The Functioning of Democracy: Insights from Michigan’s local leaders

Summary

CLOSUP’s Functioning of Democracy Project is designed to increase our understanding of how American democracy is functioning at the local level, based on the unique perspective of Michigan’s local government leaders. It also serves as a Signature Initiative of the the University of Michigan’s Democracy & Debate program, providing resources, support, and analysis for faculty, students, and others interested in learning more about the state of U.S. democracy at the grassroots level.

These resources and projects draw from data collected through the Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS), an ongoing program launched in 2009 that surveys top elected and appointed local leaders across the state of Michigan. Over the years, the MPPS has fielded in-depth batteries of questions on a wide variety of issues related to our democratic system, such as citizen engagement, local officials’ trust in other levels of government and in their citizens, relationships and communication between the state government and its local jurisdictions, civil civic discourse, election administration, and more. 

The Functioning of Democracy Project aims to make MPPS and other CLOSUP resources accessible to users across the University and beyond, to integrate the Center's research data and findings into the University's Democracy & Debate initiative, and to encourage a “deeper dive” into the wealth of available MPPS data.

CLOSUP’s Functioning of Democracy Project draws on the unique perspective of Michigan’s local government leaders, gathered through the Michigan Public Policy Survey, to increase our understanding of how American democracy is functioning at the local level. 

THE MPPS DEMOCRACY COMPENDIUM

The MPPS Functioning of Democracy Compendium is a summary overview of the findings from many of the democracy-related topics asked of local officials on the MPPS questionnaires from 2009-2020. 

View the full report 

The compendium includes brief chapters on the following topics:

• Citizen Engagement and Public Participation in Local Government Decision Making
• Officials’ Opinions of Their Residents’ Input
• Civic Discourse in Local Communities 
• Working Relationships among Local and State Leaders
• Trust in Government
• Government Ethics
• Voting and Election Administration
• The U.S. Census
• The Functioning of Democracy Overall

An article on the functioning of democracy specifically within Michigan's townships is featured in the Michigan Township Association's February 2021 Township Focus magazine

View the article

For more information about the Democracy Compendium, contact Dr. Debra Horner at dhorner@umich.edu

VIEWING MPPS DATA ACROSS THE URBAN-RURAL SPECTRUM

There is much talk, especially in recent years, about the urban-rural divide: the idea that people from urban and rural places think fundamentally differently about a whole range of policy issues, and about governance itself. Most commonly, this divide is attributed to politics and demographic differences between urban and rural residents.  But differences in geography—specifically population density, land use, and prevailing industry—may also contribute to different policy preferences and participation in government.  And further, while much attention is drawn to areas of disagreement, there are areas where Americans share common ideals.  

Using data from previous iterations of the Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS), Dr. Sarah Mills will lead a team of Ford School students in conducting in-depth analysis to identify where there are and—importantly—are not differences along the urban-rural continuum, as it relates to the functioning of democracy at the local level.  In particular, the project will explore similarities and differences in attitudes among local government leaders and their communities on issues such as:
 
•    The state of civil civic discourse
•    Public participation in decision-making
•    Community engagement practices
•    Access to government information and an informed citizenry
•    Local government policy priorities

Results of the project were presented in a public event on November 16, 2020.

• View the video recording
• Powerpoint slides (in PDF format)
  • Elected Officials’ Perceptions of Civic Discourse with and among Residents across the Urban-Rural Spectrum
  • Perspectives on Public Participation Across the Urban-Rural Spectrum
  • Comparing Citizen Engagement across the Rural-Urban Spectrum
  • Internet Access and Connectivity across the Urban-Rural Spectrum
  • Privatization of Local Government Services: Understanding Differences Across Michigan’s Urban-Rural Spectrum
• Student Paper Series
  • Elected Officials’ Perceptions of Civic Discourse with and among Residents across the Urban-Rural Spectrum
  • Direct Democracy in Action: Comparing Citizen Engagement efforts across the Urban-Rural Spectrum in Michigan
  • Internet Access and Connectivity across the Urban-Rural Spectrum
  • Privatization of Local Government Services: Understanding Differences Across Michigan’s Urban- Rural Spectrum

For more information about this urban-rural continuum project, contact Dr. Sarah Mills at sbmills@umich.edu 

PRIMARY ANALYSIS OF MPPS DEMOCRACY SURVEY DATA VIA PUBLIC USE DATASETS

In order to share the MPPS data with other researchers and students, including classroom use at the graduate and undergraduate levels, in order to improve understanding of state and local government and provide analysts with direct access to the data themselves, a wide range of topic-specific MPPS Public Use Datasets (PUDs) have been deposited into the data archive at ICPSR.

These free and easy-to-use datasets and their accompanying codebooks can be downloaded immediately by anyone for analysis in Stata, SPSS, or as CSV files. They contain only portions of each survey, broken into themed collections of data. Datasets containing democracy-themed survey topics include:

For more information about the MPPS Public Use Datasets, contact Natalie Fitzpatrick at nfitzpat@umich.edu

• Democracy
• Urban-Rural
• Data sharing
• local government
• Citizen engagement
• Federalism