THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF URBAN COALITIONS

According to much of the traditional urban politics literature, coalitions are formed on the basis of overlapping interests, shared political ideologies, dynamic leadership, or a bit of all three (Browning et al., Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb1984; Carmichael and Hamilton, Reference Carmichael and Hamilton1967; Gilliam Reference Gilliam1996; Sonenshein Reference Sonenshein1993). Carmichael and Hamilton's seminal work Black Power makes a strong case for the preeminence of material interests over other factors. They persuasively argue:

From this view, the biracial coalitions that elected the first generation of Black mayors were not tenable over the long haul. White voters (no matter how liberal) were unlikely to partner with Blacks in a full-fledged effort to reform racist institutions that advantage Whites over Blacks.

Other urban scholars place more emphasis on shared ideology as the essential link between Whites and minority voters. Browning et al. (Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb1984) argue that liberalism was a necessary precondition for minority incorporation to occur in the ten northern California cities that formed the basis for their study. Sonenshein (Reference Sonenshein1993) reinforces this ideological account when he attributes Tom Bradley's political ascent and sustained popularity as mayor of Los Angeles, in part, to the shared liberal values of Bradley's multiracial coalition.

The notion that ideological unity forms a solid basis for political alliance calls for some skepticism. Was the glue that held the Bradley coalition together really a shared liberal ideology that promoted social welfare and redistribution? Probably not, as there is little evidence that Bradley engaged in much redistributive politics (Davis Reference Davis1990; Meyerson Reference Meyerson and Simpson2004; Sonenshein Reference Sonenshein1993). Rather, during the 1960s and 1970s, when Whites dominated urban governments and minority victories were hard fought and rare, one could argue that the shared ideology linking liberal Anglos, African Americans, and Latinos was as pragmatic as it was political. Simply put, it was better to be in power than out of power.

The Bradley coalition, like many biracial and multiracial coalitions during this period, brought disparate groups of people together in pursuit of a common goal: to open the doors of City Hall to outsiders. For racial minorities, these victories provided symbolic validation, as well as access to desirable public jobs and contracts. For the well-educated and sometimes affluent Jews who often partnered in these early alliances, they gained access to the elite business networks from which they had been previously excluded (Sonenshein Reference Sonenshein and Jones-Correa2001). This is not to say that the groups who made up these history-making coalitions were not well intentioned or committed to the larger goal of racial equality; nonetheless, the importance of group interests to the creation of these early coalitions cannot be understated.

Comprehending coalition politics in the contemporary era requires us to reconsider some of the basic assumptions that informed earlier work. Minority mayors and city council members, for example, are no longer novelties (Browning et al., Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb2003). Few groups face hardened barriers to political inclusion as they did thirty years ago. Blacks and Latinos—once reluctant coalition partners out of numerical necessity—often have more options in the current environment.Footnote ⁵ Latinos, in particular, have gone from being the perennial bridesmaids of urban politics to becoming powerful independent political forces in many cities. African Americans, conversely, have lost their uncontested place atop the minority political hierarchy. Black voters in most U.S. cities are typically better organized than are Latinos. The sheer number of Latino voters coupled with their own growing organizational capacity, however, has made them worthy competitors in a growing number of urban settings. As conceded by political scientist Raphael Sonenshein in a recent assessment of the “ideology versus interest” debate surrounding urban coalitions,

One thing that hasn't changed much over the past thirty years is the drive to be included among the political establishment. For Blacks and Latinos, however, political inclusion does not necessarily imply interminority cooperation. White voters, even when not in the majority, are pivotal swing constituencies that provide coalitional options beyond the Black-Latino alliance. Recent mayoral elections provide numerous examples of electoral coalitions in which Whites join forces with Blacks or Latinos in support of White candidates over minority candidates (Browning et al., Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb2003; Crummy and Simpson, Reference Crummy and Simpson2003; Greene and Roberts, Reference Greene and Roberts2003; Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann2004; Mindiola et al., Reference Mindiola, Niemann and Rodriguez2002; Rodriguez Reference Rodriguez2001; Williams et al., Reference Williams, Bryant and Graves2003).

