Positions in Multiple Network Systems, Part Two: Stratification and Prestige Among Elite Decision- Makers in the Community of Altneustadt

Abstract

Three basic research issues are addressed concerning the structure of relations among elite community decision-makers as an illustrative application of the conception of a system of actors as a social topology given in Part One (appearing in the previous issue of this journal): (1) What is the form of the role-sets defining statuses across which the elite are stratified? (2) What is the content of these role-sets, i.e., what is the substance of the relations differentiating the community elite? (3) How is the possession of resources associated with the distribution of prestige among the community elite? The application to elite decision-makers in a small German community illustrates the explicit epistemic linkage between abstract and empirical structure inherent in casting a system of actors as a social topology and the hypothesis testing capabilities arising from this explicit linkage. One of the systems of actors most familiar to social scientists as a laboratory for studies of stratification and prestige-and as a source for new ideas concerning both concepts, is that composed of elite decision-makers in a community (see, e.g., reviews by Aiken and Mott; Bonjean et al.; Clark, a, d; Hawley and Wirt). This has become increasingly the case with the adoption in community research of a metaphor discussed at length by Clark (a, c, d) in which the stratification of elites arises in some manner as a consequence of exogenous characteristics of a community and determines in some manner the policies adopted within the community. Adoption of *Modest computer funds from the Department of Sociology and facilities made available to me during the writing of this paper at the National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago by J. S. Coleman through a grant from the National Science Foundation (SOC7305504 A02) are gratefully acknowledged. The presentation of ideas here has benefited from discussions with J. S. Coleman and E. 0. Laumann.