Structuring the Debate on Consolidation: A Response to Leland and Thurmaier

In their essay "When Efficiency Is Unbelievable: Normative Lessons from 30 Years of City-County Consolidations," published in the July/August 2005 issue ofPAR, Leland and Thurmaier make an important contribution to understanding how city-county consolidation occurs. They revise the widely accepted Rosenbaum and Kammerer model of consolidation and posit that "strong arguments" based on economic development, especially in the absence of organized opposition, led to victory for consolidation advocates. In this response, we argue that efforts to identify a set of arguments or charter provisions that will lead to successful consolidation are misguided. The real story in consolidation campaigns is how participants use heresthetical arguments in an effort to turn their opponents into political losers. What makes arguments strong or weak is not their substantive policy focus, but how they are structured.