Councilmaanic Intervention in Municipal Administration

In: Administration & society, Volume 13, Issue 4, p. 435-456

Abstract

This study deals with the impact of city council intervention on municipal administration. Based on a survey of department heads in all cities in the United States with a population of 50,000 or more, it presents information about the extent to which constituent casework leads to intervention by city councilpersons in municipal administration and discusses the consequences of the intervention patterns (informant, mediator and procurer) identified. The study concludes that although councilmanic intervention continues despite the efforts of the municipal and executive reform movements, reform institutions have nevertheless been successful in structuring the patterns of intervention in such a manner as to preserve the "informational" purposes of intervention without significantly threatening the reform goal of "neutrality" in municipal administration.