Download or read book Community Leadership and Mass elite Relations written by Wei Shan and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of political leadership in the mechanisms that bind general masses and political elites behind a certain policy program? And what factors account for the changes in political leadership? The mechanisms connecting citizens and elites are crucial for regime stability. The malfunction of such mechanisms, for instance, the absence of citizen-elite agreement on policy issues, or low levels of public trust in elites, undermines political support and legitimacy of the existing regime. Focusing on rural communities in China, this dissertation attempts to examine how leader-follower relations in the grassroots communities influence mass-elite interactions, and how the community contextual factors shape those leader-follower relations. Existing studies tend to focus on the patron-client connections between peasant villagers and local officials, but largely to the neglect of other kinds of social relations. Based on fieldwork interviews and panel survey data from China, I show that informal social relations, like leadership, have a significant impact on mass-elite opinion connections and public trust in local elites. By leadership or leadership relations, I refer to the mutuality of leader-follower connection that is based on either authoritative or non-authoritative, but largely non-coercive influence by both sides. An element of non-authoritative quality that binds a group of people (i.e. followers) behind a leader is especially important. For this reason, leadership tends to be significant in a local community setting, such as in a village, that is thick with interpersonal relations. My study finds how formal elections and leadership relations in local communities co-determine the direction of opinion influence between the local elite and ordinary citizens, and how leadership facilitates citizens0́9 belief that their local leaders are trustworthy. Further, my analysis shows that as market activities and state control penetrate into village communities, leadership relations themselves undergo changes in that the contextual factors of the rural community have tremendous predictive power on human networks within the community. These changes imply that the political and economic reforms in the Chinese countryside have important consequences regarding local political leadership as well as mechanisms that bind masses and elites together.

Download or read book Who Rules America Now written by G. William Domhoff and published by Touchstone. This book was released on 1986 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author is convinced that there is a ruling class in America today. He examines the American power structure as it has developed in the 1980s. He presents systematic, empirical evidence that a fixed group of privileged people dominates the American economy and government. The book demonstrates that an upper class comprising only one-half of one percent of the population occupies key positions within the corporate community. It shows how leaders within this "power elite" reach government and dominate it through processes of special-interest lobbying, policy planning and candidate selection. It is written not to promote any political ideology, but to analyze our society with accuracy.

Download or read book The Community written by Eduard Lindeman and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book From the Ruling Class to the Power Elite written by Daniel Wolf and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bachelor Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Sociology - Politics, Majorities, Minorities, grade: 1,0, University of Tubingen (Institut für Soziologie), language: English, abstract: Does democracy really live up to this norm? Can in fact everyone belong to an elite? To answer this question the author would like to present and critically examine three elite theories that differ in content and time. He is not only concerned with access to the elites, i.e. how they recruit themselves, but in the overall context with how a group of influential and powerful people emerges and how they maintain themselves. His argument is that he believes that access to an elite can be understood much better by examining how they emerge and try to maintain their position in society. The question of social access to the elites, therefore, is always a question of how they emerged and how they are maintained. But the main focus will ultimately be on the question of the access of individuals to elites. In this work he will therefore identify the social factors that determine the emergence of, the access to and the maintenance of elites. Everyone has heard the term “elite” before. But very few know what it means or who exactly it refers to. Defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, the "elite" are "those people or organizations that are considered the best or most powerful compared to others of a similar type". But what makes them "the best" or "most powerful"and how do they get into this privileged position? In our democratic society, it is assumed that education, performance and success are decisive for advancing one to an elite position. Allegedly, anyone can ascend to a privileged elite position. Open access to the elites is one of the central norms of a representative democracy. The author will therefore start with a small historical and theoretical background to the term "elites"itself, since it is often unclear what is meant by elites. Indeed, the term can be used in different ways and with different meanings, as we will see. This is followed by Mosca’s classical elite theory. Unfortunately, due to the limited scope of the work, he has to cut back on the classics of elite theories. However, in terms of the content of Mosca’s theory to the other classics, such as Pareto and Michels, they hardly differ. ...

