Perceived leadership stability and the structure of urban agenda-setting networks

A number of recent studies have addressed the informal social structure surrounding urban decision making, showing its implications for collective political action. This paper extends these analyses by asking a prior question: what factors affect the structure of political networks? Specifically, the paper develops a model suggesting how one such factor, perceptions of political leadership and the expectations of political conflict they may engender, affect the structure of urban agenda-setting networks. Data collected from six cities show perceptions of leadership stability to be strongly correlated with four structural characteristics of these networks.