Abandonments that have resulted from human decisions have nearly always entailed the use of legitimate power. Legitimate power can be wielded in situations where it is recognised that O has certain rights and P has corresponding obligations. Within the legal framework and social norms of fifteenth century Britain, for example, people living on the estates of landlords who were keen to enclose their property and convert it into sheep farms would on the whole have felt bound by the landlord's instruction that they should leave. Similarly, the evacuation of Imber and Tyneham for military training purposes, and also the evacuation of Mynydd Epynt three years earlier, were more easily carried out because they occurred during wartime, when there was a general expectation that every citizen should make a contribution to the war effort. There is evidence that the Ministry of Defence had considered Mynydd Epynt many years before, but it was only after the outbreak of World War Two that, no doubt aware of the additional legitimacy they might now command, the War Office took steps to take it over.
Other research has investigated the strategies and tactics used by powerful people when they intend to exert influence. Some techniques are deployed with the aim of preparing P or creating a context that will improve the chances that influence attempts will work. They are sometimes called "stage-setting" devices. Within the landlord - tenant relationship these would have included maintaining a social distance from P as represented by siting your house some distance from the town or village and surrounding it with a wall, and giving indications that P was inferior and lacked the capability to resist any intended influence.
Several of the more recent abandonments have been instigated by the national government or a local authority. As well as the requisitioning of land for military training purposes this has included the conversion of valleys into reservoirs. A common stage setting device in such situations has been to deny P opportunities to raise questions or express opposition. When, for example, the Tryweryn valley was flooded in the early 1960s to supply water to the Mersey area Liverpool councillors used various crude methods to avoid listening to the views of people who would have to move. On one occasion, when a meeting had been arranged with members of the council's water committee, it was discovered that the committee members were enjoying tea at a hotel some miles away.
When O is ready to start to use their power to bring about changes a wide variety of influence strategies may be open to them. They may, for example, consider giving reasons, attempt to ingratiate themselves with P, threaten sanctions, or appeal to higher authority. It has been shown that a single dimension underlies most of these strategies, a scale running from hard to soft. Hard strategies are those that allow P little or no room to decide whether to yield or resist. Orders given within the armed forces are an obvious example. Softer strategies, by contrast, give the impression that P may think over whether to comply and come to an independent decision. Most persuasion methods would count as soft strategies.
For more on the hard vs soft dimension of influence tactics see Bruins J, Social power and influence tactics: A theoretical introduction, Journal of Social Issues 1999, 55, 7-14.
One abandonment that seems to illustrate tactics at the harder end of the scale was the eviction of people from their homes on Mynydd Epynt. The first announcement to local people of the plans of the War Office was made by an army captain touring the area in a Hillman Minx. When he was asked "What if we cannot find somewhere else to go?" his reply was "Then you will be thrown out on the road". Several months passed before any further information was given, and it came in the form of eviction notices sent by post to each household.
Psychologists have also taken an interest in the various ways people subjected to influence attempts may try to mount resistance against them. In landlord - tenant situations the individual tenant may have little scope to oppose an eviction attempt, but if tenants can work together then their combined resistance may be very effective. In the section on social factors in abandonment I have discussed some of the factors, such as a sense of social efficacy, that affect group cohesiveness. Where these factors are strong then landlords may have great difficulty pushing through the changes they desire. Part of their reaction will of course be to try to divide the opposition. Joseph Damer, for example, would not have been able to evict everyone at once from the town of Milton, but by offering deals to individual tenants as the opportunity arose he was able to minimise any tendency towards group opposition.
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