STRUCTURES OF POWER IN NATURALLY-OCCURRING COMMUNITIES

This paper uses the sample of communes from Zablocki's study [Zablocki , Benjamin, 1980. Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary Ame rican Communes. The Free Press, New York] to test formal models of how interpersonal power relations are structured. Three alternative possi bilities are explored-that observed power relations are derived from a single underlying status dimension, that they are derived from a diff erentiated status structure, and that there is no underlying structure at all. Some communes have latent status dimensions, others do not, b ut none have differentiated structures. Gel-rain causes and effects of the production of such status orders are explored. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.