The Established and the Delegated: The Division of Labour of Domination among Effective Agents on the Field of Power in Denmark

British Journal of Sociology

Ellersgaard

Larsen

et al. 2022

Self Cite

This article focuses on historical elite dynamics and investigates elites' integration over time. We describe the changing relations and composition of the central circles in Swiss elite networks at seven benchmark years between 1910 and 2015 by relying on 22,262 elite individuals tied to 2587 organizations among eight key sectors, and identify for each year the most connected core of individuals. We explore network cohesion and sectoral bridging of the elite core and find that it moved from being a unitary corporate elite, before 1945, to an integrated corporatist elite, between the 1950s and 1980s, before fragmenting into a loose group, with an increased importance of corporate elites, in the 1990s onwards. The core was always dominated by business and their forms of legitimacy but, at times of crisis to the hegemony of corporate elites, after the Second World War and (only) shortly after the 2008 financial crisis, elite circles expanded and included individuals with delegated forms of power, such as politicians and unionists. In the most recent cohort (2015), the share of corporate elites in the core is similar to the one before the First World War and during the interwar period. This return to the past echoes findings on wealth inequality and economic capital accumulation by a small group of individuals organized around the most powerful companies.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From integrated to fragmented elites. The core of Swiss elite networks 1910–2015

British Journal of Sociology

Ellersgaard

Larsen

et al. 2022

Self Cite

“…Both MCA and SNA allow us to describe social relations among groups of individuals. They have proven particularly relevant in the study of elites and led to fruitful results on power and domination processes linked to the resources and relations of the most influential individuals in society (Bühlmann et al 2012;Lunding et al 2020). However, so far they have only been used on very few occasions to study South American elites: for example, Schneikert (2018) uses MCA on Brazilian economic and political elites, Méndez and Gayo (2019) on Chilean upper middle classes, while Klüger (2018) uses MCA and SNA on influential Brazilian economists.…”

Section: Methods and Research Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a specific field, individuals hold a competitive position, which results from their struggle to accumulate, exchange, and monopolize power resources (capitals) over the asymmetry of information and unequal distribution of valued assets (Bourdieu 1996a). In the field of power, namely that of the most dominant individuals in all fields, elite groups oppose each other by using their respective economic, cultural, social, or symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1996b;Lunding et al 2020). Capitals are power resources involved in systemic processes allowing their garnering.…”

Section: Theory and Research Questions: Field Theory And Elite Coordimentioning

confidence: 99%

The interaction of elite networks in the Pinochet regime's macroeconomic policies

Morin

2020

Global Networks

The Chilean military regime offered a prime example of interactions among elite groups in the making of macroeconomic policies. Through the lens of both Bourdieu's field theory and Mills's elite coordination through networks, we show how Chilean elites sought to implement these policies despite being divided by their transnational and national ties. We have constructed an original database on the 62 most influential individuals within the space of macroeconomic policies using a variety of descriptive methods (multiple correspondence analysis, cluster analysis, and social network analysis), only used on very few occasions to study South American elites. We explore the internal divisions in these elites in terms of their orientation to national and transnational capital and biographical trajectories. We identify three groups – high‐ranking military officers, Chicago academic economists, and public and private sector professionals. Military officers were mostly endowed with national assets, while civilian groups relied on transnational resources. Moreover, the Chicago economists, characterized by their transnational and scientific legitimacy, were the closest to influential state positions overall (the Ministry of the Treasury and the Central Bank). Finally, we categorize the same three groups through (national and transnational) network ties. Organizational ties between those groups were significant, particularly among Chicago economists and professionals, which suggests an intense coordination process, facilitated by transnational affiliations and profile.

“…Bourdieu, 1988), it is not always clear if he and his team had made their data collection in an equally rigorous manner as historians usually do. Nonetheless, a large group of Bourdieusian scholars have since then used prosopography in a thoroughly rigorous way and it has become one of the “classical” collection strategies to study fields (see for example: Denord et al, 2018; Ellersgaard et al, 2012, 2019; Timans and Heilbron, 2018; Karády and Nagy, 2019; Hjellbrekke and Korsnes, 2018; Dalberg, 2019; Lunding, 2017; as well as all the works using the Swiss elite data cited earlier). However, proposography in itself only allows basic statistical features, such as counting the absolute or relative shares of certain properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prosopography, Networks, Life Course Sequences, and so on. Quantifying with or beyond Bourdieu?

Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie S

2019

This article focuses on the importance of quantifying Bourdieu’s “research programme”, linked with the concepts of field, habitus, and capital. It presents possible ways of doing statistics within this framework and argues that continuous methodological development should be pursued. To support this argument, the article highlights the methodology and empirical results of a doctoral dissertation on the Swiss field of economic sciences. It stresses the relevance of using a prosopographical strategy and advocates further development of multiple correspondence analysis, and the use of sequence analysis and social network analysis. The main contributions of these methods concern the investigation of subgroup profiles in fields, the trajectories of accumulation and conversion of capitals and the structure of social capital. When asking whether or not we should think with or beyond Bourdieu when suggesting new methodological developments to his programme, this article argues that we ought to think beyond his strict written work, but still within his theoretical framework, which proves particularly relevant to the study of power relations among individuals.