De verdeling van invloedskanalen bij collectieve acties vanuit plaatselijk niveau. Een onderzoek naar "lokale macht" in twee Nederlandse gemeenten

Samenvatting

Research on political influence originating at the local level and directed toward the nonlocal government has been carried out in two Dutch communities of about 5,000 inhabitants. Influence as a potential cannot be measured directly; inferences about it must come from observable entities. It is tentatively proposed to derive potential influence from the amounts of actual influence, and from the situational variables responsible for the release of these amounts. The present analysis attempted to compare actual influences under standardized measurement conditions. For the sake of conceptual purity, only the channels of influence or, operationally, the participants in the process of decision-making, were taken into consideration. A comparison-population has been delineated for each particular problem and consists of units with about equal economic or with equal political interests. 6 problems were selected. They all had given rise to a kind of collective action, directed toward the nonlocal governments. Within the comparison-populations the basic elements dealt with are social units, not persons. 3 main variables were chosen: size of firms, character of organization (business vs political) and type of role (eg, burgomaster vs alderman). The amount of external channels of influence in the selected situations: (1) increases sharply with the size of the firms, pointing to the important role of economic dominants, (2) is greater from business organizations than from political ones, (3) influence of members of political organizations increases sharply when their own economic interests are involved, and (4) is in some situations strongly associated with the role of the appointed burgomaster. Situations in other local communities are now being studied to test these conclusions. 9 tables. Modified AA