The Social Areas of Rome: A Comparative Analysis

dence supports the generalization that at least in some American communities, some individuals have more than a limited scope of influence. The differences between the findings of Wolfinger, Polsby, Dahl, and those reported here and elsewhere by Miller and others, may be a matter of methodology, or of the structural variables mentioned above or of the differences in the theoretical assumptions concerning the phenomenon of influence itself. The question seems to us to be not whether to abandon this technique in favor of some alternative (or to abandon the alternatives), but rather as Rossi suggests, to find out under what conditions each technique provides the most fruitful approach to the study of community decision-making, and eventually how to assimilate these techniques into a broader methodological scheme.35