Given the economic disadvantage and power disparities that typically exist between urban Whites and their Black and Latino counterparts, minority voting behavior that gives preference to White candidates over more politically liberal, minority contenders is certainly counterintuitive. Why would Blacks and Latinos, especially those who dwell in the lowest tiers of the urban economic hierarchy, choose to vote for Anglo moderates over minority liberals? Why would Blacks in Miami and Latinos in Houston abandon otherwise long-standing Democratic Party loyalties, choosing to place their collective fate in the hands of Republican candidates?

Social psychologists and political scientists suggest that ingroup preferences in the form of racial pride or ethnic solidarity are at times sufficiently commanding to override typically powerful partisan considerations (Brewer Reference Brewer, Ashmore, Jussim and Wilder2001; Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann2004). To the extent that minorities abandon their party ties in favor of their own racial brethren, this may be an apt explanation. Beyond the ethnic solidarity perspective, urban scholars also point to competition and racial animus as barriers to interracial cooperation (Bobo and Johnson, Reference Bobo, Johnson, Bobo, Oliver, Johnson and Valenzuela2000; Johnson and Oliver, Reference Johnson and Oliver1989; Mindiola et al., Reference Mindiola, Niemann and Rodriguez2002; Olzak Reference Olzak1992; Vaca Reference Vaca2004). Many Blacks and Latinos harbor hostile attitudes toward one another, and, in some cases, attitudes that are more negative toward each other than they are toward Whites. In spite of ongoing Anglo racial dominance, which, through cultural and institutional discrimination, relegates people of color to an inferior status in many walks of American life, ethnic minorities often reserve disproportionately large amounts of ill will for their subordinated brethren. As regularly noted by political scientists, Blacks and Latinos have ample policy-based reasons to vote in tandem. In spite of these apparent shared interests, however, interracial competition for jobs, housing, status, and political power undermine the prospects for mass political alliances (Bobo and Hutchings, Reference Bobo and Hutchings1996; Gay Reference Gay2006; Grenier and Castro, Reference Grenier and Castro1998; Jennings Reference Jennings1992, Reference Jennings1994; Johnson et al., Reference Johnson, Farrell, Guinn, Hirschman, Kasinitz and DeWind1999; Jones-Correa Reference Jones-Correa2001; Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann, Nelson and Monforti2006; Lim Reference Lim and Waldinger2001; Lublin and Tate, Reference Lublin, Tate and Peterson1995; McClain Reference McClain and Rich1996; McClain and Stewart, Reference McClain and Stewart1998; McClain and Tauber, Reference McClain, Tauber and Jones-Correa2001).

SOURCES OF BLACK-LATINO CONFLICT

Social science research points to a variety of explanations for the ongoing hostilities between African Americans and Latino immigrants. Negative stereotypes combine with intense interracial competition and status resentments to frustrate mass minority alliances in urban politics. It is not unusual for African Americans and Latinos to collaborate in the policy arena, and cooperation is quite common in the context of local organizations that provide community-based services (Burns Reference Burns2006; Grogan and Proscio, Reference Grogan and Proscio2001). On the electoral front, however, elite cooperation is less reliable, and, even in those rare instances where Black and Latino elites rally behind a consensus minority candidate, competitive distrust and hostile feelings between Black and Latino voters can be sufficiently powerful to sunder such elite-led arrangements (Browning et al., Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb2003; Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann2004).

