Local government is the hidden leviathan of American politics: it accounts for nearly a tenth of gross domestic product, it collects nearly as much in taxes as the federal government, and its decisions have an enormous impact on Americans' daily lives. Yet political scientists have few explanations for how people vote in local elections, particularly in the smaller cities, towns, and suburbs where most Americans live. Drawing on a wide variety of data sources and case studies, this book offers the first comprehensive analysis of electoral politics in America's municipalities. Arguing that current explanations of voting behavior are ill suited for most local contests, Eric Oliver puts forward a new theory that highlights the crucial differences between local, state, and national democracies. Being small in size, limited in power, and largely unbiased in distributing their resources, local governments are "managerial democracies" with a distinct style of electoral politics. Instead of hinging on the partisanship, ideology, and group appeals that define national and state elections, local elections are based on the custodial performance of civic-oriented leaders and on their personal connections to voters with similarly deep community ties. Explaining not only the dynamics of local elections, Oliver's findings also upend many long-held assumptions about community power and local governance, including the importance of voter turnout and the possibilities for grassroots political change.

In this definitive history, a key figure in the People's Campaign in Kerala provides a unique insider's account of one of the world's most extensive and successful experiments in decentralization. Launched in 1996, the campaign mobilized over 3 million of Kerala's 30 million people and resulted in bottom-up development planning in all 1,052 of its villages and urban neighborhoods. The authors tell a powerful story of mass mobilization and innovation as bureaucratic opposition was overcome, corruption and cynicism were rooted out, and parliamentary democracy prevailed. Considering both the theoretical and applied significance of the campaign in the context both of India's development since independence and of recent international debates about decentralization, civil society, and empowerment, the book provides invaluable lessons for sustainable development worldwide.

Offers comprehensive analysis of electoral politics in America's municipalities. Arguing that explanations of voting behavior are ill suited for local contests, the author puts forward a theory that the differences between local, state, and national democracies.

This accessible book is about local democracy, civic engagement, political participation and community in Britain. It rejects the many pessimistic accounts that seek to dominate our political discourse with their talk of political apathy, community breakdown and selfish individualism The book focuses on local democratic politics in Britain over the last decade and a half, from the election of the New Labour government right up to the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government. It includes an analysis of local democracy, civic engagement and participation across a range of policy areas and in the context of debates around accountability, legitimacy, sustainability, localism and the 'big society'. Drawing on a wide range of examples, it argues that local democracy is a vibrant terrain of innovation, civic engagement and participation, and dynamic community activity, with a wide variety of informal and formal activity taking place.

This Essay highlights how local voter-backed initiatives can play a significant role in dictating voting rights and election rules. The 2016 elections saw various debates on voter-backed changes to local election laws. Voters in various localities decided whether to expand the electorate for local elections, change electoral structures such as imposing term limits or creating independent redistricting commissions, or adopt campaign finance reforms. Most of these ballot initiatives passed. They therefore provide a strategy for how to improve our election process moving forward: start local and normalize the election innovations so that they will eventually trickle across to other municipalities and then influence state and federal policy. This avenue to election law reform is more vital than ever after the results of 2016 federal and state elections. Republicans, who control all branches of the federal government and most state governments, are less likely to enact voter expansions at the statewide or national level. But reformers can look to local laws to demonstrate how these innovations can help to improve our democracy. In addition, the Essay provides courts with a test to employ when facing an inevitable judicial challenge to one of these local election law initiatives: courts should generally defer to local rules that expand the electorate or open up the political process to more people, but should not defer to local voting restrictions or rules that tend to aggrandize the majority's control or lead to entrenchment. In particular, local laws that enhance democratic participation by expanding the electorate or reducing campaign finance barriers to running for office epitomize the benefits of local democracy and deserve judicial deference.