CREATURES OF THE STATE - STATE-POLITICS AND LOCAL-GOVERNMENT, 1871-1921

Local politics is not self-contained, The authors break with existing scholarship to argue that the study of local politics requires the sys tematic study of state legislative politics. The state-local relations hip cannot be easily characterized in terms of either interference or deference. Rather, U.S. local government and state politics appear to have been thoroughly intertwined in the period they examine. For evide nce, they present a new and systematic data set consisting of all bill s affecting local places-6,415 bills-considered by the legislatures of Alabama, Massachusetts, and Michigan for certain years in the period 1871 to 1921.