Community Power and Policy Outputs

Abstract

The concern with the effects of different types of community power structures has produced two prominent research and conceptualization strategies—the separability and community mobilization models. When both models are evaluated using the same methods and sample, their predictive validity is disappointing. Examination of the relationship of various policy outputs to different types of leadership arrangements suggests a more basic conceptualization, routine versus nonroutine outputs, may be more salient than previous classifications. Because the conceptualization was derived from permanent community sample (PCS) data, it is also evaluated using a different community data set. More empirical support is obtained from the routinization model than from the separability or mobilization models.