Causes and Consequences of Civil Service Reform

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel examines the causes and consequences of municipal civil service reform in the United States, using new data to answer questions spanning the bureaucratic politics, urban politics, race and ethnic politics, and inequality literatures. Anzia and Trounstine show the role that municipal employees and their organizations played in pushing for civil service protections in the Progressive Era. Kuipers and Sahn show the representational consequences of these reforms, which reduced the underrepresentation of immigrants in municipal civil service jobs. Carreri, Payson, and Thompson show the consequences for inequality of these jobs opening up to immigrants. In a later time period, Aneja and Grumbach look at the electoral effects of affirmative action mandates, finding an increase in Democratic vote share partially due to white flight.

Sub Unit

• Division 55: Class and Inequality

Individual Presentations

• The Representational Consequences of Municipal Civil Service Reform - Nicholas Kuipers, UC Berkeley; Alexander Laurence Sahn, Princeton University

• Progressive Era Reforms and the Upward Mobility of Immigrants in the U.S. - Maria Carreri, University of California, San Diego; Julia Payson, New York University

• The Political Influence of City Employees: Civil Service Adoption in America - Sarah F. Anzia, University of California-Berkeley; Jessica Luce Trounstine, University of California, Merced

• Progress or Backlash? The Political Effects of Affirmative Action Enforcement - Jake M Grumbach, Princeton University; Abhay Aneja, UC Berkeley

Chair

• Alexander Laurence Sahn Princeton University

Discussant

• Thad Kousser University of California, San Diego