Humanitarian health care practitioners working outside familiar settings, and without familiar supports, encounter ethical challenges both familiar and distinct. The ethical guidance they rely upon ought to reflect this. Using data from empirical studies, we explore the strengths and weaknesses of two ethical models that could serve as resources for understanding ethical challenges in humanitarian health care: clinical ethics and public health ethics. The qualitative interviews demonstrate the degree to which traditional teaching and values of clinical health ethics seem insufficient (...) for addressing all the realities of health care practice during humanitarian missions. They equally suggest that greater good orientations of public health ethics can thwart the best intentions of health care professionals wanting to attend to the interests of individual patients. Even though neither is complete on its own for helping guide health professionals on field missions, taken together these models have much to offer. At the same time, the narratives of the humanitarian health care workers illustrate how some of the crucial differences between public health ethics and clinical ethics generate tensions in humanitarian health practice. We offer an analysis of some of the complexities this creates for humanitarian health care ethics, and consider ways of adjudicating between the two models. (shrink)

This article explores the accounts of Canadian-trained health professionals working in humanitarian and development organizations who considered not treating a patient or group of patients because of resource limitations. In the narratives, not treating the patient(s) was sometimes understood as the right thing to do, and sometimes as wrong. In analyzing participants’ narratives we draw attention to how medications and equipment are represented. In one type of narrative, medications and equipment are represented primarily as scarce resources; in another, they are (...) represented as patient care. In the contexts respondents were working, medications and equipment were often both patient care interventions and scarce resources. The analytic point is that health professionals tend to emphasize one conceptualization over the other in coming to assert that not treating is right, or wrong. Rendering tacit ethical frameworks more explicit makes them available for reflection and debate. (shrink)

It is clear that in the eyes of a growing number of humanitarian fieldworkers and decision-makers, palliative care is something humanitarian organizations should strive to provide as they address the needs of populations affected by crises. What remains less clear are the moral justifications underlying the push to do so. This chapter dives beneath surface prescriptions of what “ought to be” the place of palliative care within humanitarian response. It presents and analyses a series of evocative statements made by 24 (...) humanitarian healthcare actors about why, on what bases, and with what caveats, care for the dying deserves more attention within humanitarian healthcare response. Embedded in these statements are sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit ideas about what it means be a human and a humanitarian, and what humans need and deserve. Clarifying the experiences, practical considerations, understandings of care and responsibility, and norms and values underlying these feelings renders these available for more thorough reflection, discussion, and debate. (shrink)

Health care professionals who travel from their home countries to participate in humanitarian assistance or development work experience distinctive ethical challenges in providing care and services to populations affected by war, disaster or deprivation. Limited information is available about organizational practices related to preparation and support for health professionals working with non-governmental organizations. In this article, we present one component of the results of a qualitative study conducted with 20 Canadian health care professionals who participated in international aid work. The (...) findings reported here relate to expatriate clinicians’ experiences and perceptions of ethics preparation, training and support. The strategies examined include pre-departure training and preparation, in-field supports and retrospective debriefing of ethical issues. Participants experienced a range of training and supports as beneficial for addressing ethical challenges in humanitarian assistance and development work. Participants also expressed ambivalence or scepticism about the benefits offered by specific modalities. This analysis can contribute to informing discussions of how organizations and individual practitioners can best develop, implement and utilize ethics training and support for international aid work. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining the moral (...) dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining the moral (...) dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

The paper aims to explore the relationships that exist between party structure, party system, patronage, and the appointments of the political elites. It is focused on the extent to which political parties can control the allocation of jobs as well as find out which are the institutions over whom the political parties can exercise power; the extent to which historical legacies influence patronage patterns; the extent to which party patronage is exercised in a ‘majoritarian’ as opposed to a more ‘consensual’ (...) manner across the spectrum of political parties; and the relationship that exist between the structure of the party, the appointment of political elites and patronage. The conclusion is that the party in public office and its allies in the coalition cabinet control the post of ministers and vice-ministers. While these last ones control the posts of their subordinates, it is hard to understand whether they select the employees from the party pool or from their personal networks. The other finding is that the structure of the party creates strong links between patronage and appointment, these last ones done with the scope of having control over government resources and distribution of resources. On the other hand, the research didn’t prove any link between historical legacies and patronage and party system and patronage. (shrink)

