Urban Inequalities: Causes and Redresses

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Local governments profoundly impact the life of citizens through their purview over a broad set of resources, ranging from law and order, to public utilities, to public services, to land and housing infrastructure. The institutions that govern and influence the distribution of these resources can entrench inequality by favoring elite interests. In what ways – sometimes hidden and indirect but no less pernicious – does this unequality come about, both at the ballot box and at in the course of governing? How do disadvantaged groups react in response to this disempowerment? What factors shape the conflicts that emerge between local governments and citizens? The panel addresses these questions by identifying the roles played by actors across levels of government, the private sector, and citizens of diverse socio-economic status. It thereby examines the effects of institutional design on the disempowerment of less advantaged voters at the ballot box; the impact of understudied institutional forms on unequal representation in policy making; the emergence of contentious actions against municipal growth machines; and the role of discourse in articulating these conflicts.

With a focus on inequality in both its institutional determinants and its societal responses, this panel vigorously embraces the 2019 conference theme of populism and privilege. The four papers span a broad methodological range, and include a large scale cross-sectional survey, qualitative comparative analysis, as well as case-based studies. Cases bring together papers focused on the United States, Brazil, and a multi-country study.

The panel opens by inquiring the mechanisms that undermine electoral participation by disadvantaged groups. To this end, Jonathan Collins and Jessica Trounstine start off the conversation by presenting an analysis that adds to the literature by explaining low voter turnout among low propensity voters with lack of knowledge about the election process and feelings of low political efficacy. The inquiry then moves to the mechanisms that undermine disadvantaged groups in administration and policy making at the municipal level. Mirya R. Holman provides new insights in her study of appointed boards and commissions and the power asymmetries that these institutions generate. Next, the panel turns to societal responses to these inequalities. Here the comparative analysis is facilitated by a common focus on housing policy. Eleonora Pasotti presents the results of a multi-country study investigating both strategic and institutional determinants of success among 29 cases of neighborhood-based protests aimed at stopping displacement. Yue Zhang homes in on the case of Sao Paulo, Brazil, to explain how a rights-based approach provided a powerful new discourse and institutional devices for mobilization.

The Discussants for this panel are Alison Post and Tariq Thachil, who have made substantial contributions to the study of urban and regional political economy, multi-level governance, and state-society relations at the subnational-level.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 30: Urban and Local Politics

Individual Presentations

• Why They Stay Home: Low Propensity Voters in Local Elections - Jonathan Collins, Brown University; Jessica Luce Trounstine, University of California, Merced

• Local Appointed Boards and the Diluting of Democracy - Mirya R. Holman, Tulane University

• Rightful Squatting: Housing Movements & the “Right to the City” in Brazil - Yue Zhang, University of Illinois - Chicago

• We Are Not Alone: Nonhuman Animals in Our Urban Spaces - Laura A. Reese, Michigan State University

Chair

• Jessica Luce Trounstine University of California, Merced

Discussants

• Alison E. Post University of California, Berkeley

• Tariq Thachil Vanderbilt University