Local Power Valences in Rural Communities

• Author: Petronela-Adelina Renea
• Pages: 33-39

Legal Sciences in the New Millennium

33

Local Power Valences in Rural Communities

Petronela-Adelina Renea1

Abstract: The analysis of the local power valences in the rural communities was realized by implementing

different methods of community development. Which are the mechanisms that encourage a community to

engage actively and effectively i n a deliberate process focused towards commun ity development? What does

provide the sustainability of such initiatives and processes? Who has the power? How does it use the power?

What can be done to obtain a growing number of individuals with power in a community? Such questions have

also resulted in the efforts focused to research of the power dynamics in the rural communities, topic explored

in this paper.

Keywords: governance; initiatives; authority

1. Introduction

The power games, the mechanisms that made some to have powers while others not, the unseen world

behind them: social norms, values passed from generation to generation, traditional customs, have

always caused intrigue.

The changing of the political system in 1989 has generated a number of challenges and opportunities.

At both macro and micro level, Romanian citizens were in a position to make decisions, in which their

value system, their own and community interests found forms of expression. In the same time with this

freedom a number of problems appeared. If until then the society was governed by a system in which

the locus of control was predominantly external to the individual, he has suddenly seen himself in the

context in which the locus of control is internalized and in the same time in the position in which he has

to assume the responsibility of the taken decisions. All of a sudden the government and governance

(theoretically) no longer held the entire responsibility of the individual because they had been freely

elected as representatives of the people. A similar challenge also occurs in rural areas where the mayor,

the priest, the teacher and the doctor are no longer the only important "voices", but other voices are

heard as well.

The present paper aims to analyze the "voices" that are allowed to influence the rural community area

where community development initiatives have been implemented, respectively to what extent the

implemented community development models create the necessary framework for multiplying the

"voices" that influence community.

1 I.P.J. Galati, Address: 200 Brailei Str., Galati, Galati Municipality, Romania, Corresponding author:

anghel.adelina@gmail.com.