Download Ethnic Power and Political Machines

The
Ethnic Landscape
 Brokerage and Machine politics
Transition to Function Based Power
Irish
Italians
Jews
Poles

Journey to America


Famine
Beginning in 1840’s
Religion as community
development
 Politics viewed as a
business venture

The ethnic network: Is
it an ethnic trap?
Arrival in Urban America
 Arrived
after the
Civil War
 Competition with
the Irish
 Political relevance
of Italian social
structure
(compadrasco)
 Political
ramifications of an
ethnic business class
 Organized crime &
the melting pot
Migration –
Central & Eastern
Europe
 Strong ideological
bias

Liberalism
Socialism
Anti-machine
reformism

More middle class
Recent conflict with AfroAmericans
Philadelphia: Jewish Quarter
Arrived beginning in
1870’s
 Especially numerous
in Great Lake cities
 Ethnic communities
cohesive & strong
 Late arrival placed
them at bottom of
ethnic totem pole
 Disdain of intellectual
class diminished their
influence until closing
decades of twentieth
century

 Relationship
of Ethnic Politics, Brokerage
and Machine Politics
 Significance of Ethnic Politics, Brokerage
and Machine Politics Today
 The Bias of Ethnic and Machine Politics
 Variation
Midwest


in the
More job
oriented
Greater
attention to
issues
 Examples


Chicago – Mayor
Richard Daley
Kansas City –
Pendergast
Machine
Kansas City: Midwest
Urban Center
 Nature


Ethnicity predominates
Leader of ethnic group acts a middleman
 Nature



of Brokerage Politics
of Machine Politics
Behind the scene bosses in control
Weak elected officials
Patronage central
 Examples


Tammany Hall Model (Manhattan)
Republican machine in Philadelphia
 Impact
of the frontier
 Progressive Movement
 Ethnicity
continues to trump party identification
 Concern over Afro-American influence has
blurred ethnic politics`
 Conservative
bias
 Bias against minority groups
 Bias against systematic social policy making
 Organized
labor
 Church
 Raises
question as to whether new minority
groups can develop ethnic institutions that
contribute to upward mobility