1. Commentary on Oommens "Rural Community Power Structure in India"
- Author
-
Speight, John F.
- Subjects
COMMUNITY organization ,COMMUNITY power ,HOMOGENEITY ,POLITICAL doctrines ,RURALIZATION - Abstract
The article provides comments on the article "Rural Community Power Structure in India," by T.K. Oommen who is professor of School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, regarding rural community power structure in India. The author addresses only to that portion of Oommen's article that deals with heterogeneity as a factor in affecting the size of the "power pool" in a community. Oommen states that "homogeneity of the community may lead to power concentration. It means the homogeneous communities may have a monolithic power structure and heterogeneous communities will have a multidimensional power structure. A rank-order correlational analysis showed no statistically significant relationship between the two major variables. The more heterogeneous the community, the more concentrated (or monolithic) the leadership in the community. Oommen's conviction that democracy can work in rural India encouraged him to find heterogeneity where it may not have existed. Homogeneity may or may not be related to the structure of community power except in individual cases. The relationship between the two phenomena may be confounded by other variables.
- Published
- 1971
- Full Text
- View/download PDF