Chicago-style politics

"Chicago-style politics" is a phrase which has been used to refer to the city of Chicago, regarding its hard-hitting sometimes corrupt politics. It was used to refer to the Republican machine in the 1920s run by William Hale Thompson, as when Time magazine said, "to Mayor Thompson must go chief credit for creating 20th Century Politics Chicago Style."

The phrase was also used to refer to the Democratic Party machine, or "boss", politics of Chicago during the twentieth century. Political scientist Harold Gosnell wrote the most detailed analysis in Machine Politics: Chicago Model (University of Chicago Press, 1937). Paul E. Peterson extended the term to cover School Politics, Chicago Style (University of Chicago Press, 1976). Paul Kleppner looked at ethnic politics in the city in "Mayoral Politics Chicago Style: The Rise and Fall of a Multiethnic Coalition, 1983-1989", National Political Science Review 5 (1995): 152-180.

The term has been used by critics of the administration of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, and to Chicago's history of political corruption more generally. More recently, the phrase was used by Republican Party politicians and activists during the 2008 presidential election and 2012 presidential election campaigns against Barack Obama, who had lived in Chicago since 1985.

The phrase has also been used in recent years to characterize a supposedly offensive "tough, take-no-prisoners approach to politics".