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American Democracy Reconsidered: Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

L. J. Sharpe
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Extract

In his celebrated study of American democracy written in 1888, Lord Bryce reserved his most condemnatory reflections for city government and in a muchquoted passage asserted: ‘There is no denying that the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States. The deficiencies of the National government tell but little for evil on the welfare of the people. The faults of the State governments are insignificant compared with the extravagance, corruption and mismanagement which mark the administration of most of the great cities'sangeetha.

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Articles
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 1973 , pp. 1 - 28
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

1 Bryce, J., The American Commonwealth (New York: Macmillan, 1899), Vol. II, p. 281.Google Scholar

2 Both quotations are taken from Banfield, E. and Wilson, J., City Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 2.Google Scholar

3 Dahl, R., Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), p. 316.Google Scholar

4 ‘To reject the democratic creed is in effect to refuse to be an American’, Dahl, , Who Governs? p. 317.Google Scholar

5 This certainly seems to be true of local government in some rural areas of Britain which even the charitable would have difficulty in claiming for democracy, especially if they took what may be termed the extreme position of Dahl to the effect that competitive elections are the sine quanon of democracy (Dahl, R., Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1956). pp. 131–2).Google Scholar In the deeply rural shires, despite the existence of the formal framework of democracy for over three quarters of a century, anything up to 90 per cent of the seats are never contested (the median percentage of uncontested seats for all counties calculated by Douglas Ashford of Cornell University for the period 1949–67 was almost 60 per cent) and it is possible that some individual seats have never been contested since the county councils were established in 1888. In these counties there is no party system so there is little or no consistent opposition to those in power on the council which is often run by what appears to be a self-perpetuating social oligarchy drawn mostly from the retired service officer class, the landed gentry and the aristocracy. Published material on these counties is scanty but for some indication of the composition of the councils see Sharpe, L. J., ‘Elected Representatives in Local Government’, British Journal of Sociology, XIII (1962), 189–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Something of the flavour of the county style of government can be derived from Lee, J. M., Social Leaders and Public Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963).Google Scholar See also Keith-lucas's, B. Epilogue to an edited version of Redlich, J. and Hirst, F., The History of Local Government in England (London: Macmillan, 1958)Google Scholar; Stanyer, J., County Government in England and Wales (London: Routledge, 1967)Google Scholar and Pomfret, R. Y., ‘Rural Oligarchies or Rural Democracy?’ Rural District Review, LXIX (1963).Google Scholar

6 See O'leary, C., ‘Northern Ireland: The Politics of Illusion’, Political Quarterly, XL (1969), 307–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Rose, R., Governing Without Consensus (London: Faber, 1971), p. 441–2.Google Scholar

7 In Banfield, E., ed., Urban Government (New York: Free Press, 1964).Google Scholar

8 See especially Almond, G. and Verba, S., The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaplan, H., Urban Political Systems (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 209–10Google Scholar, which is also an explicit comparison of the two systems. Three further articles are also of special importance for they compare the two systems and share some of Banfield's conclusions on the broad character of American urban government, but also take a more critical stance to some aspects of the American tradition along similar lines to this paper. These are Newton, K., City Politics in Britain and America, and Community Decision-makers and Community Decision-making in England and the United States (Birmingham: Birmingham University, 1968 and 1970)Google Scholar, Discussion Papers series , E and Smallwood, F. F., ‘Game Politics versus Feedback Politics’ in Morlan, E., ed., Capital, Courthouse & City Hall (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966).Google Scholar For a much broader treatment of the distinguishing characteristics of the American and British political traditions, see Lipset, S., The First New Nation (New York: Garden City, 1967)Google Scholar; Alford, R., Party and Society (London: John Murray, 1964)Google Scholar; Shils, E., The Torment of Secrecy (Glencoe: Free Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Truman, T., ‘A Critique of Seymour M. Lipset's Article’, The Canadian Journal of Political Science, IV (1971), 497–525CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rothman, S., ‘Modernity and Tradition in Britain’ in Rose, R., ed., Studies in British Politics (London: Macmillan, 1966)Google Scholar; Eckstein, H., ‘The British Political System’ in Beer, S. and Ulam, A., eds., Patterns of Government (New York: Random House, 1962).Google Scholar

9 According to Eckstein, : ‘Whether Britain is a democracy or not, British government is at least supremely constitutional in character’, (‘The British Political System’, p. 101).Google Scholar Almond and Verba, Civic Culture, take a different view however, and give Britain a higher rating in terms of democratic quality than the United States.

