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The label "community power" is often attached to empirical research which has been largely an American affair, spread between sociology and political science. Australian and British urban and rural sociologies, however, have a lot to offer. Much of the theoretical debate has been stimulated by problems of empirical application, thereby intertwining the theoretical and empirical literatures. This Chapter scans the relevant literature in search of concepts which might facilitate a review of Australian studies, before conducting such a review.

The American Community Power Literature

It is unfortunate that "community power" has been virtually synonymous with a persistent and unresolved debate carried on within the United States, because that debate has had a very narrow, and peculiarly American, focus. One side (pluralists) has sought to show that United States cities are governed by many; the other side (elitists) has sought to show that they are governed by few. As the latter conclusion is at least potentially disturbing for those who hold to democratic ideals, the debate has raged with feeling, attracting much research energy. Saunders (1979: 138) estimated that about 500 empirical studies had been carried out, despite problems which Bell and Newby (1971: 218) suggested were showing the debate to be "confused and rather silly". The debate still goes on (Waste, 1986a), although the two sides are now drawing similar conclusions. Neither side suggests that power is evenly distributed amongst all people subject to government. But, unlike the elitists, the pluralists assume that all those who seek to

influence the course of decision making have access to the political process through an organisation which represents their interests.

The principal feature that the protagonists share is that neither is as concerned to explain how its observed power structures came about, as it is to justify its assumptions. This aspect of the pluralist endeavour may be more understandable, because the tug of war notion implies a dynamic of its own. On the other side, the elitists have missed opportunities to extend and support their model by examining the processes which created elite structures. That elitism in itself describes a power structure without explaining it is a common and valid criticism (Parkin, 1985), but some of the elitist literature has suggested processes through which elites come into being and are maintained.

The elitists have sought to show that certain interest groups dominate urban government, and along the way have found that those interests are associated with property, in particular land and its development (Dye, 1986; Molotch, 1976; Domhoff, 1983, 1986). There are functionalist overtones in some of these interpretations, in so far as they attribute the existence of political elites to the needs of economic interest groups which they serve. It could be inferred that elitism would lend itself to a class analysis which may help find a way around the implied teleology. However, some of those of the elitist persuasion have sought to discount such an approach Domhoff (1983). Manley (1983: 368) observed that while elitism was second to pluralism in the popularity stakes, class analysis was "not accepted at all".

The elitist literature certainly holds more promise for explanation of power relations in terms of social antecedents than does pluralism, simply because the pluralists are firmly footed in political science where the elitists are more sociological. This feature of the debate was recognised by Anton (1963), but its implications went unheeded under a cloud of misapprehension about the significance of the methods used by the early researchers on each side. The important feature of their respective methodologies is the pursuit of explanation by both sides in terms of individuals. On a scale of determinism, elitism would rank a fraction higher, because it assumes a binding system within which actors participate. The early pluralists assumed that individual behaviour

was randomly determined, allowing no room for structural constraint (Anton, 1963).

The methodological debate has, however, had a useful extension, after the 'neo-elitists' used analysis of decisions and 'non-decisions’ to arrive at elitist conclusions. Despite casting off the reputational method, neo-elitism was attacked by the pluralists on methodological grounds. This will be analysed below, for the debate does provide some useful concepts. However, it does not in itself take us to the goals of analysis of social process. The conclusion of Fasenfest (1986:

104) that "what is needed is a process-oriented model of community power which also takes into account structural elements of a society-oriented view of community decision making" is apposite.

The British Contribution

The British have been more interested in analysing the effects of power than discovering the identities of those who wield it (Newton 1975). British sociologists have claimed that the strength of local government in local polities renders the American question of who governs, inappropriate. From the perspective of community studies, Bell and Newby (1971) observed that power was assumed to cleave along class lines, and hence little would be gained from its study, given the unitary nature of local government in comparison to that of the United States. One might wonder why the assumption that local government was the province of the ruling class was not questioned, and moreover, not explained. Indeed, when the assumption was set aside, such as occurred in the work of Bell et al (1976) and Newby et al (1978) and the factors which maintain the power of the powerful explored, some useful results were obtained.

Nevertheless, these two features of the British approach might have ruled out an equivalent to the elitist-pluralist feud, were Britons ever tempted to start one. There is little that one could readily identify as a British 'community power’ literature, but the Britons have done more than snipe at the Americans. The prominent feature of the British, and relevant European, literature has been application of social theory to urban problems. This has led urban sociology through a period of

'urban managerialism' (Pahl, 1975) in the 1960s, studying the impact of bureaucratisation under Weberian influences, into an inclination towards class analysis in the 1970s (Castells, 1977), under Marxist influence, and a swing back to Weber in the 1980s (Elliott and McCrone, 1982). 'Urban managerialism' and aspects of class analysis have been used in a number of local political studies. Together they raised a debate about the role of bureaucrats and bureaucratisation as a factor in power relations. This factor lacks independence in the elitist-pluralist debate, although the neo-elitists give bureaucracy a role in 'non-decision making’. (Bachrach and Baratz (1970) saw administrative interpretation as a barrier in the decision process.) The role of bureaucrats, while not prominent in the elitist-pluralist debate, has been considered in the American urban politics literature (by, for example, Mladenka, 1980).

