Many depopulations followed decisions made by people in powerful positions. Often the decisions were made by wealthy landowners who wished to transform their property into enclosed sheep farms or very large parks. Sometimes they were made by governments at local or national level. In this section we will examine some of the work done on the psychology of power and consider how this work may be applied to throw light on the way in which power was used to push through the decisions made by those in superior positions, even when it meant that many others would lose their homes and often their means of earning a living.
Power comes in several different forms. Classic work published by French and Raven almost half a century ago identified five general types of power (and a sixth, power associated with information, was added soon afterwards).
French J R P & Raven B H, The bases of social power, in Cartwright D (ed.), Studies in Social Power, Ann Arbor, 1959. For a more up-to-date account by Raven see Raven B H, Influence, power, religion, and the mechanisms of social control, Journal of Social Issues, 1999, 55, 161-186, available at this address.
Two types of power, expert power and the power associated with information, may have little relevance to the process of abandonment. The other four may all have played a part, their contribution varying according to individual circumstances. In most cases the person or organisation in power (I will follow convention and refer to them as O) would have held reward and coercive power in relation to those whom they wished to evict (I will call them P). Landowners, such as Joseph Damer at Milton, would have had the power to determine whether or not to renew leases held by people living on their property and they may have been able to offer inducements to persuade people to leave before their current lease expired. Damer, for example, ordered the construction of the village of Milton Abbas so that he could provide alternative accommodation to residents of the old town of Milton. The village did not contain enough dwellings for all those who had lived in Milton, but no doubt many would have been willing to take up the opportunity to move to reasonably comfortable accommodation in a picturesque setting.
Those at the receiving end of reward power often have to trust promises about rewards that can only be delivered at some point in the future. They have to weigh up the risk that the promise may be broken, and sometimes they get it wrong. In 1943 the War Office wanted to take over the villages of Tyneham in Dorset and Imber on Salisbury Plain. A pledge was given that residents would be allowed to return to their homes at the end of the war. The pledge was not honoured, and both Tyneham and Imber are still in use for the provision of training in techniques of urban warfare.
As well as offering rewards men such as Damer made use of coercive power by threatening punitive measures, and, when they deemed it expedient, putting such measures into effect. When the lawyer, William Harrison, opposed Damer's attempts to evict him Damer arranged for the sluice gates of an old pond to be opened, allowing the water to flood one of Harrison's houses.
Joseph Damer was not a popular man. Other landowners, however, may have been liked and respected. If so, they would have been able to wield what French and Raven have called referent power. Because of the differences in wealth and social class between the landowner and those occupying his property members of the latter group clearly would not have identified fully with the landowner. Nevertheless, if they admired him they would have been inclined to adopt many of the values, beliefs, and attitudes represented by him. They would, for example, have been more disposed to accept the notion that local society should be organised on the basis of class differences. When the landowner took the decision to remove their community there would usually have been opposition but the opposition would have been weaker if the landlord was generally respected.
An interesting feature of referent power is that it is easily subject to change as a result of its use. In many cases the process of eviction took place over a period of several years. Landowners who at the start of the process may have been respected would have tended to become increasingly unpopular. Their referent power would have declined. They would have to hope that the process was by then sufficiently far advanced that it could be completed using other forms of power.
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