Community Sociology Research Paper

Today, contending theoretical perspectives com-plicate the task of arriving at a clear understanding of communities. Because the concept of ‘community’ is open to wide interpretation, it is frequently used as a term connected to urban citizenship (Lowndes 1995) or as a reference point in complex discourses about identity, place, and social meaning. For example, ethnic, racial, and gender affinities between groups may be regarded as aspects of ‘community identity,’ but these take on complex forms within the context of a wider range of cultural and social class affinities (Solomos 1993). Similarly, reference to geographic or ‘place-based communities’ implies the existence of groups with territorial interests or associations or communities based on formal local government boundaries, but place often plays only a small or even nonexistent part in locating ‘community identity’. It is possible for individuals or groups to identify with others with whom they share particular attributes even though only vague geographical markers refer to a perceived ‘community.’

Therefore, the diverse relationships between place and identity make theoretical conceptions of com-munity highly contingent, especially when account is taken of global capital operating across national and local boundaries. Multifaceted economic and social change has challenged the basis of traditional social arrangements and attitudes (Soja 1996) and under-mined old theoretical certainties and disciplinary boundaries in the discussion of place and identity (Allen et al. 1998) and in broader urban theory (Fainstein and Campbell 1996). The relationship between ‘the local’ and ‘the global’ is also more problematic as transnational corporations ‘embed’ their operations in localities and regions (Amin and Thrift 1994, Amin 1994) making it possible to define influential networks of corporations (Friedland 1982) and partnerships involving public and private sector groups. Elite groups are often seen as representing social class interests (Scott 1997) rather than more narrowly defined community interests. The question remains however, that despite profound social and economic changes is it still plausible to assume, as Etzioni (1993) does, that local communities can represent an alternative to radical individualism by providing individuals with a sense of purpose and a moral framework within which citizens can prosper?

2. Diverse Perspectives

This question is not new, and it relates to the basis of communities and social cooperation within them. Urban sociologists of the Chicago School in the 1920s and 1930s concentrated on the ‘human ecology’ of urban life and the social relationships and forms of organization in the metropolis. Robert Park, influenced by Georg Simmel and Emile Durkheim, presented a complex view of neighborhood organization where co-operation and competition underlay relationships between groups. The resulting tensions undermined social control, but communities achieved order through social specialization and interdependence. Later, Park (1952) emphasized the inherent ‘biotic’ competitiveness of urban life and the struggle to control scarce resources. Other Chicago School sociologists referred to human struggle within cities and the consequent adaptation of social organization to external environmental change. For example, Louis Wirth (1938) argued that cities represented the ag-glomeration of human activity, and that the social specialization of cities led to complex patterns of social segregation. Despite recognizing the coming together of groups with shared identities, Wirth stressed the superficiality of social relations and the resulting social psychology of urban life where class and ethnic affinities were less important than social heterogeneity. For Wirth, cities were large and impersonal, and divisions arose between people producing different ways of life that made true consensus and stable community life difficult to achieve (see Reiss 1964).

Wirth remained influential after World War II, but sociologists outside the human ecology tradition argued that the urban experience could be socially defined better by reference to the forces transforming traditional social class and community relationships. In the UK, Young and Willmot (1957) discovered strong working class community and family identities in the East End of London that contrasted with new housing projects where relationships were less intimate and not so cohesive. In the USA, Gans (1962) studied Boston’s West End where a multiethnic ‘urban village’ had developed with a rich variety of social and political institutions.

Political scientist Robert Dahl (1961) provided the classic pluralist interpretation of local politics in a study of New Haven, CT, USA. There, ‘polyarchy’ represented the rule of the many where power was unequally distributed, but where groups could influence crucial local political decisions. However, elite theorists, disagreeing with pluralism, engaged in the ‘community power debate’ by arguing that local power-holders dominated the policy process by excluding many local community groups. The pluralist perspective was further questioned as social unrest affected big American cities and class conflicts and social exclusion defined the condition of large, disadvantaged cities. Urban riots in the 1960s, the expansion of militant community politics, and the rise of the black power movement highlighted an urban crisis while public policy shifted to favor public spending on aid programs for run-down communities. But, political scientist Edward Banfield (1970) provided a classic critique of government urban policies through controversial research that highlighted cultural trends in The Unevenly City that undermined stable and cohesive urban communities.

Against the backdrop of the ‘urban crisis,’ research increasingly focused on race, social disadvantage, and the inaccessibility of local bureaucracies. Rex and Moore (1967) adopted a neo-Weberian approach viewing ethnic minority access to housing in the city of Nottingham, UK, where peoples’ goals were influenced by the interaction of social and spatial conditions. Pahl (1975), also from a neo-Weberian perspective, regarded urban state bureaucracy as a mechanism restricting the access of local people to urban services.

There was also attention to broader urban processes. Gottdiener (1994a, 1994b) refers to the ‘New Urban Sociology’ in the 1970s and 1980s that integrated the analysis of social class, gender, cultural, economic and political change by building upon the work of neo-Marxist writers such as Castells (1977) and Harvey (1973). Castells studied the functions of cities and the role of social classes in the reproduction of capitalism. His early work was conducted at a time when the welfare state had expanded under capitalism. For Castells, local communities economically contributed to capitalist reproduction, so cities and regions were spaces supporting economic production as well as social organization.

Despite such contributions, the opposition to extensive state involvement in community development from the new right was echoed in research focused on the social problems of cities allegedly caused by government failure. Charles Murray’s (1984) controversial notion of the ‘underclass’ identified the long-term plight of a growing ‘underclass’ of permanently welfare-dependent people in deprived urban communities. Community empowerment came high on the new right political agenda in the USA as an alternative to welfare dependency and government-funded solutions to urban problems. Conservatives argued that empowered communities could become more self-sufficient and better able to increase their capacities to make changes for themselves through free enterprise and local initiative.

