From group consciousness to institutional design : The Black Power movement for community control, 1966-1973

Political contests over institutional structure are fundamentally shaped by the range of institutional alternatives. Yet how is the menu of alternatives constructed? To understand the emergence of institutional alternatives, I turn to the concept of group consciousness. A specific form of group consciousness characterizes a group and its interests vis-à-vis other groups, and thereby describes the political problem that an institutional design seeks to solve. I analyze this connection through the case of community control, an institutional design advocated by Black Power activists. Community control over police or education aimed to increase the power of minority communities through neighborhood participation in the provision of local public goods. I show how the elements of group consciousness exhibited by Black Power activists map onto different facets of the community control design. By analyzing the link between group consciousness and institutional design, this paper illuminates a key aspect of institutional development