In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

160 Political parties structure the electoral process, the most important aspect of achieving democratic accountability in the governance of the city. Just as significant , however, the evolution of interparty as well as intraparty politics in New York City explains some of the shifts in attitudes of the political system toward issues of race and ethnicity. To a lesser extent, inter- and intraparty politics explains the city’s economic development imperative as well as the city’s relationship with the state and federal governments. Party politics are usually most visible just before and during election campaigns. Primary and general election campaigns become the battlegrounds where the values, or ideologies, that control the direction of the political systems are debated. What role will the political system play in the promotion of economic development? To what extent will the demands of minority groups get a positive or negative response? What role for other levels of government will the city seek? As the stewards of electoral politics, political parties have a role in the continuous debates that seek to answer these questions. Party competition or the lack of party competition may affect the quality of these debates. New York City: A One-Party Town? With the exception of the mayoralty, the Democratic Party has dominated electoral politics in New York City for the last several decades. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by a factor of more than four to one. For the past several decades the Democrats have occupied most of the elected positions in the city’s political system. How did the party come to enjoy this advantage? In many parts of the city, the Democratic Party has had a superior organization that reaches down to the neighborhood level. In some cases this organization dates back to the nineteenth century. As a result Democrats have been and continue to be capable of responding to wave after wave of new immigrants. Throughout the 6 Political Parties in New York City Governance Chap-06.qxd 8/16/07 1:53 PM Page 160 twentieth century, city Democrats naturally aligned themselves with the national Democratic Party. Through President Roosevelt’s New Deal, President Truman’s Fair Deal, Democratic Party leadership in the civil rights movement, and President Johnson’s Great Society, city Democrats took credit for and advantage of the national party’s response to the demand of urban areas and particularly of urban minorities. Finally, the Democratic Party has benefited from the collapse of third parties situated to the ideological left of the Democrats at the same time that the national Republican Party was moving further to the right. Despite its dominance the Democratic Party is far from unified. It is organized on the borough/county level, not citywide. There is no party hierarchy that spans the city. As a result, citywide party decisions, other than the party primary election, are a function of informal bargaining and compromise, not an accepted set of rules or procedures. In some but not all of the boroughs, the party organization has been or is being challenged by reformers, or insurgents, who are seeking to wrest control from the party hierarchy, or machine. This intraparty conflict between the reformers and regulars has been waged over the last six decades. The power of the Democratic Party machine was based on a rigid organizational hierarchy highly dependent on the dispensation of patronage (e.g., jobs) to those at the bottom in return for support of those at the top. At the top of the hierarchy was the county Democratic Party leader. In part, the success of the Democratic machine in New York City was due to the continuous wave of immigrants who needed the patronage the machine had to offer. Immigrants were willing to trade political support (votes) for jobs and a modicum of social services dispensed through the Democratic Party organization. Reformers resent the closed decision -making process by which the party organization makes public decisions. In the past they opposed the material patronage base upon which the party sought and obtained support from the mass electorate. And when necessary they sought to expose the corrupt, or at the very least unethical, ways in which the party conducted the business of government that was profitable to the Democratic Party organization leaders personally and helped to keep the party in power. Reformers favored open membership of political clubs, control of leadership by the club members, complete and open disclosure of club finances, and a free and...

Share