Community Power Structure Research Articles

IFAS Community Development: Identifying Local Power Structures, The Decision-Making Approach

FCS9258, a 2-page fact sheet by M.A. Brennan, is part of a series of discussions on community development. This paper focuses on the decision-making approach to identifying community power structures. It discusses the assumptions, the procedures for application, the types of leaders identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Includes references and suggested reading. Published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, July 2006.

IFAS Community Development: Identifying Local Power Structures, The Social Participation/Social Activity Approach

FCS9259, a 2-page fact sheet by M.A. Brennan, is part of a series of discussions on community development. This paper focuses on the social participation approach to identifying community power structures. It discusses the assumptions, the procedures for application, the types of leaders identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Includes references and suggested reading. Published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, July 2006.

IFAS Community Development: Identifying Local Power Structures, The Positional Approach

FCS9256, a 3-page fact sheet by M.A. Brennan, is part of a series of discussions on community development. This paper focuses on the positional approach to identifying community power structures. It discusses the assumptions, procedures for application,, types of leaders identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Includes references and suggested reading. Published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, July 2006.

IFAS Community Development: Identifying Local Power Structures, The Reputational Approach

FCS9257, a 3-page fact sheet by M.A. Brennan, is part of a series of discussions on community development. This paper focuses on the reputational approach to identifying community power structures. It discusses the assumptions, the procedures for application,, the types of leaders identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Includes references and suggested reading. Published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, July 2006.

Assessing Newspaper Preparedness for Public Health Emergencies

This study examines newspapers' preparedness for public health emergencies and seeks to explain why some newspapers are better prepared than others. Findings from a regional survey of newspaper managers showed that few newspapers have crisis plans, and few have sufficiently trained or specialized staff for public health coverage. A model predicting level of preparedness received mixed support. As expected, organizational preparedness and professional orientation had significant effects on level of staff preparedness, but environmental factors such as level of toxins in the community and the degree of pluralism in the community's power structure failed to predict.

With her Feet on the Ground: Women, Religion and Development in Muslim Communities

There has been a resurgence of donor interest in women and religion, conceptualizing religion alternately as a developmental obstacle, primary developmental issue and developmental solution. Both donors and recipient organizations need to interrogate the discourses underlying this focus and to examine their potentially harmful long-term impact on women's struggles in contexts where identity politics are a key factor in determining women's options. Cassandra Balchin relates the experience of the international solidarity network Women Living Under Muslim Laws. She argues against reinforcing Orientalist othering of women in Muslim contexts and efforts by extreme right politico-religious groups to monopolize definitions of women's role in society, while diverting attention away from the realities of women's struggles in Muslim contexts, secular alternatives and the community, national and international power structures that constrain women's development.

Financing Major League Facilities: Status, Evolution and Conflicting Forces

This paper identifies the pervasiveness, magnitude, and trends of public investment in major league sports facilities and describes the forces that typically direct and dictate the debate. In 2003 dollars, the total investment in facilities currently being used by franchises in the four major leagues in North America is almost $24 billion, of which over $15 billion was contributed by public entities. Four eras of funding these facilities are identified and described: the Gestation Era 1961-1969; the Public Subsidy Era 1970-1984; the Transitional (Public-Private Partnership) Era 1985-1994; and the Fully-Loaded (Private-Public Partnership) Era post 1994. There is a consistent trend of private contributions increasing across these eras, but public sector contributions remain substantial. The final section of the paper discusses the four primary sources of momentum undergirding this public investment: owner leverage, the community power structure, the stimulus of increasing costs, and the competitive balance rationale.

