ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the regime changes brought on by the fiscal crisis of 1975 by analyzing the political dynamics involved in New York’s postreform regime. The charter reforms of 1975 institutionalized geographic decentralization in New York through the community board system, which, in the postreform city, would share the “burden” of political legitimation with a more centrally controlled welfare state. In the postreform city, fiscal stability is achieved by cutting allocational and redistributive programs, regardless of a particular mayor’s political base. Institutionalizing the postreform regime, however, involved more than simply addressing the fiscal concerns of financial elites. The postreform regime also needed to establish political channels responsive to attentive nonelites and their decade-long demands for decentralization of and participation in city governance. The primary regime-specific, legitimizing strategy of the postreform regime was found in the community-empowerment movement. The issue of representation is obviously crucial to democratic government in general and to postreform governance in particular.