As has been illustrated in many studies, outgroup negative stereotyping is pervasive among Blacks and Latinos (Bobo and Massagli, Reference Bobo, Massagli, O'Connor, Tilly and Bobo2001; Bobo and Johnson, Reference Bobo, Johnson, Bobo, Oliver, Johnson and Valenzuela2000; Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann, Nelson and Monforti2006; Mindiola et al., Reference Mindiola, Niemann and Rodriguez2002; Wilson and Taub, Reference Wilson and Taub2006). For Latino immigrants, many come to this country with negative views of African Americans, although advanced education and social contact appear to mitigate the intensity of these views (McClain et al., Reference McClain, Carter, Soto, Lyle, Grynaviski, Nunnally, Scotto, Kendrick, Lackey and Cotton2006; Suro Reference Suro1999; Vaca Reference Vaca2004). The findings from the McClain et al. (Reference McClain, Carter, Soto, Lyle, Grynaviski, Nunnally, Scotto, Kendrick, Lackey and Cotton2006) study indicate that new Latino immigrants feel closer to Whites than to BlacksFootnote ⁶ and African Americans are more likely to feel commonality with Latinos than vice versa (Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann2003b; McClain et al., Reference McClain, Carter, Soto, Lyle, Grynaviski, Nunnally, Scotto, Kendrick, Lackey and Cotton2006). On balance, this research finds no reservoir of good feelings between Blacks and Latinos that would facilitate cooperation between their respective voters.

Beyond the negative stereotypes, intense competition between Blacks and Latinos creates difficult climates within which to build political alliances. Past research suggests that feelings of competitive threat may be more prevalent among African Americans than among similar-status Latinos. For example, findings from the Multi-City Study on Urban Inequality indicate that 61% of Blacks in Los Angeles believe that the availability of more good jobs for Latinos means fewer good jobs for Blacks. By contrast, only 35% of Latinos see their economic fortunes inversely tied to Black economic success (Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann, Nelson and Monforti2006). Regarding politics, 54% of Blacks perceive Latino political gains in zero-sum terms, compared to 25% of Latinos. In general, Blacks are more likely to see immigrants as direct competitors for valued resources and status, and these zero-sum orientations are unquestionably detrimental to the prospects for minority mass alliances.

Racial stratification in the United States provides the ongoing impetus for interminority conflict. A recent study by Claudine Gay (Reference Gay2006) concludes that resentment over status inequality is at the root of anti-Latino sentiments among African Americans. She finds that Blacks who live in neighborhoods where they are, on average, better off financially than their Latino neighbors are much less likely to express negative views of Latinos; conversely, Blacks who live in neighborhoods where Latino incomes exceed Black incomes are the most likely to hold negative stereotypes. The same logic applies to zero-sum orientations; African Americans who perceive Latinos to be “richer” than African Americans are much more likely to see economic and political gains by Latinos in zero-sum terms (Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann, Nelson and Monforti2006). To the extent that racial stratification and pervasive inequalities continue to characterize urban environments, one can predict that status resentments will continue to fuel negative stereotypes and zero-sum orientations.

ARE BLACK-LATINO COALITIONS RATIONAL?

While contemporary urban scholarship correctly identifies the intense competition and psychological barriers that hinder the development of interminority coalitions, the subtext in much of this work is the seeming irrationality of it all; scholars assume that Blacks and Latinos would obviously be individually and collectively better off if they governed in unity. This perspective assumes that minority mayors and legislators are particularly responsive to poor urban communities, especially in contrast to White-led administrations. This assumption, regardless of how reasonable it appears, is not a matter of fact. The preponderance of evidence to date suggests that minority representation does quite little to advance minority interests above and beyond policies and programs that already exist under White regimes. With this observation as a starting point, I incorporate insights from urban political economy research (Peterson Reference Peterson1981; Stone Reference Stone1993) and social-choice theory (Downs Reference Downs1957; Riker Reference Riker1962, Reference Riker1967; Riker and Zavoina, Reference Riker and Zavoina1970) to offer an interest-based explanation for the absence of multiracial urban electoral coalitions. This argument maintains that minority-specific rewards in the realm of local government are largely inelastic. Given the perceived fixed quality of minority-directed benefits, Blacks and Latinos have powerful incentives to compete with one another for control of these resources. To the extent that the pool of minority benefits such as government jobs, appointments, contracts, and redistributive monies will not be appreciably larger under a minority-led regime than it is under a White-led government, minority groups will be better off as the most powerful minority in a coalition with Anglos than as the second most powerful in a minority-led administration. For Blacks and Latinos, the impetus for political inclusion is not so much about opening up new sources of minority opportunity as it is about controlling those already established. From this perspective, the absence of minority coalition building at both the elite and the mass level generally constitutes rational, group-interested behavior.

