Exploring Community Power Models and Voter Behavior in Local Elections

This report examines community power models, contrasting the elite and pluralist approaches, and delves into the duties of mayors and city managers in local governance. It further analyzes voter turnout trends in U.S. local elections, highlighting issues such as lower participation among young voters and the impact of partisan versus non-partisan contests. The report emphasizes the importance of voter engagement for local development and suggests strategies to increase voter turnout, including targeted promotions and addressing voter apathy. Desklib provides access to this and many other solved assignments for students.

REPORT

Contents
Answer 1:.........................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2:.........................................................................................................................................2
Answer 3:.........................................................................................................................................2
References........................................................................................................................................5

Answer 1:
The two basic models are:
a. Elite Model: This model highlights on the community politics and the theory is mainly
related to the people, who are pursuing their business especially the leaders. The evidence
is related to the monolithic standard.
b. Pluralist Model: The theory includes the power which has been spread widely among the
leaders for responding to the wishes of the different interest groups and the respective
voters (Morgan & Lee, 2017).
Answer 2:
The Mayor duties are mainly to have a complete authority for making any key management
decisions, depending upon the policies. Their existence affects the taxes, education and the
housing with the easy development of business (Morgan & Lee, 2017).
City Managers are the people who have a power for hiring or firing the staff. They are able to
interact with the superintendents and the other high-level officials so that a proper discussion of
the on-going activities can be held.
Answer 3:
Introduction
The participation and the representation generally have a major effect on how the turnout for the
voters would impact the local elections. The elections in US have a lower trend which has never
seen to be changed completely (Enos, 2016). The country also experiences a problem of the

voters, where the older ones are having a higher turnout than the younger people. This generally
results in a low voting outcome as the older generation is not able to analyze the technology
which is used in the present time. This makes the voting concept stagnant and then there are few
voters who get themselves involved in it (Fowler, 2015). The major factor for the absence of
young voters is the timing which is normally held out of a voting session.
Discussion
As per the analysis, the people are involved more they see that the elections are being done on a
bigger level and they think that the lower level elections are of not much use. Hence, there would
be not much benefit of the government for them (Valenzuela, & Michelson, 2016). Along with
this, they do not have to be liable to pay any taxes as well, due to which they are not interested in
participating to vote for the leaders. The analysis shows that the apathetic voters are uninterested
in politics and so they are not willing to participate as well in any of the political process. This
turns out that in US, there is a low presentation of people, on the voting day. After a proper
analysis, there are some people who are seen to be non-interested as they are not able to relate to
any of the candidates. The voting is considered to be an important event for the people in US and
for the U.S. government as well, hence, it is important that the people are properly engaged in
the different activities. The elections, proceeded at the local level, are close and so every vote
counts (Morgan & Lee, 2017). The voting is an important medium for the leaders in the election
to spread their thoughts for the development of the city. The politicians are seen to be paying
more attention for the different voting trends and then responding them. Hence, the important
issues are highlighted by the voters which are important for the candidates as well. It has been
seen that the top concern is that the local races are receiving the less voters and attention from
media, when they appear on the crowed ballot (Sciarini & Goldberg, 2016). Hence, it is

important to focus on the different strategies where the voters should be reached out through the
promotions using mail and the other polling places.
Conclusion
The research suggests that there are partisan local elections which are seen to be experiencing a
higher rate of turnout of voters in U.S. On the other hand, the non-partisan contests generally
lack the cues which could be helpful for motivating them to a better turn-out (Nadeau, Lewis &
Foucault, 2019).

References
Enos, R. D. (2016). What the demolition of public housing teaches us about the impact of racial
threat on political behavior. American Journal of Political Science, 60(1), 123-142.
Fowler, A. (2015). Regular voters, marginal voters and the electoral effects of turnout. Political
Science Research and Methods, 3(2), 205-219.
Morgan, S. L., & Lee, J. (2017). The white working class and voter turnout in US presidential
elections, 2004 to 2016. Sociological Science, 4, 656-685.
Nadeau, R., Lewis-Beck, M. S., & Foucault, M. (2019). Wealth and Voter Turnout: Investigating
Twenty-Eight Democracies. Polity, 51(2), 000-000.
Sciarini, P., & Goldberg, A. C. (2016). Turnout bias in postelection surveys: political
involvement, survey participation, and vote overreporting. Journal of Survey Statistics
and Methodology, 4(1), 110-137.
Valenzuela, A. A., & Michelson, M. R. (2016). Turnout, status, and identity: Mobilizing Latinos
to vote with group appeals. American Political Science Review, 110(4), 615-630.