This work is far from the community studies tradition, the structuralist class analysis being the farthest. The concepts to be developed below are, however, amenable to application of the community study method. They will be developed in a discussion about the problems likely to be encountered in the conduct of a 'community study' of power.

A Theoretical Analysis

Social theory offers a bundle of concepts which can be applied empirically to build an understanding of the processes of social relations of which the concept of power is an abstraction. A taxonomy of social power will be developed as a map might be drawn, using Lukes' (1974) three dimensional model as a grid and the conceptualised elements of power as the significant places on the map to be used as landmarks, suggesting avenues of exploration. This section discusses the "grid" which Lukes offers, before consideration of the concepts offered by recent literature.

The notion of power implies relationships among individuals and groups in which the behaviour of some has an impact on others over time. Explanation of those relationships seeks to answer the why and how questions. That is, why do some individuals or groups affect others, and how

does it come about that they are able to, and choose to act in a way that has such effect. Power, however, implies more than behavioural cause and effect in social relations. If one assumes that the powerful act rationally in pursuit of their own objective interests, and that not everybody's interests are the same, power may benefit the powerful at the expense of the powerless. This implies that the powerful may be identified as those who benefit from political relations. The neo-elitists adopted this approach to escape the constraint imposed by the necessity to focus on winners and losers in political conflict and allow them to look for winners and losers when there had been no overt conflict. The keystone of this approach to power, which is essentially that used by Lukes (1974), is that the actions of the powerful affect the powerless to the relative detriment of the latter.

The Lukes Scheme

Analysis of power will be framed by the conceptual scheme of Lukes (1974), using it as an heuristic device in the same way as it was used by Fasenfest (1986), Gaventa (1980), and Bryson and Wearing (1985) in their feminist review of Australian community studies. Lukes observed that empirical studies had three dimensions open to them for analysis of power. Those dimensions are related to levels of visibility of power relations. The study of power has moved from the first dimension toward the third, and as it has done so, levels of abstraction have risen and conceptual complexity has increased. Much of the theoretical work to be discussed attempts to obviate the problems encountered as the empirical study of power has moved toward the third dimension.

Lukes' dimensions describe the circumstances in which power can be identified. He defined the one dimensional concept of power as that in which power is only found in observable conflict and decision making. He traced this dimension through the tradition of pluralist studies which used outcomes of overt political conflict to find the loci of power. In Lukes' scheme, a second dimension is available to analysts of power when they consider that power may be exercised and identified when no overt conflict is apparent. This dimension brings non-decision making as

well as decision making into focus, but it retains an assumption that conflict must be present, either overt or covert, for power to be available and exercised. Lukes placed the work of Bachrach and Baratz (1970) as a stepping stone into the second dimension, finding them to have led the way beyond the first dimension, but like the pluralists, he found them to have been discouraged by problems related to empirical application. Bachrach and Baratz started from a criticism of the pluralist method, claiming that it "takes no account of the fact that power may be, and often is, exercised by confining the scope of decision making to relatively 'safe' issues" (1970: 6).

There are copious illustrations of these processes (as, for example, in Crenson, 1971), in which "the now familiar tactics of non-decision-making" (Dye, 1986: 42) maintain power relations. Saunders (1979: 29) suggested a three stage non-decision making filter, based on Bachrach and Baratz (1970). In the first stage, interests may be formulated into expressed problems, or not formulated under a mobilisation of bias. In the second stage issues may be articulated, or not articulated due to anticipated reactions. In the final stage issues may be resolved, or not resolved after negative decision making. Buller and Hoggart (1986) successfully used similar concepts of mobilisation of bias and anticipated reactions. Parenti (1970) made the useful point that anticipated reactions can be empirically detectable while politically invisible. Anticipated reactions are related to ideology and may be an aspect of mobilisation of bias.

There has been some debate about decisions and non-decisions and issues and non-issues, which may be significant at a theoretical level but appears semantic at an empirical level. As Polsby (1979) pointed out, non-decisions are really a type of decision and should be treated as such in political analysis. Wolfinger (1971) and Frey (1971) debated the problem of identifying and choosing non-issues, and concluded that the problem of non-issues was an extension of a perennial problem of issue selection.

Research which seeks the causal factors in power relations inevitably confronts a problem of conceptualisation of the mobilization of bias at the level of individual action when action may be unconscious or unintended (Debnam, 1975). Stone (1980: 979) also pointed out that the exercise

of power may be unintentional, noting that inherited wealth is a political asset gained more through good fortune than intended action. But inherited wealth is not power until it is implicated in a power relationship. The problem posed is one of separation of individual action and structural property and teasing out the roles of each in power relations. Lukes' second dimension brings the necessity of analysing the ideology of the powerful in order to specify the 'mobilisation of bias' as a causal factor in the exclusion of issues and non-decision making. As Saunders (1979) found empirically, ’mobilisation of bias’ may not be a necessary feature of agenda control by the powerful. The possibility should be considered, however, as Newton found when he observed that prejudice, bigotry and ignorance kept race out of politics in Birmingham (1976: 217).