The number of International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) schools has increased rapidly in China in recent years. However, access to schools offering the IBDP remains restricted to a relatively elite minority of China’s population due to enrolment barriers for Chinese nationals and relatively high school fees. An implication is that students potentially remain in physical, cultural and socio-economic isolation from host communities. Within this context, this study explored how, and the extent to which, two core components of the IBDP – (...) namely, the Learner Profile and Creativity, Action, Service – help foster inter-cultural understanding between students and other communities within Chinese society. To this end, in mid 2013 interview data were gathered from IBDP teachers, IBDP administrators, and IBDP students from five elite IBDP schools in Beijing and Shanghai. Findings revealed a perception that the Learner Profile could provide a strong theoretical appreciation of the norms and values of other cultures, while Creativity, Action, Service could break down physical divides by offering students an opportunity to interact with people of different cultures and socio-economic groups. Nevertheless, interviewees also noted tensions with the implementation of these components in the context of results-oriented elite IBDP schools in China. (shrink)

Elite sport is both worshipped disparaged. It is adored because athletes embody an ethical act of courage, self-sacrifice and fair play; it is criticized for too many scandals that plague and discredit it. Too often, athletes seem trapped in and crushed by a system much bigger than they are, a system that also compels them to do wrong, in a way that seems to instrumentalize them. But what is the real status of elite athletes? Does the system treat them with (...) dignity in a manner that allows them to accept freely and voluntarily the end purpose of the record to be beaten that demands enormous sacrifices? This article considers how an analysis of the concept of human dignity can help us better understand the place of the athlete in this complex reality of elite sport. (shrink)

The notion of science as a stratified system is clearly manifested in the markedly uneven distribution of productivity, rewards, resources, and recognition. Although previous studies have shown that institutional environments for conducting research differ significantly between national science systems, disciplines, and subfields, it remains to be shown whether any systematic variations and patterns in inequalities exist among researchers in different national and domain specific settings. This study investigates the positioning of citation elites as opposed to ‘ordinary’ researchers by way of (...) examining three dimensions of concentration (accumulation of publications and citations, specialisation, and institutional concentration) in biology, economics and physics in Denmark and the UK. Across all three dimensions, we put Richard Whitley’s bipartite theory to the test, suggesting a nexus between the intellectual structure of a discipline and the configuration of its elite. The study draws on a dataset of researchers who published most of their publications in either physics, biology, or economics over the 1980–2018 period and with at least one publication in 2017–2018 while affiliated to either a British or a Danish university. We find higher degrees of concentration in the UK compared to Denmark, and that physics and biology respectively display the greatest and lowest degree of concentration. Similar patterns in disciplinary differences are observed in both countries, suggesting that concentration patterns are largely rooted in disciplinary cultures and merely amplified by the national context. (shrink)

Diogenes, Ahead of Print. Western élite groups’ moralities and actions can and should be studied empirically. Contrary to belief held in the 1980s in mainstream social anthropology that fieldwork in the classic anthropological fashion could not be done among the western élite, the findings of long-term research in this field have yielded key ethnographic insights leading to academic and public debate. In this article I draw on ethnographic research on legitimacy, power, and governance among key Neapolitan élite groups to offer (...) reflections on a style of governance that has at once engendered and thrived on the blurring of the dividing line between what is legitimate and what is not legitimate in public life. The discussion focuses on powerful, tightly networked groups that, inspired by an elitist philosophy of power, have been hard at work to gain and maintain power, while losing trust and authority. The analysis builds towards an understanding of their implosion and of the corresponding erosion of the relationship between citizenship and governance. (shrink)

In this book, author David N. Levy uses Machiavelli’s conflict between the elite and the people as the lens through which to understand the other major features of his republicanism. Through analyzing his Discourses on Livy, Levy shows that Machiavelli’s principles can provide support for, and constructive criticism of, modern liberal democracy.

