When Do Politics Matter for African American and Latino Mayors and City Council Members?

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Researchers at the University of Arkansas studying the influence of African American and Latino mayors, city council members and city managers on hiring practices within city agencies found clear differences between the groups. African American mayors or city managers are more likely to increase the number of African Americans in financial administration, fire, housing, parks, welfare and street departments — but not police, sanitation, community development and health departments.

In contrast, Latinos on city councils yield more influence on administrative departments, such as financial administration, streets, welfare and community development.

The authors of the study — Brinck Kerr, William Schreckhise and Margaret Reid, of the political science department of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and former department member Will Miller, now at the University of Illinois at Springfield — won the 2009 best paper award in the urban politics section from the American Political Science Association for “If Politics Matters, When Does It Matter? Re-examining the Determinants of African American Municipal Employment Patterns.”

The racial/ethnic distribution of public sector employment in U.S. cities has attracted widespread scholarly attention for more than 30 years because research in this area addresses many important questions. Does the political process work for members of traditionally disadvantaged groups? Does political influence translate into tangible, material rewards such as high-level jobs?

“Most past attempts to answer these questions have aggregated employees from all city departments into one city-wide pool. In our study, we evaluate over time the effects of political office holding by municipal department,” said Kerr.

Politics in multiethnic cities works differently for African Americans than for Latinos. The relationship between executive political leadership and administrative-level hiring and retention is concentrated for African Americans in bureaucracies central to their interests: housing, public welfare, fire and parks. In contrast, Hispanic city council members matter a great deal more than Hispanic mayors in influencing the number of jobs across municipal departments such as community development, finance, streets and public welfare.

“The results from the Latino models indicate that Hispanic mayors and city council members do not have a great deal of influence over the hiring and retention of Hispanic administrators in city governments. The findings suggest that municipal-level political processes work differently for Latinos than they do for African Americans,” said Kerr.

The researchers studied records from the U.S. Equal Employment Commission on multiethnic cities from 1987 to 2001. They discovered that Hispanic mayors, hampered by diverse interests and operating in a culture that tends to emphasize family and churches over relying on government agencies, were not able to convert their political power into high level administrative jobs for Latinos. As Hispanics increased their political power during the 1980s and 1990s, they did not significantly change the number of administrative jobs held by African Americans.