Community Development

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Reevaluating Community Power Structures in

Modern Communities

Drew Hyman, Francis X. Higdon & Kenneth E. Martin

To cite this article: Drew Hyman, Francis X. Higdon & Kenneth E. Martin (2001) Reevaluating
Community Power Structures in Modern Communities, Community Development, 32:2,
199-225, DOI: 10.1080/15575330109489678

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330109489678

Published online: 09 Dec 2009.

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Journal of the Community Development Society Vol.32 No. 2 2001

REEVALUATING COMMUNITY
POWER STRUCTURES
IN MODERN COMMUNITIES
By Drew Hyman, Francis X. Higdon,
and Kenneth E. Martin

ABSTRACT

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.

INTRODUCTION

Identifying and navigating community power structures remains one of

the central challenges of community development theory and practice.
Professionals with a firm grasp on how power is distributed and used in local
decision making are better able to promote democratic solutions, equity,
participation, and social action in a wide range of community settings. Pluralist
and elitist theories of community power have led to long, acrimonious debates
about elitist control of local institutions—but did little to resolve the central
question: "How democratic are local community power structures"? This paper

Drew Hyman, Professor of Public Policy and Community Systems; Francis X. Higdon, Senior
Lecturer in Community Development, The Pennsylvania State University; and Kenneth E. Martin,
Rural Sociologist and Extension Professor, West Virginia University.
© 2001, The Community Development Society
200 Journal of the Community Development Society
seeks to (1) demonstrate how different research methodologies can generate
different conclusions when applied in a single community; and (2) suggest how
professionals and local citizens can better evaluate and use community power
analyses to guide their interaction with local decision makers. Our intent is to
extend the reader's knowledge about methods of identifying community power
structures and present a new perspective on influencing local decisions in modern
communities.
Using the results of a study conducted in a small urban community located
in the second smallest "metropolitan" area in the U.S., we will compare and
contrast analyses based on multiple approaches to identifying community power
structures. Our methods include a nominal/snowball sample approach, survey
research involving three discrete community samples—citizens, leaders of local
non-government organizations, and local government officials—for comparing
group responses, and an analysis of three community "key events" using
secondary data to interpret how power was used to resolve the community issue.
Our main task is to identify the power structure in a single community using
different methods in order to determine how different methodological
perspectives lead to a fuller understanding of community power. We are
concerned not only with "Who Governs" but, "Who controls which community
decision-making structures according to what methodological perspective"?

The Community Power Debate

Community power research has long sought to understand and measure

the distribution of power in organizations, local communities, nations, and around
the world. Classic studies of community power tended to identify elitist (Hunter,
1953; Mills, 1956) or pluralist (Dahl, 1961; Truman, 1951) structures. These
studies were carried out using different methods in different communities. The
observed differences could result from the nature of the communities involved,
or emerge as a consequence of inherent tendencies in the methods of
measurement used (Freeman, 1968). Ricci (1971, p. 1980) points out that the
approaches were rarely used in the same community to see whether the different
research methods reveal similar or different findings. Nor have comparative
and longitudinal studies settled the issue (Agger, Goldrich, & Swanson 1964;
Aiken & Mott, 1970; Bell, Hill, & Wright, 1961; Trounstine & Christensen,
1982; Waste, 1986). However, recent works suggest that power structures may
take different forms in different community contexts (Keating, 1993; Ricci,
1980), or from different perspectives (Gould, 1989), or on different issues
(Schumaker, 1991, p. 1993). Gould (1989, p. 531) argues a brokerage
perspective—that people with networks have greater opportunities to influence
decision makers and decisions than do those who do not, irrespective of what
might traditionally have been considered position in a power structure. His
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 201

data on two community elites also suggest that power from structure and power
from resources may not be additive but may detract from each other. Keating
(1993, p. 373) suggests that local politics "do not correspond to a single growth
machine model but take differing forms in different national contexts." His
multinational study suggests that power structures may exhibit different forms
in different community contexts and in different jurisdictions. In the same way,
Schumaker's (1993) study of 28 issues in a single community led him to the
following observation:

If one examined only economic-development policies or the policies

of private (especially business) organizations that affect com-
munities, the power of notables may be more pronounced. If one
focused on the routine street-level decisions of city governments,
the power of bureaucrats may be more evident. And conditions in
other communities may lead to very different estimates of the power
of various actor types than those provided here (Schumaker, 1993,
p. 459).

The community power literature has been expanded recently through

investigations of the "growth machine hypothesis" (Molotch, 1976), which
finds local power structures to be an amalgamation of land-based and related
interests that benefit from intensifying the use of land. This has been done
primarily through "growth"—in population, manufacturing and service
industries, federal and state government grants and contracts, educational and
research establishments—"that lead to an expanded work force, and then in
turn to an expansion of retail and other commercial activity" . . . and then to
"extensive housing development and increased financial activity" (Domhoff,
1986, pp. 57-58). The growth machine has been viewed as a combination of
individuals or groups with specific interests—landowners, developers,
contractors, mortgage bankers, real estate agencies, gas and electric companies,
telecommunications-based industries, downtown businesses and local media
interests—who benefit most directly from local economic growth. In order to
carry out their agenda, local government officials are enlisted to promote growth
by raising funds to improve the infrastructure and services necessary to attract
industry (Domhoff, 1986).
The growth machine hypothesis is a theory of the elitist genre, but along
with Keating (1993) and Schumaker (1993), this study suggests that pluralist
assumptions should not be excluded since many interests may be involved. As
Domhoff writes about Jennings' study of Atlanta: "most of the 'perceived
influentials'were not'economic dominants' . .. [and] those who were economic
dominants as well as perceived influentials came mainly from nonmanufacturing
firms, which . . . are locally owned, and have their locus of consumption in the
immediate metropolitan area" (1986, p. 69). Internationally, Keating (1993)
202 Journal of the Community Development Society

finds that development coalitions "do not conform to a single growth machine
model but take on different forms in different contexts." Similarly, Logan and
Molotch (1984) contend that the growth machine may be multi-faceted with
many competing interests rather than concerted and organized interests focused
in a common direction. Indeed, the growth machine may operate at the
neighborhood or shopping district level, or at the community-wide level. It
may pit neighborhoods, entrepreneurs, developers, or even communities against
one another (Zekeri, 2000). Conceptually, this phenomenon might then resemble
a system of "dispersed inequalities in political resources" identified by Dahl
(1961, p. 228) as pluralism: a system characterized by many different kinds of
resources being unequally available to different citizens for influencing officials;
no one influence resource dominating all others in all or most key decisions;
and no group of more than a few individuals entirely lacking in some influence
resources.
Domhoff 's contention of elitism stems from the finding that the "growth
machine" involves a network among growth-related interests that tends to win
over the "neighborhoods"—in most cases due to persistence rather than a
cohesive power structure that seeks to overcome the influence other groups can
assemble. Thus, despite Domhoff's attempt to censure the "pedantic pluralists"
and "priestly Marxists" for having no new ideas to explore, they bring us to the
topic of the present study—the several methods themselves. Specifically, what
do we find if we use several methodologies—those employed by both elitists
and pluralists—in a single study in the same community? Do we find similar or
different power structures in the same community? Are the methodologies in
conflict or are they complimentary?