Western élite groups’ moralities and actions can and should be studied empirically. Contrary to belief held in the 1980s in mainstream social anthropology that fieldwork in the classic anthropological fashion could not be done among the western élite, the findings of long-term research in this field have yielded key ethnographic insights leading to academic and public debate. In this article I draw on ethnographic research on legitimacy, power, and governance among key Neapolitan élite groups to offer reflections on a style (...) of governance that has at once engendered and thrived on the blurring of the dividing line between what is legitimate and what is not legitimate in public life. The discussion focuses on powerful, tightly networked groups that, inspired by an elitist philosophy of power, have been hard at work to gain and maintain power, while losing trust and authority. The analysis builds towards an understanding of their implosion and of the corresponding erosion of the relationship between citizenship and governance. (shrink)

Aristophanes has often been read as a conservative who was nostalgic for the days before the advent of radical democracy in Athens. This article offers a more complex reading, centering on the portrayal of ordinary citizens in Archarnians and Knights Focusing on their “cleverness,” Aristophanes recognizes both the potential of ordinary citizens and their limitations as heroes in the struggle against elite domination of democratic politics. This complex portrayal of ordinary citizens, the author suggests, complements recent calls for a more (...) agonistic democratic politics. (shrink)

1. This paper contributes to the broader debate about how elite school institutions manage to remain alert and responsive to changing education market conditions, locally and globally, by explicitl...

Se parte de la hipótesis que el Estado nacional cubano es el resultado de la acción de una serie de elites que siempre se han considerado revolucionarias. La construcción del Estado cubano abarca tres experiencias que explican el ejercicio del poder político por elites específicas en el siglo XX. Es la capacidad de agencia de estas elites la que explica la historia política del Estado, independientemente de las intervenciones externas de las que puede ser objeto. Lo que definimos como Revolución (...) cubana, es un proceso que puede distinguirse en dos fases, la insurreccional entendida como la toma del poder político, y la construcción de los mecanismos que permiten la reproducción de la nueva elite como elite de poder, es decir, a través del aparato del Estado. En este proceso particular se observa la importancia de un líder carismático como Fidel Castro, quien logra aglutinar a un conjunto de personas en torno de su liderazgo. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to examine the influence of the Italian thinker Machiavelli on the approaches of Pareto, Mosca and Michels, which are the classical representatives of elite theories and elitist approaches discussed in the discipline of political sociology. Majority-minority relations that shape the political forms of government, the share of the powerful and influential in the government, the reasons that ensure the social acceptance of power, and the legitimation of these reasons fall within the scope of elite (...) theories.Some concepts emphasized by elite theorists are related to the basic concepts that Machiavelli put forward in his teachings. These concepts and the contexts in which they are used depend on being powerful, cunning and protecting one's status, etc. is related.It is thought that examining the effects of Machiavellian attitudes and methods on the formation of elite theories will allow the classical elite approaches to be examined from a different perspective. It is important for both sociology and political sciences to examine the projection of the concept of "inequality", which is examined as a sociological concept, and the concept of "stratification" based on it, in the political field, with the help of elite theories. Because the Machiavellian philosophy in the background of elite-elite approaches illuminates the main lines of the systematic of political stratification. In this study, a method in which primary and secondary sources are examined and the views of thinkers are presented comparatively has been adopted. Therefore, first of all, information about the theoretical background was given, based on the views put forward by Machiavelli in his works. Then, the contributions of the above-mentioned thinkers to elite theories are discussed comparatively. (shrink)

Researchers have studied the athletes' dual careers with the aim of helping them to combine the sport and the academic–vocational sphere. Most of this research has addressed the study–sport combination, but there is a lack of studies on the work–sport combination. The main objective of this research was to explore the subjective perceptions of Spanish elite athletes when attempting to combine their careers as professional athletes with a second profession or trade. Further, this study aims to identify the access to (...) facilitating resources and the perception of obstacles and barriers to the development of a dual career. A qualitative approach was chosen to address these research questions. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was carried out on a sample of 18 elite athletes, and the data were collected using semi-structured interviews based on a set of superordinate and subordinate categories. The results showed that the athletes interviewed possessed valuable resources such as the transference of sports values to the work sphere. However, important barriers were highlighted such as the perception of sport institutions as absent entities in the work–sport combination. Thus, the study of this type of dual career seems to be one of the challenges facing the interested scientific community for the coming years. (shrink)

