Government and Politics of New York City

John Mollenkopf

City University of New York (CUNY)
New York City, New York, USA

1983

S Y L L A B U S

1. Introduction: New York City as the classic "reform city."

  • Theodore Lowi, "Machine Politics - Old and New" The Public Interest 9 (Fall, 1967), pp. 83-92.
  • James Q. Wilson, "Two Negro Politicians: An Interpretation," Midwest Journal of Political Science 4 (November, 1960), pp. 346-369.

Why has New York City been the pattern-maker for reform movements and reformed governmental and political institutions? What are the obvious contrasts with a "non-reformed" city like Chicago?

2. Machine vs. reform: participants' perspectives on turn-of-the-century New York.

  • David Hammack, Power and Society: Greater New York at the Turn of the Century (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1982), pp. 7-27, 31-58, 82-103.
Voice of the Machine:
  • William T. Stead, "Mr. Richard Croker and Greater New York," Review of Reviews 16 (October, 1897), pp. 342-352.
  • William Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1963) [1897], selections
  • F.P. Dunne, Observations of Mr. Dooley (NY: Harper, 1906), pp. 167-172.
  • Edward J. Flynn, You're the Boss (NY: Crowell-Collier, 1962), pp. 30-40, 126-131, 142-158, 235-251.
Muckrakers and Reformers:
  • James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. II (London and New York: Macmillan, 1889), Chapter 63.
  • Frank R. Kent, The Great Game of Politics (Garden City: Doubleday, 1923), pp. 6-13, 24-27, 80-96, 103-111.
  • Gustavus Myers, The History of Tammany Hall (NY: Boni and Liveright, 1917), pp. 237-249, 267-283.
What were the political, philosophical, and moral critiques of machine politics? What did machine leaders say in their own defense?

3. Machine vs. Reform: academic perspectives.

Pluralist and functionalist views:
  • E.C. Banfield and J.Q. Wilson, City Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), Ch.s 9 & 11.
  • Robert K. Merton, "The Latent Functions of the Machine," in Social Theory and Social Structure (NY: Free Press, 1957), pp. 71-81.
  • Raymond Wolfinger, "Why Political Machines Have Not Withered Away and Other Revisionist Thoughts," Journal of Politics 34:2 (May, 1972), pp. 365-398.
Quantitative:
  • Robert Lineberry and Edmund Fowler, "Reformism and Public Policy in American Cities," APSR 61 (September, 1967), pp. 701-717.
  • Raymond Wolfinger, "The Development and Persistence of Ethnic Voting," APSR 59 (1965), pp. 896-908.
  • Daniel N. Gordon, "Immigrants and Municipal Voting Turnout," APSR 35 (1970), pp. 665-681.
Historical and Revisionist:
  • Samuel P. Hays, "The Politics of Reform in Municipal Government in the Progressive Era," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 55 (October, 1964), pp. 157-169.
  • Martin Shefter, "The Emergence of the Machine: An Alternative View," in W.D. Hawley, M. Lipsky et al, Theoretical Perspectives on Urban Politics (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976), pp. 14-44.
  • Allan Rosenbaum, "Machine Politics, Class Interests, and the Urban Poor," 1973 APSA paper, 39 pp.
For whom or what was machine politics functional? Did this style of politics successfully attenuate class conflict and the articulation of class interests? What kinds of cities became reformed? What impact has reformed government structure had on political participation, particularly ethnic mobilization? Why do elements of machine politics persist?

4. The reform cycle in New York City.

Please be prepared to present your research topic at this class.
  • Theodore Lowi, At the Pleasure of the Mayor: Patronage and Politics in New York City, 1896-1956 (New York: The Free Press, 1964), Ch. 8, "The Reform Cycle," pp. 175-213.
  • Wallace Sayre and Herbert Kaufman, Governing New York City: Politics in the Metropolis (New York: Norton, 1961), pp. 11-17, 39-64, 67-80, 121-166, 174-202, 452-476, 538-543, 676-699, 710-738.
  • V.O. Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation, Ch. 14, "The Nature and Consequences of One Party Factionalism," pp. 298-311.
  • Robert F. Pecorella, "Coping with Crises: The Politics of Urban Retrenchment," Polity 17 (Winter, 1984), pp 298-316.
What political, fiscal, and economic crises have triggered reform in New York City? What interests and organizations have fused to triumph as reformers? How have reform coalitions varied? How did they relate to new and old ethnic groups? What impact did reform have on the structure of power and the balance of class forces?

5. Progressive era reform in New York City.

  • Reread Shefter, "Emergence," and Hays, "Politics of Reform."
  • David Hammack, Power and Society, pp. 109-229.
  • S.J. Makielski, The Politics of Zoning (NY: Columbia University Press, 1966), pp. 7-40.
How did reformers go about gaining at least temporary ascendancy over Tammany? How did the structure of party politics and party competition change over this time? How were elite and working class interests represented in and by the various party factions? What were the achievements of reform? How did the creation of Greater New York figure in these events?

