コミュニティ・パワー・ストラクチャ研究批判

Since Floyd Hunter undertook the research about community power structure in 1953, many sociologists and political scientists have renewed their interests on community study. A great number of empirical studies about community power structure (CPS) have been cumurated since then. Behind this rapid increase of CPS study since 1953, I find the great change made in community life and the policy-oriented response of social scientists toward the changing community and its policy made by local government.<BR>1) Some problems of CPS. <BR>Dealing with the problem of CPS, CPS students focused their view on community, especially political community. Their main interests was how to develop more effective research techniques to analyse the political community and political behaviour of local elites. The most important problem for them was to rebuild democracy in community with their policy-oriented ideology of community and technological theory of CPS. <BR>2) Some approaches to CPS. <BR>Three dominant approaches to CPS can be distinguised ; reputational, decisional and organizational ones. The first two approaches and the CPS models which they presented about the political community and political behaviour of local elites were often discussed in the dispute about CPS between “elitists” and “pluralists”. The fourth approach was presented in 1960' supported by the strong demand of “policy science” research in community study. It was experimental approach. Those approaches to CPS are characterized with much empiricism and subjective idealism.<BR>3) Some views on CPS <BR>All the views of CPS students except C.W. Mills didn't see the structural relationships between local and national society. They could not admit the decline of democracy. In addition, all the views of CPS students are characterized with elitism. They omitted the mass or ordinary citizens of community whose life structure made the basic ground of the power structure of community. <BR>In the future study about local politics my problem is how to grow democracy in the grass roots of our local politics. Dealing with this problem, I will take the view of non-elitism on local society which is structurally related with national politics and society. With this view to mass or citizens, I would like to develop the total approach to local politics which will enable to grasp the dynamic process of local politics as well as various problems of community life.