Dimensions of Community Power: A Study of an Unincorporated Town

Abstract

I. THEORETICAL ORIENTATION Community power research has burgeoned since World War II. The results have been varied and stimulating hypotheses on both the nature of power on the community level and the meth odology used to explore this phenomenon. Floyd Hunter (1953) initiated the post-war research boom with his study, Community Power Structure. Hunter found Atlanta, Georgia to be dominated by a relatively small business elite, a finding which many have interpreted as implying the existence of a monolithic deci sion-making structure. The reputational technique he utilized to identify the power structure elicited sharp criticism from those scholars who perceived grave weaknesses in it as a measure of community power. (See, for example, Kaufman and Jones, 1954; Dahl, 1958.) A viable methodological alternative was not formally presented, however, until political scientist Robert Dahl (1961) published Who Governs? In this work, focused on New Haven, Connecticut, he used the decisional technique, and found a pluralistic power structure. He saw competing groups vying for control of issue areas of varying importance. The tension produced by these polar theoretical orientations and methodologies has generated much controversy and addi tional research. Robert Presthus (1964) exemplifies the major re sultant trend in Men at the Top by seeing these alternative view