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The paper presents an integrative analysis of voluntary associational leadership and reputational influence. It is noted that the degree to which leadership in voluntary organizations contributes to reputational influence patterns in the general community is not an easily predictable phenomenon. It becomes clear that no "a priori" assumptions can be made about the role of voluntary groups in the general leadership of any given community. There is a need, however, to distinguish the "organizational community" from the community in which formal voluntary groups are of considerably less significance. The study results of the overlap of reputational influentials and formal leaders in four towns are given in tabular form. The factors are number of reputational individuals, number of formal leaders, maximum possible overlap, actual overlap and percentage overlap. From the point of view of influence structures, it was discovered that the larger the town the greater the number of persons who receive a given proportion of nominations as an influential. The results of the study presented in this paper justify the trend toward the use of a combination of the positional and reputational methods of identifying leaders.

This paper analyzes how authority can be maintained by structuring reality through continuous violent conflict. Using Lewis Coser's reformulation of Simmers propositions on fostering continuous conflict as a raison d'ètre in sect-like struggle groups as a general frame of analysis, the Stalinist case is then examined in order to evaluate systematically these propositions in a societal context and to specify the morphology of violence as a method of conflict. By examining a societal context, it is noted that instability in the social structure not only can be a condition for the legitimacy of a problematic political leadership and system, but also simultaneously be a consequence of a form of preventive punitive sanctioning, whereby potential threats, both persons and alternative courses of action, are eliminated before they become present dangers. In turn, an official definition of reality, justifying leadership and system, is constructed through the public documentation of a conspiracy, which employs invented categories to demonstrate ideological continuity and fabricates pseudo events to demonstrate indispensability in fulfilling necessary functions. This public documentation of a conspiracy is then used as a facade for a larger plan of social prophylaxis that implicates the public as well as the police in ferreting out tangible and visible enemies to fill the invented categories in the pseudo events. As public complicity conjoins with the official definition of reality, commitment to the leadership and system is acquired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study on the nature of influence in regional sociological associations in the U.S. It compares and contrasts organizations and extends an earlier study of three national societies. Data were collected and analyzed which pertained to several characteristics of association presidents. Data about each president were collected for a period of ten years prior to his election. It is noted that as membership in the national associations has become greater, the smaller coteries of specialized interests have developed to delineate members who share a common language. Moreover, the presidency of an organization, as it is occupied by a sequence of incumbents, renders visible the norms and values of members. Information was gathered from news reported in the "American Journal of Sociology" and the "American Sociological Review," from private correspondence, and from association records. The study concerned the six regional societies which are affiliated with the American Sociological Association.

Max Weber has typically been regarded as a central thinker in the liberal tradition of social analysis. At the same time, critics have long noted how his democratic commitments were compromised by his nationalism. Drawing on existing criticism, I discuss the importance of charismatic leadership in Weber’s thought and its implications for his understanding of the process of democratization. Reconstructing core concepts in Weber’s political thought, I analyze how Weber’s concept of plebiscitarian leadership unites charismatic domination with nationalism and skepticism concerning effective democratic politics. I show how Weber’s concept of plebiscitarian rule grew from deeply held political values and his engagement with German politics. I then generate propositions regarding the problem of democratization in regime transitions and apply them to contemporary charismatic leaders and ethno-nationalist mobilization in post-Communist transitions. I argue that as much as it anticipates the central dilemma of charismatic solutions to political crisis, Weber’s thought favors nationalist and plebiscitarian responses to democratization that have been largely discredited by historical experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]