Analyzing Communal Life-Spans:
A Dynamic Structural Approach
by James A. Kitts
ABSTRACT
Social scientists have used two lenses to analyze the births and
deaths of communes. A structural lens examines the effects of
organizational structure on collective longevity. A contextual
lens
examines variation in populations of communes over time, measuring
relationships between utopian "waves" and broader social and
economic
cycles. This paper discusses contributions and limitations of both
perspectives and proposes a synthesis, which examines the effects
of
both structure and context on viability of communes.