METHODOLOGY

Bell, Hill, and Wright's (1961) review of the literature on public leadership
summarizes the main approaches to identifying community power structures.
We will not review them in depth here but will give a brief summary of the
dominant characteristics of each. The Positional or Formal Leadership method
selects those persons who occupy important organizational positions. This is
generally taken to mean public officials (including school boards and
commissions) and higher civil servants as in this study. Some studies also
include business executives, officials of voluntary associations, leaders of labor
unions, military officers, and others. The Nominal or Reputational method
identifies leaders through the perception of power—the opinions or judgments
of other members of the community who tell the researcher who they think the
leaders are. Most researchers start with a list of formal leaders and use "cobweb"
or "snowball" sample approaches to broaden their inquiry. Others use
representative samples of key community groups or the general public. We use
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 203

both approaches in this study and to keep them distinct we will call the former
"nominal" and the latter "reputational." The Event Analysis or Decisional
method seeks to identify the decision makers in specific issue areas. It is based
on the idea that political influentials are those who make political decisions and
take action—it seeks to identify whether the structure of community power and
leadership varies across issues or sectors of policy making (pluralist) or whether
the same people are involved (elitist) (Bell, Hill, & Wright, 1961, pp. 5-33).
This study uses all of these methods to study the structure of decision making
and leadership in a single community. The decision to use several methods in
one study responds to Ricci's (1980) concerns as well as Peterson's (1981)
rationale for combining methods in a single study. Their critiques of single
method studies and suggestions for combined method studies support the
rationale and approach employed in this study, which combines the positional,
reputational and decision-making approaches in a single study.
Our implementation of the different methodologies is as follows. First,
the positional method was implemented by securing a listing of local
government officials, including members of the school board, authorities,
governmental boards, and commissions. Their position in the local government
hierarchy (level of authority) defines their position in the official power structure.
Second, what we refer to as the nominal method uses a convenience sample of
influential citizens to develop a first-wave list for a snowball sample. We asked
a variety of officials, leaders, and average citizens to list who they thought has
influence over decision making in the local community. They were then asked
to rank their lists from most to least influential. These lists were collated and
combined to identify the individuals named most frequently. The top names
from this first-wave list formed a pool for personal interviews. These "interim
nominal leaders" were given the opportunity to nominate additional individuals
for the list. They were then asked to rank the expanded list according to the
degree of influence they believe the individuals have in local community decision
making. The individuals on the resulting list represent the initial leaders' rankings
of leaders, which we will call "nominal leaders." The completeness of this list
was validated by our comparative reputational study.1
Third, a comparative reputational method was implemented using
standard survey research techniques. The list of nominal leaders was presented
in a questionnaire to three different groupings in the community to identify
their perceptions about who has political influence and to determine whether a
broader survey would add names to the list. The survey was administered to
the following three groupings: (1) local government officials; (2) community
leaders—members of the boards of directors of community organizations; and
(3) a sample of citizens in the community. We expected that this comparative
study would confirm and/or elaborate the nominal list and provide insight into
the nature of community power in this community. Is there broad community
agreement on the list of nominal leaders? Which of the nominal leaders are
204 Journal of the Community Development Society
well known throughout the community? Are there "covert" leaders, those who
are known to insiders (those who are more involved in the community) but who
are not perceived as such by average citizens? To what extent do government
officials agree with community and civic leaders and average citizens about
who is influential in the community? Does this community have an elitist or
pluralist power structure?
The event analysis method was operationalized by selecting three key
current issues that were generating considerable controversy in the community.
We define "key issues" as current events that are controversial, discussed by
officials in public meetings, and typically with citizen input and comment both
in support and opposition. They are frequently covered in the local newspaper,
and they generate letters to the editor on different sides of the issue. Their
outcomes will have significant implications with different impacts for major
interests in the community. These criteria were used to select the following
issues. Zoning of public areas has major implications for schools, recreation,
and economic development in this community. The need for new school
buildings is another controversial issue that impacts real estate and occupational
tax rates, the quality of education, and economic development. Consolidation
of local governments is a key issue that addresses the very nature of the
governmental unit(s) itself, possibly leading to joining together with four other
local municipalities into a single metropolitan government: this issue has major
implications for the distribution of influence and services, taxation, and
development.
We followed these issues in two ways. First, we used secondary analysis
to gather information available in the local media; we attended public meetings
and engaged in discussions with leaders and citizens. Second, to gain the broader
perspectives of leaders, government officials, and citizens about whom they
considered influential on these issues, several "key issues" items were included
in the questionnaire which was administered to the three study groups identified
above. We asked, "who would you say are the more influential individuals on
the issue of. . . ?" This was an open-ended question. Respondents were asked
to list one or more individuals. These data were used to identify whether similar
individuals are identified as influential across the three key issue areas and
among the three samples. Since this latter aspect of our event analysis relies in
part on reputational techniques, we took steps to compare outcomes through
the media analysis and observation of local political activities noted above.
These results were also compared to those of the other methods for agreement
or not.
Dillman's total design method for mail questionnaires was used to
implement the surveys with minor adaptations (Dillman, 1978): an initial mailing
and three follow-up mailings (the certified follow-up letters recommended by
Dillman were not sent on recommendation of other survey researchers who
report a number of problems with this aspect of the methodology). The size of
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 205
the resulting study groups and the response rates for the reputational and event
analysis studies are as follows: Officials were identified from the most recent
local government manual that lists all local offices and their incumbents. We
selected elected leaders, top appointed officials, and top- and middle-level
managers (n = 79; response rate = 67%; cases available for analysis, n = 53).
Local leaders were identified from lists of members of boards of directors of
local organizations and agencies in the community. All members on the lists
were included in the sample (n = 428; response rate = 57%; cases available for
analysis, n = 244). The citizens sample was purchased from a national firm
and consists of a representative sample from all census tracts in the community
(n=428; response rate=43.4%, cases available for analysis, n=229).2 The
demographics of the final citizen's sample are similar to the 1990 Census on
household income with the exception that there is a higher proportion of people
in the (low-mid) $25,000-549,999 income range in the sample. Males are
slightly over represented (63% in the sample compared to 54% in the census).
On the age variable, younger people are underrepresented in the sample, although
university students who were self-culled through non-responses or undeliverable
mail surveys were included in the census data. For the 45 and above age
groupings, the proportions are almost identical. These comparisons to the census
data lead us to the observation that the citizen sample, while not representative
of the population with students included, is probably reflective of the local
population that is germane for local community and political participation.
All respondents were given the opportunity to add names to the list to be
ranked as a fail-safe device in case the list from the nominal study which
generated the list to be ranked missed someone considered influential; it is also
a hedge against criticism by those who would say the list was incomplete. We
had a "good" list. Very few new names were listed more than once by the
officials, local leaders, or citizens, although a lot of names were added (about
165).
The analysis that follows triangulates data from the several methods. It
asks first whether the positional power structure, government officials as listed
in the official register, are named as the most influential. Next, it compares the
list of positional leaders in the community to the list of influentials identified in
the nominal process in order to learn how local officials are perceived by local
leaders as having dominant influence over local decision making. Then, it asks
whether the same people are identified and ranked similarly by the three survey
groups in the comparative reputational phase of the study. Finally, it examines
data on who is considered more influential on the three key issues and compares
these event analysis results with those of the other methods. The findings
should help in identifying the structure of power in the community, and whether
it is elitist or pluralist.
We define elitism and pluralism as follows: an elitist structure exhibits
a system of cumulative inequalities where political resources are centered in a
206 Journal of the Community Development Society

