In this study we revisit the question of black representation on city councils and school boards using a novelO ver the past several decades, social scientists interested in questions of race and representation in American politics have paid considerable attention to black representation on city councils and local school boards. These investigations have focused almost exclusively on two explanatory factors: the voting strength of the black population and local electoral institutions. This focus is predicated on conventional assumptions that given a choice, black voters prefer electing black candidates and that blacks come closer to achieving proportional representation as their share of the electorate increases. Electoral institutions are believed to condition the "seats/population" relationship with at-large election (AL) systems impeding the election of minorities, particularly in the South where racial voting has been most pervasive.Extant research espouses this relatively simple model of representation despite mixed empirical results. Specifically, although many studies find that the likelihood of attaining proportionality increases as the share of the black population increases and that blacks are less proportionally represented on city councils and school boards when The authors wish to thank three anonymous referees and the editor for their comments and suggestions.elected at large rather than from single-member districts (SMD), important exceptions exist (Alozie and Manganaro 1993;Welch 1990;Welch and Karnig 1978). Further, despite similarities in the models and methods employed to study black council and board representation, results suggest that blacks are more proportionally represented on boards (Meier and England 1984;Welch and Karnig 1978).More generally, the literature reflects two enduring puzzles. First, given the higher incidence of AL arrangements in municipalities and school districts and the fact that blacks are a minority in most jurisdictions in America, what accounts for blacks' representational gains over the past several decades? Second, if electoral structure and voting strength play identical roles in council and board contests, why do empirical studies find more "equitable" representation on boards than councils? Do mechanisms other than the size of the black population and SMD arrangements matter for black representation in local governing bodies?

Traditional studies of minority incorporation focus on the redistribution of public resources that purportedly follows black gains in representation. The present study departs from this approach by focusing on the attitudinal effects of black leadership. Two research questions guide this study: To what extent do blacks' assessments of neighborhood services and conditions stem from black representation in local executive and legislative offices? Are these attitudinal effects rooted in policy and service delivery outcomes? Employing survey data from 3,000 blacks embedded in 52 cities and 53 school districts, this study reveals that blacks report higher levels of satisfaction with their neighborhood conditions, police services, and public schools when represented by blacks in city hall and on school boards and that these evaluations are most positive when improvements in local services are conspicuous. Overall, these findings extend conventional conceptualizations of substantive benefits and challenge more pessimistic accounts regarding the effects of black representation in local politics.

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Several recent studies have investigated the relationship between direct democracy and public policy outcomes, with mixed findings. These inconsistencies may stem, in part, from researchers' failure to recognize that direct democracy institutions are distributed nonrandomly across the American states. That is, certain factors may lead a state to adopt the initiative process and influence other policy choices. We revisit the question of how the initiative influences state fiscal policy using panel data from 1960-2000 and a full-information maximum likelihood estimator that explicitly accounts for the endogeneity of the initiative. Our findings suggest that failure to endogenize the initiative in empirical analyses leads to substantially biased estimates of its effects. In particular, we find that once factors that predict whether a state has adopted the initiative are controlled, the initiative has a positive effect on state revenue generation and spending.Does direct democracy affect the substance of public policy? In particular, does direct democracy influence the level of public spending? These questions have been the subject of much research in the American states in recent years (

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