Civic organizations and racial conflict: A case study of the Urban Coalition of Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1968-1976.
Item
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Title
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Civic organizations and racial conflict: A case study of the Urban Coalition of Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1968-1976.
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Identifier
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AAI9417452
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identifier
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9417452
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Creator
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Cohen, Aviva Wertheim.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Stephen Steinberg
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Date
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1994
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies | Urban and Regional Planning
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Abstract
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This study, based on a case study, examines the relationship between legitimation, mobilization, and cooperation in an effort to facilitate progressive social change in the context of a metropolitan political economy. It employs various research methodologies--archival research, interviews, documentary interpretation and urban historiography--to examine the development and impact of a non-aligned, a middle-class urban reform organization, the Urban Coalition of Greater Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the context of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In particular, it analyzes the relationship between two necessary but incompatible functions of that organization understood as an example of "representational coalition": the need to refer to external constituencies in order to legitimize projects, and the need for cooperation in pursuing those tasks the outcomes of which determine how such a coalition can be evaluated by its members and their constituencies. The tensions generated by this relationship account both for tendencies toward a degree of rationalization inconsistent with the coalition's general democratic program and for the emergence of internal conflict, along the lines of race and, to a certain extent, class. The effectiveness of the organization is evaluated in terms of its endurance in the face of these tensions and its influence on ongoing processes of politicization. The study provides a model of "coalition" arguably more applicable to political sociology than the rational choice models typically featured in the literature. It also provides support for rethinking the role of efforts by non-movement middle class groups to reform undemocratic aspects of American political life. Finally, it elucidates the ways in which principles are inevitably compromised in the context of inequality and structured discrimination, despite good intentions, transforming the conditions under which such reform organizations evaluate themselves and come to be evaluated.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