The Process of a Residential Movement against the Construction of a Municipal Disposal Site of Waste and the Community Power Structure :

The Process of a Residential Movement against the Construction of a Municipal Disposal Site of Waste and the Community Power Structure :

Reevaluating Community Power Structures in Modern Communities

Classic studies of community power, carried out using different methods in different communities, sparked debate between "elitists" and "pluralists." This debate has not been resolved despite the fact that recent studies point to new conceptualizations of this key issue in democratic societies. This study examines a single community from several methodological perspectives. A key issue is whether the different methods are complementary or tend to portray different power structures. The study's main contribution is a refocusing of the central question in community power research to reflect a dynamic and interactionist perspective. The issue is not to identify whether power structures are elitist or pluralist, but which community decision-making arenas are pluralist, which are elitist, and to what degree. In this "kaleidoscopic community," specific decision arenas represent an array of community interests that can shift and change as events unfold. Elitist power structures may be permeable or have elements that are pluralistically competitive. In such an environment, community groups can successfully navigate local power structures by better understanding how shifting patterns of community power are related to the specific events, decisions, and development outcomes facing the community.

A Comment on how the Nutritional Impact of Agricultural Innovations can be Enhanced

The potential of agriculture still is not sufficiently appreciated by the nutrition community. The marriage of agriculture and nutrition in developing countries has been rare and often unsuccessful. There have been compelling reasons to find relatively quick ways to reduce malnutrition without treating the underlying causes. Thus, national and international nutrition leaders have focused their attention on medically oriented approaches. To many nutrition workers, improving nutrition through food-based approaches is a good idea in theory, but it is not feasible in terms of implementation. More emphasis should be placed on programmes and policies that involve non-staple plant foods, especially fruits and vegetables. For the poor, the cost of animal and fish products is simply too high. Micronutrient-rich vegetable sources are well within their purchasing power. Education and promotion are essential elements for successful food and nutrition interventions. Agricultural innovations will be transferred more effectively and will have enhanced nutritional impact if researchers in agriculture, food policy, and nutrition can also be change initiators and catalysts for better implementation, along with governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and intended beneficiaries. Education and promotion do not always reach the more disadvantaged, who are often not well integrated into community power structures, which makes it difficult for them to participate in community activities. A special intensive programme for the poor is often necessary. It is very important that all involved work towards the same goals and use a common set of indicators in achieving change. A “decision-development-dissemination” framework is proposed for enhancing the nutritional impacts of agricultural innovations.

Globalization and Public Administration

This article discusses globalization and its implications for public administration. Using a political economy approach, an analysis is made of different meanings and perspectives of globalization, of causes and consequences of globalization, and of underpinnings or constitutive elements of globalization, a phenomenon that is all-embracing with transworld and for-reaching implications for society, governance, and public administration. Causes of globalization are discussed, such as economic factors of surplus accumulation, corporate reorganization, shift of corporate power structure, money and financialization, state and administration, domestic decline, rising human expectations, innovations, and supranational organizations such as United Nations. Consequences of globalization are discussed, including positive impact such as continuity and persistence of state and public administration, but also its negative consequences such as threat to democracy and community, increasing corruption, and elite empowerment. Then a discussion is made of converging, hegemonic order with a question of possible counterohegemonic model that might alter dominant order. Finally, article presents a number of significant implications--positive and negative--for public administration as a theory and practice, from both American and comparative/international perspectives. Introduction As new millennium approaches, a new civilization is dawning. The qualitative changes of this civilization have been subject of many studies. For example, Huntington (1996) speaks of clash of civilizations, Fukuyama (1992) predicts the end of history and man, and Korbin (1996) indicates a return back to medievalism. The hallmark of this change is process of globalization, through which worldwide integration and transcendence take place, evoking at least two different intellectual responses. On one hand there are those who argue that growth of transnational corporations, in particular because of their state-indifferent nature, and spread of capitalism have made state irrelevant or even obsolescent (Ball, 1967; Naisbitt, 1994; Ohame, 1995). Some think of it as even end of work (Rifkin, 1975) and of public administration (Stever, 1988). Others believe that capitalism has led to generation of suprastate governing agencies that are supplementing, if not supplanting, territorial nation-states (Picciotto, 1989; Cox, 1993; Korten, 1995). Still others have suggested that this also has eroded sense of community and urban power structure (Mele, 1996; Knox, 1997; Korten, 1995), causing loss of urban jobs (Wilson, 1996). They also warn that merging of supranational governance agencies has deepened dependency of less developed countries, exacerbated their fiscal crises, and created a serious problem of governability in those nations (Kregel, 1998). On other hand, some public administrators and public-policy analysts have predicted that corporations will create a order beyond nation-states (Reich, 1991), that is, a global village (Garcia-Zamor and Khator, 1994), a world government with global management (Wilson, 1994). Some theorists have even attempted to develop a universal, theory of public administration (Caiden, 1994). Others have vocally refuted idea of end of state and have argued for persistence of nation-states with all concomitant implications for public administration (Caiden, 1994; Heady, 1996; Scholte 1997). Hirst and Thompson (1996), Zysman (1996), and Boyer and Drache (1996) have argued that globalization has been exaggerated and that states remain strong in crucial functions of governance. Some realists in international relations tradition have argued that de facto [state] sovereignty has been strengthened rather than weakened (Krasner 1993, 318). …

