Health and Well-Being

Chapter 7 distinguishes multiple hypothesized pathways through which empowerment processes produce impacts on health and well-being. The most direct outcome of empowerment processes is that social power is built and exercised. When this occurs, there are benefits for the participants in those processes, who often experience reduced stress and isolation. Empowerment processes also often lead to changes in policies and systems, thereby addressing systemic inequities and contributing to community well-being. Moreover, since empowerment processes can alter community power structures and make them more egalitarian, this may in itself lead to reduced vulnerability and insecurity and greater trust and cohesion. This chapter delineates multiple pathways—participant, ecological, and pluralist—through which empowerment processes can promote health, well-being, and health equity.

Rational choice and community power structures

This chapter applies Dowding’s analysis of power to the community power debate. It demonstrates the importance of the collective action problem to our understanding of power in society, showing that both pluralists and their radical critics misinterpret power in society by ignoring collective action problems. It demonstrates the nature of luck and systematic luck in the power structure.

IFAS Community Development: Identifying Local Power Structures, The Positional Approach

FCS9256, a 3-page fact sheet by M.A. Brennan, is part of a series of discussions on community development. This paper focuses on the positional approach to identifying community power structures. It discusses the assumptions, procedures for application,, types of leaders identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Includes references and suggested reading. Published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, July 2006.

IFAS Community Development: Identifying Local Power Structures, The Social Participation/Social Activity Approach

FCS9259, a 2-page fact sheet by M.A. Brennan, is part of a series of discussions on community development. This paper focuses on the social participation approach to identifying community power structures. It discusses the assumptions, the procedures for application, the types of leaders identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Includes references and suggested reading. Published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, July 2006.

IFAS Community Development: Identifying Local Power Structures, The Decision-Making Approach

FCS9258, a 2-page fact sheet by M.A. Brennan, is part of a series of discussions on community development. This paper focuses on the decision-making approach to identifying community power structures. It discusses the assumptions, the procedures for application, the types of leaders identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Includes references and suggested reading. Published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, July 2006.

IFAS Community Development: Identifying Local Power Structures, The Reputational Approach

FCS9257, a 3-page fact sheet by M.A. Brennan, is part of a series of discussions on community development. This paper focuses on the reputational approach to identifying community power structures. It discusses the assumptions, the procedures for application,, the types of leaders identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Includes references and suggested reading. Published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, July 2006.

Rational Choice and Community Power Structures

The community power debate concluded with each side believing they had won. Political theorists have generalized power, making empirical investigation very difficult; urban scholars have turned their attention to more manageable empirical problems. Rational choice advances the debate, exposing the errors of all sides and facilitating a new approach which transcends structural versus individualist methods. By separating various aspects of power in urban contexts, complementary techniques such as network analysis in a bargaining framework, semi-structured interviewing and the use of text databases permits a comprehensive investigation of agenda-setting and the mobilization of bias. The paper demonstrates the utility of this approach by comparing it to ‘regime theory’, the latest paradigm of urban research.