Civic Culture as a Policy Premise: Appraising Charlotte’s Civic Culture

ABSTRACT:

The importance of a community’s culture—a combination of its political, governmental, economical, and social conditions—is believed important for understanding the power, value, and decision making systems of communities. In this research, using the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County as a case example, the goal is to determine not whether a civic culture exists, but what type of civic culture is present. By speaking to political and civic leaders, examining local strategic documents charting courses for the city, and examining data from the national Social Capital Benchmark Survey, a collective identity of the shared perspective of Charlotte’s direction is determined. Based on results from this analysis, Charlotte’s civic culture projects as an “active market culture” that is manifest through a civic culture that embraces tradition, supports the private sector, favors orderly, participatory processes, and emphasizes rational decision-making.

Notes

1 Information in this section is from: Charlotte in Detail (2006); Charlotte Chamber of Commerce (2006); U.S. Census Bureau: (State and County QuickFacts) available at http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37/3712000.html.

2 State-wide elections are for offices such as U.S. Senate, Governor, NC Senators and Representatives, etc., while county elections (or at least within the county) are for offices such as sheriff, judges, county commissioners, etc. Local elections involve mayor, city council, city council districts, and other similar offices in satellite municipalities located within the county.

3 For a full discussion of these characteristics, see Reese and Rosenfeld (2002, chapter 2), particularly the discussion on pages 40 through 49.

4 For a recent review of this literature, see the 2006 special issue of Public Administration Review on collaborative public administration; specifically see O’Leary, Gerard, and Bingham, 2006.

5 This invokes the “regime perspective,” see Stone (1989); but, for a discussion of the many conceptual applications of regime theory, see Mossberger and Stoker (2001).

6 Members of a graduate public policy class conducted these interviews in Fall 2004. While each student interviewed people based on a set of standard questions, students were also allowed, upon completing these questions, to engage in conversations (as the interview permitted) about a host of issues beyond the set questions.

7 The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey was a project under the direction of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (with Robert D. Putnam as principal investigator). The portion of the project involving the city of Charlotte and the adjacent region was sponsored by the Foundation of the Carolinas. The region studied includes the following counties in NC and SC: Catawba, Iredell*, Rowan*, Cleveland, Lincoln, Gaston*, Mecklenburg (Charlotte), Cabarrus*, Stanly, and Union* (NC counties) and York*, Chester, and Lancaster* (SC counties). Asterisks note counties bordering Mecklenburg. The data are sorted to create the Charlotte-only analysis.

8 For a complete explanation of each index, which includes means for each question used in constructing these indices, see the codebook for the Social Capital Benchmark Survey (2001).

9 The civic participation scale is an additive index of several questions; it is a simple count of the number of activities engaged in: vote, sign a petition, attend a meeting/rally, work on a community project, demonstrate/protest/boycott, or march.

10 The variables are constructed as follows, “Social trust—(SOCTRUST)—Q6, 7a, 7b, 7c, 7d, 7f (general interpersonal trust, trust neighbors, trust coworkers, trust fellow congregants, trust store employees where you shop, trust local police). At least three of these answers had to be provided for a score to be calculated. The index is calculated as the mean of the standardized responses to the five questions, using national norms to standardize: ITRUST, ITRNEI, ITRWRK, ITRREL, ITRSHOP, ITRCOP (Social Capital Benchmark Survey, p. 12). Faith-based social capital—Q30, 31, 32, 33a (church membership, church service attendance, nonreligious service church participation, affiliation with nonchurch religious groups). At least two of these answers had to be provided for a score to be calculated. The index is calculated as the mean of the standardized responses to the 4 questions, based on national norms (Social Capital Benchmark Survey, p. 14). Formal group involvement—(GRPINVLV AND GRPINVL2)—counts of “yes” answers in the 18-item Q33 series (GRPINVLV) plus Q32 (GRPINVL2): Count GRPINVL2 = GRPFRAT GRPETH GRPPOL GRPART GRPHOB GRPSELF GRPWWW GRPOTHR GRPREL GRPSPORT GRPYOUTH GRPPTA (Social Capital Benchmark Survey, p. 14).