10 Banfield, E., ed., Big City Politics (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 3.Google Scholar

11 Boyle, L., ‘British and American City Government’, Local Government Finance, LXXI (1967).Google Scholar Banfield strongly concurs that American city government is innovating and attributes this to the fact that power is highly diffused: ‘a selection process (or political system) which allows of the exercise of power rather than that of persuasion by affected interests produces a wider canvass of policy alternatives than does a process which allows the affected interests only the opportunity to persuade’, Banfield, E., Political Influence, paperback edition (New York: Free Press, 1965), pp. 334–5.Google Scholar

12 Report of the Committee on Management in Local Government (Maud), Vol. I. (London: HMSO, 1967).Google Scholar

13 See Greenwood, R., Smith, A. and Stewart, J., New Patterns of Local Government Organizatio (Institute of Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham, 1971)Google Scholar, and Elliott, J., ‘The Harris Experiment in Newcastle upon Tyne’, Public Administration, XLIX (1971), 149–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Banfield, , ed., Big City Politics, p. 12.Google Scholar

15 It must be admitted that this grants the British system a more experimental stance than it may merit since the decisive factor in bringing all reorganization schemes in Britain to the Statute book is the central government.

16 But not wholly impossible since the new created metropolitan authority – Unigov – covering the city of Indianopolis and the adjoining Marin county seems to be a fundamental change in the existing structure. See HUD Challenge (Washington: Department of Housing and Urban Development, 05 1971).Google Scholar

17 See Banfield, E., Urban Government, ‘The Management of Metropolitan Conflict’, in particular p. 39.Google Scholar

18 See Hampton, W., Democracy and Community (London: Oxford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar, Chap, x, for a fairly typical party battle over housing policy in Sheffield.

19 See Jones, G., Borough Politics (London: Macmillan, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chap, XVI, on the aldermanic issue in Wolverhampton for an example of the bitterness that can enter into British local politics on a non-policy issue.

20 Shils, , The Torment of Secrecy, p. 37.Google Scholar Barry argues convincingly that the greater openness of the American system is a direct result of the fragmented character of the government: ‘since influence is a function of power-diffusion and information a function of influence, may it not be that although a political system which fragments power requires more information on the part of ordinary citizens it at the same time provides a stronger motive for acquiring information?’ Barry, B., Political Argument (London: Routledge, 1965), p. 271.Google Scholar

21 See Hill, D., Participation in Local Affairs (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), Chap. VI.Google Scholar

22 The procedures involve consultation with the public before, during and after the acceptance of structure and local plans. They stem from People and Planning, the Report of the Committee on Public Participation in Planning (Skeffington) (London: HMSO, 1969).Google Scholar

23 Lee, E., The Politics of Non-Partisanship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), p. 163.Google Scholar

24 Sayre, W. and Kaufman, H., Governing New York City (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1960), p. 81.Google Scholar

23 This is especially true of Banfield but see also Greer, S., Governing the Metropolis (New York: John Wiley, 1962), p. 45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The tendency to believe that American local government is, or ought to be, more demotic is also brought out tangentially in Almond, and Verba, (Civic Culture, Table 4, p. 176).Google Scholar Whereas among the unskilled there is little difference between the United States and Britain in the proportion who thought that the ordinary man should be active in his local community, at the upper end of the social scale almost three quarters of the American sample were of this opinion compared with 42 per cent of the British sample.

26 See for example Banfield, E., The Unheavenly City (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970)Google Scholar, especially Chap. III.

