From Bossism to Cosmopolitanism: Changes in the Relationship of Urban Leadership to State Politics

Abstract

Political bossism in American cities developed as a pragmatic response to the rise of American urbanism. Its political style developed out of a combination of the new direc tions of American society as it entered the age of enterprise and of the existing political system which was geared to a rural, decentralized mode of life. The power structure of bossism was based on a twofold relationship maintained by the city machine: the patron-client relation with blocs of voters—par ticularly ethnic minorities—and a brokerage relationship with business. Relations with state government were directed more toward the maintenance of control over the city than to sub stantive government policy. The appropriate political response to an urban, technological society came with the reorganization of national politics by Franklin Roosevelt and the institution of New Deal economic and social reform. This change affected urban politics by making it increasingly pluralistic and program- oriented. The new style of urban politics may be called a cosmopolitan politics, and it strongly affected, if indeed it did not dominate, state politics in most places. The city of New Orleans is a special case of the development of a cosmopolitan style of urban politics out of an earlier bossism within a state which has not yet assimilated to cosmopolitan politics.