THE INELASTICITY OF THE MINORITY PIE

During the first few decades of the civil rights movement, the political objectives of urban minority leaders were clear: they were looking for access to the halls of power—for descriptive representation, and for a more equitable share of public resources (Browning et al., Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb2003). Increasing municipal employment opportunities, greater numbers of administrative positions, access to government contracts, and improved civilian oversight of the police were among the premier achievements of Black incorporation (Browning et al., Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb1984; Mladenka Reference Mladenka1989; Sonenshein Reference Sonenshein1993). Civil rights activists and liberal visionaries probably never presumed, however, that these first-round victories would constitute the proverbial pot at the end of the rainbow some thirty years later.

Black mayors and city council members were able to create opportunities for lower-level public employment, some higher-level administrative jobs, and even greater numbers of government contracts (Kerr and Mladenka, Reference Kerr and Mladenka1994), but they were not able to overhaul the racially biased institutions that play favorites with the downtown business elite. Nor did they develop new redistributive programs that would help the ever-growing numbers of urban poor. Black incorporation generated considerable rewards for middle-class African Americans, but was much less successful at creating community uplift for those most disadvantaged (Gilliam Reference Gilliam1996; Nelson Reference Nelson2000; Reed Reference Reed1986). To this day, municipal jobs, administrative appointments, and access to government contracts remain the principal spoils of minority empowerment (Burns Reference Burns2006).

In the 1970s, Michael Preston (Reference Preston, Masotti and Lineberry1976), among others, argued that the first generation of Black mayors were constrained from better serving their racial brethren because they often led cities that had been among the most devastated by White flight and deindustrialization. With an ever-shrinking tax base, this cohort of Black mayors—under constant scrutiny—was hard-pressed to increase taxes and social services. As time moved on, however, and as Black mayors became more commonplace, their policies continued to mirror those of White mayors. Black, Latino, and Anglo mayors all operate under a similar paradigm, which privileges business interests over those of the working class and the poor (Nelson Reference Nelson2000; Reed Reference Reed1986; Stone Reference Stone1993). The business elite are an integral part of urban governing coalitions and, not coincidentally, the central players in most mayoral election campaigns (Stone Reference Stone1989; Swanstrom Reference Swanstrom, Judd and Kantor1998). Enhancing the pot of local monies allocated to job training, public housing, child care, public health services, and the like is simply off the table of policy options in most major cities. Funding for these kinds of local initiatives largely comes from the federal and state governments; as federal and state agencies have cut their budgets, so, too, have local commitments eroded over the past several decades (Judd and Swanstrom, Reference Judd and Swanstrom2007; Nelson Reference Nelson2000; Ross and Levine, Reference Ross and Levine2000).

The “minority pie”—that bundle of jobs, contracts, and appointments often earmarked for racial and ethnic minorities—is relatively inelastic; it does not necessarily increase with demand, minority leadership does not provide a good deal more of it, and, interestingly enough, White leadership typically does not yield less of it.Footnote ⁷ In the early years of minority incorporation, public jobs and contracts were—like most other things—the province of dominant Whites. Over time, however, many urban regimes in racially diverse cities have ceded control over certain categories of municipal jobs to middle-class and working-class minorities. According to recent research on municipal employment patterns in multiracial cities, Blacks and Latinos posted significant gains in nonmanagerial employment in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, especially in those departments that have traditionally served minority clientele, such as health, housing, public welfare, and community development. During the same time period, however, Latinos and African Americans made only modest inroads into the managerial ranks, falling well short of proportionality in all departments, save public welfare (Kerr et al., Reference Kerr, Miller and Reid2000).Footnote ⁸ To a large degree, access to public jobs, certain administrative appointments, and a portion of government contracts is the concession that the White power elite have made to minority interests in return for reciprocal cooperation regarding the lucrative and highly exclusionary development agenda (Hajnal and Trounstine, Reference Hajnal and Trounstine2004; Stone Reference Stone1989; but see Peterson Reference Peterson1981). Given the enormous value that the business community attaches to control over land use and economic development funds, this co-optation strategy that trades public jobs for control over development spending has been a boon to business interests (Logan and Molotch, Reference Logan and Molotch1987).