Table 1. Positional Power Structures

External Local Local Boards

A uthorities Government & Authorities

U.S. Senators Mayor* School Board, Pres.,

U.S. Congressmen Board Members,
Superintendent

State Senator Borough Council, Chair Planning Commission

State Representative Council Members Sewer & Water Authorities

County Commissioners Borough Manager Magistrate (Local Judicial

County Officials Official)

Centre Regional Council of Arborist, Finance Dir., Other Local Authorities,

Governments: Exec. Planning/Zoning Dir., Boards and Commissions
Committee & Exec. Dir. Police Chief, Public Works
Dir., Fire Chief

Centre Region Boards &

Commissions

Industrial Development
Council

* Individuals in bold are also identified as influential in both the nominal, leaders' ranking of
leaders, and reputational aspects of the study.

single elite: social status, wealth, education and political influence are united
in the same individuals; a pluralist structure exhibits a system of dispersed
inequalities where many different kinds of resources are available to different
citizens for influencing political decisions. Individuals have differential access
to the decision-making process and influence resources are effective on some
issues but not in all. (See also Dahl, 1961.)

FINDINGS

The Positional Hierarchy of the Community Studied

The official positional hierarchy provides a base for comparing the results
of the other methods. The community has a "weak mayor/council-manager"
form of local government. There are several independent boards and
commissions as well, including the school board, the planning commission,
and the water and sewer authorities (which may have multi-municipality
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 207

jurisdictions). "External" authorities include federal representatives, the state

senator and representative, and county commissioners. (See Table 1.)
The external authorities have no direct formal authority in local
government decisions; however, they are expected to have considerable influence
in the community and they have authority over federal, state and county policies
and programs that apply to the community and its members. Local government
leaders and local boards and authorities constitute the formal power structure
for the community studied. Since these officials have authority in different
domains, the structure is not monocentric (a single chain of command), but
reflects a polycentric system of multiple domains (Hyman & Miller, 1985;
Polyani, 1951). For this reason, the local structure is presented separately in
Table 1. If the formal positional method identifies the community power
structure, we will expect the other methods to identify individuals occupying
these positions as having dominant influence in the community. The next
sections compare this structure to the findings of other methods.

Nominal vs. Positional Method

People have no problem nominating those individuals they believe to be

influential, although "in what area?" was a recurrent question. This response
pattern leads to the observation that when asked an elitist question (make a list
of individuals who have most influence in the community), many people respond
with a pluralist question—"In what area?"—asserting their belief that the power
structure may be different for different issue areas or aspects of community
affairs.
In the initial phase of the nominal method we asked an "availability
sample" (a list of people known to the students and the professor of a rural
sociology class) to nominate "people who have influence in decision making in
this community." While the number of people nominated per contact varied,
an initial list of 60 individuals was generated in this process. Most individual
lists had some names that were on other people's lists. We identified the overlaps
and came up with our "first wave" ranking list. Individuals mentioned fewer
than three times were not included. The first wave ranking list identified a
preliminary ranking of the top 23 influentials in the community.
We conducted a second wave ranking process through personal interviews
with everyone on the first wave list (one person refused to be interviewed).
Names were listed randomly on a short questionnaire. In the interviews, each
person on the list was asked to review the list, nominate new people, and rank
the resulting names on the list. They had the opportunity of excluding themselves
from their ranking. Here, too, people have no problem in ranking—although,
again, some indicated that they would have liked to do the ranking in terms of
specific issues (again, the pluralist argument). In fact, one respondent who
208 Journal of the Community Development Society