3. Contested Boundaries

During the 1980s and 1990s, urban sociologists continued to draw on different paradigms and develop cross-disciplinary themes. The diversity of papers presented to panels organized for the Community Research Committee at the 1998 World Congress of Sociology illustrates the interdisciplinary interests of urban and community researchers. The panels dis-played the varied perspectives of sociologists, political scientists, policy analysts, geographers, and others. Contributions reflected the contested boundaries be-tween disciplines and the broad horizons of re-searchers variously concerned with the relationships between social groups, local communities, post industrialism, post modernity, and globalization. Con-temporary research has thus generated new insights into the spatial dimensions of urban change and the complexities of the issues confronting local communities.

Many sociologists, geographers, and political scientists argued that global social and economic change, multinational corporations, and financial institutions substantially influenced the urban agenda and the fate of local communities. Innovative research provided fresh and controversial perspectives on the changes affecting the global, regional, and local communities (e.g., Castells 1996, Soja 1996). Tensions arising from the expansion of local global capital and the defense by groups of local interests underscore the profound changes affecting communities. Local communities confront major changes as corporations pursue new strategies, regional economies restructure, and traditional social relations breakdown. In the new in-formation economy, old certainties no longer hold. With economic reordering, there are social and political changes. Some see communities linking to governing corporate-dominated ‘urban regimes’ (Stone 1989). Others identify ‘growth machines’ (Logan and Molotch 1987, Ferman 1996). There have also been social dislocation, increased ethnic and racial com-petition, and discrimination against minorities. The notion of stable and harmonious neighborhoods is questioned as economic and social change fractures traditional communities and generates new urban problems and patterns of social intercourse. Studies of social disorder and urban riots, as in Los Angeles in 1992 (Baladassare 1994), illustrate the racial and ethnic cleavages that can result from rapid urban restructuring. Communal divisions often eclipse class solidarity, especially when groups compete for scarce resources and attempt to access urban services. Indeed, the ‘community’ is threatened as social change under-mines consensus and stability. Political scientist, Robert Putnam (2000) argues that there is a decline in social capital in modern communities in the USA. Putnam argues that social capital, represented as the networks, norms, and trust in communities that help people to work for shared objectives, is in decline despite the efforts of governments and community leaders to increase the active participation of people in civic affairs.

4. The New Political Culture

An important theme in recent Community Research panels at the World Congress of Sociology has been the emergence of a new political culture (NPC). The NPC views political fragmentation against a back-ground of fundamental social change affecting urban communities worldwide. According to sociologist Terry Nichols Clark and political scientist Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot (1998), the NPC increases the salience of issues such as the environment, citizen democracy, gay rights, abortion, and lifestyle politics. The politics of post industrialism places less emphasis on class and workplace politics and greater stress on single issues championed by diverse groups within a complex and changing sociopolitical environment. The NPC challenges traditional political parties and old state hierarchies and undermines the assumptions of the post war welfare state. People are more skeptical about large public bureaucracies and likely to support human-focused policies, smaller and more localized government units, and more responsive forms of local democracy. The NPC emerges ‘more fully and force-fully in cities and countries with more highly educated citizens, higher incomes, and high-tech service occupations’ (Clark and Hoffmann-Martinot 1998, p. 3). This marks a change in the ways local communities articulate social and political demands. Local groups are more likely to organize across social class lines as they adopt new methods of social and political action. Information technology opens new horizons and provides opportunities for more effective networking and communication.

5. Networked Communities

Technological change therefore produces new patterns of social life. In his later work, Castells combines an analysis of the global and local effects of information technology through the rise of a ‘network society.’ Castells, acknowledging Howard Rheingold (1993), argues that new information technologies integrate the world through global networks and a ‘vast array of virtual communities’ (Castells 1996, p. 22) that network groups and individuals by way of ‘politics and religion to sex and research.’ The Internet and ‘electronics grass-roots culture’ (Castells 1996, p. 354) enables individuals to interact globally and inter-actively, but also privately. For Castells, a new globalized and customized mass media permeates all levels of society directly affecting the local community and the individual.

Together with technological networks, social and inter-organizational policy networks influence local life and community organization. Social network analysis originated in social psychology and extended to sociology. White (1963) and Fischer (1982) developed social interaction models showing how networking influenced local social organization. Sustained sociological interest in the influence of complex networks in local communities (Scott 1991) accompanied interest in the role of networks in political systems (Dowding 1995). Political scientists have argued that the collaboration of various well-organized corporate groups in local networks, together with public–private partnerships, help to bring about government policies favorable to those groups, sometimes with little local community involvement. Influential groups gain access to decision-makers and thereby manage to raise crucial issues up the political agendas of local governments.

6. Communitarianism

Studies of technological change, globalization, political networking, social capital, and the NPC all imply discontinuity and uncertainty in the development of local communities despite the different theoretical approaches adopted. Etzioni (1993), and a group of like-minded communiterians, have responded to the impersonal forces of globalization, social dislocation, and the undermining of community and family values by calling for a new ‘moral, social, public order.’ They seek a stronger sense of community to counter what they regard as a threat to the moral underpinnings of community life. Etzioni argues for a reassertion of community values by creating a new ‘spirit of com-munity’ through rights and responsibilities that strengthen the moral foundations of society. Following the publication of the journal The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities, the group advocated an alternative to market individualism by fostering values favoring mutual support and the family.

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