Traditional Decision Making in Urban Neighborhoods

In the course of trying to identify the role of urbanization in social and political change in the third world, social scientists have frequently addressed the phenomenon of the carry-over of "rural-traditional" patterns of behavior to the urban setting. This study looks at the methods of decision making in the neighborhoods of Jakarta based on data gathered in 1970.* It tries to answer the question, under what circumstances and for whom is the traditional system of decision making retained in the urban setting; it also offers analysis of why some citizens prefer the nontraditional methods of decision making. Two types of decisions are considered in this paper: the selection of neighborhood leaders and decisions to undertake neighborhood activities.