"City Boss" Politics Reconsidered-A Case Study Of Tammany Hall(1860-1910)

"City boss" politics, which is deeply rooted in the specific social history and complex reality, is a special phenomenon in America city politics from the latter half of nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. The rapid urban expansion without planning, the inaction of city government administration, the prevalence of the spoils system of political parties, the influx of immigrations and urban farmers, the indifference of citizens in politics etc, all of which have resulted in urban society split and power "invalidation", provided the chances for the professional politicians grasp the urban regime.As a typical boss politics in U.S.A, Tammany Hall was denounced for backdoor dealings, corruption, election fraud etc which affected the urban development negatively. The progressives and social reformers considered it as the main enemy of the municipal reform and development of urban democracy. However, Tammany Hall continuously won the city election in spite of these opponents' voice, and then dominated the municipal power of New York for more than 70 years (1860s-1930s). This paper focused on the New York Tammany Hall boss-machine system and Irish immigrations' impact on the Tammany Hall politics to find the reasons for the success of Tammany Hall in New York, meanwhile, this paper attempted to reappraise the entire "City boss" politics on the basis of the above research.The full text is divided into three parts, namely introduction, body and conclusion.In the introduction part, firstly, this paper reviewed the direct reasons of America "City boss" and the general situation of Tammany Hall in New York. Then, the paper reviewed and concluded the research results in the literature at home and abroad, summarized its research value and shortage.The body consists of three chapters:Chapter one started to explore the causes of "City boss" polities in the United States from the perspective of the emergence of American city problems. Then introduced Tammany Hall—the typical boss politics—how developed from a charitable organization to become the political machine in New York, and then gradually established the boss-machine system.Chapter two specifically researched the operation of Tammany Hall boss-machine system, including the system structure, the important role of the boss, the efficiency operation of the system, from which we can see the close relationship between Tammany Hall and community voters is a primary reason to its success in election.Chapter three focused on the impact of Irish immigrants on Tammany Hall to learn the political measures and system operation modes of Tammany Hall. Irish immigrant political traditions have an important impact on Tammany Hall political operation modes. The different influences between the first generation of Irish immigrants and the descendants after 1970s of Tammany Hall reflect its self-innovation ability for survival.Conclusion is the reappraisal of the boss politics represented by Tammany Hall and re-evaluation of this particular social phenomenon in general, illuminating that boss politics is the result of combination of various social factors. The impacts of Irish immigrants shall be analyzed from many aspects and the operation of boss politics system, to some extent, worked efficiently.