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Were Minorities Better Represented in City Government After the Progressive Era Reforms? The beginning of seventies we commonly refer to as start of Progressive Era reforms. This period in American history is marked by numerous social changes that were meant to increase the efficiency of democratic governing in this country. With American society becoming increasingly diversified, many people began to question whether the old at-large representation system, according to which city governments used to be formed, was truly representable. The district representation system was thought to be an effective alternative, which would allow city bodies to attain a higher degree of inclusiveness, thus making minorities interests being elevated to official status.
Still, as practice shows, the new system has many shortcomings. The most important one is the fact that it significantly reduces the quality of representation, since it operates on smaller geographical scale. This inevitably leads to situation when there is a lesser percentage of worthy individuals for people to chose from, in every particular district. Another weakness of this system is that it promotes secularism among citizens, when local interests are given higher priority. This cannot be beneficial to the society as whole. Thats why more and more American cities now employ a mixed representation system.
According to statistics, 30 % of all city governments in America in 1990 were formed according to mixed principle. But even up to this date, it is still much debated whether there were any improvements to the representation of minorities, as result of this. Many prominent social scientists doubt the effectiveness of mixed system. Susan Welch in her most recent study The Impact of At-Large Elections on the Representation of Blacks and Hispanics suggests that mixed systems proved as such that dont have any advantage over at-large ones, when it comes to representation of minorities: Mixed systems are not clearly ahead of at-large systems in ensuring equitable black representation.
Cities with mixed systems have not improved their black representational equitability to the same degree at-large systems have (Welch, p. 1060). Apparently, a lot depends on the peoples racial backgrounds. Some of the ethnic minorities are simply deprived of collective responsibility, in classic sense of this word, which would enable their representatives to appeal to potential voters. According to Welch: Hispanics appear to do somewhat better in cities with both at-large and district elections than in either of the pure a finding which confounds expectations, although the correlations are relatively weak (Welch, p. 1065). At the same time, some political observers suggest that it is probably too early to run into conclusions at this point, because minorities political activity might increase, as theyre being integrated in political process. For example, up until recently, Asian-Americans tried to exclude themselves from participating in any in social activity outside of their communities.
Yet, with the advent of nineties, situation has changed rapidly and now Asian minority is considered to among the most politically active ones. In politics, whatever seems to be logically evident doesnt necessarily appear to be such on practical level. The proponents of district voting system Theodore Arrington and Thomas Watts rightly point out to the fact that applying this voting method would significantly increase minorities political weight. Gaining more influence on municipal level will inevitably lead to gaining more influence on the national scale: Although the national population is only 12 percent African American, 12 percent Latino, and 4 percent Asian American, data from a recent nationwide survey (the American Citizen Participation Study) indicate that the average Latino lives in a city that is 39 percent Hispanic, the average African American in a city that is 35 percent black, and the average Asian American in a city that is 7 percent Asian American (Arrington, T. and Watts, T. p. 1101).
Nevertheless, social surveys show that the minority representation hasnt much increased since the times when concept of district voting began to be promoted by politicians and social scientists. In my opinion, this is because ethnic minorities simply prefer to use other ways to expand their political influence. They reach their political objectives with the means of economy and medias. I think this is perfectly normal. After all, proportional representation in city governments is one of the principles of Western democracy.
Yet, people of racial minorities have different cultural values and in many cases the concept of democracy simply doesnt appeal to them. Therefore, the inadequate representation of minorities in city governments is compensated by their over representation in other important aspects of social life. It appears that at-large voting system is still the best, despite all the criticism, which is directed against it. Bibliography: 1. Arrington, Theodore and Watts, Thomas The Election of Blacks to School Boards in North Carolina. The Western Political Quarterly 1991, 44 (4).
Pp. 1099 - 1105. Taebel, Delbert Minority Representation on City Councils: The Impact of Structure on Blacks and Hispanics Social Science Quarterly. 1978. v. 59, Pp. 142 - 152. Welch, Susan The Impact of At-Large Elections on the Representation of Blacks and Hispanics. The Journal of Politics. 1990. 52 (4).
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Research essay sample on Blacks And Hispanics Ethnic Minorities
