The Ethnic Landscape Brokerage and Machine politics

Transition to Function Based Power

Irish JewsItalians Poles

The ethnic network: Is it an ethnic trap? Arrival in Urban America

Journey to America Famine Beginning in 1840’s

Religion as community development

Politics viewed as a business venture

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

Recent conflict with Afro-Americans Philadelphia: Jewish Quarter

Migration – Central & Eastern Europe

Strong ideological bias LiberalismSocialismAnti-machine

reformism More middle

class

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 in the MidwestMore job

orientedGreater

attention to issues

Examples Chicago – Mayor

Richard DaleyKansas City –

Pendergast Machine

Kansas City: Midwest Urban Center

Nature of Brokerage Politics Ethnicity predominatesLeader of ethnic group acts a middleman

Nature of Machine Politics Behind the scene bosses in controlWeak elected officialsPatronage central

ExamplesTammany 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