Terry Nichols Clark

Was Tocqueville Wrong? Buzz as Charisma, Creativity, and Glamour; New Sources of Political Legitimacy Supplementing Voting, and Civic Participation

Abstract This chapter explores the idea that democratic political legitimacy can emerge by other means than voting or citizen participation. Beyond these conventional methods of building legitimacy, we contend that alternative modes are emerging all over the world. Among these emergent forms are a wide range of policies, from China’s economic growth to Bogota’s use of pantomime street crossing guards, replacing corrupt traffic police. Matched to their context, these policies may enhance political legitimacy. Particularly in locations with weak traditions of citizen participation, exploring alternatives to classic Tocquevillian participation may have more impact. Examining some major successes can illuminate alternative dynamics. We thus feature some specific non-Tocquevillian policies to open consideration of options.

How Context Transforms Citizen Participation: Propositions

Abstract Eight propositions state how contexts shift citizen participation. Religion, consumption patterns, and varied political repertoires transform participation. Hierarchical, authoritarian contexts foster antiestablishment participation and protest activities. Trust only emerges from some contexts. Participation in the arts and culture vary with other contextual elements.

Global Contexts of Politics and Arts Participation

Abstract Does civic participation, especially in the arts, increase democracy? This chapter extends this neo-Tocquevillian question in three ways. First, to capture broader political and economic transformations, we consider different types of participation; results change by separate participation arenas. Some are declining, but a dramatic finding is the rise of arts and culture. Second, to assess impacts of participation, we include multiple dimensions of democratic politics, including distinct norms of citizenship and their associated political repertoires. Third, by analyzing global International Social Survey Program and World Values Survey data, we identify dramatic subcultural differences: the Tocquevillian model is positive, negative, or zero in seven different subcultures and contexts that we explicate, from class politics and clientelism to Protestant and Orthodox Christian civilizational traditions.

Book ReviewsChallenging the Growth Machine: Neighborhood Politics in Chicago and Pittsburgh.. By Barbara Ferman. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996. Pp. xiv+192.

This book makes two contributions: (1) a new conceptualization of urban politics and (2) case studies of Chicago and Pittsburgh showing how neighborhood issues link with citywide politics. The ideas are useful for analysts and activists in urban politics, community mobilization, and social movements in any city. The conceptualization casts these two wellknown cities in a new light. For example, in Chicago, neighborhood groups (at least the progressive movements that Ferman studies) are distrusted by most elected political leaders; small decisions often become conflictual, cross multiple arenas, and involve general political leaders (i.e., mayor, council, etc.). But in Pittsburgh, neighborhood and civic groups often make compromises in arena-specific decisions separate from political leaders. Ferman’s first step toward a new approach is to identify and label such differences based on comparisons of two city’s many specific decisions. The conceptualization combines elements of past works. The tradition from Floyd Hunter and Clarence Stone, which stresses business elites and holds that they encourage a progrowth coalition, is inadequate first to explain why Chicago and Pittsburgh differ and second to explain public policies (e.g., downtown development vs. neighborhood development). Ferman’s comparative focus on the two cities shows how common explanations of urban policy are inadequate: “declining cities” versus “Sunbelt,” large size versus small, central city versus suburb, machine versus reform, strong mayor versus city manager. These legal, geographic, and economic classifications all locate Chicago and Pittsburgh in the same cells. Yet the two deeply differ in decisionmaking processes and concrete policy direction. Why? Ferman answers by stressing three mutually reinforcing concepts: arenas, institutions, and political culture. Arenas (like housing or mayoral elections) are introduced to stress that politics and rules of the game differ across arenas. Ferman makes a good point here: cities vary in general leadership due, in part, to the centrality of different arenas. Politics and the Democratic Party dominate Chicago. Progressive neighborhood politics often challenge party leadership and ignite racial issues because of Chicago’s large proportion of geographically concentrated African-Americans. More than in Pittsburgh, this racial conflict for power in the city as a whole often underlies neighborhood issues and other specific issues. Protagonists fighting for political turf are less willing in Chicago than in Pittsburgh to accept compromise via nonpolitical institutions. Jesse Jackson, Dorothy Tillman, and others, thus, took ostensibly minor issues “to the streets” and, with help from community groups across the city, mobilized African-Americans to elect Harold