Power and Social Structure in Community Elites

Abstract

Although there has been considerable theoretical interest in the relationship between power and position in a social structure, few researchers have explored this issue empirically. This paper develops a quantitative measure of an individual's structural capacity for “brokerage” in a social network to test hypotheses about the effect of structural position on power in community elites. Data on two community elites are used to show that (1) position in a social network has an effect on perceived influence independent of other influence resources, and (2) power derived from structure and power derived from resources undermine rather than enhance each other. Moreover, this relationship between power and structural position is dependent on the degree of factionalization and opposition in the elite.