FROM BOSSISM TO COSMOPOLITANISM: CHANGES IN THE RELATIONSHIP OF URBAN LEADERSHIP TO STATE POLITICS

In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Band 353, S. 84-94

Abstract

Pol'al bossism in US cities developed as a pragmatic response to the rise of US urbanism. Its pol'al style developed out of a combination of the new directions of US society as it entered the age of enterprise & of the existing pol'al system which was geared to a Ru, decentralized mode of life. The power structure of bossism was based on a 2-fold relationship maintained by the city machine: the patron-client relation with blocs of voters - esp ethnic minorities - & a brokerage relationship with business. Relations with state gov were directed more toward the maintenance of control over the city than to substantive gov policy. The appropriate pol'al response to an Ur, technological society came with the reorg of nat'l pot by F. D. Roosevelt & the instit of New Deal SE reform. This change affected Ur pot by making it increasingly pluralistic & program-oriented. The new style of Ur pot may be called a cosmopolitan pot, & it strongly affected, if indeed it did not dominate, state pot in most places. The city of New Orleans is a special case of the development of a cosmopolitan style of Ur pot out of an earlier bossism within a state which has not yet assimilated to cosmopolitan pot. AA.