At IAPS Ljubljana conference (September 2007) Dag Vidar Hanstad and Sigmund Loland presented a paper on elite-level athletes' duty to provide information on their whereabouts, to decide between two opposing positions: is this WADA demand justifiable anti-doping work or an indefensible surveillance regime? They concluded that on moral grounds this regime is conditionally acceptable, the condition being the acceptability of a general framework and objectives embodied in anti-doping global legislative foundations (the World Anti-Doping Code). But, as they said, principled objections (...) against the system have more universal relevance, which has to be taken seriously . To take this ambiguous and intriguing conclusion a step further, I propose a legal rather than ethical approach, from the aspect of constitutional and international human rights law, and the possible clash of two legally acknowledged values - the concept of elite sport without doping, and the concept of individual human rights. This conflict between ideological or moral values and the legality of individual rights is not a novelty. This paper presents three instances of this conflict: Bernard de Mandeville's differentiation between public and private values; Eug ne Sue's parallel legal and civil morals; and the contemporary moralisation of law which conflates legality into morality. The subordination of legality to morality has potentially dangerous consequences: here, Agamben's 'state of exception' comes to mind, with his analysis of potestas and auctoritas. However, in the case of sport and the war against doping, the origin of power is not in the nation state; it originates in civil society's non-governmental national and international bodies recognised as autonomous sources of legal order. (shrink)

Summary This paper reports on the perspectives of elite athletes on anti-doping work in general and on the whereabouts system in particular, and uses a figurational perspective to explore the unintended consequences of the planned introduction of the whereabouts system. A cross-sectional survey of all the athletes in the Norwegian registered testing pool was carried out in 2006, using a structured questionnaire. Overall, 70.6% of the athletes agreed that doping was a problem in elite sport in general, but paradoxically only (...) 17.5% agreed that doping was a problem in their own sport. However, more than four in ten of the athletes agreed that the whereabouts information system made a contribution to a “cleaner” sport. Some athletes thought the system was unfair. The whereabouts information system had, despite all good intentions, outcomes other than those planned and intended by the WADA. Thus, athletes’ views might fruitfully be integrated with other perspectives when anti-doping work is developed further. (shrink)

In this book, author David N. Levy uses Machiavelli’s conflict between the elite and the people as the lens through which to understand the other major features of his republicanism. Through analyzing his Discourses on Livy, Levy shows that Machiavelli’s principles can provide support for, and constructive criticism of, modern liberal democracy.

Urban elites and their relative income levels are windows on the emerging socioeconomic order in China. We add to the research literature a new view that economic sectors are the institutional contexts in which different elites seek their material gains. Conducting a trend analysis with 1988 and 1995 national surveys of urban China, we found that political, administrative, and managerial elites maintained consistently higher levels of income relative to professional elites, but this applied mainly to a monopoly sector of industries (...) that were restricted to state operation. Managers in the open industry sector that allowed for free entry and exile experienced income declines relative to professionals within the sector, even though the former had moderately higher income levels than the latter in 1988 and 1995. All elite groups in the monopoly sector retained higher incomes than their counterparts in the open sector in 1995, but not necessarily in 1988. (shrink)

Aristophanes has often been read as a conservative who was nostalgic for the days before the advent of radical democracy in Athens. This article offers a more complex reading, centering on the portrayal of ordinary citizens in "Archarnians" and "Knights". Focusing on their "cleverness," Aristophanes recognizes both the potential of ordinary citizens and their limitations as heroes in the struggle against elite domination of democratic politics. This complex portrayal of ordinary citizens, the author suggests, complements recent calls for a more (...) agonistic democratic politics. (shrink)

(1998). Universities, elites and the nation‐state: A reply to Delanty. Social Epistemology: Vol. 12, Sites of Knowledge Production: The University, pp. 73-77.

The financial crisis, and associated scandals, created a sense of a juridical deficit with regard to the financial sector. Forms of independent judgement within the sector appeared compromised, while judgement over the sector seemed unattainable. Elites, in the classical Millsian sense of those taking tacitly coordinated ‘big decisions’ over the rest of the public, seemed absent. This article argues that the eradication of jurisdictional elites is an effect of neoliberalism, as articulated most coherently by Hayek. It characterizes the neoliberal project (...) as an effort to elevate ‘unconscious’ processes over ‘conscious’ ones, which in practice means elevating cybernetic, non-human systems and processes over discursive spheres of politics and judgement. Yet such a system still produces its own types of elite power, which come to consist in acts of translation, rather than judgement. Firstly, there are ‘cyborg intermediaries’: elites which operate largely within the system of codes, data, screens and prices. Secondly, there are ‘diplomatic intermediaries’: elites who come to narrate and justify what markets are ‘saying’. The paper draws on Lazzarato’s work on signifying vs asignifying semiotics in order to articulate this, and concludes by considering the types of elite crisis which these forms of power tend to produce. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates that the management and contestability of power is central to Dewey's understanding of democracy and provides a middle ground between two opposite poles within democratic theory: Either the masses become the genuine danger to democratic governance (à la Lippmann) or elites are described as bent on controlling the masses (à la Wolin). Yet, the answer to managing the relationship between them and the demos is never forthcoming. I argue that Dewey's response to Lippmann for how we ought (...) to conceive of the relationship between citizens and elites if power is not to become arbitrary is located within a larger framework that avoids the problematic distinction Wolin draws between the demos and representative government. For Dewey, the legitimacy of decision-making, and, indeed, the security of freedom, is determined not merely by our actual involvement, but the extent to which non-participation does not preclude the future contestability of power. (shrink)

