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Studies of community power, influence, and leadership have rapidly increased in popularity and in number during the decade since Hunter's epochal study of Regional City in 1954. Foci of the various studies since then have ranged from the delineation of traits of leaders or power figures to conceptualizations of types of community power structures. Some few studies have been concerned with the relationship between attributes and actions of community leaders and community social structure. Outside the field of sociometric research the distribution of influence and the effect of community social structure upon this distribution has received little more than passing attention. The usual leadership research is concerned with the study of ways in which leadership affects the social structure of the community. This study will attempt to take the reverse orientation, that of how social structure affects leadership. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the distribution of influence and community social structure. More specifically, this study is concerned with the relationship between consensus on leadership and community homogeneity. Homogeneity of community socioeconomic characteristics is assumed to be a basis for the shared values, attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and interests which serve as the basis for community consensus which may be manifested in agreement on nominations (choices) of community influentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on community power structure, representing the contributions of both sociologists and political scientists, provides an opportunity to examine the relevance of the sociology of knowledge to social research. The analysis of three variables--disciplinary back-ground of the investigator, research method employed, and type of power structure identified -reveals a developmental sequence in which discipline tends to determine the research method adopted, which in turn is related to the type of power structure identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]