The other part of the minority pie is redistributive spending that mostly benefits the poor and working class. Unlike the public jobs and contracts essential to the ongoing operation of local governments, redistributive programs such as publicly subsidized health care services, welfare, and housing assistance are often politically contested and almost always controversial. Cities are generally loath to raise local taxes to provide such services; the beneficiaries are almost never members of the governing coalition, whereas the opponents to redistributive programs almost always are. Given federal retrenchment regarding poverty programs and the reluctance of state and local governments to fund such efforts, it comes as little surprise that redistributive spending constitutes a fairly miniscule portion of a typical city government budget.Footnote ⁹ Cities with highly participatory minority electorates spend ever so slightly more on redistributive programs than do cities with little minority turnout (Hajnal and Trounstine, Reference Hajnal and Trounstine2004), and cities with large minority populations do not have higher redistributive expenditures per capita than cities with smaller minority populations (Craw Reference Craw2003). In general, these findings suggest that redistributive spending, as a proportion of total municipal expenditures, is both small and also quite inelastic.

To the extent that urban Blacks and Latinos have a material stake in the operations of local government, public jobs, contracts, and administrative appointments are the stakes. One might argue that these are akin to a patronage set aside to reward minority groups who end up in the winning governing coalition. From a more cynical perspective, one might even characterize them as the “carrot” that keeps minority politicians from mobilizing the poor and making more strident demands on local treasuries (Mollenkopf Reference Mollenkopf, Browning, Marshall and Tabb2003; Reed Reference Reed1999; Stone Reference Stone1989, Reference Stone1993; Thompson Reference Thompson2005).

THE MYTH OF SHARED INTERESTS

In cities with a single, numerically dominant minority population, there should be little contest over spoils. Public jobs, administrative posts, and minority set asides will primarily be directed toward members of this dominant minority group.Footnote ¹⁰ In the multiethnic city, however, the minority group that garners the top spot (vis-à-vis other ethnic minority groups) in the political arena gets a disproportionate amount of these resources. Recent evidence from large cities—the Giuliani administration in New York, the Riordan regime in Los Angeles, and the Webb administration in Denver, for example—all suggest that the dominant minority group in the governing coalition (Latinos in New York and Los Angeles, Blacks in Denver) receive disproportionately large shares of public goods (Hero and Clarke, Reference Hero, Clarke, Browning, Marshall and Tabb2003; Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann2003a; Sonenshein Reference Sonenshein, Browning, Marshall and Tabb2003a). In this “winner takes most” system of minority rewards, the prospect of being in the winning coalition is a powerful incentive to coalesce with White voters against competing minority groups. If the pool of municipal rewards for minority voters doesn't grow when minority candidates succeed, if it doesn't grow when liberal White candidates win, and if it doesn't shrink much when conservative White candidates prevail, then rationality dictates that Black and Latino voters each strive to be the largest minority group in the winning coalition.

There certainly was a point in time not too long ago when the incremental gains of minority electoral success were unmistakable. Victory at the ballot box for African Americans meant new access to a pool of important public resources, not the least of which were middle-class jobs in the public sector. Political failure during this time period was akin to economic exclusion. During the late 1960s and the 1970s, Blacks and Whites constituted the main players in the urban arena. The main objective of Blacks was to mobilize their racial brethren while attracting a sufficient number of White voters to form a winning majority. The main objective of Whites was also to mobilize their voters and to minimize racial defections (Nelson and Meranto, Reference Nelson and Meranto1977; Pettigrew Reference Pettigrew and Hahn1972). In the contemporary multiracial context, however, strategies are more complex.