Tahle 2. Nominal Power Structure: Leaders' Rankings of Leaders

Nominal
Position Leaders

University President 1

Developer 2

Businessperson/philanthropy 3

Mayor 4

State Senator 5

University Official 6

School Superintendent 7

University Official 8

Newspaper Editor 9

Borough Council/Citizen 10

Borough Manager 1 1

Businessperson 12

Borough Council/Citizen 13

School Board 14

School Board 15

President, Local Commission 16

Businessperson 17

Developer 18

Developer 19

Architect 20

Police Chief 21

Industrial Development Council 22

Lawyer 23

* Bold type identifies positional elites, elected local government officials or full-time local
government employees. School board members are also elected and could be considered
positional elites as well.
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 209

turned out to be in the top ten refused to do an overall ranking based on the
premise that the different individuals each have different levels of influence in
some areas than others and vice versa. No new names were mentioned more
than once. This leads to the observation that the Trounstine and Christensen
(1982) approach, while "quick and dirty," can produce a list that is generally
acceptable to those who are likely to be mentioned in a reputational method
study. Table 2 shows the results of the nominal, leaders' rankings of leaders,
method. Those ranked highest are listed at the top and those ranked lowest on
the bottom. Elected governmental officials and full-time employees of local
government (positional leaders) are indicated in bold type; their office is also
indicated.
The table shows, first, that only a few positional leaders are mentioned
among the nominal leaders, but the ones mentioned are those with higher
positional authority at the local level. Second, the positional leaders mentioned
are not at the top, but are dispersed throughout a larger list of nominal leaders.
The positional method and the nominal method do not identify the same
individuals as local leaders. Third, the positional leaders on the list are ranked
as befits their position in the governmental hierarchy—the elected chief executive
is higher than the school superintendent; the council president, selected elected
council members and the city manager are next, followed by the police chief.
Note that some council members and officials were mentioned but not frequently
enough to make the list. Also, a number of the people on the list are volunteers,
part-time appointed chairs of local commissions (e.g., the planning commission,
sewer and water commission, etc.), or unpaid elected members of the school
board.
This comparison suggests first that the positional method and the nominal
methods are in conflict as they do not identify the same individuals. Second, it
suggests conversely that the positional and nominal methods are somewhat
complimentary because they do have some overlap that is logical from a position-
in-the-hierarchy perspective. Third, the nominal method identifies non-official
"local notables" who are not identified by the positional method. The nominal
method also allows the list of hundreds of community leaders to be winnowed
down to a few who are considered more influential in community decision
making. Moreover, since few names were added during either the nominal
interviews or the reputational surveys, a combination of methods appears to be
more effective than a single method alone. Comparing the results of these two
methods leads to preliminary conclusions: (a) both officials and local notables
are most likely influential in decision making in this community; (b) neither of
these two types of influentials (positional and nominal) appears to dominate
the local scene; and, (c) neither the positional nor the nominal method is superior,
but together they provide a useful first-cut approach for identifying community
influentials.
210 Journal of the Community Development Society
Comparative Reputational Method

The comparative reputational method shows some differences between

the samples on their ratings for specific individuals. There are also differences
between the three sample groups and the nominal and positional studies.
However, this method yields considerable agreement with the earlier lists as
well. Recall that the initial wave of the nominal method left us with 23 names.
This list was included in the questionnaire for all three samples. We added two
"ringers" to this list (acquaintances who are not involved in local politics or
community affairs—and were not even registered to vote at the time) to verify
our instrument and to check on the reliability of the rankings by respondents. If
the ringers got high rankings, we assumed that respondents had not provided a
serious ranking. Almost all respondents did not even rank the names of the
ringers, and all who did ranked them at the bottom of the list. This leads to two
conclusions: the list is a complete list, and the respondents took the task of
ranking seriously. The surveys of three groups allowed names to be added by
any respondent; this procedure led to over 150 names being added to our final
list for analysis. Of the new names mentioned ten or more times, the top two
are well-known officials in neighboring municipalities, four are members of
city council, and one is a state representative who lives in a neighboring
township.3
Table 3 compares the final rankings by the nominal leaders to the
reputational rankings derived from the three survey samples of officials, civic
leaders, and citizens.4 Again, the positional leaders, are indicated by bolded
position names. The Officials column shows how local government officials
ranked the leaders. The Civic Leaders column shows how the list was ranked
by leaders of local boards and commissions. The Citizens column shows how
the representative sample of local citizens ranked the list. This table begins to
reveal one of the main findings of this study. The research methods themselves
appear to he a factor in the findings. The positional, nominal, and reputational
studies lead to different rankings. Specifically, the rankings in Table 3 lead to
several general observations. Top positional leaders are scattered throughout
the list. The mayor and state senator are in the top five; the superintendent of
schools, borough manager, and two borough council members (including the
chairperson) are among the next ten; and, the police chief is in the latter part of
the list. A strictly positional study of officials would find them consistently at
the top. Other individuals who receive high rankings are university officials,
developers, a local newspaper editor, prominent business people, and citizens
serving on local boards and commissions. Many of these individuals would
show up if the definition of "position" is expanded beyond officials. At the
same time, if all individuals in these other types of positions were included, the
list would be much longer and less indicative of who is perceived to have higher
levels of influence.
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 111

Table 3. Reputational Power Structure(s) Rankings Compared to Nominal Power Structure