27 Report, Vol. 2, Table 1.9.

28 Newton, , Community Decision-makers and Community Decision-making, p. 9.Google ScholarBerry, D. viewing politics nationally also concludes that in the United States ‘political activity is largely a preserve of the middle class, and thus American politics might be regarded as class based in that both major political parties are largely middle class parties’, The Sociology of Grass Roots Politics (London: Macmillan, 1970), p. 25.Google Scholar

29 Miller, D., ‘Industry and Community Power Structure: a Comparative Study of an American and an English City’, American Sociological Review, XXIII (1958), 9–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D'antonio, et al. , ‘Institutional and Occupation Representation in Eleven Community Systems’, American Sociological Review, XXVI (1961), 440–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams, O. and Adrian, C., Four Cities (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963), p. 78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Rossi, P., ‘Theory, Research and Practice in Community Organization’ in Adrian, C., ed., Social Science and Community Action (East Lansing: Institute for Community Development, 1960)Google Scholar; Agger, R., Goldrich, D. and Swanson, B., The Rulers and the Ruled (New York: John Wiley, 1964), Chap. VII.Google Scholar

31 Lowi, T., At the Pleasure of the Mayor (New York: Free Press, 1964) p. 51.Google Scholar

32 Prewitt, K., The Recruitment of Political Leaders (New York: Prentice Hall, 1970), p. 3.Google Scholar

33 Epstein, L., Political Parties in Western Democracies (London: Pall Mall, 1967), p. 199Google Scholar; Sharpe, L. J., ‘Elected Representatives in Local Government’ and ‘The Politics of Local Government in Greater London’, Public Administration, XXXVIII (1960), 157–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Banfield, , ed., Big City Politics, p. 12.Google Scholar

35 Matthews, D., The Social Background of Political Decision-Makers (New York: Doubleday, 1954). p. 47.Google Scholar Matthews covered only the 1945–50 Parliament when the Labour Party (which accounts for virtually all working-class MPs) was in a majority. Rose shows however, that for the whole post-war period up to 1966 the average of working-class MPs was 36 per cent; R. Rose, ‘Class and Party Divisions: Britian as a Test Case’ in Dogan, M. and Rose, R., eds., European Politics: a Reader (London: Macmillan, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 See Jessop, R., ‘Civility and Traditionalism in English Political Culture’, British Journal of Political Science, I (1971), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for an exhaustive discussion of the different ways in which the concept of deference has been employed in the study of British politics and for an assessment of their validity.

37 Banfield seems to claim that British local authorities toil largely on behalf of the middle class, but his main evidence is the restriction on licensing hours and Green Belt policy, both of which are central government responsibilities, see ‘The Management of Metropolitan Conflict’.

38 The American unemployment rate has never fallen below 3·2 per cent since the Second World War (Banfield, , The Unheavenly City, p. 93Google Scholar) and this is a higher percentage than the British unemployment rate ever reached until 1971. The relation between the unemployment rate and the well being of the poorer end of the working class is well illustrated by the finding that a reduction in the US rate from 5·4 per cent to 3·5 per cent would increase full-time employment for 1,042,000 poor and such a reduction would have the net result of bringing 1,811,000 above the poverty line, Hollister, R. G. and Palmer, J. L., The Impact of Inflation on the Poor, Institute of Research on Poverty Discussion Paper (Wisconsin, 1969)Google Scholar, quoted in Tobin, J. and Ross, K., ‘Living With Inflation’, New York Review, 6 May 1971.Google Scholar

39 Rose, Governing Without Consensus, Table XV, I.

40 Aaron, H., ‘Social Security: International Comparisons’ in Eckstein, O., ed., Studies in the Economics of Income Maintenance (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1967).Google Scholar See Myrdal, G., Challenge to Affluence (London: Gollancz, 1963)Google Scholar, Chap, III, for a discussion of the difference between the USA and other Western democracies in the attitude towards the poor.