If one thinks about multiracial urban elections as a three-player game, the overarching objective of each player is to be part of the winning coalition (Riker and Zavoina, Reference Riker and Zavoina1970). In this three-player configuration—assuming for the moment that all three parties control equal shares of the votes and that there are no racial defections—there are three possible winning coalitions: Latino-White, Black-White, or Black-Latino. Given the relative inelasticity of minority rewards, the rational goal of minority voters should be to end up in the winning coalition and ahead of all other minority groups. In the three-player scenario thus described, minorities are always better off in a coalition with Whites than with the other minority group. (See Figure 1.)

Fig. 1. Hypothetical Coalition Payoffs Assuming Inelasticity of Minority-Directed Jobs

Note: Pie charts represent the proportion of municipal jobs allocated by racial group in three hypothetical election scenarios. Municipal jobs do not constitute all jobs, but rather are assumed to be those in departments and job categories traditionally allocated to racial and ethnic minorities.

THE INDIVISIBILITY OF SYMBOLIC REWARDS

Material gains are certainly not the only spoils of minority empowerment; there are substantial symbolic rewards as well (Bobo and Gilliam, Reference Bobo and Gilliam1990; Gilliam and Kaufmann, Reference Gilliam and Kaufmann1998). Heightened political interest, increased voter turnout, and above-average levels of regime approval are common among racial minorities when coethnic candidates win political office. This is true for both African Americans and Latinos (Hajnal Reference Hajnal2001; Howell and McLean, Reference Howell and McLean2001; Kaufmann Reference Kaufmann2003a; Stein et al., Reference Stein, Ulbig and Post2003). It is also true that these symbolic benefits are narrowly group specific. Simply put, Blacks receive little in the way of symbolic reward by the election of Latinos—and vice versa. The psychic boost that accompanies empowerment—ethnic pride, enhanced efficacy, improved levels of trust in local government—is not a divisible good across different racial groups. In the same way that the material rewards of minority empowerment are largely inelastic and zero-sum, the symbolic gratification of descriptive representation is also not easily shared. From this vantage point, there appears to be no compelling reason for Blacks or Latinos to go out of their way to support each other's political candidates. In fact, quite the opposite behavior seems to be the case.

From a rational-choice point of view—and given the zero-sum quality of local government spoils—African Americans and Latinos only share a gripping interest in building electoral coalitions when they equally, and independently from one another, have little or no access to the selective rewards of a given municipal regime. When, for example, Blacks and Latinos coexist under the control of a conservative urban regime that provides virtually no benefits to either group, they share an interest in overturning such a regime as, by definition, some access will be better than none. If, however, one group is given preference over the other by an existing Anglo-led regime, the preferred group has little impetus to align with the less preferred. History-making elections—those where no racial minority had ever previously held the reigns of power, and where Blacks, Latinos, and liberal Anglos came together in electoral unity (e.g., Federico Peña in Denver, Tom Bradley in Los Angeles, David Dinkins in New York, Harold Washington in Chicago)—are clearly the outliers of urban voting behavior. Twenty years ago, when minority elected officials were uncommon and when optimistic illusions about what could be gained through political empowerment were widespread, rainbow coalitions seemed both rational and plausible. In contemporary urban politics, where the rewards of minority empowerment are more often than not zero-sum, there is simply little rationale for Blacks and Latinos to provide each other with electoral support.