Nominal Civic
Leaders Officials Leaders Citizens

1-University President 5 1 2

2-Developer 3 5 6

3-Businessperson 8/9 2 4

4-Mayor 1 4 1

5-State Senator 6 3 5

6-University Official 15 17 13

7-School Superintendent 7 7 10

8-University Official ]1 6 3
9-Newspaper Editor 10 10 14

10-Borough Council 8/9 9 7

11-Borough Manager 4 11 12

12-Businessperson 12/13 13 15
13-Borough Council 2 16 18

14-School Board 14 12 8

15-School Board 16 21 16

16-President, Local Commission 12/13 8 21

!7-Businessperson 19 15 II

18-Developer 21 14 9

19-Developer 23 23 22

20-Architect 17 19 23
21-Police Chief IX 20 17

22-lndustrial Development Council 20 18 20

23-Lawyer 22 22 19

"Ringer" #1 24 24 24

"Ringer" #2 25 25 25

* I.D. numbers in bold type are elected officials of full-time local government employees
(positional elites).
212 Journal of the Community Development Society
Several differences between the groups' rankings are evident. Nominal
leaders tend to rank non-officials (local notables) higher than the top government
officials on the list. Government officials tend to rank the top government
officials highest, followed by the three local notables who also are ranked highest
by the nominal leaders. Civic leaders tend to mix the above two patterns with
a non-governmental leader and university president, followed by the mayor,
state senator, and university official. Citizens rankings tend to be most similar
to those of the civic leaders except they rank the two highly visible people (the
businessperson/community activist/philanthropist, and the university official
who is also a highly visible nationally-ranked athletic coach) higher than do the
nominal leaders and the civic leaders. Visibility and popularity appear to have
more of an influence among the citizen sample than among local officials and
civic leaders.
A comparison of the various rankings shows both differences and
convergence regarding the distribution of power in the community. Government
officials give higher rankings to government officials. Civic leaders and the
nominal leaders have the most agreement about the top five. Citizens tend to
agree with civic leaders on the most influential individuals, but appear more
influenced by the popularity of some highly visible community residents. The
implications are that a positional, nominal or reputational study of any one of
the groups studied—nominal leaders, local government officials, civic leaders,
or citizens—will not give a complete picture of who people in the community
perceive to have the greater influence over community decisions. These
observations lead to the inference that a multimethod approach gives a more
complete, although less definite and more complex, picture than any of the
methods singly.
Ifour study had ended at this point, we would conclude that this community
has an elitist structure of influence, although we would note the inconsistencies
across the different groups of respondents. These findings also seem to support
the elitist perspective on the growth machine since the list is dominated by
developers, business people, university officials, and local officials in a list
seemingly parallel to growth machine members. Examination of how the
findings from the first three methods—nominal, positional, and comparative
reputational—compare to the results from the event analysis method sheds
additional light on the question of what the different methods reveal, and whether
they support elitist, pluralist, and/or growth machine conclusions about the
structure of community influence.

Event Analysis

The event analysis method seeks to identify the individuals who have
influence over specific areas of decision making, especially key events in a
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 213

community. For this study, the three current, controversial, and cogent issues
mentioned above were chosen: Event #1: Zoning of Public Lands; Event #2:
The Decision to Build New School Buildings or Not; and Event #3: Local
Government Consolidation. We followed these events much as traditional event
analysis studies and we also included items for these issues on the questionnaires
sent to the different community groups. Table 4 shows the number of times
individuals were mentioned as being among the top one to five people in the
community who have influence in each decision area. The number of times
they are identified among the top five is considered to be a measure of their
perceived influence in the event. The data reflect totals from the three combined
survey samples for each of these key events. These data are arranged in the
order of the first two columns of Tables 2 and 3, and thus in order of the nominal
leaders' rankings of leaders. Several general observations are apparent from
examination of these data.
A different set of individuals tends to be mentioned as influential in each
of the different areas of decision making (events). Interestingly, individuals
mentioned as influential for more than one event show differing levels of
perceived influence. While some new names appear for each event, most of the
people mentioned for these three key events are also on the nominal, reputational,
and positional lists.
Outcomes, too, support these observations. Event #1, Zoning of Public
Lands, would have led to the selling for development of a sizable tract of public
land owned by the school district (but not adjacent to any existing school) and
used for recreation and practice fields. These lands were centrally located and
bordered by multifamily and single family residential areas and a small shopping
center. Despite a significant effort by some to turn these lands over to developers
who were eager to develop them, more general citizen views prevailed. The
growth machine hypothesis did not apply here. The area remains a recreational
area open to the community. On Issue #2, The Decision to Build New School
Buildings, a new middle school was built with broad public support. However,
it was built in a neighboring municipality, not where borough growth machine
interests would benefit most. Furthermore, an anti-expansion attempt to unseat
several incumbent board members at the next election failed. Our secondary
analysis also reveals considerable public resentment in the borough regarding
the need for the new building, which was attributed to residential development
in surrounding municipalities—hence its ultimate location. Growth machine
interests took a hit both in the community under consideration and in the public
image in the broader geographic area. In Event #3, Local Government
Consolidation, the area perhaps most closely allied to the growth machine
hypothesis, the growth interests are not evident in the top five. In fact, all five
are government officials. Our secondary data also reveal that in a local public
issue forum on this issue, those on the nominal leaders list were observed
speaking to widely differing sides of the issue. Most telling is the fact that a
214 Journal of the Community Development Society

Table 4. Event Analysis Power Structure(s)

Event #1 Event #2 Event #3

Nominal Zoning Public New School Local Cov 't
Structure Lands Buildings Consolidation
# Rank # Rank # Rank
1-University President 10 8 6
2-Developer 73 1 3 9
3-Businessperson 1? 3 8
4-Mayor 43 6 7 49 1\2
5-State Senator 12 3 22 5
6-University Official 1 5 1
7-School S u p e r i n t e n d e n t 30 168 1 2
8-University Official 2 1 0
9-Newspaper Editor 12 24 4/5 20
10-Borough Council 45 5 9 27 4
1 1-Borough M a n a g e r 58 2 2 44 3
12-Busincssperson 24 2 3
13-Borough Council 52 3 2 49 1/2
14-School Board 14 85 2 3
15-School Board 6 71 3 1
16-President, Local Comm. 46 4 1 8
17-Businessperson 14 15 4
18-Developer 23 4 6
19-Developer 17 2 2
20-Architect 7 8 19
21 -Police Chief 6 1 5
22-lnd. Dev. Council 3 0 1 1
23-Lawyer 6 1 3
Names added to the list by the event analysis.
School Board 9 24 4/5 1
School Board 0 16 0
Developer 10 2 3
Professor 0 0 9
Professor 1 0 7
Researcher 0 0 6
Citizen 0 6 0
School Board 1 5 0
Farm Owner 3 0 4
Citizen's Group 0 4 0
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 215
1995 local government referendum specifically on consolidation, which was
initiated and supported strongly by the Chamber of Business and Industry and
supported by growth machine interests, was defeated three to one.
These findings suggest a system of dispersed inequalities, with different
people having influence in different key events in the same community. While
each area may be stratified so that some individuals have more influence than
others, these inequalities are dispersed across many different decision areas.
From this perspective we would conclude that the community has a pluralist
structure, a conclusion that is quite at odds with the preliminary conclusion
drawn above from the nominal, positional, and comparative reputational
analyses. So where does this leave us—at the beginning with a debate over
whether the structure of influence is elitist or pluralist? Not necessarily. The
next section begins to bring it all together.

Comparing Community Power Methodologies

Our findings could easily be interpreted from a purely elitist, pluralist, or

growth machine perspective. An elitist interpretation might suggest that a
relatively small number of individuals appear to have a consistently high level
of influence in community decisions. On the one hand, one or more of this elite
group appear in each of the event analyses. This interpretation would coincide
with Mills' concept of a power elite:

"They are all that we are not." . . . The power elite is composed of
men [sic] whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary
environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to
make decisions having major consequences (Mills, 1956, p. 3).

