Urban Politics - Research Paper Example

Introduction The study and researches on urban politics, within political scientists, whether it is nationwide or within various nations, resembles the study of national politics with one critical exception. In the urban and comparative fields, scholars are usually adept in knowing one of the localities really well. From academic disciplines to culture, history, language, customs, social structures, political drivers, and international concepts the scholars are well aware of that. To attain such level of knowledge and wisdom the political scholars have to develop strong connection to their locality to know more and more about them. As in the case of the scholars of urban politics, the aggregated data is sought that are considered to be according to the international standards, they later develop economical theories which are applicable in particular situations. Urban Regime and Pluralism According to Stone and Dahl Urban Regime and pluralism can be depicted as the informal agreements between the government and the private sectors to cooperate with each other in order to develop and implement governing decisions and achieving a long lasting influence in the key political areas. (Strom, 112) According to pluralism, the power is split between the different actors of urban political arena. Robert Dahl, in his book “Who Governs” explains this theory very well and states that specialized influence exists according to which different leaders dominate different areas. Power is not only in the hands of one group of individuals. It can be stated that the study of urban politics is not similar to that of comparative national politics. The reason is that urban politics is in abeyance whereas comparative national politics is flourishing and widely in use. Stone does not distinguish urban politics within the wider field of American politics or comparative politics. Clarence Stone’s research shows that how unfortunate it is that Comparative Politics sections comprises of double the members as that of urban politics of APSA (American Political Science Association). Clarence Stone supports Lanyi’s balloon which can be depicted form his various research essays. He believes that politics, civil society and business are knitted together in complicated ways. So, urban regime analysis is an effort to observe how these various sections are linked together which sums up to a greater part analysis. Stone keeps on pointing to intersections to the forces, the need to differentiate each political regime from another, the varied analysis of historical trajectories, the governing differences in various cities, the resources and interests of the political actors and many other ways to resolve complexities without simplifying. Stone is also critical to scholars who are in favor of Occam’s razor. Stone criticizes Robert Dahl’s “Who Governs?” as being too simplistic from the vantage viewpoint of Lanyi’s balloon. Though Dahl attends to politics really carefully but Stone argues that he pays inadequate attention to systemic interactions including social, political and economic forces. Moreover, Stone says that Dahl defines politics in a narrow way describing elections and their results as the final decision and ignoring political actions that range from incipient protests to the controlling of agenda. (Strom, 254) The study of urban politics is in need of a few delineated and uncomplicated theories which can be used to derive propositions which can be later tested. According to this viewpoint, the urban politics is recognized as interactive yet complicated. Judging the work of too many researchers is an invitation to a never ending description and detailed interpretation in many particular cases. So it can be easily concluded that Stone and other few urban scholars should continue exploring the intricacy of city governance while a large number of other scholars should aim at identifying analytical and reasoning tools or models that would suggest resolution of relevant facts, causes and relationships. Considering urban regime analytical study, Stone and his coauthors have identified different governance dynamics in different cities. There are however, three major accomplishments which can be concluded as more focused comparison among national policies of vocational training, second; a healthy discussion about the most appropriate way to describe and explain city governance and third is the use of rational models and theories to study cities along with more conventional approaches like surveys, aggregate data analysis, historical trajectories etc. Stone has set the standard for one type of methodological framework, it has been suggested to other authors to make use of his wide vision and move it in their own directions. Dahl describes pluralism as a goal if it cannot be used as practice. He supports international relations on regimes, behavioral models and frameworks and setting of agenda. As an example, the capacity of bureaucrats should be researched on, by the scholars to achieve their goals? This question brings a deep insight of “Who Governs” to indicate in bringing back the state and the bureaucratic economy. Scholarships should focus more on the dependence of path in a city’s development, so that the political dynamics are well-explained by the origin, the early development and the various choices of significant moments. Kauffman’s Thesis According to Kaufmann, in case of the New York City governance, understanding the details of the characters like Koch, LaGuardia or Giuliani totally depends on the background of grasping their individualities. An effective appeal is developed against a typical set of partisan understandings and institutions and how they are related like the importance of race and ethnic identifications. This concept is supported by Dahl, who makes a clear logical space for parties in urban politics. A brief yet controversial listing of the different frameworks; used in urban politics are pluralism, neo-elitism, elitism, structural Marxian, Marxian political economy, growth machine, regulation theories, regime theory and many other different approaches to urban governance. (Kaufmann, 112) Dahl’s concept of immigrant socialization supports Kaufmann’s thesis, who suggested that class boundaries should include ethnic divisions in political significance as the European immigrants moved in the middle class. Latinos comprise the majority of immigrants and are recognized as the largest minority group nationwide. Though Hispanics lived in the United States, belong to over 20 countries and declare their position as immigrants and Spanish speaking. Since Latino immigrants are a minority and are provided with constitutional protection, still much of the Latino scholarships are followed by the Black politics literature. Latino solidarity in politics should be fully realized. Kaufmann states that in spite of the numerous similarities between the Latino and Black political goals, Hispanic voters do not demonstrate the political cohesions of native born Afro-Americans. Since a common language is spoken in most of the Latin countries, the relationships between these nationalities are shaky and unreliable. Hispanics display very weak signs of pan-ethnic identifications which is specifically true for new immigrants. (Kaufmann. 216) Kaufmann’s concept as depicted by the researches of Robert Dahl, that Latino subordination has a significant role in the political socialization is hardly ever talked about as an explanation of Latino’s political behavior. (Strom, 312) The group positioning hypothesis assumes that socio-economical and political stratification builds up the political orientations, especially when the dominant groups have their control over the local native resources. However it is perceived as an unfair advantage for the individuals in the governing coalition. Kaufmann states that the time when inter-group conflicts rise up to an alarming level, the social entities outside the groups may develop into political ones. It has been stated that stratification along with the inter-racial competitions followed by inequality, may lead to social identities latency and in this way they gain dominance over traditional political identities like party identification. Dahl agrees to this by stating that measures should be taken for equality in order to avoid conflicts between different social and economic classes. Bibliography Karen M. Kaufmann, 2004. The Urban Voter: Group Conflict and Mayoral Voting Behavior in American Cities (The Politics of Race and Ethnicity). University of Michigan Press., 2004. Strom, Elizabeth A. The Urban Politics Reader (Routledge Urban Reader Series). Routledge., 2006. Read More