In the Footsteps of Community Power

Bibliographic Data

ID3376563
AuthorsLawrence J R Herson (The Ohio State University, corresponding author)
Year1961
Volume55
Issue4
Pages817-830
Publication date1961-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1952529
OpenAlexW4239319176
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited56

In an exchange of perennial delight to the Holmesian, the pauky Sherlock, pitting wits against a government detective, condescends to remark on the unusualness of the usual:"Is there any point to which you would draw my attention?""To the curious incident of the dog in the night time.""The dog did nothing in the night time.""That was the curious incident."And in asymptotic fashion, the student of politics, intrigued by the burgeoning literature of community power now emerging from the hands of sociologists, searches for the contributions that these writings can make to the study of local government. The political scientist readily discovers that this literature is approaching metaphorical indeterminacy: like an expanding universe, it threatens to outrun his gaze. It contains the substance of competing conceptual schemes, the power elitevs.the pluralism of power. It offers comparative studies, both domestic and cross-cultural, and studies built upon historical dimensions. It even possesses studies designed to torture original hypotheses by invoking the test of predictability. And yet, in reviewing this freshet of publication, the political scientist finds himself asking whether there is, for his discipline, anything unusual in this outpouring.As he reads, he finds underscored and "discovered" many of the propositions that are stock to his own lumber room: he learns that there is often discontinuity between the real and the nominal holders of political power; and that social values can affect the utilization of that power

Aesthetics · Art · Economics · Elite · Epistemology · Indeterminacy (philosophy · Law and economics · Nothing · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Power (physics · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Political and Economic history of UK and US