Straight, No Chaser

Abstract

This article reviews dominant urban political theories and argues that pluralism, public choice theory, and regime theory do not pay sufficient attention to the urban state and history. By “bringing the state back [into]” urban political theory, this article reveals the extent to which each dominant theoretical perspective represents a similar theme played again and again in different historical periods and institutional contexts. I argue that city politics and urban government are shaped by economic and democratic forces, and whether, when, and how these forces influence city officials is contingent upon the design of those local organizations, their capacities, their position within broader political structures, and their position within broader economic systems. By bringing history and the urban state to the forefront of local political analysis, this essay reveals continuity across dominant urban political theories and identifies important theoretical and explanatory gaps.

Comparative Case Study Methods in Urban Political Development

“…My goal in this paper is to make a few conceptual contributions to the effort to meld the fields of urban politics and American political development (e.g., Lucas 2017b;Fortner 2016;Weaver 2016;Stone [1993Stone [ ] 2015Ogorzalek 2018;Rast 2012Rast , 2015Rast , 2019Taylor 2019;Dilworth 2009Dilworth , 2016Dilworth and Weaver 2020). Largely as a means of illustration, I begin with a brief comparison of urban political development in the US and Canada, and more specifically in Philadelphia and Montreal, in which I attempt to discern four kinds of comparisons between different time periods in different cities.…”