Urban Power Structures and Publicly Financed Stadiums

Urban elites are increasingly addressing local social problems though policies that turn their cities into tourist destinations. Often at the heart of these policies are new publicly financed sports stadiums. Ironically, this strategy is flourishing despite near-unanimous academic criticism, and increasing public skepticism, about this approach. Our research addresses this contradiction by exploring how and why powerful decisionmakers continue supporting publicly financed stadiums. We rely on local growth coalition theory to explore this topic because it offers analytical advantages, including looking beyond local sports teams as the focal point of these initiatives, addressing the variation in the outcomes of these initiatives, and acknowledging that policymakers are predisposed toward supporting these initiatives but that this predisposition does not always result in success.     

Coalition-building and the forging of solidarity across difference and inequality

Diverse coalitions hold great potential for social movements, but they also face tremendous challenges. In this article, I review the literature on diverse alliances with a focus on how trust, commitment, and ultimately, solidarity can be developed and sustained across divides. The article begins by discussing the needs of diverse alliances to build trust and commitment, and the coalitional characteristics deemed vital for doing so, with a focus on shared neutral space, ongoing interaction, and social ties and bridgebuilders. Five coalitional processes and practices are identified and discussed that have been empirically found or theorized to be imperative for cultivating solidarity across difference and inequality. These processes include (a) uniting around shared principles while engaging difference; (b) acknowledging and managing inequalities; (c) making space for each other; (d) attention to managing conflicts; and (e) actions that confirm the shared commitments and negotiated identity. I conclude by evaluating the state of research on developing and sustaining alliances across divides.     

Using a participatory evaluation design to create an online data collection and monitoring system for New Mexico's Community Health Councils

We present the collaborative development of a web-based data collection and monitoring plan for thirty-two county councils within New Mexico's health council system. The monitoring plan, a key component in our multiyear participatory statewide evaluation process, was co-developed with the end users: representatives of the health councils. Guided by the Institute of Medicine's Community, Health Improvement Process framework, we first developed a logic model that delineated processes and intermediate systems-level outcomes in council development, planning, and community action. Through the online system, health councils reported data on intermediate outcomes, including policy changes and funds leveraged. The system captured data that were common across the health council system, yet was also flexible so that councils could report their unique accomplishments at the county level. A main benefit of the online system was that it provided the ability to assess intermediate, outcomes across the health council system. Developing the system was not without challenges, including creating processes to ensure participation across a large rural state; creating shared understanding of intermediate outcomes and indicators; and overcoming technological issues. Even through the challenges, however, the benefits of committing to using participatory processes far outweighed the challenges.     

The Limits of Black Politics in the Post–Civil Rights Era

Pluralist theorists have long contended that to exercise power and influence in the American political system, blacks should come together like any other organized interest group, form coalitions with other like-minded people (white liberals), and advocate for policy reforms. Beginning during the “Black Power” era, the goal of putting black faces in high places to help address black concerns became a driving force in black politics. The deteriorating social and economic status of many in the black community, however, has not been prevented by either the political incorporation of more than 11,000 black elected officials or even the election of the nation’s first black president. This article will show how the inherent limitations of the pluralist interest-group strategy and a growing white backlash fueled by an awareness of changing demographics in the country has spawned an economic and political crisis in black America.     

Building buy-in: The need for internal relationships and informal coalitions

Significant research has focused on influencing senior leadership, and this study offers new insights into building internal relationships and informal coalitions to provide strategic counsel. These strategies involve internal communications, a neglected area of research and practice. The findings are based on in-depth interviews with 30 executives representing multiple departments in four U.S. companies. A new role justifying public relations’ membership in executive decision teams is internal boundary spanning or gathering intelligence internally across business units, and requires public relations to have a seat at multiple decision tables.     

Passing a Mental Health Levy

ABSTRACT

The “devolution revolution” has decreased federal and state roles in the funding of social services and increased the burden on local sources, both public and private. This article describes how a community passed an initially unpopular property tax levy earmarked to support local drug, alcohol and mental health services. The article illustrates how social workers employing specific community practice knowledge provided leadership to the successful campaign. This example of community practice leadership includes building and maintaining coalitions, managing group tension and conflict and demonstrating fundamental social work values.     

Gender-based health interventions in the United States: An overview of the coalition for healthier community initiative

Health disparities by gender constitute an important yet often overlooked aspect of health around the globe. Within the United States, there is both a paucity of research as well as planned programs that take into account how socio-cultural roles and expectations for men and women may differentially affect symptoms, access to care, and treatment. Viewing women's health exclusively as a function of sex (i.e., biological) differences represents a narrow understanding that does not fully explain gaps in health disparities between men and women. In September 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) launched a national initiative entitled the Coalition for a Healthier Community (CHC) to employ a gender-based framework in several urban, suburban and rural communities across the nation. The Office on Women's Health (OWH) within the DHHS funded 10 coalitions to ultimately improve the health of women and girls utilizing a gender-based approach. This article provides an overview of the initiative and the focus of the special issue.     

A Structural Model of Government Formation

In this paper we estimate a bargaining model of government formation in parliamentary democracies. We use the estimated structural model to conduct constitutional experiments aimed at evaluating the impact of institutional features of the political environment on the duration of the government formation process, the type of coalitions that form, and their relative stability.     

Labor‐Environmental Coalition Formation: Framing and the Right to Know1

This article examines the formation of a cross‐movement coalition between elements of the labor and environmental movements in New Jersey. We explain the successful formation and initial political campaign of the New Jersey Work Environment Council with an expansion of the theoretical perspective of frame analysis. We propose a model of a coalition collective action frame that offers several important insights into the active role coalition actors play in the construction of a common frame uniting union and environmental activists. Using qualitative data gathered from interviews, observations, and document analyses of two major campaigns, we argue that the coalition frame allowed new political opportunities to be created, leading to the establishment of the most sweeping right‐to‐know laws in the United States. We conclude the discussion of coalition framing by examining political constraints on the framing possibilities of coalitions, specifically by exploring how the discursive shift from the right to know to the right to act failed to expand the influence of the cross‐movement coalition as originally expected by its members.     

Heterogeneous Perspectives in Coalitions and Community-Based Responses to Sex Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation: Implications for Practice

ABSTRACT

Despite increases in community-based coalitions to address sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), and the coinciding ideological debates surrounding sexual commerce, few studies have examined the dynamics between and perspectives among coalition members. This paper aims to explore 1) coalition members' perspectives on religion, politics, feminism, sex trafficking/sex work, neoliberalism/neo-abolitionism and 2) the impacts of such perspectives on coalition members' anti-trafficking/CSE work. Drawing from a larger qualitative study, 24 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with current and former coalition members in an urban Midwestern city. Findings suggest varied religious identities, which challenged some providers in coordinating services for the lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community or women with a history of or considering abortions. Providers generally identified as democrat as well as feminist in some way, but had conflicting views of sexual commerce. These competing ideologies created challenges for cohesive coalition action. Consequently, it may be essential to facilitate intergroup dialogues addressing diverse perspectives, come to consensus on goals, or develop subgroup goals in order to create a functioning inter-agency response. Future studies should explore such dynamics across multiple coalitions nationwide and the impact such perspectives may have on survivors engaging in services.