_Elite Education – International Perspectives_ is the first book to systematically examine elite education in different parts of the world. Authors provide a historical analysis of the emergence of national elite education systems and consider how recent policy and economic developments are changing the configuration of elite trajectories and the social groups benefiting from these. Through country-level case studies, this book offers readers an in-depth account of elite education systems in the Anglophone world, in Europe and in the emerging financial (...) centres of Africa, Asia and Latin America. A series of commentaries highlight commonalities and differences between elite education systems, and offer insights into broader theoretical issues, with which educationalists, researchers and policy makers are engaging. With authors including Stephen J. Ball, Donald Broady, Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, Heinz-Hermann Krüger, Maria Alice Nogueira, Julia Resnik and Agnès van Zanten, _t_he book offers a benchmark perspective on issues frequently glossed over in comparative education, including the processes by which powerful groups retain privilege and ‘elite’ status in rapidly changing societies. Elite Education – International Perspectives will appeal to policy makers and academics in the fields of education and sociology. Simultaneously it will be of special relevance to post-graduates enrolled on courses in the sociology of education, education policy, and education and international development. (shrink)

Cet article s’attache à définir la nation, en Afrique, par la notion de « révolution », c’est-à-dire d’une transformation totale de conditions anciennes – aussi bien précoloniales que coloniales – en vue de fonder des structures nationales progressistes et démocratiques. Usant de l’exemple des pays du Sahel, en particulier le Burkina Faso, le Mali et le Niger, l’article analyse cette révolution nationale comme un phénomène de cycle long, qui se déploie dans une contradiction entre un leadership politique de moins en (...) moins en adéquation avec elle, et des peuples de plus en plus conscients et exigeants quant à leurs droits civiques. Cette contradiction est par ailleurs déterminée différemment par les problèmes politiques propres au cadre urbain et au cadre rural. Elle aboutit à des luttes et contestations opposant peuples et élites qui indiquent que, si la révolution nationale est loin d’être accomplie, elle n’a pas non plus simplement avorté. (shrink)

The existing scholarship has developed six main explanations to account for the success of the Chinese Revolution, which has been anomalous for major paradigms derived from cross-national comparisons. Methodologically, we use a social geographical approach to test these existing explanations systematically by constructing and analyzing a unique dataset of Communist growth in 93 counties in the three most contested provinces during its most pivotal period of ascendence. Theoretically, we advance and test an alternative perspective, based on the groundwork of Tocqueville (...) and Fei Xiaotong, that integrates the state-centric theory, elite theory, and cultural analysis. Our perspective emphasizes the interplay between state centralization and local elite structure, which leads to intensified state extraction and local elite fracturing, thus creating favorable conditions for revolution. The quantitative analysis strongly supports the importance of the Japanese invasion but provides limited support for many other conventional explanations. The analysis largely confirms the Tocqueville-Fei perspective on state centralization, elite fracturing, cultural change, and revolution. The findings are buttressed by a detailed case study of Lianshui County. The study unveils a common structural challenge that a modernizing state faces in an agrarian status society, to recreate its political legitimacy while disrupting local elite structure. It also sheds historical light on the evolution of state-society relationship through the Chinese Revolution. (shrink)

Como sabemos, as relações sociais na República Romana Tardia e no Alto Império eram baseadas em redes de interdependências pessoais conhecidas como patronato. Nesse artigo analisaremos dois trechos de discursos do Satyricon, para identificar conflitos presentes na sociedade romana do Alto Império. Demonstraremos que o autor do Satyricon, por meio de atos de nomeação e representações, impunha um modelo de organização social de acordo com os valores das elites romanas. Utilizaremos alguns elementos do método semiótico de leitura isotópica e, assim, (...) veremos que é possível identificar a rede temática do bom/mau cliente, que nos remete para a axiologia fides/pietas, estabelecendo uma ação ideal para os clientes. (shrink)