41 Donnison, D. V., The Government of Housing (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967).Google Scholar

42 Downes, A., ‘Housing – Myth and Reality’, Minnesota Municipalities, LV (1970).Google Scholar

43 Nordlinger, E., The Working Class Tories (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1967)Google Scholar; Mckenzie, R. and Silver, A., Angels in Marble (London: Heinemann, 1968).Google Scholar This also seems to be the case in relation to other studies. See for example Runciman, W. G., Relative Deprivation and Social Justice (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 172.Google Scholar See also Jessop, ‘Civility and Traditionalism in English Political Culture’ for other references.

44 Butler, David and Stokes, Donald, Political Change in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 107.Google Scholar

45 See McKenzie and Silver, Angels in Marble, Chap. v, and Nordlinger, The Working Class Tories, Chaps, III and IV.

46 Mckenzie, and Silver, , Angels in Marble, p. 163.Google Scholar Similarly, Nordlinger asserts that because 41 per cent of the Conservative-voting working class prefer to be led by a peer, as compared with 20 per cent of the Labour working class, ‘the importance attached to high status in the English political system is forcefully underscored’, p. 66.

47 Parkin, F., ‘Working Class Conservatives’, British Journal of Sociology, XVIII (1967), 278–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Lipset, S., ‘Value Patterns, Class and the Democratic Polity’ in Bendix, R. and Lipset, S., eds., Class, Status and Power, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1966), p. 171.Google Scholar

49 Nordlinger, , The Working Class Tories, p. 64.Google Scholar

50 Matthews, , Social Background of Political Decision-Makers, p. 33.Google Scholar

31 Agger, et al. , The Rulers and The Ruled, p. 268.Google Scholar

52 Miller, Herman P., ‘Where Do You Fit in the Income Picture?’ in Bendix, and Lipset, , eds., Class, Status and Power, pp. 506–9.Google Scholar

53 Hartz, L., The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1956), p. 62.Google Scholar

54 Potter, D., People of Plenty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 See, for example, Lipset, , The First New Nation, pp. 259–60Google Scholar and Alford, , Party and Society, pp. 116–17.Google Scholar

56 Macrae, D., Parliament, Parties, and Society in France, 1946-1958 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1967), pp. 33–5Google Scholar; Lipset, S. and Bendix, R., Social Mobility in Industrial Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), Chap. II.Google Scholar

57 Miller, S. M. and Fox, T., ‘Intra-Country Variation, Occupational Stratification and Mobility’ in Bendix, and Lipset, , eds., Class, Status and Power, pp. 574–81.Google Scholar

58 The groups with highly visible physical characteristics that differ markedly from the Anglo-Saxon ideal now number about 36m. (22m. Negro; 9m. Mexican; 3m. Puerto Rican; Im. Oriental; and Im. Indian) or about 17 percent of the total US population (Hon. S. Jackson, in a speech given to the Conference on Cities, Indianapolis, May 1971).

59 The nearest equivalent is the Parish Meeting which is open to all electors of the parish and governs the activities of those villages without a parish council. Parish councils too are required to get approval for their annual budget from a Parish Meeting.

60 AlmondVerba, , The Civic Culture, p. 194Google Scholar, Table 5.

61 Sayre, and Kaufman, , Governing New York City, pp. 514–15.Google Scholar

62 Scarrow, H., ‘Policy Pressures by British Local Government’, Comparative Politics, IV (1971), 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 Rose, A., The Power Structure (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967)Google Scholar quoted in Berry, , The Sociology of Grass Roots Politics, who also cites Hausknecht, M., The Joiners (New York: Bedminster Press, 1962).Google Scholar

