POLI 425 - City Government - Week 1 PDF

POLI 425 - City Government - Week 1 - Introduction Jack Lucas | University of Calgary Thought Experiment On May 29, 2023, Danielle Smith’s UCP defeated Rachel Notley’s NDP in Alberta. You’ve been hired as a political consultant to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek to apply the lessons of the UCP vi...

POLI 425 - City Government - Week 1 - Introduction Jack Lucas | University of Calgary Thought Experiment On May 29, 2023, Danielle Smith’s UCP defeated Rachel Notley’s NDP in Alberta. You’ve been hired as a political consultant to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek to apply the lessons of the UCP victory to Calgary’s upcoming 2025 election. What factors are important for predicting who voted for the UCP and who voted for the NDP? Which characteristics of individuals do you think are most predictive? Which of these factors do you think would apply most directly in a mayoral election? All of them? Some? None? You have funds to do a poll of Calgarians to determine who supports Gondek and who doesn’t. What questions do you include? Overview of the Course Course Overview Your instructors: Jack Lucas (and Elliot Dillabough) My goals for this course: Describe the institutions and structures of Canadian municipal government, with particular focus on electoral institutions, voting behaviour, and political representation Feel comfortable attending an advanced academic conference on local and urban politics Expose students to cutting-edge data and research in a unique way Your turn: (a) your name; (b) a course you’ve taken so far in your degree that you enjoyed, and why you liked it; (c) something you like to do when you’re not in class; (d) how this class can help advance your goals Course Information Course Information Course Information Course Information Course Information Course Information Course Information Course Information - How to Succeed! Come to class!!! Schedule your coursework into your week - find a “rhythm” Engage with the readings Use the “review and reflection” questions to prepare for unit tests Visit me during office hours to clarify anything that’s confusing You can do very well in this course. Take the opportunity to do so! Course Information - Quiz What’s the best way to contact me? How many unit tests are there? When do they take place? Why is the third unit test worth more than the others? Are there any books you need to buy for this course? Is there an essay in this course? Is there a final exam in this course? When will it take place? When will we be discussing “descriptive representation” in this course? How do you know which readings to do on a given week? Where should you go to find the readings? What’s a City? Latent Variables in Political Science In social science, some of the things we care about are directly observable. Examples: votes received, turnout rate, population size, ethnic diversity. Many of the things we care about in political science are not directly observable. Examples: democracy, candidate quality, citizen efficacy. Latent Variables in Political Science When dealing with important constructs that are not directly observable, we can sometimes infer the presence or absence of the construct by means of directly observable indicators. This is known as a latent variable. Example: soccer player quality (unobservable) indicated by (a) number of goals, (b) number of assists, (c) number of blocks, (d) passes, etc. Example: candidate quality indicated by (a) past experience, (b) knowledge of policy issues, (c) level of education, (d) policy issue alignment, etc. Latent Variables in Political Science Constructing a latent variable involves a measurement model. These models range from very basic (e.g. “add the indicators together”) to more complex. qualityi = speedi + accuracyi + goalsi + tacklesi qualityi = α + β1speedi + β2accuracyi + β3goalsi + β4tacklesi Discussion: suppose we’re developing a measure of “democracy.” Propose some measurable yes/no indicator variables for this latent construct. Latent Variables in Political Science Why do we care about latent variables in this class? Because the qualities that make a place a “city” or “urban” are not directly observable. A latent construct! Our focus: politics in cities rather than other kinds of places. But what do we mean by “cities”? What counts as a city? What sorts of characteristics make a place urban? A Latent Measure of “City-ness” in Canada Working in groups, select up to three variables that you think serve as indicators of what makes a place “urban” or not in Canada. Your options: Municipal population size Municipal population density Median age of residents in municipality Proportion of residents who commute to work by public transit Proportion of municipal residents who are not homeowners Proportion of residents who do not live in single-family homes Proportion of residents who are immigrants Proportion of municipal residents with a university degree Median income in municipality Proportion of municipal residents who are not Christians Our Working Model of “City” Government Size: cities have lots of people Density: cities tend to pack people into relatively small areas Diversity: cities are characterized by diverse groups participating in diverse economic and social activities Lots of people? High Density? Diversity? Calgary Yes Yes Yes Toronto Yes Yes Yes Northern Saskatchewan No No No Timmins, ON No No No British Columbia Yes No Yes Forestry Worker Camp Yes Yes No Olympic Village Yes Yes No Banff, AB No Yes Yes Our Working Model of “City” Government Size: cities have lots of people Density: cities tend to pack people into relatively small areas Diversity: cities are characterized by diverse groups participating in diverse economic and social activities Cities are places with lots of people (size) packed into a relatively small geographic footprint (density) who vary widely in their personal backgrounds, employment, and living arrangements (diversity). Government vs. Governance Government Government A system of institutions with the power to make binding decisions in a particular territory The combined legislative, executive, and judicial institutions in a country Other definitions available! The important point: we could focus our attention on local government or we could focus our attention on local governance. We’ll focus on local government. But it’s important to know the difference between the concepts! Governance Who governs the city of Calgary? The municipal government: mayor and council The provincial government The federal government Here in the city of Calgary we are simultaneously governed by not just one but multiple governments. This is especially true in some “complex” policy domains - e.g. housing, climate policy. When we think about a problem or task or area of policy and look at all of the actors involved, we’re thinking about governance. Multilevel Governance Definition (Horak): “a mode of policy making that involves complex interactions among multiple levels of government and social forces.” Multilevel governance involves interactions among multiple levels of “government” to produce policy outputs. The different governments (municipal, provincial, federal) are all players in the larger multilevel governance system. In this course, our focus is on one player in this larger system: the municipal government. How it works (institutions, processes, policymaking) How elections work at this level How political representation works at this level Quiz - Municipal Government or Multilevel Governance? “This paper explores the relationship between ideology and vote choice in five recent municipal elections in Canada: Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.” “This paper focuses on how the current Green Line alignment emerged from contentious interaction between municipal and provincial elected representatives in Calgary.” “This paper describes the complex network of actors who oversee policies related to homeless individuals in Canadian cities.” “To understand why younger voters are less likely than older voters to participate in elections, we use data from three election studies: Calgary 2021 (municipal), Ontario 2022 (provincial), and Canada 2025 (federal).” Questions for Re ection and Review What is a latent variable? Think of some examples of political variables that are and are not latent variables. Why is the concept of a latent variable useful to us in a course on city government? In what sense is “city” a latent variable? Why does geographic size matter when thinking about if a place is “urban”? Explain why each of the three elements of our working model of a “city” are necessary. What might we overlook or misunderstand if we dropped one of these three elements from our working model? What is the difference between “government” and “governance”? What is “multilevel governance”? This class included a demonstration of a latent variable measurement model. Describe in your own words what was going on in that model. How do we interpret the “scores” that the model produces? How would you describe the place where you live? Is it urban? Suburban? Rural? Something else? What characteristics of your community lead you to define it in a particular way? fl