The Political Economy of Local Governments and Police Departments and Unions

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel brings together studies looking at the democratic responsiveness of local police, by studying the interaction between police departments or police unions and local governments or local institutions in U.S. cities. The papers included study this topic from both a contemporary and a historical (civil rights era and early 20th century) perspective. The papers included study i) the local political determinants of Police Community Relations programs and their consequences for policing equality, ii) the political and racial unrepresentativeness of police departments and its consequences for service delivery, iii) the role of public-safety unions in the 20th century development of city police and fire departments, and iv) the political influence of police unions in local elections.

Sub Unit

• Division 6: Political Economy

Individual Presentations

• What Happened to Civil Rights Era Police Reform? - Andrew James McCall, Columbia University

• Politicized Meritocracy: Partisan and Racial Selection in US City Bureaucracy - Elisa Maria Wirsching, Princeton University

• The Influence of Public Safety Unions in Local Elections in U.S. Cities - Maria Carreri, University of California Berkeley & Bocconi University; Edoardo Teso, Harvard University; Rui Yu, University of Pennsylvania

• Public-Safety Unions and the Development of Police and Fire Departments - Sarah F. Anzia, University of California-Berkeley; Jessica Luce Trounstine, Vanderbilt University

Chair

• Sarah F. Anzia University of California-Berkeley

Discussants

• Daniel R. DiSalvo CUNY-City College of New York

• Maria Carreri University of California Berkeley & Bocconi University