Electorates', Interest Groups, and Local Government Policy

There are two opposing views of the relations between the electorate and the policies formed by local officials. The author, on the basis of his 1960 doctoral dis sertation at the University of Illinois, Some Political Effects of the Functional Differentiation of Suburbs, suggests that electorates have relatively little influence on policy, particularly in comparison to interest groups. There are two distinct types of interest groups, personnel-oriented and policy-oriented, with patterns of activity that vary from city to city. Mr. Liebman is a member of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Political Science.