Robert Wagner and the Rise of New York City's Plebiscitary Mayoralty The Tamer of the Tammany Tiger

New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner governed during a period of momentous change in local politics. In this era—too often viewed as a mere prelude to the dramatic events of the Lindsay years and the fiscal crisis of the mid 1970s—important policy changes took place in the fields of housing, education, race and labor relations, and in the structures of local governance. This book focuses on the institutional structures that were reconstituted in the three Wagner administrations, the role that the mayor's own strategic decision making played in forging the political changes of the era, the long-term consequences of Mayor Wagner's choices for future generations of city politicians and citizens, and the meaning and applicability of the concept of plebiscitary governance in the U.S. urban context.

Richard M. Flanagan is Associate Professor of Political Science at City College of New York, College of Staten Island, USA. He is the author of Mayors and the Challenge of Urban Leadership (2004) and is principal investigator of the Staten Island Social Capital Community Benchmark Study, the first comprehensive study of social behavior in the borough using survey research techniques.

1. Introduction: Robert F. Wagner, the Forgotten Mayor
2.The Concept of the 'Plebiscitary Mayoralty'
i. The Incomplete New Deal in New York
3.Mayor Robert F. Wagner and the Unfinished Business of the New Deal
i. Wagner and Organized Labor
ii. Wagner and the Welfare State
iii. Wagner and Fiscal Policy
4.The Break: The Fight for Charter Reform and the 1961 Mayoral Election
i. Wagner, the Democratic Party and the 1961 Mayoral Campaign
5.The New Wagner Mayoralty and the Shaping of Modern New York
6.In the Shadow of Wagner: Plebiscitary Politics in New York City
i. The Institutional Mayoralty
ii. The Civic Mayoralty
iii. The de Blasio Moment