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Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Advance Access published online on July 10, 2009
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, doi:10.1093/jopart/mup015
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

City Managers’ Policy Leadership in Council-Manager Cities

Yahong Zhang

Rutgers University at Newark

Richard C. Feiock

Florida State University

Address correspondence to the author at yahongzh{at}rutgers.edu.

City managers’ policy leadership has drawn great attention from scholars of public administration. However, what factors explain variation in managers’ policy-making roles has not been systematically explored. This study investigates the mechanisms leading elected officials to defer to the manager in policy making. Survey data from Florida council-manager cities indicate that noninstitutional factors—such as mayors’ political experience, managers’ professionalism, and concordance of manager and council preferences—influence the likelihood that a council will allow a manager to exercise policy influence. The data reveal that city managers earn policy-making leadership at the expense of their administrative authority. Thus, managers must reconcile inherent tensions between responsibility and compliance.


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