The Structure of Power in Local Communities

The works of Max Weber (1946), Floyd Hunter (1953), C. Wright Mills (1956, 1958), and Robert A. Dahl (1956, 1961) provide a baseline for appreciating the community \"power structure\" literature. These authors helped develop the fundamental concepts of community power, a body of literature which, in turn, informs and shapes the succeeding urban development politics literature (Ricci, 1971; Waste, 1986). However, the works of these four authors are more valuable for the issues they raise, than for those they resolve (Stone, 1989). While a brief statement of their contributions risks falling into caricature, a number of historic points are worth noting. I will begin by considering the most useful of these. Afterwards, I will review the community power structure and urban development politics literatures from separate theoretical perspectives, the first of which explains the central issues of community power from the perspective of Max Weber\'s social theory.



While Weber\'s views of society clearly influence the earlier community power structure literature, they were unable to anticipate the emergence of issues that became central once society had undergone certain changes. Many of these are discussed in the economic restructuring literature. As a result of these changes, Weber\'s social theory could not be used as a basis for understanding the urban development politics literature. Rather, Stone (1989) suggests these issues, and this literature, are more adequately understood from Tilly\'s (1984) views of modern society. Indeed, the Tillian view of society serves to underwrite the need for my present contribution, which further extends the urban development politics literature.



Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd\'s, Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937: especially chap. 3), inspired the initial interest in the \"power structures\" of local communities. As social anthropologists, the Lynds intended to record and analyze the life patterns of \"Middletown\" (i.e., Muncie, Indiana), an average American community. To their surprise, they found a city whose most important family dominated the local business class, and through that class, maintained a dominant influence over local education, housing, religion, and government. However these, and similar findings by Lundberg (1937) and Mills (1946, 1951), were overlooked -- that is, until Floyd Hunter published Community Power Structure in 1953.



Throughout his research, Hunter sought to describe the distribution of power in \"Regional City\" (i.e., Atlanta, Georgia). After his research had been completed, however, his findings shaped an immanently more important question: \"What were the political costs of that distribution of power (i.e., elite domination) for American democracy?\" This, in turn, raised several other questions, such as \"In what sense may our politics be deemed democratic?\" (Ricci, 1971; Waste, 1986). And, where elite domination occurs, \"Should it stand?\" If not, \"How could/ should it be transformed?\" By suggesting that Atlanta was dominated politically by an elite, Hunter provoked an uproar in the academic community, one which led to an ideological schism between the power analysts, better known as the \"elitists\" and the \"pluralists.\"



Author: Steven A. Maclin, Ph. D.



About the Author: Dr. Maclin has been a university professor since 1994, but from 1998 - 2004, he lived and worked with American military troops in Japan, Okinawa, and South Korea. He has previously edited and published dozens of articles in professional administrative journals and recently, in his ‘spare time,’ he’s been building websites for distributing materials to his graduate students. He\'s now stateside, teaching graduate students online, writing articles and developing a small online business (see http://buyfromart.com); he can be reached at info@buyfromart.com.