Three Problems in The Analysis of Community Power

Three problems in community analysis are addressed on the basis of research done in New Haven, Connecticut. The panel technique for identifying leaders is criticized, and a two-step process is substituted, in which extensive leadership pools are constructed and then pared down by studying issues and activities within specific policy areas. The power structure concept is reformulated so as to account for the incidence of specialized, non-repetitive leaders in community affairs. It was discovered that economic, status, and elites in New Haven overlap very slightly, although economic and status leaders were not wholly excluded from decision-making in the three areas studied. It is concluded that differences in theory and research procedure, not peculiarities in New Haven's social structure, seem likely to account for the wide divergence of these findings from those of other community studies.