Political and Administrative Roles in City Government: The City Manager's Contributions to Economic Development

Abstract

Since the inception of public administration as a field of study, the nature of the relationship between politics and administration and the respective roles of politicians and administrators in these functions have been central concerns. Despite the typical conclusion of researchers that city managers mediate between politics and administration, minimal research has been conducted to determine how managers contribute to the creation of policy for a municipality. This study seeks to fill that gap by explaining the manager's role in economic development policy. Employing a five-city, comparative case study methodology and a limited quantitative analysis this study specifically addressed the following propositions; that city managers:

•are extensively involved in a wide range of economic development tasks.

•bring a professional perspective to the policy creation process.

•are centrally involved in shaping policy goals, not just implementing the goals determined by others.

•have a cooperative relationship with the political actors.

•tend to have reciprocal influence with elected officials–the influence of each affecting the other.

The research confirmed that city managers are highly influential in economic development policy. Additionally, there is some difference in the level of influence of the city manager in large cities versus small cities, especially relative to that of other actors in the process. A third finding is that knowledge of the personal characteristics of the manager can contribute to a profile of managerial involvement in economic development. City managers who emphasize attracting new resources, initiating projects, and protecting disadvantaged groups tended to see themselves as having substantial influence in economic development policy. Lastly, the findings indicate that managers with control over the responsibilities of commercial recruitment and retention define economic development success in terms of per capita income and total assessed valuation of property within the city. In contrast, managers who do not have recruitment authority, view success more broadly–considering items such as poverty, housing, child care, and minority issues. Overall, the results from this study provide the basis for a future broad-scale study on the manager's role in development policy.