Ideology of the superordinate has a potential role in the second dimension, but in the third, the focus moves toward the ideologies of the subordinate. The concept of ’mobilisation of bias’ introduced the possibility that a powerful group could influence or even determine the values of another, thereby eliminating the possibility of conflict, both covert and overt in a power relationship. Lukes found that Bachrach and Baratz, after introducing the "crucially important idea of the ’mobilisation of bias’ into the discussion of power" (1974: 17), failed to exploit it. For they believed that conflict must be present for power relations to be empirically analysed (Lukes, 1974: 19), and so did not step into Lukes' third dimension, which their concept of ’mobilisation of bias' may have allowed them to do. The relation between 'mobilisation of bias’ and non-decision making was left unclear because 'mobilisation of bias' is logically prior to non-decision making (as placed in Saunders' (1979) model) which seeks to preserve it (Falkemark, 1982: 47). Lukes' separation of a third dimension clarifies the distinction. The concept of 'mobilisation of bias' moves the focus of power research further into the realm of the process of social construction of knowledge, ideas and values, rather than leaving it at analysis of their role in power relations. The concept of power in the third dimension is close to the Gramscian concept of hegemony, variants of which have been used, for example, by Connell (1977) among many others.1

study of knowledge, meaning and ideology. Lukes, however, does not arrive at a conceptual framework for the study of the social context. As Hindess noted, power is left as a relationship between actors. As such the study of power is of little value, because without elaboration of the "social conditions of existence of power . . . empirical investigations of the distribution of power must be of little value." Lukes has given no guidance towards identification of the social conditions antecedent to the power relationship, and there can be no way of knowing whether or not the power relationship will persist (Hindess, 1976: 331-2). The literature is replete with appeals for the study of power to explore the social conditions antecedent to power, such as contained in Abell (1982: 141).

The elitists (like Dye, 1986 and Domhoff, 1986) and pluralists (including Dahl, 1986) both display an interest in ideology, which must be explored among the subordinate to move analysis of power into the third dimension. The elitists, however, anticipate how it works and what its effects will be. That elitism is not inevitable as elitists assume it to be is a common criticism (Parkin, 1985). They leave explanation inadequate, in terms of the elite's wishes to justify their policies which promote growth. The pluralists find the problems of studying ideology to be "enormously difficult" (Dahl, 1986: 192). Others have avoided these problems in their analysis of the role of ideology. For example, Gaventa (1980: 15) looked at the way "myths, language and symbols are shaped or manipulated in power processes" and went on to examine the power processes in which possible actions are seen to be inappropriate or unwise, are misdirected or are not perceived at all. Rose (1988) focused on local cultural attributes, including neighbourliness. Molotch stepped in this direction, or at least opened the door for the elitists, when he proposed that land-based interests stimulate and use concern for land values. This happens with " . . . the emergence of concern for an aggregate of parcels: one sees that one's future is bound to the future of the larger area, that the future enjoyment of financial benefit flowing from the general future of the proximate aggregate of parcels. When this occurs, there is that 'we feeling' which bespeaks of community" (Molotch, 1976: 311). That "we feeling" will be explored in the review of Australian studies, after concepts are developed as landmarks to guide exploration of them. The concepts emanate from six themes, being action and determination, structural resources, interests, resistance, arenas, and issues and outcomes.

Action and Determination

The lack of conceptual tools to bridge agency and structure is illustrated in the work of elitists who, in seeking causal models, acknowledged structure but analysed individuals. The poverty of the elitist approach is best illustrated when one considers the possibility that an elite need not be an identifiable group of individuals as it "disappears behind a veil of ideas that seem to come from the society as a whole, and seem to represent a consensus" (Connell and Irving, 1985: 349). This goes further than Saunders (1979: 324) finding that business and local politicians acted in a partnership in which plans and ideas moved "like osmosis". They may not have been conscious of their own level of organisation. Moreover, the elite may be created by forces over which its members have little control (Lukes, 1986: 13; Stone, 1980: 979).

Empirical exploration of the second and third dimensions of power confronts identification of structural determinants in the behaviour of individuals. Matters relating to the problem have been raised many times, such as in Barbalet (1985, 1987), Gaventa (1980), Giddens (1979), Hindess (1976) and Saunders (1979). There is no ready solution.2 The search for cause inevitably leads back to the individual level. There is nothing to gain from substituting a purely structural explanation for an individualistic one when we need to account for both structure and agency. Means to separate power from individuals are, however, still required. If power can be exercised without conscious intention of agents, the focus of analysis moves away from intentions and actions to enablement of actions.