Local politics in Cowra Shire: structure, ideology and resources

Abstract

The thesis offers explanation for the maintenance of local power relations in a rural community in terms of ideologies and the ways in which they are reflected, responded to and reconstructed in and around a local political system. It does so by developing concepts useful to the study of power processes and using them in analysis of observation of local politics and the ideological climate in which politics are enacted. A history of the locality and discussion of institutional apparatuses of local government move analysis towards political processes, in particular those processes in which the content of politics becomes constrained. That constraint is accounted for in terms of the values and beliefs of local people and their politicians, rather than conscious and intentional individual action. The thesis concludes that beliefs about the nature of local politics and the locality itself structure local politics in such a way that they favour farmers and business people over other identifiable groups.