Download or read book Leadership in a Small Town written by Aaron B. Wildavsky and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the questions that might be asked about political life, it would be difficult to find one of greater interest than the ancient query: who rules over whom? It appeals powerfully to our curiosity. We want to know who "runs" things--who makes policy decisions in New York, Washington, London, or the town in which we live. Is it a single powerful individual, an economic elite, a series of elites, the citizens, political bosses, or some variant of these possibilities? The major purpose of this volume is to find an answer to this question for a small American city, and to extend the answer through relevant theory to American cities in general. But much more precisely, answers are sought for these interrelated questions: What are the relationships between the rulers and the ruled? How are the rulers related to each other? Are the rulers the same for all policies or do they differ from one area of policy to another? How do leaders arise, and in what way are they different from other people? The issues discussed in this volume are familiar to many towns. They range from controversies about the building of a new water system to housing and zoning codes, from charity appeals to low-income housing, from nominations and elections to industrial development and off-street parking. Wildavsky draws parallels to other community studies and formulates general propositions in support of his thesis that American communities are pluralist. And ultimately, Wildavsky is optimistic that small towns foster citizen participation, giving the population more of a chance to direct its own future. Aaron Wildavsky was, until his death in 1993, professor of political science and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and, while working on the present study, taught at Oberlin College. Transaction has posthumously published Wildavsky's complete essays and papers in five volumes. Nelson W. Polsby is Heller Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught American politics and government since 1967. He is editor of the" Annual Review of Political Science" and author of "Congress and the Presidency."

Download or read book THE POWER ELITE written by C.WRIGHT MILLS and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Mass and Elite in the Greek and Roman Worlds written by Richard Evans and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume has its origin in the 14th University of South Africa Classics Colloquium in which the topic and title of the event were inspired by Josiah Ober’s seminal work Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989). Indeed the influence this work has had on later research in all aspects of the Greek and Roman world is reflected by the diversity of the papers collected here, which take their cue and starting point from the argument that, in Ober’s words (1989, 338): ‘Rhetorical communication between masses and elites... was a primary means by which the strategic ends of social stability and political order were achieved.’ However, the contributors to the volume have also sought to build further on such conclusions and to offer new perceptions about a spread of issues affecting mass and elite interaction in a far wider number of locations around the ancient Mediterranean over a much longer chronological span. Thus the conclusions here suggest that once the concept of mass and elite was established in the minds of Greeks and later Romans it became a universal component of political life and from there was easily transferred to economic activity or religion. In casting the net beyond the confines of Athens (although the city is also represented here) to – amongst others – Syracuse, the cities of Asia Minor, Pompeii and Rome, and to literary and philosophical discourse, in each instance that interplay between the wider body of the community and the hierarchically privileged can be shown to have governed and directed the thoughts and actions of the participants.

Download or read book Community Power Structure written by Floyd Hunter and published by Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 1953 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study of busy, complex Regional City -- and it is a real city -- the author has analyzed the power structure from top to bottom. He has searched out the men of power and, under fictitious names, has described them as they initiate policies in their offices, their homes, their clubs. They form a small, stable group at the top of the social structure. Their decision-making activities are not known to the public, but they are responsible for whatever is done, or not done, in their community. Beneath this top policy group is a clearly marked social stratification, through which decisions sift down to the substructures chosen to put them into effect. The dynamic relations within the power structure are made clear in charts, but the real interest lies in the author's report of what people themselves say. The African American community is also studied, with its own power structure and its own complicated relations with the large community. The method of study is fully described in an Appendix. The book should be of particular value to sociologists, political scientists, city-planning executives, Community Council members, social workers, teachers, and research workers in related fields. As a vigorous and readable presentation of facts, it should appeal to the reader who would like to know how his/her own community is run. Community Power Structure is not an expose. It is a description and discussion of a social phenomenon as it occured. It is based on sound field research, including personal observation and interviews by the author.

