Introduction
Urban political machines emerged in the late 19th century to fill the void created by the absence of reliable local governments in the USA. Studies show that city governments suffered from ineptness and inefficiency due to overdependence on the muddled separation of duties among the respective boards, officials, and departments (Judd and Swanstrom 56). In other words, political machines thrived only in cities where the system was fragmented. Today, studies posit that urban political machines do exist in other forms and systems in society. In this paper, the researcher evaluates the concept of the urban political machine by assessing the previous forms of its existence and subsequently assessing the various ways it exists in contemporary society.
Reasons for the Downfall of the Political Machines
Sections of scholars believe that when several machines were affected, reformers had structured systems to streamline municipal governments by empowering the mayors alongside some pensionable civil servants. According to the reformers, vesting powers in the mayors’ hands would make them accountable to the electorate. In turn, the voters would elect the top-notch class of the society to address their concerns (Judd and Swanstrom 56). Historians link the fall of Boss Tweed to the gradual steps culminating in the urban political machine’s diminishing. Around the 1880s, a team of reformists reenergized to challenge the rooted corruption that marred municipal politics.
The “good movement,” alias the “goo-goos,” succeeded in convincing several states and cities to embrace a comprehensive plan for the government reforms, leading to the Progressive Era of the 1880s to around the 1920s. The reformists comprised citizens from various sectors and institutions. On the one hand, the WASP elites were aggrieved by machines’ power while catering to the interests of the less fortunate immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. On the other hand, university and college professors were enthralled by their scientific knowledge, particularly about management and organization (Judd and Swanstrom 11).
They sought space to solve the real-world challenges entrenched among the city bureaucracies and administrations. The team’s communication experts earned their reputations as an aggressive group with the desire to expose the machines’ corrupt nature. The group’s middle-class employees were convinced that reforms in the city government would offer the less fortunate better deals than the benevolent paternalism steered by the machines (Judd and Swanstrom 56). That is because machines were likely a family, and that implied from time to time, they could be abusive, dysfunctional, and inconsistent.
The reformists’ voting plan was appealing to the electorates because, for the first time, the voters would have the latitude to be part of the decision-making organ on specific issues above the routine of the elected leaders making decisions. Such changes were deemed as dramatic adjustments to combat the corrupt nature of the old machines. However, one of the primary concerns about the Progressive Era was that it constituted a shared hostility among families of low income and the subsequent recent immigrants who had previously been the bedroom of the city political machines (Judd and Swanstrom 12).
The reformers pushed a plethora of amendments in the city and state laws to register and cast votes among the recent immigrants, working classes, and the poor difficult. The book provides that the frequent changes in the government outsmarted the urban machines. Ordinarily, several higher government departments began to offer similar services that the city machines previously provided in return for votes and loyalty. In other words, the emergence and growth of formal benefits accrued from the provincial, state, and federal governments and channeled to the destitute and unemployed class (Judd and Swanstrom 13). Such services directly weakened the urban political machine pillars that the social contract had strengthened.
The business class steadily began to lose hope in urban political machines because they deemed them as liabilities. For instance, the emergence of the muckraking journalists who unearthed the corruption scandals involving the city machines and sometimes the expanding business’s participation. Consequently, enlarging the geographical scales of consolidating empires implied that business owners were less thrilled to safeguard privileges from a sole big-urban machine.
In return, they were excited about systems that would enable them to seek such favors directly from the federal or state departments and encourage cities to enhance a healthy corporate investment among the various entities (Judd and Swanstrom 27). Around the late-19th century, corporate coalitions with the Progressive Era increased, which weakened their association with the urban political machines.
Studies suggest that the emergence of the non-governmental bodies such as the labor unions began to assume some duties previously monopolized by the old machine hence chopping off some of its dominance on influence and political patronage. Findings illustrate that dominant government bodies started to assume active duties in assessing city politics (Judd and Swanstrom 28). Sometimes, it turned into a reactive move, especially from the higher-ranking government authorities because they often intervened when machine-based scandals were revealed.
However, findings illustrate that majority of the primary alterations were structural, with the reformers believing that they had a duty to change the entire structure. For example, in the respective jurisdictions, which had not realized full urbanization with defined political systems, reformers registered positive outcomes in changing regulations and laws. One resounding fact is that reformers primarily comprised the middle class who made alliances with the business class.
