American Urban Government and Its British Equivalent in the Late 19th Century - Coursework Example

Discuss the view that American urban government was more corrupt but more democratic than its British equivalent in the late nineteenth century. Devangini Mahapatra Chauhan The nineteenth century saw a colossal growth in the concept of citizenship; where the relationship between citizenship and equality was considered through questions of class, gender and race by examining the link between capitalism and citizenship. The comparative history of British and American urban governments in the late nineteenth century can be viewed from the perspective of various historical phenomena including industrialization, concepts of constitutionalism and democracy, citizenship and social class, nationality and the nation-state, urbanization and economic development – so as to explore the responses of the two societies to these phenomena. Apart from these considerations, questions of class, race and gender, through topics such as the roles of women, the impact of slavery and the experience of immigration, are dealt with. Before delving any further into the differences that marked the individual approaches of urban governance for these two nations, it would be imperative to indulge in a minor ‘scene setting’ exercise. Besides sharing obvious similarities in terms of language, a liberal and cultural heritage, and a democratic political system, Britain and the United States have also had pronounced differences, for their economic, political, and social structures have developed in distinctive ways. If we were to compare and contrast the historical course of the two countries and explore the significance of their similarities and differences over a period of two centuries, we would come up with wide ranging and up-to-date analyses of such issues as industrialization and urbanization, democracy and politics, class and gender, and citizenship and welfare. That brings us straight to the topic at hand: In the late nineteenth century, was American urban government more corrupt, yet more democratic than that of its British counterpart? Urban 2 To understand the relevance of the question and its subsequent answer, one would need to consider the social structure of the two countries and justify the description of Britain as a class and America as a status society since the 1870s. This prompts us to explore the responses of the two countries to social problems and, in particular the reasons following which the two countries took such different responses to the question of welfare. Finally, by considering the relationship between welfare, industrialization, democracy, class conflict, social control and ideological change in the two countries, the purpose of historical enquiry and explanation will be reached. A clear distinction may be drawn between the experiences of the two societies in order to understand the similarities and differences in their historical development so as to separate necessary factors from the contingent ones, apart from reaching the goal of identification of general patterns in understanding the political cultures and diversities in the same, of the two countries. This will eventually pose the question of the extent of a conscious move towards democracy from both sides, during that particular time frame. The concept of urban governments can also be described in terms of the local state, which has attracted much scholarly interest in recent times. A very popular argument revolves around the belief that the modern local state in the nineteenth century was part and parcel of the process of creating the public domain, where the local public institutions were said to have played a crucial role in legitimizing the growing intervention of the government in day to day affairs of citizens belonging to the western industrializing nations during the nineteenth century. This is where we begin to juxtapose the differences in spheres of structuring, functioning and democratizing of urban governments in United States and Britain. In this context, it can be safely stated that the local political reformists of this era were mainly in the process of providing Urban 3 solutions to the pressing problems of social management that plagued countries caught up in the phenomena of rapid urbanization and industrialization. This understanding of the creation of the public domain in terms of a consequence of discrete responses to growing urban, social and economic dislocations, would lead us directly to a comparison between the local state machineries of Britain and the United States, during the nineteenth century. In order to facilitate this comparative – historical study, a break down of its various elements is required. The first of the elements considers theories of the local state. While some believed that it proliferated as an administrative arm of the nation state apparatus, others depicted the local state as relatively independent from the nation state, operating in a highly localized political environment. Owing to a need to bridge the gap between society and state centered theoretical perspectives, our study would have to be fashioned along the lines of a comparative – historical explanation of local state modernization that privileges neither economic nor political factors. Instead, an integrated approach is applied consisting of an amalgamation of structural (economic, political and social context), and agency (political mobilization) level of analysis into a comprehensive explanation for the rise and development of the modern local state as well as the direction adopted by both countries. In this regard, the most notable feature would be the political mobilization as discussed above, in terms of the respective countries. Down to 1865, the Liberals and Conservatives in Britain retained in great measure, the characteristics of their forefathers, wherein the Liberal host was still largely officered from the old aristocratic houses. This was a major reason that contributed to the fact that many of its members Urban 4 disliked and distrusted democracy – mainly as a legacy as well as a matter of habit – and thought that in all essential things, the Constitution had reached a point at which it needed no further reform. This idea was reflected in the functioning of the British urban government, which believed in keeping a tight grip on the people it governed lest the feeling of and need for democracy rear its ‘ugly’ head. This brings us directly to the second element of our study where we strike a contrast to the above mentioned observation. The historical context of nineteenth century local state formation is an important part of this study as it propounds the theory of how clear legal boundaries were drawn up between local government institutions and private commercial