Similarly, Hunter's discussion of power brokers states that the "difference

between leaders and other men [sic] lies in that fact that social groupings have
apparently given definite social functions over to certain persons and not to
others" (Hunter, 1953, p. 2). Lasswell and Lerner also suggest that communities
are governed by a relatively small number of people: "Government is always
government by the few, whether in the name of the few, the one or the many"
(Lasswell & Lerner, 1952, p. 7).
On the other hand, a pluralist interpretation might point out that even
though we can identify 23 people who most agree have considerable influence
in the community, there is no evidence that they are they are working toward
the same outcomes. These "leaders" have different constituencies—that is,
they are responsive to group activity within the community, and no single group
dominates the policy arena (Waste, 1986, p. 121). A pluralist power structure,
as identified by Waste (1986, pp. 117-137), can be conceptualized as a continuum
216 Journal of the Community Development Society
based on whether the political system is broadly inclusive of individuals and
groups in the community or narrowly inclusive in the policy-making process.
The focus is on the number of mobilized individuals and groups that interact in
the formation of specific policies in the community. Classical pluralism is
fully inclusive as reflected in the "open give and take" version identified above.
"All or most community members are represented in the policy process either
directly or indirectly" (Waste, p. 121). Hyperpluralism is government
immobilized by multiple, strong, and conflicting interest groups: "it is so
decentralized and pluralistic that it has trouble getting anything done. . . . Too
many groups, each refusing to take 'no' for an answer, are at the root of
hyperpluralism" (Waste, p. 123, quoting Lineberry). Stratified pluralism occurs
when two strata emerge: one strata is active, mobilized, organized, and
influential; and the other strata (generally the mass of citizens) is inactive and
difficult to mobilize. Competition, conflict, and compromise occur between
different interests in the active strata—the polity is pluralistic for them (although
it may appear to be a series of competing elites to outsiders). Privatized
pluralism borders on elitism: "in many policy arenas, a limited number of
participants have usurped the authority and resources of public policymaking
for private ends" (Waste, p. 125). All or a few arenas of policymaking may be
privatized. This would be the case, for example, if business groups dominate
certain arenas of commerce policy and agricultural interests dominate farm
policy to the exclusion of other interests having an ability to affect the policy
outcome.
The event analysis above suggests that some variant of pluralism is
operating in this community, most likely either the classical or stratified version.
Similar to Long s (1958) "ecology ofgames, " no one set or coalition of interests
dominates all three areas. Further research could show whether the structures
for each area are open to broad community access or stratified. It could also
show whether the decision areas are privatized, dominated by the interests they
address, or not. Additional inquiry also could show whether there is conflict
between different decision areas or if local politics is sectorialized. Finally,
research is needed to identify whether there is any solidarity and commonality
of positions among the backgrounds, social participation patterns, and positions
on key issues of the 23 people identified by the nominal and reputational methods
that support elitist or pluralist conclusions.
The study also suggests that a growth machine can exist in both elitist
and pluralist structures. The elitist version is straightforward: major sectors
with an interest in maximizing profits from land and development form a growth
coalition and capture local officials or are able to wield their will over local
decision making (Domhoff, 1986; Molotch, 1976; Molotch & Logan, 1984).
As we see it, a pluralist version could emerge either from stratified or privatized
pluralism: the growth machine exerts influence that pushes policy in the direction
of growth to benefit its members, and other interests such as the "neighborhoods"
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 217

are mobilized and can exert influence when growth machine efforts tread on
their turf. From this perspective, the growth machine is a specific manifestation
of how specific interests are arrayed in specific situations. It follows that we
might find some communities to be dominated by other coalitions of interests—
the "historic preservation machine," or the "tourism machine," or the "farm
machine," or the "powdered metals machine," or the "sports machine," or the
"sustainable community machine," and so on. The pervasiveness of growth
machine interests in many contemporary communities, however, makes this a
particularly salient alliance today.

DISCUSSION

What Have We Learned?