日本都市政治における「レジーム」分析のために

This paper reexamines the literature of Community Power Structure (CPS) studies, especially the “Regime Politics” theory, from which implications can be drawn by Japanese city politics analysts. This paper attempts to exemplify that this new viewpoint of power structure in CPS literature is not only consistent with Japanese traditional regional sociology approach but also helps to describe the transformation of local governance, which is quietly taking root in peripheral towns while exposing some hint of “radical democracy”

Who Steals my Purse Steals Trash

Researchers often ask participants in community power structure and organizational network projects to rate actor reputations according to their perceived influence over system affairs. Analysts typically assume that such evaluations comprise a uni-dimensional ranking from low to high influence, but the extent of inter-rater consensus about judgments might vary across informants. I conceptualize the reputation measurement process as network relationships where organizational informants choose among a set of organizations treated as objects. I test three hypotheses that informant consensus increases with similarity in type of organizations, position in the influence hierarchy, and communication proximity, using data on 117 US and 126 German organizations in those nations' labor policy domains of the 1980s. Although I find some support for two hypotheses, a substantial consensus occurred between two primary blocks of informants about the most and least influential labor policy organizations. I conclude with some suggestions for further investigations of sources of consensus and variation in the evaluation of organizational reputations.

Book ReviewsStratification and Power: Structures of Class, Status and Command. By John Scott. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. Pp. x1284.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook Reviews Stratification and Power: Structures of Class, Status and Command. By John Scott. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. Pp. x1284.Anthony P. M. CoxonAnthony P. M. CoxonUniversity of Essex Search for more articles by this author University of EssexPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 103, Number 2September 1997 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/231227 Views: 16Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Shelly Gottfried The Consolidation of the ‘Liberal’ Oligarchy, (Apr 2019): 137–180.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14105-9_5Rikki Abzug Community Elites and Power Structure, (Jan 2008): 89–101.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-32933-8_6

Pluralism by Default: Community Power in a Paper Mill Town

Abstract Forest-dependent communities are often isolated geographically and culturally but linked politically and economically to industrial core areas. Theories of underdevelopment and resource-dependence, and theories of community power are used to explain the implications of forest-dependence for the structure of local politics in one Maine paper mill town. Three models of power, as outlined by sociologists and political scientists, suggest three possible configurations of community power structures. Historical, documentary analysis and contemporary field research demonstrate the fluidity of the power structure for the community in question. As the needs and interests of the dominant local economic force have changed over time, the community has experienced elitist, hegemonic, and pluralist regimes of power. The contemporary power structure is a pluralism by default. The withdrawal from local politics of the major economic player has created a political vacuum and the historic dependency relationship between paper mill managers and the community has created an apathetic and nonparticipative citizenry. For. Sci. 42(1):35-45.

