ABSTRACT
Most cities in the country have a number of boards and commissions to deal with particular aspects of local policymaking. Some of these are mandated by state or federal law, while others are established by local ordinances and charters. Local boards and commissions are critical to the smooth operation of city governments. Individuals are often reluctant to participate in politics and government because of the costs involved. Despite the twilight zone in which small-town boards operate, serving on them allows individual citizens to receive selective benefits, thereby addressing the collective action problem in small cities to a certain extent. Recognizing the importance of these selective incentives could shed new light on the efforts of city officials to recruit board and commission members. To determine the structure of the service motivations, and to test for the presence of selective incentives, factor analysis was used to uncover the essential commonalities among the individual items.
