The Ungovernable City: Interest Groups and Local Political Institutions in the United States and Europe

As nations in the developed world strive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to counteract the effects of climate change, transitioning from more carbon intensive cities to greener modes of housing and transportation will become paramount challenges for governments throughout the 21st century.

The United States, who produces about 11 percent of CO2 while accounting for just two percent of the world’s population, presents a particular challenge.

Infrastructure costs in the United States are astronomically higher than in comparable developed nations in Europe or Asia.

Further, housing construction—especially dense urban housing and its accompanying low carbon profile—is nearly impossible to build in almost all major American metro areas due to restrictive land use policies, an abundance of veto points exploited by engage local interest groups and America’s strong federalist institutions that give deference to local governments when deciding land use policy.

This project seeks to understand how interest groups in the United States capture local housing and land use policymaking and why a similar phenomenon hasn’t evolved in many European Union nations.

Studying local interest groups in a comparative setting will better illuminate how weaknesses in political institutions engender this behavior and lead to differing outcomes between the two regions.

Identifying these institutional deficiencies will also aid reforms in the United States crucial for modernizing that democracy and aiding the global fight against climate change.

This project will also deepen understanding of how interest groups form and evolve, what motivates the transition from individual financial motivation to the formation of an interest group and how these groups capture local political institutions.