Plans Versus Political Priorities

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings

Local elected officials play a leadership role in setting plan directions and can jeopardize implementation if they are not committed to plan goals. In this research, we apply topic modeling, semantic networks, and sentiment analyses to Calgary’s (Canada) plans and candidates’ social media communications in the 2017 Calgary municipal election to assess alignments or divergences between plans’ and candidates’ priorities. Though the mayor, ward representatives, incumbents, and challengers prioritized different topics, we find overall support for transit infrastructure, development, and improving the downtown and the municipal tax base. However, candidates showed little interest in environmental issues, growth management, and regional cooperation, which are important plan goals that may not be addressed. The methodology has limitations: Using social media posts underrepresents the views of some candidates; text data processing may miss metaphorical phrases; elected officials’ priorities during campaigns may not determine their actual votes once in office; and this cross-sectional analysis does not capture the ever-changing relations between officials’ priorities, plan-making, and implementation.

Takeaway for practice

Candidates focused mainly on transit and taxes to the detriment of regional and environmental issues (energy, watershed, and growth management), revealing the incoming municipal administration’s priorities and its potential blind spots. Planners may use this methodology to analyze large text data from both online and offline sources, understand local implementation barriers, explain shifts in municipal policy directions, and engage elected officials to build support for important plan components.

Keywords:

• content analysis
• elections
• plans
• social media
• text mining

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be found on the publisher’s website.

Notes

1 Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns are often referenced as the first successful use of social media to mobilize campaign volunteers, donors, and voters (e.g., Bode et al., 2014; Larsson & Skogerbø, 2018).

2 Municipalities are active on social media, especially on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (e.g., Lev-On & Steinfeld, 2016; Silva et al., 2019; Winsvold, 2007). Our focus here is on candidates running for municipal office.

3 Because a great majority of municipal elections in the United States and Canada are nonpartisan, we do not discuss here the role of candidates’ party affiliation (Schaffner et al., 2001).

4 The focus group included three local planners and three developers who deal with local planning issues on a day-to-day basis, a journalist who writes about local socioeconomic and political issues, a representative of a nonprofit organization focusing on regional planning, and two academics knowledgeable about Calgary’s planning efforts.

5 Though word frequency counts can be used for text analysis, semantic network analysis considers not only the frequency but also the semantic context of word occurrence. For instance, “I love Transit” and “Transit is essential to provide affordable access to Downtown” both include the word transit once, but the latter would be scored higher due to its association with affordability, access, and downtown. This approach thus frames each keyword in the context of meanings provided by other elements in the discourse (Carley & Palmquist, 1992; Diesner & Carley, 2011; van Atteveldt, 2008; Yang & González-Bailón, 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Albert Tonghoon Han

ALBERT TONGHOON HAN ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Lucie Laurian

LUCIE LAURIAN ([email protected]) is a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Iowa.

Jim Dewald

JIM DEWALD ([email protected]) is a professor and the dean of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.