WHAT WHITES WANT

The central supposition of this viewpoint is that Latinos and African Americans compete over that portion of local government benefits traditionally earmarked for minorities, while Whites basically control the remainder. In this simplified version of the three-player bargaining game, Whites only have an interest in the fate of minority set asides to the extent that it leverages them uncontested jurisdiction over land-use decisions and development spending such as downtown redevelopment and economic-development monies. Assuming that Whites are otherwise indifferent between building coalitions with Blacks or Latinos, one can imagine an equilibrium outcome whereby Whites form alliances with the group most able to secure them a place in the winning coalition. If demographic changes and political events don't threaten status quo arrangements, biracial electoral alliances that place Whites in the winning coalition should, theoretically, be maintained in perpetuity.

From a White vantage point, the economic-policy arena remains relatively unchanged, regardless of who controls the mayoralty. Because Whites are disproportionately privileged—even in minority-led regimes—they should be as equally well-off with Latinos as they are with Blacks. It is conceivable that Anglo-led biracial coalitions could be undermined in a multiracial setting, if the outgroup tries to underbid the ingroup by conceding their opposition to policies that may disadvantage some members of their group (agreeing to property tax rollbacks or union concessions, for example). In the short term, this kind of strategy might reward the low bidders by providing them with greater access to a static, if not shrinking, number of urban jobs and services. In the short-term, underbidding may also yield desirable symbolic rewards for groups still waiting for descriptive representation. On the other hand, the long-term outcome of this strategy is that the symbolic rewards of empowerment will eventually fade, leaving only a diminished pool of minority resources. Furthermore, it is not in the interests of Whites to engage in this bidding game for too long. If the policy environment becomes too hostile to minority interests, or if the pool of material rewards gets too small, this may create new incentives for minorities to cooperate with one another. The status quo trade-off of minority set asides for control of land-use decisions and the development agenda will almost always be preferable from a White-elite point of view.

A PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE

Urban politics in the new century is marked by continuing and growing conflict between Blacks and Latinos. Recent municipal elections across the country punctuate the intensifying competition in the urban marketplace between African Americans, who see their numerical proportions and their relative status in many governing coalitions slipping, and Latinos, who are just now finding their political voice in a variety of new places. Time after time, election accounts provide idiosyncratic rationalizations for why the voting behavior of Blacks and Latinos fails to cohere. At some point, however, the wishful optimism that explains away interracial competition in local elections as if it were epiphenomenal will need to be challenged on its face. Perhaps Blacks and Latinos fail to cooperate for rational, group-interested reasons. It is only reasonable for Blacks and Latinos to govern in unity if they derive more benefits from unity than from division. To the extent that minority politics in the urban setting is often little more than a zero-sum game, Blacks and Latinos have few incentives to build electoral alliances with one another, especially when coalition opportunities with Whites yield greater short-term rewards.

REVISITING THE INELASTICITY ASSUMPTION

The group-rationality argument is founded on the assumption that minority-led regimes do not expand the pool of minority benefits by much, and not sufficiently in any case to offset the losses incurred by one group having to share with the other group. If White voters have few claims on the selective rewards of interest to minority voters, and if minority spoils are ostensibly fixed, then minority groups are generally better off in winning coalitions with Whites than with other minorities.

Diminished political expectations within African American and Latino communities derive in large part from the recent history of minority empowerment and the failure of minority-led administrations to produce meaningfully higher levels of resources for communities of color (Reed Reference Reed1986). As urban economist Paul Peterson (Reference Peterson1981) argues, the mobility of capital—of business entities and taxpayers—deters local politicians from pursuing progressive, redistributive policies. As regime theorist Clarence Stone (Reference Stone1993) further maintains:

In Stone's view, enhancing the scope of the minority pie—especially improving opportunities for lower-income minorities—requires coercion on the part of leaders. Those groups that control private resources will not be inclined to redistribute or relinquish such assets voluntarily. To the extent that business elites and private industry are essential to the governing capacity (and, in some cases, reelection efforts) of minority administrations, they retain a privileged position in most urban regimes, regardless of who is nominally “in charge.” As a result, Black and Latino mayors are often tentative in the demands they place on their economically powerful regime partners, and their acquiescence conditions urban voters to have modest expectations (Stone Reference Stone1993). Conservatism and hesitancy on the part of minority leaders does not necessarily mean that the pool of minority-directed resources cannot be expanded; it just has not been.

