Mayor Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

A mayor is the highest-ranking official of a city or municipal government. A mayor can wield extensive power in large American cities such as New York and Chicago or play a mostly ceremonial role in, for example, a modern English borough or town. In most countries, mayors are either appointed by the city council or elected by the voters to serve a term. In a U.S. city with a strong mayor and council, the voters usually elect the mayor, who acts as executive, administrator, and titular head of the city. In a weak mayor-council form of government, the city council has the ultimate policy-making power. In this case, the mayor may be selected from the council, not elected by voters. In the council-manager form, the mayor is primarily a ceremonial figure, and the manager performs the role of the administrator. In the People’s Republic of China, a mayor may be the administrative head of any municipality from the provincial to the county level. In Latin America, mayors have increasingly relied upon their personal campaigns, rather than party organizations, to win elections.

A strong mayor helps set policy, serves as a chief executive, and often has legislative veto power over the council. A veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote of the council. A mayor also appoints administrators to head various departments—the police, waste management, or education—and fills positions such as treasurer or city clerk. A mayor’s appointments are not subject to council confirmation.

In some countries, mayors are appointed by a branch of the federal or regional government. In the United States, cities may share some political power with states, but they normally must yield to state power. In practice, this political balance can be very difficult for big cities, because the mayor and the governor must negotiate political boundaries.

The success of mayors is measured by their ability to draw support and provide services to their urban citizens. Bosses of U. S. cities in the early nineteenth century, for example, were successful because they helped provide jobs, supported their constituents, and were personable. In the modern information era, mayors are constantly in the public eye. Every city is unique, and some cities are more governable than others. In South Africa, the nation’s first black mayor, Nceba Faku of the city of Port Elizabeth, helped heal the country of its long history of racism.

To evaluate mayors, scholars emphasize mayoral leadership styles and historical contexts. Reconstructive mayors are innovators who change the system. Articulation mayors uphold the legacy of the innovative or reconstructive mayor. Disjunction mayors serve when a system is under attack or failing. Finally, preemption mayors challenge the existing regime, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.

Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York between 1934 and 1945, is regarded as a successful preemption mayor; some rank him as one of the top mayors in history. Frank Rizzo, mayor of Philadelphia between 1972 and 1980, and Dennis Kucinich, mayor of Cleveland between 1977 and 1979, on the other hand, are often considered two of the worst mayors. Richard J. Daley, another successful mayor according to many academic studies, was the mayor of Chicago from 1955 to 1976 and governed with a machine politics style, in which the hierarchy runs from the precinct level to the top, or the mayor’s office. His oldest son, Richard M. Daley, who became mayor of Chicago in 1989, has a much different style. He is considered one of the new breed of mayors, for whom partisan politics is less important than in the past. His takeover of the Chicago public school system in 1995 has been heralded as a success. Many other mayors, such as Mike White of Cleveland, have cut wasteful spending. While many U. S. Democratic mayors are turning to market forces to replace civil rights era social policy priorities, Republican mayors, such as Michael Bloomberg of New York, have turned to so-called liberal tactics. This blurring of the partisan line has changed mayoral politics. The candidates themselves and the issues are all important.

Bibliography:

Avellaneda, C. N., and M. Escobar-Lemmon. “All by Myself: The Role of Parties in Securing Mayoral Elections in Latin America.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, La., 2009.
Dye,Thomas R., and Susan A. MacManus. Politics in States and Communities. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.
Flanagan, Richard M. Mayors and the Challenge of Urban Leadership. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2004.
Holli, Melvin G. “American Mayors:The Best and the Worst since 1960.” Social Science Quarterly 78 (1997): 149–156.
Stein, Lana. “Mayoral Politics.” In Cities, Politics, and Policy: A Comparative Analysis. Edited by John P. Pelissero.Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2003.

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