NB: You should trace the development of the component of the reform coalition you have chosen in this and succeeding periods.

6. LaGuardia and the New Deal in New York City.

  • Martin Shefter, "Economic Crises, Social Coalitions, and Political Institutions: New York City's Little New Deal," 1981 APSA paper, 89 pp.
  • Ronald H. Bayor, Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish, Germans, Jews, and Italians of New York City, 1929-1941 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), "LaGuardia and the New Ethnic Order," pp. 30-56.
How did the fusion backing for LaGuardia differ from that of the Progressive era? What new forces did LaGuardia attempt to mobilize to ensure ascendancy? What was the program and impact of the "Little New Deal"? How did the factors of fiscal crisis, political failure of the machine, economic contraction, charter reform, and expansion of local government interact? Did LaGuardia establish a new political model?

7. The Wagner years: from machine to reform?

  • Charles Morris, The Cost of Good Intentions (New York: W.W.Norton, 1980), pp. 15-33.
  • John Davenport, "Skinning the Tiger: Carmine DeSapio and the End of the Tammany Era," New York Affairs 3:1 (1975), pp. 72-93.
Was Wagner a machine politician or a reformer? In what sense was he a transition figure to a "post-reform" era? Did Wagner's third-term alliance with organized labor constitute a new electoral strategy? Is Morris right that the seeds of the fiscal crisis were sewn in this period? How did fiscal strain, charter reform, and electoral competition interact in this period?

8. The Lindsay years: a "post-reform" thrust?

  • Charles Morris, Cost of Good Intentions, remainder
  • Martin Shefter, "New York City's Fiscal Crisis: The Politics of Inflation and Retrenchment," The Public Interest 48 (Summer, 1977), pp. 98-127.
In addition, read about one of the following:
  1. Ocean-Hill Brownsville dispute and teacher strike.
  2. Lindsay's neighborhood government/decentralization proposals.
  3. Community Action and/or Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corp.
  4. The Goodman Commission charter reform proposals.
  5. Open admissions at CUNY.
  6. The New York City Rand Institute and policy analysis efforts.
In what sense did Lindsay continue the basic dimensions of the traditional reform program? What was his social base of support? Where did Lindsay depart from the reform tradition? Can it be said that he initiated a "post-reform" reaction against the previous reform stress on bureaucratic centralization and efficiency? Did Lindsay cause the fiscal crisis? What longer term impacts did the Lindsay era have?

9. Fiscal crisis and conservative reform revisited: Koch as a bearer of the reform tradition.

  • Ken Auletta, "Profile on Edward I. Koch," The New Yorker (September 10 & 17, 1979), 37 pp.
  • Martin Shefter, "Organizing for Armageddon," 1981 APSA paper, 32 pp.
  • Raymond Horton, "Sayre and Kaufman Revisited: New York City Government in the Post-1965 Period," 1977 APSA paper, 25 pp.
Can Mayor Koch be considered a continuation of the reform movement? What are his continuities and discontinuities with the Lindsay administration? How does his base of support differ from that of previous reform regimes, particularly in relation to the regular Democratic organizations, blacks, and organized labor? What has been the impact of the Koch administration?

10. The persistence of regular Democratic (machine) politics in the four other boroughs.

  • Norman Adler and Blanche Blank, Political Clubs in New York (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975), pp.
  • Reread Wolfinger, "Why Machines Have Not Withered Away," and the sections of Sayre & Kaufman on party organization.
Where are the areas of continuity in machine politics? How and why does this style persist? Is reform a strictly Manhattan-based phenomenon? What accounts for the variation in strength of the regular organizations in the boroughs?

11. Racial succession and the "new immigration" as sources of potential electoral mobilization on behalf of reform: problems and prospects.

  • Jim Sleeper, "Building a New Black Politics," Village Voice (December 9, 1981), 5 pp.
  • Angelo Falcon, "Black and Latino Politics in New York City: Race and Ethnicity in a Changing Urban Context," New Community (forthcoming), 14 pp.
  • Jeffrey Getis, "Memorandum on the Report of the Special Master [Council Reapportionment Lawsuit]," Legislative Advisory Task Force on Reapportionment, June 10, 1982, 25 pp.
To what extent do blacks and other minority groups constitute voting blocs that could be mobilized to support a reform coalition? What factors retard their organization and what set of events might promote it? What are the prospects for cross-racial voting by different groups?

12. and 13. Presentation of research findings.

14. The future of reform and party politics in New York City.

Can a case be made for two-party competition by parties organized on a city-wide basis? What should the agenda for reform be in the latter half of the 1980s and beyond?