Given the relative newness of minority political power, ethnic communities become enriched by feel-good symbolic politics. Satisfaction with symbolic gains and economic opportunities for middle-class minorities may suffice in the short-term, but may also lead to alienation and declining efficacy in the long-term (Gilliam and Kaufmann, Reference Gilliam and Kaufmann1998; Thompson Reference Thompson2005). As Michael Preston (Reference Preston, Masotti and Lineberry1976) warned so presciently thirty years ago:

In a sense, the contemporary voting behavior of Blacks and Latinos who opt for Anglo coalition partners while mobilizing against other minorities may already indicate a growing cynicism among urban voters. Group behavior appears to be motivated by short-term payoffs—to be a part of winning coalitions that provide small rewards. The better payoff for Blacks and Latinos, however, may be to focus on a long-term coalition strategy whereby, over time, and with growing mass support, they are able to build progressive governing coalitions that dole out more than symbolic gratification. This “better payoff” assumes, of course, that such progressive governing regimes are achievable.

Ironically, the contemporary logic of racial voting behavior in U.S. cities puts Whites in the position of proverbial kingmakers. There can be little doubt that, if Black and Latino voters avoid political alliances with one another, White voters will continue to call the shots when it comes to the priorities of municipal government, and, on balance, fewer racial minorities will be elected. The divide-and-conquer strategy so evident in contemporary urban politics may benefit some Blacks in the short run, as African Americans have a long history of successful political mobilization that allows them to reliably deliver votes on election day. In the long-term, however, it is doubtful that Blacks will retain a privileged political status over Latinos. As noted by Bobo et al. (Reference Bobo, Zubrinsky, Johnson, Oliver and Baldassare1994), a rank order of discrimination places African Americans at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. Latinos are routinely perceived by Whites as more desirable neighbors and marriage partners (Bobo et al., Reference Bobo, Zubrinsky, Johnson, Oliver and Baldassare1994; Charles Reference Charles, O'Connor, Tilly and Bobo2001; Emerson et al., Reference Emerson, Yancey and Chai2001). On average, White employers give preference to Latino job seekers and tenants (Neckerman and Kirschenmen, Reference Neckerman and Kirschenmen1991; Waldinger Reference Waldinger1997; Wilson Reference Wilson1996), and one prominent study finds that Whites favor Latinos as coalition partners in school board elections (Meier and Stewart, Reference Meier and Stewart1991). While Blacks and Latinos may be theoretically interchangeable as political allies, in practice, Whites give preference to Latinos over Blacks in many different walks of life, and there are good reasons to believe that as Latino political organizations grow in their numbers and political expertise, Latinos will become privileged players in the urban political arena. If African Americans and Latinos fail to find common ground—a basis for sustainable reciprocal support at the ballot box—Blacks will likely experience eroding levels of descriptive representation and political access.

Minority representatives may legitimately believe that the mobility of capital poses real barriers to changing the budgetary priorities of urban governments. And while there is admittedly little evidence to support the notion that urban regimes can feasibly expand the pot of minority rewards and redistributive monies, some might argue that governing arrangements over the past two decades have been guided more by inertia and caution than by any particular structural constraints. Contemporary minority leaders appear to have bound themselves to short-term considerations, given the small pool of jobs and services available to them and their constituents. It may be time, however, for these leaders to look beyond these short-term payoffs in exchange for a longer-term inducement: a policy agenda that actually increases minority access to the significant assets and real power that local governments control. If Black and Latino leaders are able to provide a fundamentally different set of programs and policies from that of White leaders, and if they are genuinely more responsive to the needs of the disadvantaged, regardless of race, this may provide the necessary incentives for sustainable minority alliances. Whether or not this scenario is ultimately achievable is a question that only history can answer. Given the stakes, however, it seems a challenge well worth undertaking.