Images of Community Action in a Southern City: An Exploratory Typological Analysis

Abstract

<jats:p>The participation of citizens in the politics of the sundry levels of government in the United States receives much attention from political scientists and other scholars, and this attention has probably increased due to stronger demands from the national government for state and local decision makers to provide a role for greater popular "consultation." Yet, most of this effort, whether in scholarly research or governmental programs, presupposed an "agenda" for public action developed by policy makers and other political leaders and transmitted through the mass media. Citizen participation, then, is defined largely in terms of responses to rather specific stimuli-policies proffered by political leaders--with little regard for more basic policy values that may shape more general responses, especially evaluations by citizens of the adequacy of the community in responding to their needs and the competency of government more specifically to deal with such problems.</jats:p>