64 Schattschneider, E., The Semi-Sovereign People (New York: Holt Reinhart, 1960), pp. 34–5.Google Scholar

65 An accurate and wholly fair comparison is difficult to make because in the United States there are other elected bodies such as school boards and special districts, whereas in Britain there is usually (i.e. in the county boroughs) only one elected body for the whole urban entity. The British situation too is complicated by the existence of aldermen who constitute one quarter of the whole council but are not elected by the electorate but by the councillors. Ignoring these complications for the moment, a crude comparison of the size of urban councils in the two countries may be made. For the United States the Census of Governments for 1967 (Tables 1 and 2) gives an average of eight members for the councils of all municipalities. There is no comparable overall average for British urban councils, but from figures in the Maud Report (Vol. 5, Appendix A, Table 1) it is possible to arrive at an overall average of twenty-two members. So in crude terms, American councils are a little more than one-third the size of their British counterparts. But if we add to the American figure the average size for school boards (4–9 members) given in the Census and all special districts (2–9 members) we get a combined average of about 16 members per municipality. The majority (possibly three quarters) of special districts are not elected but the 2–9 average may be taken in lieu of other separately elected officers. Thus American urban representative bodies are on average still one fifth smaller than their British equivalent.

66 Stanyer, County Government in England and Wales, Table B/1.

67 Banfield, and Wilson, , City Politics, p. 88.Google Scholar

68 Newton, , City Politics in Britain and America, p. 7.Google Scholar

69 Statement of Evidence to Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London by the Centre for Urban Studies (London: Centre for Urban Studies, 1959), p. 9Google Scholar; Sharpe, L. J., A Metropolis Votes (London: London School of Economics, 1962), pp. 44–6Google Scholar; Rees, A. and Smith, T., Town Councillors (London: Acton Society, 1964), pp. 52–6Google Scholar; Maud Report, Vol. 2, p. 85.

70 Bealey, F. et al. , Constituency Politics (London: Faber, 1965), p. 380.Google Scholar

71 Newton, , City Politics in Britain and America, p. 9Google Scholar and Community Decision-makers, p. 7; Smallwood, F., Greater London – The Politics of Metropolitan Reform (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964), p. 105Google Scholar. The Maud Report, Vol. 5; Appendix A, Table XXIV, gives an average of sixty-nine co-opted members per urban authority but this figure includes members of school governing and managing bodies.

72 For education (the most important service where co-option occurs) local authorities are not, in fact, required to co-opt from outside the council, but all of them have interpreted the 1944 Education Act (the governing statute) as if it did require them to do so.

73 Banfield, and Wilson, , City Politics, p. 169.Google Scholar

74 Banfield, and Wilson, , City Politics, p. 89.Google Scholar

75 Fourteen per cent of cities over 25,000 hold their elections concurrently with state or national elections; Lee, E. ‘City Elections’ in Municipal Yearbook (Chicago, 1963)Google Scholar, Table 9.

76 This does raise another problem: over the past twenty years or so British city elections have become increasingly dominated by the national (Conservative and Labour) parties. This has meant that local elections appear to have taken on the status of annual tests of the parties’ relative standing in the country. In this sense it may be argued that turnout no longer reflects a purely local response. See Fletcher, P., ‘The Results Analysed’ in Sharpe, L., ed., Voting in Cities (London: Macmillan, 1967).Google Scholar

77 Lee, ‘City Elections’, Table 8. Lee has based his calculations on total adult population figures, so the problem of comparing local turnout for the two countries does not arise. Usually American figures have tobe adjusted downwards because a lower proportion of the eligible electorate is registered. This is because in general the American system is more dependent on the individual registering himself at an appointed place whereas the British registration system merely requires the householder to complete a form delivered to his house annually. Lee states: ‘In half of the 453 cities reporting in 1962, the proportion of adults registered to vote was 74 per cent or less’, p. 75. Agger et ah, The Rulers and the Ruled, found in their study that the proportion of registered electors to eligible electors varied between 50 and 95 per cent, p. 226, Table 1.9.

78 This is for all county boroughs in England, and Wales, : Registrar General's Statistical Review for 1962 (London: HMSO, 1964). Table V.3.Google Scholar

79 Campbell, A. and Burkhead, J. in Perloff, H. and Wingo, L., eds., Issues in Urban Economics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968), p. 609Google Scholar, quoted in Madgwick, P., American City Politics (London: Routledge, 1970).Google Scholar

80 Schattschneider, Semi-Sovereign People; Lowi, T., The End of Liberalism (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969).Google Scholar

