About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

37 Soc. F. 232 (1958-1959)
The Sociology of Community Power: A Reassessment

handle is hein.journals/josf37 and id is 248 raw text is: SOCIAL FORCES THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMMUNITY POWER: A REASSESSMENT* NELSON W. POLSBY Yale University N THIS paper, I propose to begin an inevita- ble process: the reassessment of an immensely vital and important body of sociological research pertaining to the power structures of American communities.' I hope this effort will not be misunderstood as a stab at fashionable per- versity-or even, in the glittering coinage of Professor Riesman, as countercyclical thinking. By discussing, as I hope to do, what seem to me to be the current foibles of this literature, I hope to encourage, not stifle work in the field. Of course not every criticism will apply to every study of power in an American community; it would be an undue burden on my readers if I were to list the ex- emptions from each point made. I shall use examples drawn from the literature, but hope, once again, that the discussion can be focused upon the improvement of future rather than only upon the autopsy of past research. The first problem I wish to deal with may seem merely semantic, yet in this case we may have been seriously misled by words. By designating their studies as examinations of power structure, sociologists have implied that they are studying a repetitive pattern of events. Thus one of the basic premises of sociological research has been that decision makers are likely to remain the same from issue to issue. It has been assumed that power is as predictably distributed in the population as the other stand-bys of stratification analysis, class and status, seem to be.2 * I am very much indebted to Robert A. Dahl and Raymond E. Wolfinger, both of Yale University, for conversations in which we covered much of the ground taken in by this paper. Herbert Kaufman of Yale and Robert 0. Schulze of Brown University have also gone out of their way to help my thinking on these matters. All of these gentlemen speak eloquently for themselves, and they are, of course, absolved from responsibilty for statements made here. I See, as well, a perceptive review by Herbert Kauf- man and Victor Jones, The Mystery of Power, Public Administration Review, XIV (1954), 205-212. 1 This point was ably made by George Belknap in a paper entitled, A Plan for Research on the Socio- Political Dynamics of Metropolitan Areas, presented before a seminar on urban leadership of the Social Science Research Council, August 1957. This proposition has never met adequate empirical test. Greater concern with decisions as the focus of research would determine the range of decisions likely to be decided by the same group of people. Communities could then be classified according to the breadth and kinds of decisions in the hands of an elite group, or, conversely, accord- ing to the turnover in the membership of the decision-making elite on a specified range of issues. But in these studies decisions are never cate- gorized, aggregated, or systematically reported in any form amenable to the testing of the power structure. A further indication that decisions as units of inquiry are treated lightly is the fact that issues are entirely unspecified even when citizens and experts are questioned about the existence of a power elite. Thus, respondents are asked to identify persons of influence whom nearly everybody would accept on a major project,'3 or who participate in issues most important to the community.4 Many con- flicting interpretations could be put on the results of such an inquiry. Clearly one acceptable in- terpretation is that the same people participate, or lead, or decide, on all matters of importance in the community. But this is not the only possible in- terpretation, or even the most plausible one.5 3 Floyd Hunter, Community Power Structure (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), pp. 62, 265; Robert 0. Schulze and Leonard U. Blumberg, The Determination of Local Power Elites, American Journal of Sociology, LXIII (1957), 292; Delbert C. Miller, Industry and Community Power Structure: A Comparative Study of an American and an English City, American Sociological Review, XXIII (1958), 11, 12. 4 Miller, op. cit., p. 10. Alternative interpretations might be: Respondents (1) are naming the status elite; (2) have in mind some specific issue or issues which are A) of recent interest, B) especially salient to the respondent or, C) charac- teristic of the community-as public power might be in the West, or the race issue in the South; (3) are naming the community's old civic warhorses, or pri- marily letterhead names; (4) are naming the commu- nity's formal leadership; (5) are naming the most vocal leaders in the community. Admittedly, the nature of the battery of questions asked (there are variations

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most