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Research on federal, state and big-city elections has concluded that campaign spending is a necessary but not sufficient condition for electoral success: even though the best financed candidates do not always win, aspirants for office need to raise and spend funds to mount competitive campaigns. But scholars have not explored whether this pattern holds in small to mid-sized cities. Money influences elections in all jurisdictions, but it is plausible that as cities get smaller campaign finance dynamics change. In this paper I explore whether campaign finance dynamics are different in small and mid-sized cities, using a dataset of 61 California cities. Despite reason to think that they will vary, I find that campaign finance patterns are similar across cities of various sizes. Few city council candidates are able to mount credible campaigns without money, even in small cities. Incumbents enjoy high re-election rates across all cities, and levels of competition may even decrease with constituency size.

Decentralization is a structural change designed to influence policy outcomes by changing the policy-making process. Critical to assessing the merits of decentralization is an articulation of the causal mechanisms through which it alters the motivations and behavior of officials which, in turn, influence policy decisions. This article offers a new theoretical framework that explicates these causal mechanisms. It yields two sets of hypotheses. The first posits causal relationships between decentralization and the mix of resources and constraints that a government faces when addressing a policy problem. The second set of hypotheses explores how these resources and constraints influences decisions makers' preferences, incentives, and capacity. This framework captures the potential ways through which decentralization could alter policy outcomes, pointing to a new research agenda that will allow scholars to empirically sort through the mixed and inconclusive findings on decentralization's impact. Related Articles [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One argument made in favor of devolution of policy authority to local governments is that it will promote citizen participation by moving decision-making authority "closer" to the people. This paper examines the merits of this argument: will increasing local autonomy have the desired effect of enhancing citizen participation? Based on an examination of citizen participation in the United States and South Korea, I find that even though local governments are not inherently more responsive or open to citizen influence, devolution has democratic benefits because it allows for different types and forms of citizen activity that are limited on the national level. Devolution creates participatory spaces that, if utilized, could enhance civic learning and governmental responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]