The Concept and Dimensions of Power in a Community

Every community has invisible forces at work. Decisions get made, policies appear, and change happens-but most people don’t know who’s really pulling the strings. Understanding power in a community isn’t about conspiracy theories; it’s about recognizing how influence works and how community organizers can harness it for positive change. For social workers engaged in community organization, grasping the concept and dimensions of power is essential to creating meaningful impact.

What is power and where does it come from? 🔗

Power is the ability to influence others’ beliefs and behaviors to achieve community goals. It’s not just about authority or position-it flows from multiple sources that combine to create influence. Sociologist Floyd Hunter’s groundbreaking work in the 1950s revealed that power in communities comes from diverse wellsprings including money, laws, information, expertise, prestige, charisma, and social roles.

Think of power as a multi-faceted force rather than a single quality. A business executive might hold power through wealth and corporate connections. A local priest or imam wields influence through moral authority and trust. A skilled organizer gains power through relationships and knowledge of how systems work. These sources can include social class, resource currency, personal charisma, and social influence of tradition.

For community organizers, recognizing these various sources of power is the first step. You can’t challenge or mobilize power if you don’t understand where it originates. The key insight is that power isn’t monolithic-it exists in different forms across different spheres of community life.

Understanding power centres and community power structure 🔗

Power doesn’t distribute evenly across a community. Instead, it accumulates in specific locations, creating what we call power centres. These centres are often occupied by community elites who sit at the top of what resembles a power pyramid.

Hunter’s study of Atlanta revealed that a small group of business leaders-major owners, top executives, and corporate lawyers for the biggest banks and businesses-formed the city’s power structure. These individuals lived in the same neighborhoods, belonged to the same clubs, and sat on each other’s boards of directors. They knew each other well and made decisions in informal settings before issues ever reached public discussion.

Mapping the power structure 🔗

As a community organizer, you must analyze the power structure by asking critical questions: Who wields power? How do they exercise it? On what issues? And with what results? This analysis isn’t academic-it’s practical. You need to know who the real decision-makers are, not just who holds official titles.

Hunter found that policy initiatives typically originated in informal discussions among friends at lunch or social clubs. Only when these powerful individuals reached consensus did ideas surface for public discussion. By the time ordinary citizens heard about a proposal, the decision had essentially already been made. Understanding this process helps organizers intervene at the right moments with the right people.

Ascribed power versus achieved power 🔗

Not all power is acquired the same way. This brings us to an important distinction: ascribed power versus achieved power.

Ascribed power is assigned to individuals without reference to their abilities or merit-it comes through formal delegation, inherited position, or titles. Someone becomes powerful because they’re born into a wealthy family, inherit a business, or receive an appointed position. This type of power exists independently of personal competence.

Achieved power, on the other hand, is earned through personal competence, ability, expertise, or personality. A community organizer who builds trust and relationships, a local activist who successfully mobilizes neighbors, or a professional who develops specialized knowledge-these individuals achieve power through their actions and capabilities.

Understanding this distinction helps organizers identify how individuals within a community gain and maintain influence. Some powerful people hold sway simply because of their position or wealth. Others command respect through demonstrated competence. The most effective community leaders often combine both forms-they may have formal positions but also possess the personal qualities that make others willing to follow them.

Why this matters for organizing 🔗

Recognizing the difference between ascribed and achieved power shapes your organizing strategy. Those with ascribed power may be less flexible or responsive to community needs-their position doesn’t depend on performance or public support. Those with achieved power often have different motivations and may be more accessible to organizing efforts. Additionally, organizers can help community members develop achieved power through skill-building, leadership development, and creating opportunities for residents to demonstrate competence.

Mobilizing power for community goals 🔗

Here’s the crucial point: power is not static. It can be created, shifted, and mobilized. This is where the work of community organization becomes transformative.

Techniques for mobilizing power 🔗

Community organizers can employ several techniques to mobilize power. First, you can appeal directly to powerful individuals, building relationships with those who hold influence and persuading them to support community goals. This requires understanding their interests and finding common ground.

Second, organizers can form alliances between power centres. When different groups with influence come together around a shared concern, their combined power multiplies. This might mean bringing together business leaders, faith communities, and civic organizations around a common issue like affordable housing or youth programs.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, organizers can create new groups that include influential members. This approach builds power from the ground up while incorporating those who already hold influence, creating coalitions that bridge different segments of the community.

Alinsky’s grassroots approach 🔗

Saul Alinsky, one of the most influential community organizers of the twentieth century, developed an approach that emphasized shifting power to lower strata of society. His central insight was that powerless communities stay powerless not because they lack resources or knowledge, but because they lack power itself-the ability to make those with resources respond to their needs.

Alinsky’s model centers on identifying and confronting issues within a community through development and organizing, with community members participating, leading, and engaging in change-making rather than acting as observers. He believed that meaningful change requires confrontation and that the wealthy and powerful don’t voluntarily share resources out of goodwill-they must be pressured to do so.

This approach recognizes that change comes from power, and power comes from organization. By bringing people together, building collective strength, and using strategic pressure tactics, community organizers can shift the balance of power and achieve genuine community-driven change.

Building sustainable power 🔗

The goal isn’t just winning isolated victories but building lasting power within communities. This means developing leadership among residents, creating strong organizational structures, and helping community members understand how power operates. When people recognize their collective strength and know how to organize effectively, they can address not just one issue but continue advocating for their interests over time.

Effective community organization doesn’t ignore existing power structures-it works to understand them, engage with them strategically, and ultimately transform them. Whether through building alliances, creating new power centres, or mobilizing grassroots pressure, the fundamental work is about shifting who has influence and how decisions get made in the community.

What do you think? Looking at your own community, who holds the real power and how did they acquire it? How might understanding the dimensions of power change your approach to organizing for community change?

References

1. https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/local/atlanta.html
2. https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_(Boundless)/15:_Government/15.01:_Politics_Power_and_Authority/15.1B:_Power
3. https://www.dailysociology.wiki/sociology-concepts/status/
4. https://infed.org/dir/welcome/saul-alinsky-community-organizing-and-rules-for-radicals
5. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/bridging-power-papers/alinsky-labor