Identifying Levers of Power in Municipal Government

Applying this kind of democratic innovation inside city hall requires not just thinking creatively about how or why a given locality is engaging its residents. It also necessitates a nuanced assessment of what takes place politically and procedurally within governance institutions themselves: Where are the levers of power—the points of real policy- and decision-making power?¹ Who has access to them? And, based on this assessment, how can institutions and processes change to open access to these levers?

Traditionally, the most visible levers of municipal power are built into the mayor’s office and city council. Though the exact division between these offices varies by city, this power dynamic is often referred to as the strong mayor/weak city council versus weak mayor/strong city council dichotomy—as a reference to political power, not personal effectiveness. For example, strong mayors may hold veto power over the council, oversee daily operations, and appoint and remove department heads, while weak mayors defer to a council that has both legislative and executive authority.²

While mayoral leadership can be crucial to local change, concrete levers of power also exist within city agencies, among the bureaucrats who actually implement policies and programs. As front-line staff, these public officials hold the power to make these policy ideas real, and their buy-in is imperative for creating a new governing culture based around civic engagement. Thus, no matter where a creative idea emerges, in order for it to become embedded for lasting change, it must be carried throughout the agencies and government bureaucracy.

Within the traditional democratic model, citizens also are given their own levers of power. However, these are typically based around elections or organizing. In both cases, people’s civic power has more to do with asking others to use their levers of governing power in their favor—rather than being able to pull meaningful levers to impact policy themselves.

These forms of engagement are often built around election cycles that build temporary democratic infrastructure. But this “one-off” pattern of engagement alone may not translate into the kind of organizing infrastructure that can support a protest against a local ordinance the year after an election, for example. Furthermore, election-based civic engagement, while it does include a very important lever of power, can be highly exclusionary and privilege residents with more resources: In addition to leaving out noncitizens, children, or former felons, even citizens who are eligible to vote often cannot participate because of issues around ballot accessibility and strict voter ID laws. And, as we know, many citizens aren’t motivated to vote at all.