Urban Politics and Communality

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Abstract
This study considers some of the political implications of the so-called community question, in particular the relationship between communality and levels of participation in local politics. Communality is here understood as a cultural phenomenon residing in the action orientations and symbolic constructions of individuals. Original survey data are used to test the hypothesis that communality and participation are correlated positively. The findings do indeed confirm the hypothesis. Further, they suggest that so-called symbolic measures of communality predict the less demanding forms of participation better than do measures of social status, but the latter better predict the more demanding forms of participation. Finally, the results suggest that the communality-participation relationship persists when certain status characteristics are held constant, although the precise impact of such characteristics remains unclear.

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