This study has demonstrated that characterizing a community power

structure as either elitist or pluralist may be more a matter of semantics or
perception than actual relationships in the community. On the one hand, we
find agreement that relatively few people are considered to have greater influence
in local affairs than average citizens—they are a nominal and reputational elite.
On the other hand, we also find that different individuals, many of them in the
former group, tend to have influence over different issue areas—decision making
appears to be pluralist across issues. Thus, the call could go either way depending
on the theoretical perspective through which we view the data or the label we
attach to our explanation. While classic community power studies tended to
clearly identify elitist or pluralist structures in communities, other recent studies
have suggested that power and influence may vary not only across communities
but also across issue areas within communities and perhaps even at different
levels within issue areas (Gould, 1989; Keating, 1993; Schumaker, 1993). The
relationships exist; what they are called may vary according to the observer.
Our results could be interpreted as evidence of a local "growth machine"
but they clearly do not support the notion of an elite-dominated growth machine.
Potential growth machine adherents are viewed as influential by the reputational
method, but when triangulated with the other methods they are not seen as
having the characteristics of a "power elite." The issue areas (event analysis)
are the key. All three issue areas are ones in which growth machine members
would take an interest—zoning of public areas, building of new school buildings,
and consolidation of local governments. In all three events, the growth machine
perspective was not supported in this community (although it could be argued
that the outcome of the school building issue supported the growth machine in
the broader multi-municipality region).
The application of the growth machine hypothesis here suggests that the
structure is neither elitist in the sense of a "power elite" where a few control all
218 Journal of the Community Development Society
issue areas, nor in the sense that the growth machine can win on issues that do
not reflect their direct interests. Growth machine proponents may have an
advantage over the average citizen to the extent that the former have ongoing
"careers" that depend on pursuing growth, which also require their involvement
in local public affairs—land use, infrastructure development, local services,
etc. At the same time, our findings suggest that if citizens (the "neighborhoods"
and open space interests) are willing to maintain some continuity and even to
"infiltrate" local government, boards and commissions, there can be very pluralist
outcomes.
We recognize that this particular community has undergone continuous
growth for many years and will most likely continue to do so. Anti-growth
groups are more opposed to development projects that directly threaten their
neighborhoods, farms and forests. Local groups have thwarted some major
development projects over the years, and they have led to others being redirected
or scaled down. The community studied appears to have what might be
considered a pluralistic growth machine, or what might be called a "permeable
elite" on development issues. A "permeable elite" growth machine would be a
coherent constellation of interests (an elite) that does not always, or is not always
able to, act in the interests of its members; it is thus permeable to the extent that
it can be penetrated by community interests that are not members of the elite to
act in the interests of the latter. It would thus be considered either responsive to
non-elite interests or powerless in the face of community opposition—its power
is not strong enough to enable it to resist non-elite interests should it desire to
do so. In either case, there would be access to power by both elite and non-
elites and decision making could be responsive to both.
Our discussion suggests a more unified, multi-dimensional view of
community power structures. First, elitism and pluralism should not be
necessarily conceptualized as opposite ends of a single continuum. Rather, we
see them as two separate continua for which the ends appear similar in structure
and outcome, that is, highly segmented forms of pluralism resemble more
permeable elitist structures. We would consider the extreme of stratified
pluralism—where the leadership of the main strata act in concert— to be a
ruling class or power elite. The same would be true with privatized pluralism if
the different interests act in concert. The key, in our view, is the extent to which
those who are influential in specific areas act in concert with influentials in
other areas. This interpretation is consistent with recent works by Keating (1993),
Schumaker (1993) and Gould (1989). Second, the interactionst perspective
(Hyman, McKnight, & Higdon, 2001; Wilkinson, 1991) does not view modern
communities as hierarchical entities with a single "head," but rather as a dynamic
constellation of interacting jurisdictions and centers of authority. Thus, we
should not look for the power structure, but the constellation of power structures.
That is, if the local scene exhibits considerable disagreement and conflict between
different sectors or issue areas, and policy outcomes tend to be reflective of the
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin
METHOD
POSITIONAL
Basic assumption is that
those in official positions
have predominant
influence.
REPUTATIONAL
Basic assumption is that
people throughout the
community are aware of
who has power.
EVENT/DECISION
ANALYSIS
Basic assumption is that
different people are
influential in different
decision areas.
GROWTH MACHINE
Basic assumption is that
landed interests—owners,
developers, real estate and
banking interests control
local decision making.
Chart 1. Assumptions of Power Structures and Methods
Structure of'Influence in Community Decision Making
ELITIST
Elitist-Positional: A
small, close-knit group of
officials has power, and
they agree on major issues
and hang together against
opposition.
Elitist-Reputational:
People perceive that a
small number of
individuals wield
influence over all areas of
community decision
making, and this group
makes decisions in its own
interest.
Elitist-Event/Decision
Analysis: A small, close-
knit group of individuals
dominate all major areas
of public decision making,
and they agree on major
issues and hang together
against opposition.
Elitist-Growth Machine:
A small close-knit group
of landowners, developers,
real estate and banking
interests are influential in
all major issue areas, and
they agree on major issues
and hang together against
opposition.
219
PLURALIST
Pluralist-Positional: A
number of different
officials wield power, and
they disagree on a
number of major issues
and have different bases
of support and opposition
in the community.
Pluralist-Reputational:
People perceive that
many different
individuals are involved
in decision making, and
that only a few are
involved in more than one
area of community
decision making.
Pluralist-Event/Decision
Analysis: Different sets
of individuals are
influential in different
areas of public decision
making with little overlap
in membership, and they
either tend to restrict their
activities to their specialty
area and/or disagree on a
number of major issues
and/or have different
bases of support and
opposition in the
community.
Pluralist-Growth
Machine: Landowners,
developers, real estate
and banking interests
have an interest in and
promote local economic
growth; they tend to
permeate the growth-
related areas but not all
major areas of local
decision making, and they
are restrained by other
interests and can be
defeated on many issues
by organized groups of
citizens.
220 Journal of the Community Development Society
"give and take, " "pushing and shoving," among the sectors, then the overall
system is relatively pluralistic. If the local scene is characterized by concert
and coalition among the individuals and groups that are active in different sectors
or issue areas, and policy outcomes are dictated by them, then the broader system
is relatively elitist. At the same time, decision making in any of the sectors or
issue areas may be pluralist or elitist irrespective of the overall pattern.
Third, the different methods carry with them assumptions that may have
implications for the types of structures one finds there. The positional method
assumes that those in official positions in government and/or major corporations/
organizations have power. The reputational method assumes that people
throughout the community are aware of who has power and will name them
when asked. The event analysis or decision making method assumes that those
that are visibly involved (even covertly) in deciding various issue have a
dominating influence. The growth machine hypothesis assumes that landed
interests—owners, developers, real estate, banking interests, etc.—control local
decision making. Chart 1 summarizes the types of power structures that one
would find from the perspectives of the different methods. (We recognize that
these are summarizations and do not account for the complexities and subtleties
in the literature.) The implications are that one should be not only multi-
disciplinary and open to both elitist and pluralist perspectives, but also multi-
method in approaching the study of power in modern communities.

Suggestions for Community Power Research

There is a continued need to reconceptualize community power structures

and improve our ability to measure their characteristics and extent. We need to
seek information on the public policy perspectives of the leadership, to identify
how leaders' perspectives compare to others in the broader community, and
then to track their behavior in a wider range of events. First, we could seek to
identify the extent to which the identified leaders agree and coalesce or disagree
and conflict on a wide variety of issues. If they share a common worldview (or
perspective on policies), and this worldview differs from other major individuals
or strata in the community, and they act in concert to control significant portions
of the public arena—then we have a power elite. If they have different
perspectives on what is "good" for the community and differ in the public
arena—then we have some form of broad pluralist structure. Second, we could
identify a number of additional areas for event analysis and identify whether
individuals, especially those in the top ranks, converge or not across issues, and
which ones. Third, we could focus specifically on the growth machine interests
to see if they all hang together on land and development-related issues or if
disagreement exists. Fourth, we could examine whether anti-growth machine
interests have influenced existing community power structures to thwart growth
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 221

machine development projects. In fact, there are numerous episodes in local

communities where citizens' groups successfully oppose major land
development projects. Identifying how and why decision makers aligned
themselves on these episodes could shed more light on the permeability of
local power structures. We also need to examine other communities from a
multi-method perspective. Some may be very elitist and have a tight structure
of domination by a few individuals or organizations. Others may be amorphous,
exhibiting little coherence and structure of influence. Still others may be
bifurcated into major camps. Increasing interest in grassroots organizing and
attention to the power of global economic actors bring these community power
issues to the forefront.

