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Decision-Making Patterns and Floating Coalitions in an Urban City Council*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Jack K. Masson
Jack K. Masson
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Abstract

The purpose of this note is to examine the voting behaviour of Edmonton city councillors from 1966 through 1972 in order to determine whether members who campaign together on local slates and parties vote together on council. In short, are local electoral slates and parties able to function as cohesive legislative organizations?

Edmonton's form of government is similar to the governmental structure in the majority of Canadian cities in that it does not lend itself to “responsible government.” The city operated under an at-large electoral system for councillors until 1968 when a plebiscite forced the council to adopt a ward system. With a council reluctant to give up the advantages of an at-large system, four multimember strip wards of equal size were created. By establishing four wards completely heterogeneous in terms of socioeconomic composition, the council in effect provided four at-large elections at every municipal election.

Type
Notes
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 128 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1975

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References

1 Wickett, S. Morley, “Present Conditions,” Municipal Government in Canada, ed. Wickett, S. Morley (Toronto 1907), 345–50Google Scholar

2 For a brief discussion of the influence of reform government in the west see Anderson, James D., “Nonpartisan Urban Politics in Canadian Cities,” Emerging Party Politics in Urban Canada, ed. Masson, Jack K. and Anderson, James D. (Toronto, 1972), 5–21.Google Scholar

3 A humorous example of the reshuffling of party slates is reported in the Edmonton Journal, 3 October 1968. “Alderman Morris Weinlos Wednesday qualified for the Most Embarrassing Moment of the Civic Election award – he forgot which slate he is running on … Dr. Weinlos was in the process of telling the voters of his pride to be associated with … stumbled, then came out with: ‘Better Civic Action Committee.’ Dr. Weinlos has, in the past, run on the Better Civic Government Committee Slate. The group has disbanded and he is now a member of Les Bodie's United Civic Action Party.”

4 Edmonton Journal, 11 October 1966, 3

5 Edmonton Journal, 10 October 1968, 9

6 Urban Political Systems: A Functional Analysis of Metro Toronto (New York 1967). Kaplan does discuss cleavages on the Metro Council. The councillors maintained there was a suburban/city split; Kaplan found this was not so (236–8).

7 “Voting Patterns in a Non-Partisan Legislature: A Study of Toronto City Council,” this Journal 4(2), 242

8 The reasoning behind dropping the unanimous vote is discussed in Anderson, Lee, Watts, Meredith, and Wilcox, Allen, Legislative Roll-Call Analysis (Evanston, Ill. 1966), 59–75.Google Scholar See also Riker, William, “A Method for Determining the Significance of Roll Calls in Voting Bodies,” Legislative Behaviour, ed. Wahlke, John C. and Eulau, Heinz (Glencoe, Ill. 1959), 379.Google Scholar Riker argues that the “least significant roll call” is unanimous and but a bare quorum votes.

9 There was a change in term of office from two to three years in 1968; only 15 months of the current term were examined.

10 The formula for the index of agreement between two legislators is as follows:

Index of Agreement = F/ T(100)

T = total number of roll calls on which both legislators in a pair voted

F = number of agreements.

For a more complete explanation of the Rice-Beyle technique see Truman, David, The Congressional Party (New York 1959), 45–8, 320–6.Google Scholar See also Anderson, Watts, and Wilcox, Legislative Roll-Call Analysis, 30–75.

11 An adaptation of the Rice-Beyle technique has been developed by Arend Lijphart who assumes that abstentions constitute partial agreement with a particular motion; he incorporates this into the index of agreement formula. See Lijphart, Arend, “The Analysis of Block Voting in the General Assembly: a Critique and a Proposal,” American Political Science Review 57 (Dec, 1963), 902–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 The correl program of the Osiris package was used for the statistical analysis.

13 Once this is done for the first cluster, all remaining items are set aside and the procedure is repeated for those items not in the first set.

14 Though a sizeable majority of the unrecorded votes are unanimous, there are many unrecorded votes on the 13-man council which have divided 7–6 and 8–5.

15 Three recorded votes were used in the analysis. At the .75 level all council members were in one of the three blocs.

16 Seven recorded votes were used in the analysis at the .75 level.

17 Other substantive issue areas than millrate increase and store hours had so few recorded votes they were not a fit subject for analysis.

18 This was at the .75 level with five recorded votes. At the .5 level two voting blocs emerged with four ucap members and three Independents in one bloc and one ucap member and Independent in the other bloc.

19 With nine recorded votes, at the .75 level there were three voting blocs with ucap members of all three blocs. At the .5 level there were two voting blocs with four ucap members in one and one ucap member in the other.

20 This was usually found at the .5 level.

21 “Voting Patterns,” 242

22 Urban Political Systems, 214

23 “Decisional Structures in Small Legislative Bodies,” in Comparative Legislative Behaviour: Frontiers of Research, ed. Patterson, Samuel C. and Wahlke, John C. (New York 1972), 119–21Google Scholar

24 For a discussion of this point see Brier, Alan P., “The Decision-Process in Local Government: A Case Study of Fluoridation in Hull,” Public Administration 48 (summer 1970), 166CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Urban Canada and Its Government (Toronto 1968), 19–22. For a review of the literature on the conformity of members of small groups see Verba, Sidney, Small Croups and Political Behaviour (Princeton 1961), 22–30.Google Scholar Also see Argyle, Michael, The Scientific Study of Human Behaviour (London 1957), 157–8.Google Scholar

26 “Voting Patterns,” 237

27 “Decisional Structures,” 125–33

28 High inter-agreement scores may have also been prevalent between pairs of the 1966–8 council; however, since there were but 39 recorded votes it was not as readily apparent.

29 Edmonton Journal, 4 September 1970, 4

30 There is undoubtedly a larger body of literature on the politics in Chicago in general and Mayor Daley in particular than on any other city and mayor in the world. An overview of the politics of Chicago may be found in Royko, Mike, Boss (New York 1971)Google Scholar; Banfield, Edward C. and Wilson, James Q., City Politics (Cambridge, Mass. 1965)Google Scholar; Banfield, Edward C., Political Influence (New York 1961).Google Scholar For a much earlier academic study of Chicago see Gosnell, Harold, Machine Politics: Chicago Style (Chicago 1937).Google Scholar

31 Gordon Wright, president of the Alberta New Democratic party, interview with Charles Stewart, 24 November 1971

32 Journal of Canadian Studies 6 (February 1971), 39–44