Civic bureaucracy: An affirmative role for city planners in building civic capital and representing communities

This study creates a measure for the concept of a "civic bureaucracy" and uses that measure along with measures of civic capital to understand the relationship between city planners and the communities for which they work. A civic bureaucracy is concerned with city planners engaging the public in direct democracy. Civic bureaucrats believe they can play an affirmative role in promoting citizen participation, engaging the public in decision making, and thus building civic capital. The notion of a civic bureaucracy is based on normative arguments regarding a model of democratic public service. The study seeks to understand to what extent city planners believe in this ideal and whether the belief in such an ideal alters the actions of city planners and thus city planning departments. A second purpose of this study is to determine which factors influence a planner's identification with the role of a civic bureaucrat. Are planners who exhibit civic bureaucracy characteristics more likely to be found in communities with high levels of civic capital?; A survey was used to measure the extent to which city planners' see themselves as promoters of democracy and community. City planners for the survey were chosen from cities that participated in the 2000 Social Capital Benchmark survey. In this manner, the level of civic bureaucracy in city planning departments could be compared to the cities they work for to see whether civic capital in the city is related to how planners see their jobs and how many public participation opportunities they provide.; The main research question is: what is the relationship between the civicness of a community and the civicness of its bureaucracy? After testing six hypotheses, it appears that there is a relationship between communities and the civicness of their bureaucracies but the relationship does not hinge upon the communities' civic capital. Communities influence the civic bureaucracy of planners through the competitiveness of their elections, their planning departments and Planning Commissions, and whether planners feel appreciated. Also, job type and personal characteristics influence planners' commitments to civic bureaucracy. Civic bureaucrats beliefs in democracy are resilient to conflict in general, levels of civic capital, interest group activity, and city growth. However, reductions in civic bureaucracy occur when there is government bashing and when planning departments are production oriented. In addition, the findings show that planning departments high in civic bureaucracy offer more opportunities for public participation and public dialogue. As a result, civic bureaucracies are attempting to build civic capital through their work. The public administration, planning, and political science literatures all focus on how bureaucrats can help or hinder democracy. This research creates a way of measuring how public service practitioners view their roles within a democratic context. The study shows that civic bureaucrats offer a kind of representation not based on directly representing particular constituencies. Civic bureaucrats represent the interests of participatory democracy. Civic bureaucrats are in tune with normative arguments about an ideal public service and they act on their convictions. Therefore, they provide a foundation for the democratic legitimacy of non-elected public service practitioners.