Download or read book Leader Communities written by Mikael Holmqvist and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leader Communities is a study of Stockholm's suburb Djursholm and other similar places: privileged communities where elites choose to live, socialize with other elites, and raise their children into future elites. Mikael Holmqvist provides unparalleled insight into today's power elite and the social and political consequences of their aspirations.

Download or read book C R I S written by and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Elites in an Egalitarian Society written by Trygve Gulbrandsen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on two unique survey studies of elites in Norway, this book examines whether elite attitudes towards central national issues have changed in the wake of international and national events and developments since 2000. The chapters examine elite integration and relations between elites and citizens in Norway as a means to discuss the continued viability of the Nordic welfare state model. This insight into how elites relate to central issues in Norwegian society and how they look upon citizens’ political interest and competence in general, will be of interest to academics within sociology and political science, as well as journalists and commentators and policy makers.

Download or read book African American Leadership written by Ronald W. Walters and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1999-04-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by two of the nation’s preeminent scholars on the topic, this book provides a panoramic overview of black leadership in the United States.

Download or read book Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in Postcommunist Countries written by Valerie J. Bunce and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1998 to 2005, six elections took place in postcommunist Europe that had the surprising outcome of empowering the opposition and defeating authoritarian incumbents or their designated successors. Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik compare these unexpected electoral breakthroughs. They draw three conclusions. First, the opposition was victorious because of the hard and creative work of a transnational network composed of local opposition and civil society groups, members of the international democracy assistance community and graduates of successful electoral challenges to authoritarian rule in other countries. Second, the remarkable run of these upset elections reflected the ability of this network to diffuse an ensemble of innovative electoral strategies across state boundaries. Finally, elections can serve as a powerful mechanism for democratic change. This is especially the case when civil society is strong, the transfer of political power is through constitutional means, and opposition leaders win with small mandates.

Download or read book Chicano Elites and Non elites written by Roberto E. Villarreal and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Democracy and Knowledge written by Josiah Ober and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When does democracy work well, and why? Is democracy the best form of government? These questions are of supreme importance today as the United States seeks to promote its democratic values abroad. Democracy and Knowledge is the first book to look to ancient Athens to explain how and why directly democratic government by the people produces wealth, power, and security. Combining a history of Athens with contemporary theories of collective action and rational choice developed by economists and political scientists, Josiah Ober examines Athenian democracy's unique contribution to the ancient Greek city-state's remarkable success, and demonstrates the valuable lessons Athenian political practices hold for us today. He argues that the key to Athens's success lay in how the city-state managed and organized the aggregation and distribution of knowledge among its citizens. Ober explores the institutional contexts of democratic knowledge management, including the use of social networks for collecting information, publicity for building common knowledge, and open access for lowering transaction costs. He explains why a government's attempt to dam the flow of information makes democracy stumble. Democratic participation and deliberation consume state resources and social energy. Yet as Ober shows, the benefits of a well-designed democracy far outweigh its costs. Understanding how democracy can lead to prosperity and security is among the most pressing political challenges of modern times. Democracy and Knowledge reveals how ancient Greek politics can help us transcend the democratic dilemmas that confront the world today.

Download or read book Problems of Elite Cohesion written by Ismail Kassim and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Political Elites written by Geraint Parry and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political Elites, first published in 1969, reviews the literature on the role of elites in politics. It deals with both the 'classic' elite theorists -- Mosca, Pareto, Michels, Burnham and C. Wright Mills -- and with many of the empirical and theoretical works on elites by modern political scientists and sociologists. It seeks to clarify the central terms of elite discourse, some of which have entered the everyday political vocabulary -- 'elitism', 'power elite', 'establishment', 'elite consensus', 'iron law of oligarchy' and 'mass'. It explores the ways in which the descriptions of power relationships can subtly be infiltrated by the values of the observers.