This article reviews contemporary elite theory in political sociology and political science. Elite theory is based on the assumption that elite behavior has a causal relationship with general patterns of state-society relations. The article presents classical concepts of elite theory, such as elite inevitability and elite circulation, while privileging contemporary challenges and trends in elite theory. The discussion addresses elite origins of democracy and elite origins of the welfare state, as well as elites/non-elites interdependence.keywords democracy ◆ elites ◆ elite theory ◆ new elitism ◆ welfare state

This article approaches elites’ perceptions of poverty, inequality, and social policy in Brazil and Uruguay from democratization to the recent shift toward left-wing governments. It explores elites’ perceptions of the roles of the state, the market, and their own role in relation to poverty. The analysis relies on a series of elite surveys targeting leaders from the state and government, the corporate world, and the third sector in Brazil and Uruguay. The main argument is that poverty and inequality can be perceived by elites as a source of political and social threats, potentially motivating elites to embrace collective action and policy support. Although Brazil and Uruguay are often treated as opposite cases in Latin America, they share similarities in the way in which their national elites have dealt with poverty and inequality since democratization. From authoritarian regimes to cash transfer programs, the historical inheritance of a business-state and the threats posed by the poor pushed elites toward similar measures, although often based on different understandings of poverty and inequality.

By replying to Kurt Weyland’s (2020) comparative study of populism, we revisit optimistic perspectives on the health of American democracy in light of existing evidence. Relying on a set-theoretical approach, Weyland concludes that populists succeed in subverting democracy only when institutional weakness and conjunctural misfortune are observed jointly in a polity, thereby conferring on the United States immunity to democratic reversal. We challenge this conclusion on two grounds. First, we argue that the focus on institutional dynamics neglects the impact of the structural conditions in which institutions are embedded, such as inequality, racial cleavages, and changing political attitudes among the public. Second, we claim that endogeneity, coding errors, and the (mis)use of Boolean algebra raise questions about the accuracy of the analysis and its conclusions. Although we are skeptical of crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis as an adequate modeling choice, we replicate the original analysis and find that the paths toward democratic backsliding and continuity are both potentially compatible with the United States.

In this article, I review the literature on elites and inequality in Latin America with a focus on the emergence of uneven state structures and how they came to foster the needs of elites for protection. States in Latin America are traditionally thought of as facilitating processes of top-down modernization that transformed traditional agrarian economies into complex urban polities, while maintaining extreme inequal-

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Previous studies have posited that elites are willing to advance the redistribution of income and social goods when the negative effects of inequality, such as crime and conflict, threaten their own interests. Although elites acknowledge these negative effects, their support for redistributive policies remains low throughout the Global South. We address this paradox using a multi-method research design. Drawing on 56 in-depth interviews with Brazilian political and economic elites, we document how, when discussing the negative effects of inequality, interviewees consistently characterized the poor as ignorant, irrational and politically incompetent. We use these findings to theorize about the negative impact of such perceptions of the poor on elite support for redistribution. We then test this relationship using survey data gathered from random samples of political and economic elites in Brazil, South Africa and Uruguay (N = 544). We find the relationship to be robust.

Democracy’s normative foundation is political equality. Yet the dominance of the elite over the masses, and the systematic exclusion of particular social and economic groups from the influence on, and outcomes of, important decisions, manifests in political inequality. If this situation is normatively intolerable, why does political inequality endure? We build on the theoretical and empirical literature of politics and inequality and the collection of articles in this special issue to argue that the reproduction of political inequality within and across nations and time results from two key interrelated mechanisms: elite coordination and mass discoordination. We discuss how these mechanisms shape patterns of contestation and participation that reproduce inequalities in both old and new democracies.

Current elite studies argue that inequality produces negative externalities to elites, who may either promote democracy or adopt authoritarian measures in order to shield their interests from the actions of the rebellious poor. This article argues that elite framing of poverty and inequality in the press is a good thermometer of elite public response to such externalities. The press represents a communication tool shared by elites in the state, market, civil society, and, most evidently, the media itself. If inequality threatens elite rule, elites should share their concerns in order to move towards a solution. Since the literature links inequality and elite response, I propose undertaking a comparison of elite public responses to poverty and inequality in two South American cases with opposite records of inequality: Brazil and Uruguay. The article approaches elite framing of poverty and inequality in the press by analyzing opinion pieces and editorials in the main newspapers of both countries. Results invert the expected link between inequality and elite response. Elite framing of inequality in the Brazilian press did not suggest elite concern with externalities, neither an elite turn towards more democracy or authoritarianism. Contrastingly, a few Uruguayan elites did frame the poor as menacing.Keywords: Brazil; elites; inequality; press; Uruguay. [just] sitting there in their glory, and they think that they are trying to solve problems in the best way possible, but […] they don't know the communities, they don't even know everybody inside the state. Therefore, the most articulated layers of society, the ones that are able to make diverse pressures in an efficient way, are the ones that will be first and foremost beneficiated. (Extract from an in-depth interview with a male corporate leader from Brazil 1 ).he most popular models of elite behavior state that elites feel threatened by the poor in contexts of high income inequality and that significant political change is likely to follow-up threat perceptions (ACEMOGLU and ROBINSON, 2005;BOIX 2003). With that in mind, several elite studies use survey data and in-depth interviews as metrics of elite attitudes toward the poor (e.g., CLARKE and SISON, 2003;HOFFMANN-LANGE, 2010;HOSSAIN and MOORE, 2005;LÓPEZ, 2013aLÓPEZ, , 2014REIS, 2011;REIS and MOORE, 2005). This article proposes a different approach by examining insertions of elites in the editorial and op-ed pages of the press. It tests whether the basic premises of the mentioned models apply to Brazil and Uruguay in terms of the manner in which they frame poverty and inequality. I therefore take debates in the press as a proxy of elite public response to externalities of inequality.The Brazil-Uruguay comparison contrasts two opposite cases in South America.Brazil holds a record of high inequalities, while Uruguay poses a more homogeneous society and historically lower levels of income inequality. Moreover, Brazil is characterized by extreme levels of urban violence (BRINKS, 2008;CANO and SANTOS, 2007), which e...