Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations

Task Forces as Agents of Race-Based Policy Innovations

Richard T. Middleton IV - Foreword by Judith A. Winston

Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations analyzes the politics behind improving race relations in local communities through the use of mayoral task forces. By investigating three communities with unique cultural, social, economic, and racial characteristics, author Richard T. Middleton IV provides insight into why some communities are more likely to realize success in influencing policy makers to adopt policy innovations aimed at improving race relations than are others. This book chronicles how political culture, level of racial threat, factors central to task force formation, and staffing affect the likelihood that mayoral leadership and use of government organized nongovernmental organizations will persuade local level actors to adopt policies aimed at improving race relations. To study this phenomenon, Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations focuses on three cities: Madison, Wisconsin, Columbia, Missouri, and Kansas City, Missouri.

University Press of America

Pages: 190 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-0-7618-4109-8 • Paperback • May 2008 • $55.99 • (£43.00)

Subjects: Political Science / American Government / General

Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations

Task Forces as Agents of Race-Based Policy Innovations

Paperback

Summary

Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations analyzes the politics behind improving race relations in local communities through the use of mayoral task forces. By investigating three communities with unique cultural, social, economic, and racial characteristics, author Richard T. Middleton IV provides insight into why some communities are more likely to realize success in influencing policy makers to adopt policy innovations aimed at improving race relations than are others. This book chronicles how political culture, level of racial threat, factors central to task force formation, and staffing affect the likelihood that mayoral leadership and use of government organized nongovernmental organizations will persuade local level actors to adopt policies aimed at improving race relations. To study this phenomenon, Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations focuses on three cities: Madison, Wisconsin, Columbia, Missouri, and Kansas City, Missouri.

Details

University Press of America

Pages: 190 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-0-7618-4109-8 • Paperback • May 2008 • $55.99 • (£43.00)

Subjects: Political Science / American Government / General

Author

Richard T. Middleton IV, (PH.D, University of Missouri-Columbia) is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 1 Introduction
Chapter 3 2 Factors Affecting Race-Based Policy Innovations
Chapter 4 3 Research Approach
Chapter 5 4 Madison, Wisconsin: Mayor's Race Relations
Chapter 6 5 Columbia, Missouri: Mayor's Race Relations Task Force
Chapter 7 6 Kansas City, Missouri: Mayor's Race Relations Task Force
Chapter 8 7 Analysis of Findings Across Cases
Chapter 9 8 Task Forces as Agents of Policy Innovations—Analysis and Conclusions

Reviews

Middleton provides much insight.
— Choice Reviews, December 2008

Middleton conducts a case-study analysis of three municipalities that have utilized mayoral task forces in order to address race relations. He adopts his theoretical framework from the literature on organizational innovation, extending Lawrence Mohr's analysis of the determinants of policy adoption from public agencies to the civic level and to nongovernmental organizations.
— Research Book News, August 2009

In this timely book, Richard Middleton, IV makes an important contribution to this effort by providing an analytical framework for understanding the critical elements that local communities have utilized to improve race relations. Utilizing his expertise as a social scientist, he describes in a straightforward manner the critcal factors and circumstances that have affected mayoral use of race relations task forces as agents of race-based policy innovations in three cities. His analysis assists us in understanding what may motivate community leaders to engage in constructive problem-solving or what may impede them in seeking significant improvement in race relations.
— Judith A. Winston, Former Executive Director of President William Clinton's,One America in the 21st Century : Initiative on Race and former Underse