Redefining Civil Rights in Municipal Government: The Political Economy of Institutional Reform

This paper analyzes the preconditions for institutional reform in urban government. Using a political economy framework, it is argued that citizens obtain from their charter a set of civil rights in local government. But these rights change de facto under the influence of population migration and other exogenous forces in the environment of the municipality. This induces change, de jure, in the charier and in the institutions it describes. After outlining the theory, the history of the Reform Government Movement in urban America is briefly examined, and lessons both for those who are currently promoting reform and for scholars who study it are extracted. Hypotheses about the timing and extent of reform are derived from the theory and the most appropriate way to measure and evaluate it is examined. The goal is to be more precise in predicting when urban areas will experience reform.