Is US Local Politics Becoming "Nationalized"?

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel presents a series of papers assessing the extent to which the dimensions of national political conflict have intruded into American local politics. Recent political science scholarship has suggested that partisan identity extends into many aspects of life, from family interaction to residential selection. Recent scholarship (Hopkins 2018) indicates that Americans' voting behavior has become "nationalized," in the sense that Americans are more likely to identify with and attend to national politics, to the exclusion of local concerns. However, local government continues to offer many exceptions to the homogeneity of national politics. The papers selected for this panel address multiple facets of local institutions and political behavior, including issue attitudes, vote choice, legislative agenda-setting, and voter turnout. They share a concern with addressing the extent to which local politics remains a distinct sphere.

Two of the selected papers use conjoint analyses to examine the extent to which partisanship intrudes on local political attitudes and behavior. Jensen et al. show that it probably does not: on a range of development policy questions, Democrats and Republicans substantially agree. They find that elite partisan cues carry little weight on most local political issues and that inter-local competition results in a convergence of development strategies and policies. Nall examines the influence of partisan endorsements in local elections. He finds that partisan elite endorsements provide an essential cue to voters, but that local interest group endorsements and clear candidate positions can overcome voters' reliance on partisan heuristics.

Bucchianeri examines how partisanship interacts with other identities to shape the local legislative agenda. He presents results from an original dataset of legislative proposals from 100 US cities, examining whether the changing partisan and racial composition of city councils influences which bills win local council attention.

Finally, Einstein and Palmer present new evidence on the racial turnout gap in local elections. While we have learned a great deal about the magnitude of the racial turnout gap in national elections, we know much less about the extent of this gap in local political and social contexts. Einstein and Palmer present new individual-level analyses based on voter file data from multiple states.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 30: Urban and Local Politics

Individual Presentations

• City Limits to Partisan Polarization in the American Public - Amalie Sofie Jensen, Princeton University; William Marble, Stanford University; Kenneth F. Scheve, Stanford University; Matthew Slaughter, Dartmouth College

• The Racial Turnout Gap in Local Elections: Evidence from Voter Files - Katherine Levine Einstein, Boston University; Maxwell B. Palmer, Boston University

• Race, Partisanship, and the Construction of the Legislative Agenda - Peter Bucchianeri, Vanderbilt University

• Can Partisan Endorsements Overcome Economic Self-Interest in Local Elections? - Clayton M. Nall, Stanford University

Chair

• Elisabeth R. Gerber University of Michigan

Discussant

• Patricia Kirkland Princeton University