New Directions in the Study of Community Elites

Abstract

Recent work in the study of community decision-making appears to be converging on a number of common theoretical and methodological strategies and assumptions. There still remain, however, important weaknesses in the overall theoretical framework and its implied methodology in directing research efforts. Attention is directed to a structural analysis of the community influence system that derives in part from Parsons. Several critical questions are raised concerning the identification of the relevant set of community influentials and the systematic description of their attributes as influentials and the ties that bind them into coalitions depending on the functional issue confronted. Recent advances in graph theory and smallest space analysis are used to examine the consensus-cleavage structure of the community influence system of Altneustadt, a small city in West Germany. Finally, a theoretical strategy and an empirical procedure are proposed for identifying community issues and tracing their impact on the formation of opposing factions and coalitions.

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