politics of Second-Generation Discrimination. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

41.

Meier

Kenneth J.

Stewart

Joseph

Jr.

1992. “Active Representation in Educational Bureaucracies: Policy Impacts.” American Review of Public Administration 22:157–71.

42.

Mills

C. Wright

. 1956. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.

43.

Mladenka

Kenneth R.

1980. “The Urban Bureaucracy and the Chicago Political Machine: Who Gets What and the Limits of Political Control.” The American Political Science Review 74 (2): 991–98.

44.

Mladenka

Kenneth R.

1989. “Blacks and Hispanics in Urban Politics.” American Political Science Review 83 (1): 165–91.

45.

Parker

Frank R.

1990. Black Votes Count: Political Empowerment in Mississippi after 1965. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

46.

Parks

Richard B.

1984. “Linking Objective and Subjective Performance.” Public Administration Review 44:118–27.

47.

Peterson

Paul E.

1981. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

48.

Pitkin

Hanna

. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

49.

Rahn

Wendy M.

Rudolph

Thomas J.

2005. “A Tale of Political Trust in American Cities.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69 (4): 530–60.

50.

Reisig

Michael D.

Parks

Roger B.

2000. “Experience, Quality of Life, and Neighborhood Context: A Hierarchical Analysis of Satisfaction with Police.” Justice Quarterly 17 (3): 607–30.

51.

Roch

Christine

Poister

Theodore

. 2006. “Citizens, Accountability, and Service Satisfaction: The Influence of Expectations,” Urban Affairs Review 41 (3): 292–308.

52.

Schattschneider

Elmer Eric

. 1970. The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.

53.

Schlozman

Kay Lehman

. 1984. “What Accent the Heavenly Chorus? Political Equality and the American Pressure System.” The Journal of Politics 46 (4): 1006–1032.

54.

Schlozman

Kay Lehman

Tierney

John

. 1986. Organized Interests and American Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.

55.

Schumaker

Paul D.

Getter

Russell W.

1977. “Responsiveness Bias in 51 American Communities.” American Journal of Political Science 21 (2): 247–81

56.

Sharp

Elaine B.

1986. Citizen Demand Making in the Urban Context. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press

57.

Sharp

Elaine B.

Johnson

Paul E.

2009. “Accounting for Variation in Distrust of Local Police.” Justice Quarterly 26 (1): 157–82.

58.

Stipak

Brian

. 1979. “Citizen Satisfaction with Urban Services: Potential Misuse as a Performance Indicator.” Public Administration Review 39:46–52.

59.

Stone

Clarence

. 1989. Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

60.

Swain

Carol M.

1995. Black Face, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

61.

Trounstine

Jessica

. 2008. Political Monopolies in American Cities: The Rise and Fall of Bosses and Reformers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

62.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2012. Statistical Abstract of the United States: National Data Book. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/state_local_govt_finances_employment/local_government_finances.html

63.

Van Ryzin

Gregg G.

2007. “Pieces of a Puzzle: Linking Government Performance, Citizen Satisfaction, and Trust.” Public Performance and Management Review 30 (4): 521–35.

64.

Van Ryzin

Gregg G.

Immerwahr

Stephen

Altman

Stan

. 2008. “Measuring Street Cleanliness: A Comparison of New York City’s Scorecard and Results from a Citizen Survey.” Public Administration Review 30 (2): 295–303.

65.

Van Ryzin

Gregg G.

Muzzio

Douglas

Immerwahr

Stephen

. 2004. “Explaining the Race Gap in Satisfaction with Urban Services.” Urban Affairs Review 39 (5): 613–32.

66.

Verba

Sidney

Nie

Norman H.

1972. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

67.

Verba

Sidney

Schlozman

Kay Lehman

Brady

Henry E.

1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

68.

Welch

Susan

Sigelman

Lee

Bledsoe

Timothy

Combs

Michael

. 2001. Race and Place: Race Relations in an American City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.