institutions, for the purpose of denoting a strict institutional division between state and society. This demarcation in function primarily meant to shift the locus of power and responsibility in the American and British local governing systems from legislative and judicial to administrative agencies and governing bodies, thus creating the instance of bureaucratization of the urban government. This is where the similarities in terms of form, function and basis of legitimacy end. While Britain believed in being a hindrance in the spread of democracy by way of its system of urban governance as it purported in the everyday lives of its subjects, America sought to differ. It needed a strong infrastructure - roads, canals, and an educational system. As a result the development of cities, which existed almost entirely in the north, was hampered by a hostile political establishment. With the coming of the railroad, a major social and economic revolution took place in the United States, where land transportation was so onerous that it was rarely attempted, prior to the railroad. Laws favorable to industry that had been stymied for Urban 5 decades were now enacted. But the growth of the cities brought slums, reformers, and radicals that worried the industrialists. By the late nineteenth century the middle and upper classes were very concerned while the cities, in the meantime being deprived of the government subsidies lavished on the suburbs, were left with the poor. The tax base for the support of the cities shrank and the demands on their services grew. But in spite of their difficulties no help was afforded to them. Instead the federal and state governments with able assistance of the media placed the blame on the impoverished. Accordingly the poor lost many of their existing benefits and were victimized by a proliferation of crime that brought on harsh penal laws. The glowing early promise of the suburbs never materialized. The automobile created sprawl, pollution, traffic congestion, and increased taxes without substantial benefits. Compared to a stimulating city with numerous cultural attractions, life in the suburbs was boring. In the city, necessities and conveniences for every day living were within walking distance or by mass transportation. In the suburbs, by contrast, a car trip was necessary for every little need - going to a store, the library, school, the doctor, the post office, the movies. Even minor trips were irritatingly long as congestion, pollution, wasted fuel and time were all continually increasing. With respect to cross sectional data available on municipal expenditure and voter participation in American cities during the collective fiscal periods of that era, a long intellectual tradition draws upon American political history to support the idea that civic associations played an important role in the growth as well as sustenance of democracy. So the observation we have here primarily adheres to a picture of a democratic urban government that was underscored by a strong element of corruption in its basic functioning. To justify, one may say that such a situation is a given if one Urban 6 were to go by the sociological models built to study the development of emerging nations and their governments, which are the primary force behind the state of affairs created in every aspect of such nations. In contrast, the British armed forces, fiscal system, and more importantly, its bureaucracy grew in efficacy and range. Legitimized by achievement and buttressed by massive economic and political power, Britain’s landed elite kept at bay every domestic revolution except the industrial one. In context of its large colonial holdings the world over, Britain at that time seemed to have no option but to suppress ideas of democracy owing to the vast diversity of cultural and distant influences that assailed it from every corner of its holdings. From the perspective of American history, the advent of a more democratic urban government system was a key step in acknowledgement of the dilemma posed by industrial modernization for Americans committed to precepts of their revolution, their formative constitutional years, and finally, the nationalism they saw confirmed in their civil movement. While administration became a way of coping with political problems without actually solving them, a process its defenders viewed as pragmatic, but which its critics saw as muddling and worse; the definition of the field lay in mediating the relations between an administrative elitism devoted to protecting a science of governance that existed primarily in Britain, and a faith in popular democracy that proposed an extraordinary range of political practices. That the social sciences were always in the process of striving to be more scientific and the politics always under pressure to be more democratic often gave way to differences and threats. And the major threat for the democratic American nation waking up from the turmoil of the civil war was corruption. Urban 7 The final element that will round up the study is concerned with enlargement of the public domain in terms of democratization. Although enfranchisement proceeded at very different rates in the two nations, the nineteenth century saw the extension of suffrage to most White males in Britain and United States. The elimination of class impediments to political enfranchisement clearly broadened the social spectrum of participation in political discourse and influence over local governing bodies. In Britain, removal of religious and social barriers unfolded as a long, drawn – out process while in America, such differences were relegated to the civil war background building process. On a concluding note, if we are to wind up by asserting that the American urban government was more corrupt but more democratic than its British counterpart in the late nineteenth century, we can summarize by saying that apart from the arguments presented above in context of industrialization and historical background, a theoretical framework to underscore the growth of bureaucratization, and class discrimination, the one thing that would support the fact that American urban government was more democratic, and yes, more corrupt than its British counterpart, would be to simply cite an observation wherein, the absence of a positive political philosophy in the United States about the responsibilities of government and urban services tended to be minimal in the latter part of the nineteenth century. That in itself sums up features of less interference and a strong political mobilization towards democracy, which will in turn support the claim of this paper. END Sources: 1. Charles Oman. CO, 1895, A History Of England, Edward Arnold, London. 2. William Miller. WM. 1958, A New History Of The United States, George Brazillier Inc, New York. Read More