Community Power Actors

- Community power actors are those individuals who play a major role in
community decision making. These people can and influence
environment to make changes in a community.

- Community power actors play a pre dominant role in a community action.

These individuals have been key leaders, influential, legitimates or
decision makers. They often have social power to attract the outcomes of
community decisions.

- Many researchers has indicated that power actors may play several key
roles in community action programmes.

Identification Methods

1. Positional method.
2. Reputational method.
3. Decision making method.
4. Social participation method.

Positional Method
It is the oldest method. The individuals who occupy key formal authority
positions in the major social, economic, political, governmental, cultural and
religious institutions are considered the community power actors.

The assumption is that those holding positions of authority actually make key
decisions while those who don’t occupy such positions don’t make key
decisions.

TYPES:

The positional method identifies the leaders who are involved in both public and
private organisation. Like:
 1. Elected government leaders.
2. Appointed political officers or higher civil servants.
3. Corporation executive and directors.
4. Office holders in service oriented association.
5. Formal office holder.

Advantages:

1. These power actors are visible thus easily identifies.

2. Little cost in developing a community by using power.
3. Change agents will have a good cross section of leaders.

Limitations:

1. Difficult of determining which position hold powers.

2. Some positions don’t do their potentiality.
3. The positional method tends to identify power actors who are in formal
positions and who function in community in the basis of authority.

​ Reputational Method
This procedure involves selecting knowledgeable community citizens who
provide a list of power actors and then rank them according to their reputation
for social power in community affairs.

Assumptions:

1. It is based on the nation that power is present and involved in all social
relationships.
2. Power to affect community decisions both influences and is a
consequence of reputation.
3. Knowledgeable know power actors by their reputation.

Process:

1. One step: Just knowledgeable persons join.

2. Two step: Agent to knowledgeable persons.
3. External knowledgeable person’s process.
Steps:

1. Defining issue area.

2. Defining geographic area.
3. Selecting knowledgeable.
4. Developing a questionnaire.
5. Interviewing knowledgeable.
6. Summarizing.
7. Checking reliability.

Types:

This approach identifies economic dominants, businessman, and elected

officials, professionals and political leaders.

Advantages:

1. Identifies a wide scope of community power actors.

2. One can determine reputed power actors for number of issue area.

Limitations:

1. Selecting knowledgeable from many institutional sectors.

2. Checking for reliability as previously discussed.

Decision Making Method

In this method, the power actors are those who identified as actually
participating in the concrete decision making and whose suggestions are
demand in final outcome.

The basic assumption is that social power actors to affect decisions is made
through participation in decision making process.

Types;

1. General power actors: who participate as decision maker on several

community issue.
2. Specialized power actors: who appears as decision maker only one issue.
Advantages:

1. The change agents can determine the actual possession.

2. Actual behaviours of power actors are determined.
3. The role of participation can be determined at each stage of the issue.

Limitations:

1. Time consuming and costful.

2. It ignores power actors who may be able to keep talent issues from
emerging into open controversy.

Social Participation Method

In this method, power actors are those who are holding formal position in
voluntary association and those who are participating in these activities.

The major assumption is that power to affect community decisions is acquired

through participation and holding offices in the community’s voluntary
association.

Types:

This method identified visible participants in various activities of voluntary

association.

Advantages:

1. It identifies power actors who are active in community affairs.

2. Key community power actors are active in this method.
3. It identifies community members who are likely to participate in
activities.

Limitations:

1. It is very time consuming and costly for the changing agents.

2. It identifies only the active power actors not the behind scenery persons.

refferences

Community Power Actors

1 jhon l tait
2 joe bohlen
3 janet