Suggestions for Community Developers

A simple lesson from the study is that community developers need to

gain an in-depth understanding of who makes decisions in their particular issue
area. They also need to carefully delineate the "focal system" responsible for
the decision (Hyman, McKnight, & Higdon, 2001, p. 40). Those with power
in a municipality, neighborhood, policy sector, or organization may not have
effective power in others in the same community. In some cases, a "quick and
dirty" reputational study can get pretty close to a good list of those who are
perceived as being influential. However, we have demonstrated that a traditional
reputational study may not accurately identify those with influence in different
issue areas. It would be wise to use several of the methods described herein and
to diversify your sources of information and avoid premature closure on one
source. Recall that the different sample groups in the same community perceived
power differently. Our suggestion is to gather preliminary nominations from
the different types of groups and then ask those who come out at the top to rank
the list. This process need not be systematic and may be done casually as in
asking people at the top of your list how they view person A, person B, person
C, and so on. Then, closer examination of who is actively influential in specific
issue areas or policy sectors will yield a more effective picture of who actually
decides in each arena.
Developing a better understanding of community power, in particular
who is most likely to make key decisions, predicates taking action within that
power structure. Gaining influence within a given power structure requires
persistence and permanence. It makes sense to maintain focus on your long-
term goals. Organize, stay active, and form coalitions. Be aware that other
groups can organize and oppose your viewpoints. More important, it is crucial
to seek out long-term, permanent solutions to community problems. In one
instance with which we are familiar, citizen groups defeated a proposal to replace
open space with a large shopping center because their leadership knew who to
222 Journal of the Community Development Society
contact and how to influence them. They therefore expected to see single-
family homes built there. What they got some years later was a smaller shopping
center, tall apartment buildings and condos, and some single-family homes.
Here a neighborhood group successfully identified and influenced the
community power structure. They then lost coherence and interest. The
developers maintained their focus, waited a few years until the opposition died
down, and tried again.
As the previous example illustrates, economic development groups often
have the time and resources required to effectively influence local decision
making. Economic developers should still consider using more open, democratic
approaches that incorporate citizens' concerns into development plans—
especially in circumstances where a development group can anticipate
considerable community opposition. For example, in the community under
study, a developer recently planned to locate a major access road through a
pocket neighborhood. He unilaterally proposed his "solution" which, when
discovered, was strongly opposed by residents who saw their quiet village being
split asunder by a crosstown throughway. During protest meetings on a rezoning
proposal, the citizens' group came up with an alternative proposal that maintained
the pocket neighborhood (limited access points) and provided a loop connection
for the development and a hike-and-bike-path for the overall community. They
were able to gain effective access to officials and convinced them to support
this latter approach. The result was a win-win situation that could have been
worked out sooner by recognizing the interests of community and neighborhood
people early in the process. In this case, it would have saved the developer time
and resources by having a better understanding of community power and who
would be involved in land use decision making before moving ahead.
We have presented a vision of community power as a dynamic and shifting
constellation of influence within a single community. Even if there is a broad
structure of influence in a community, it may not apply in some situations. As
evidenced in our event analysis, most of the influentials identified community-
wide are probably not active and most likely not effective in most of the sub-
areas of decision making. Successfully navigating your community power
structure is only possible once you have throughly understood the event in
which you are involved. Powerful interests in the community may be relatively
weak (or uninterested) in some specific areas—an elitist structure may well be
highly permeable, or they may be successfully opposed by finding ways to
influence the formal decision makers.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS: A UNIFIED PERSPECTIVE?

The "bottom line" is not whether the power structures of contemporary

American communities are elitist or pluralist. Students of community power
 Hyman, Higdon, and Martin 223

should be finding out which aspects of community are pluralist, which aspects
are elitist, to what degree, in what circumstances, and on which issues. It is also
critical to carefully consider which method or combination of methods is to be
used to identify the influential individuals and groups. We would call this the
"kaleidoscopic community." Specific decision areas each present their own
array of interests which may shift and change as events unfold. Pluralistic
politics may appear elitist on the surface. Elitist power structures may be
permeable or have elements that are pluralistically competitive.
Kaleidoscopic community power structures are analogous to polycentric
community systems described by Polyani (1951) as a set of interacting games,
each being played out in its own event arena, but where a move in one may
have implications for others. Similarly, Long's (1958) "ecology of games" and
Wilkinson's (1991) interactional perspective views communities as dynamic
fields comprised of networks of networks, constantly shifting in response to
internal and external forces. Hyman, McKnight, and Higdon (2001) characterize
this phenomenon as "the kaleidoscopic community": shifting games, a
multiplicity of interactions, and many actors, each possessing a degree of
autonomy and discretion for action. To the extent that the different games , or
interactions, are not all dominated by a small set of players and the smaller
players can mobilize to counter offensive moves by larger players—the system
is pluralist. The reverse yields an elitist system. It may also be the case that
elitist power groups can be neutral or ineffective in certain community arenas.
Growth machine elites may not have a significant interest in policies dealing
with historic preservation, health care, education, bike and hike trails, human
services, spouse abuse, the homeless, and so on, as long as these issues do not
thwart plans for overall growth and development. Individuals and groups can
successfully navigate community power structures by better understanding how
a shifting constellation of community power is tied to the specific events,
decisions and development outcomes facing every community.

NOTES
1. As noted earlier, we recognize that this method is one variation of the reputational
method, and use the term "nominal" to distinguish this approach from the one we label
"reputational."
2. We attribute a low response rate to non-response by university students with permanent
homes in other communities. Anticipating this, and since the firm providing the sample could not
exclude students, we started with a list of 1,000, hoping to get about 250-300 responses from
citizens who considered themselves to be residents of the community. Since about half of the 1,000
questionnaires were returned as undelivcrable with no forwarding address, we assume they were
students. The demographics mentioned suggest that this is the case.
3. We were also alert to the possibility that some of the new names could be "covert
leaders," that is, known to insiders but not highly visible in the community. We compared the
average ranking for only those respondents whose names were added to the lists. Even there, none
were ranked into the group already on the list.
4. Rather than reporting the raw scores or means here, we present the rankings derived
from them as a more straightforward way to present the findings. We examined several options for
224 Journal of the Community Development Society

ranking, including comparing the mean scores, which in effect control for visibility, to the raw
scores; and we created raw scores weighted by number of times the individual was ranked in the
sample to also deal with the familiarity/visibility issue. There are only minor differences in
rankings among the options.

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