IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v51y2007i1p17-33.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Substantive Symbols: The Attitudinal Dimension of Black Political Incorporation in Local Government

Author

Listed:
  • Melissa J. Marschall
  • Anirudh V. S. Ruhil

Abstract

Traditional studies of minority incorporation focus on the redistribution of public resources that purportedly follows black gains in representation. The present study departs from this approach by focusing on the attitudinal effects of black leadership. Two research questions guide this study: To what extent do blacks' assessments of neighborhood services and conditions stem from black representation in local executive and legislative offices? Are these attitudinal effects rooted in policy and service delivery outcomes? Employing survey data from 3,000 blacks embedded in 52 cities and 53 school districts, this study reveals that blacks report higher levels of satisfaction with their neighborhood conditions, police services, and public schools when represented by blacks in city hall and on school boards and that these evaluations are most positive when improvements in local services are conspicuous. Overall, these findings extend conventional conceptualizations of substantive benefits and challenge more pessimistic accounts regarding the effects of black representation in local politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Melissa J. Marschall & Anirudh V. S. Ruhil, 2007. "Substantive Symbols: The Attitudinal Dimension of Black Political Incorporation in Local Government," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 17-33, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:51:y:2007:i:1:p:17-33
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00234.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00234.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00234.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kristin Kanthak & George A. Krause, 2011. "Coordination dilemmas and the valuation of women in the U.S. Senate: Reconsidering the critical mass problem," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(2), pages 188-214, April.
    2. Carolyn Abott & Asya Magazinnik, 2020. "At‐Large Elections and Minority Representation in Local Government," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 717-733, July.
    3. Brian Beach & Daniel B. Jones & Tate Twinam & Randall Walsh, 2018. "Minority Representation in Local Government," NBER Working Papers 25192, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Christina Stacy & Brady Meixell & Tanaya Srini, 2019. "Inequality Versus Inclusion in US Cities," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 117-156, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:51:y:2007:i:1:p:17-33. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.