81 Dahl, , A Preface to Democratic Theory, p. 137.Google Scholar This strong tendency in the American tradition to view organized groups as an essential characteristic of democracy can occasionally undermine plain common sense when applied comparatively. This is illustrated in Banfield's, study, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (New York: Free Press, 1958)Google Scholar where we are invited on the first page to compare the multifarious community groups of St George, a small town in Utah, with the Lucanian town which Banfield gives the fictional name of Montegrano. Now St George may itself be something of a special case since Utah was founded by a highly cohesive, and for a long period embattled, Protestant religious group, the Mormons. It might therefore be expected to exhibit a greater sense of community among its citizens than most towns. But to compare any part of the United States, outside, say, Appalachia or the Deep South, with what is one of the most impoverished and backward areas of mainland Italy makes it difficult to take the comparative method seriously in so far as it is supposed to tell us, as Banfield hopes, about the the cultural determinants of group organization which in turn are closely linked to ‘a democratic political order’ (p. 8). Yet Banfield assures us without any qualification that Montegrano with its absence of a Business and Professional Women's Club, or a Parent Teacher's Association, a Future Farmers of America club, or a newspaper, ‘presents a striking contrast’ to St George. Nor is Banfield alone in failing to see the incongruity of this comparison. Almond, and Verba, quote Banfield in extenso to illustrate ‘the vast difference in the tone of politics between a political system where such (group) activity is rife and a system where it is rare’, The Civic Culture, p. 275.Google Scholar For a discussion of other examples of Banfield's tendency to be misled by interpreting Montegrano society in American terms see Pizzorno, A., ‘Amoral Familism and Historical Marginality’, in Dogan, and Rose, , eds., European Politics: a Reader, pp. 87–98.Google Scholar

82 Schattschneider, , The Semi-Sovereign People, p. 35.Google Scholar

83 Kaplan, , Urban Political Systems, p. 210.Google Scholar

84 There is one situation where it may be accurate to talk of deference. In those Labour-controlled British urban councils with a dominant working-class leadership, an element of deference may creep into its relations with the middle-class professional officers. But there is no evidence that such exists. If anything the Labour Party appears to keep a tighter rein on its officers than the Conservatives.

85 Marshall, A. H., ‘Local Government Administration Abroad’, in Maud Report, Vol. 4, p. 66.Google Scholar

86 Lowi, , The End of Liberalism, p. 201Google Scholar. Lowi somewhat confusingly calls these bureau chiefs ‘bosses of the New Machines’.

87 Madgwick, , American City Politics, p. 95.Google Scholar

88 Lee, ‘City Elections’, Table I.

89 Banfield and Wilson, City Politics, passim.

90 ‘Only fourteen authorities record any formal decision taken on the role of the clerk to bring it in line with the conception of the chief executive officer.’ Greenwood, R. et al. , Public Administration, XLVII (1969), 289–306, p. 296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Greenwood, et al. , New Patterns of Local Government Organization, p. 44, Table 19.Google Scholar

91 Banfield, and Wilson, , City Politics, p. 175.Google Scholar

92 Smith, R. G., Public Authorities, Special Districts and Local Government (Washington: National Association of Counties, 1964), p. LX.Google Scholar

93 Bollens, J., Special District Governments in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), p. 2.Google Scholar

94 The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority may be answerable to neither the City nor the State. This was certainly the position when the authority was the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority: the New York Court of Appeals decision in New York Post v. Robert Moses in 1961 ruled that the Authority ‘is not an arm of the city of New York nor an arm or agency of the state’ (Smith, , Public Authorities, p. 89Google Scholar). The Port of New York Authority is formally answerable to both the Governors of New Jersey and New York states. But although their legal accountability is rather shadowy, there may be other constraints on both Authorities’ activities. See Sayre, and Kaufman, , Governing New York City, p. 337.Google Scholar

95 Wood, R., 1,400 Governments (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 128.Google Scholar

96 Kheel, T. W., ‘The Port Authority Strangles New York’ in Gordon, D. M., ed., Problems in Political Economy (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1971), p. 445.Google Scholar

97 Banfield, and Wilson, , City Politics, p. 84.Google Scholar