Rational Choice and Community Power Structures

The community power debate concluded with each side believing they had won. Political theorists have generalized power, making empirical investigation very difficult; urban scholars have turned their attention to more manageable empirical problems. Rational choice advances the debate, exposing the errors of all sides and facilitating a new approach which transcends structural versus individualist methods. By separating various aspects of power in urban contexts, complementary techniques such as network analysis in a bargaining framework, semi-structured interviewing and the use of text databases permits a comprehensive investigation of agenda-setting and the mobilization of bias. The paper demonstrates the utility of this approach by comparing it to ‘regime theory’, the latest paradigm of urban research.

A bridge too far?: Community power structures on Victoria’s Raymond Island

(1994). A bridge too far?: Community power structures on Victoria’s Raymond Island. Rural Society: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 2-8.

Networks of Elite Structure and Decision Making

Recent research on community power structures and national political elites increasingly incorporates social network concepts, principles, and methodologies. Analysts using this perspective seek to uncover the various mechanisms underlying the cleavages and coalitions among state managers, political parties, corporations, interest groups, social movements, mass publics, class segments, and other social formations. By combining reputational, positional, and decision-making measures, researchers delineate the networks of communication ties and resource exchanges, which shape collective actions that attempt to influence the outcomes of political controversies. This article critically reviews recent power structure research that applies network techniques to the analysis of elite structures and decision making. Specifically, the following topics are examined: the specification of political network content, the delineation of political elite system boundaries, the identification of key or core actors, the representation of network structures, elite actors' individual and collective participation in policy events, the determination of policy event outcomes, and future directions for elite research using network perspectives.

Preemptive Power: Floyd Hunter's "Community Power Structure" Reconsidered

Much of the analysis of community power has occurred within a cost of compliance paradigm. The character of this conceptualization of power leads inevitably to pluralist conclusions and results in a misreading of Floyd Hunter's Community Power Structure. The alternative conception presented here, one of preemptive power, allows a restating of Hunter's argument and enables us to see how power in a complex community can at the same time be fragmented (as seen through a command and compliance prism) and concentrated (in the form of preemptive occupancy of a strategic role). The concept of preemptive power also provides a way of comparing power in Atlanta during the initial era studied by Hunter with the current era of the mid- i98os. In a context of profound social and political change, such a comparison reveals continuities and modifications in the power position of business. Bachrach and Baratz (1970) were surely right in suggesting that there are two faces of power. Yet their concept of nondecision making has never fully fended off its critics. When Bachrach and Baratz applied their ideas in an examination of poverty in Baltimore, their analysis proved vulnerable to the charge that it was not so much a study of nondecision making as an account of how ideological and institutional change ultimately did alter the structure of power in that city. Defenders of pluralism have thus argued that either nondecision making is not all that different from decision making or that it is unresearchable (Polsby, I980; Wolfinger, 1971). Yet, despite these criticisms, many observers continue to believe that Bachrach and Baratz were on the right track in treating power as having more than one face.

農村地域における中高齢還流者の地域社会活動に関する研究 ＩＩ 中高齢還流者の生活実態

This is to follow the previous article in which we showed that the number of returnees will increase in the near future and that they can play an important role in revitalizing local communities. The present paper is concerned with the analysis of their characteristics, and their contributions to farming and social activities in local communities. A mail survey was conducted in Oita andIwate prefectures concerning two types of aged members (50 and above) of farm families; (1) those who had always lived there and quit their off-farm employment about ten years before, (2) those who had been away and return to their native places about ten years before. This article focuses on the former group because there are few in the latter category. Aged returnees tend to have a high level of education and special skills, and a high proportion of them are alone or part of a nuclear family. It is shown that aged returnees are apt to hold many types of office, introducing unconventional forms of office holding and community power structure. The main reason for their readiness to hold office is perceived obligation to do community had been freed from them until they became returnees. They are expected to perform roles by the established residents. Our result indicate that within the context of the present trend of an aging agricultural labor force and rural population it is time to look into ways to tap the talents and abilities of aged returnees for the maintenance and development of local communities.