As such, with their involvements as court and legislature workers, the reformers garnered strengths against their rivals whose power base was rooted in the working class and poor immigrants (Judd and Swanstrom 37). In other words, the middle class stood on better grounds, especially in circumstances where they only needed to influence the electorates by disenfranchising their rivals and subsequently shaping the rules, particularly on voting.
Urban Political Machine Today
Several studies have examined the impacts of structural changes introduced in city politics while simultaneously evaluating the reform movements’ achievements. However, to date, scholars have not had a unanimous agreement concerning the factors that induced machine politics’ gradual vanishing (Judd and Swanstrom 67). Accordingly, there is a relative concurrence that a genuine machine is seldom and that the political networks are cumbersome to nurture and develop in the contemporary political, legal, and economic environment. Conversely, surveys suggest that some of the city administrations reveal a striking resemblance to the previous urban political machines despite such challenges.
The historical machine is “a political model that has present-day applications” and several other emerging new-styled devices that are operational. In several cities across the US, politics is structured and formulated on a machinelike panel that has defined surviving elements regarding the party machinery. For example, there are some cities in the current context that have ward bosses who marshal votes in return for favors, contracts, and job promises.
Based on that pretext, four elements shape such debates. One of the arguments concerns how the classical political machines have been in place long enough then some scholars imagine (Judd and Swanstrom 68). Despite the dismantling of William Tweed’s Ring around the 1870s, the political party its formation remained intact. For example, Tweed’s successor, Honest John, strengthened the machine power and subsequently eradicated the extreme blatant cases.
Additionally, fundamental features of the goo-goo reforms are sometimes drafted in tandem with machine politics. Some talented leaders have had to remake machines within the organizational circumstances and structural economic limits that reawaken their predecessors’ spirits by enabling some influential individuals to nurture some new machine forms. For example, Richard J Daley served as Chicago’s mayor between 1955 and 1976.
During that period, Chicago endured turbulent times of polarized ethnic and racial politics, economic growth, and the mayor’s political tricks enabled him to rekindle the city’s old machine and linked it to the new realities (Judd and Swanstrom 67). Some of the facts encompassed rigorous expansion in federal duties and expenditures by attracting federal funds and projects into the city. Generations later, his son, Richard J., strived his ways to create and sustain an urban political machine in the era of legal accountability and professionalism. That got him elected six times.
The emerging ethnic, racial, and class coalitions have also inspired the possibilities of having new forms of machines. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, America experienced significant political shifts due to the US cities’ mobilization. However, such systems have not lacked obstacles (Judd and Swanstrom 68). For instance, black mayors often win in cities where the black population is dominant. Studies show that such victories have ushered in a series of political tensions where the powerful white business communities and the white middle-class threaten to move some exclusive suburbs. For example, in 1983, when Harold Washington won the Chicago seat, becoming the first anti-machine candidate, he inherited a system engulfed in economic crisis and the burden to walk free from adverse influences.
What happens is that the political machine never dies. However, it becomes more flexible, regional-dominated, diffuse, national connections, and spatially complex operations. That means that several populations in the USA sometimes vote in alignment with their race due to the likely favors in return (Judd and Swanstrom 68). Today in North American urban politics, the previous generation has embraced several racially diverse immigrants and several other racial-ethnic minorities who mobilize for political power and representation in the new government.
Overall, studies suggest that several cities have aspects of old political machines championed by the European-origin Whites whose base of power comprises corporate business interests, professional employees, and homeowners. In other cities, reports suggest that low immigrant levels have inspired the racial and class divisions unaltered. In contemporary society, the urban political machine entails significant but selective links to the people, institutions, and other processes that supersede the individual’s city. As such, the city political machine has become interconnected with several other machinations at varying spatial scales.
Accordingly, there are several machines spread out beyond the respective border lines. Therefore, based on the above findings, one can assert that the urban political machine never died. Moreover, it has become flexible, dominated by regional and national connections and transnational connections.
Works Cited
Judd, Dennis R., and Todd Swanstrom. City Politics: Private Power and Public Policy. Addison Wesley, 1998.