_Elite Schools in Globalizing Circumstances_ foregrounds the richly theoretical and empirically-based work of an international cast of scholars seeking to break out of the confines of the methodological nationalism that now governs so much of contemporary scholarship on schooling. Based on a 5-year extended global ethnography of elite schools in nine different countries—countries defined by colonial pasts linked to England—the contributors make a powerful case for the rethinking of elite schools and elite class formation theory in light of contemporary processes (...) of globalization and transnational change. Prestigious, high-status schools have long been seen as critical institutional vehicles directly contributing to the societal processes of elite selection and reproduction. This book asserts that much has changed and that these schools can no longer rest on their past laurels and accomplishments. Instead they must re-cast their heritages and tradition in order to navigate the new globally competitive educational field enabling them to succeed in a world in which the globalization of educational markets, the global ambitions and imaginations of school youth, and the emergence of new powerful players peddling entrepreneurial models of curriculum and education, have placed contemporary schooling under tremendous pressure. This insightful and though-provoking volume provides a well-researched perspective on the nature of contemporary schooling in the globalizing era. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Globalisation, Societies and Education. _. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates that the management and contestability of power is central to Dewey's understanding of democracy and provides a middle ground between two opposite poles within democratic theory: Either the masses become the genuine danger to democratic governance (à la Lippmann) or elites are described as bent on controlling the masses (à la Wolin). Yet, the answer to managing the relationship between them and the demos is never forthcoming. I argue that Dewey's response to Lippmann for how we ought (...) to conceive of the relationship between citizens and elites if power is not to become arbitrary is located within a larger framework that avoids the problematic distinction Wolin draws between the demos and representative government. For Dewey, the legitimacy of decision-making, and, indeed, the security of freedom, is determined not merely by our actual involvement, but the extent to which non-participation does not preclude the future contestability of power. (shrink)

This article introduces the special issue on ‘Elites and Power after Financialization’. It is presented in three parts. The first sets out the original Weberian problematic that directed the work of Michels and Mills, in the 1910s and 1950s respectively. It then discusses how this framework was appropriated and then cast aside as our understanding of capitalism changed. The second section makes the case for a reset of elite studies around the current capitalist conjuncture of financialization. It is explained how (...) this unifying theme allows for a diverse set of approaches for answering old and new questions about elites and power. The third part identifies four key themes or sites of investigation that emerge within the nine papers offered here. These are: new state-capital relations, innovative forms of value extraction, new elite insecurities and resources in liquid times and the role of elite intermediaries and experts. (shrink)

Uno de los acontecimientos más importantes en las sociedades contemporáneas es la emergencia y consolidación de nuevas elites cuya importancia en la dirección de asuntos nacionales e internacionales va en constante aumento. La fuerza que tiene cada una de estas elites depende directamente del impacto creciente de los conocimientos de alto nivel en casi todo el quehacer social, y de la fusión de estos conocimientos con el poder político (Gyarmati 1984: 17). Los conocimientos científicos y tecnológicos que orientan el destino (...) de las sociedades contemporáneas se adquieren sólo tras largos años de estudios formales, de naturaleza compleja y en instituciones especializadas. Bajo esa premisa, este artículo realiza un recorrido histórico por los procesos de construcción, consolidación y transformación de los saberes y haceres modernos. (shrink)

The four books under review form part of a resurgent social science interest in elites as obligatory entry points in understanding changing relations of power and growing inequalities in a post-organized capitalism. All four books demonstrate, in differing but often complementary ways, that in an age of formal meritocracy, rising powers, government outsourcing, weightless information economies, financial deregulation, and increasingly dense digitized networked information and communication systems, elites have changed. Their mobile lives, their ability to feel at ease in almost (...) any situation, and their role as intermediaries connecting different spheres of cultural, economic and political life are defining features of the new, truly global elites. The four books demonstrate the enduring influence of Bourdieu as a theorist of elites and showcase methodological and conceptual innovations to further develop comparative research. (shrink)

The inclusion of elite transwomen athletes in sport is controversial. The recent International Olympic Committee guidelines allow transwomen to compete in the women’s division if their testosterone is held below 10 nmol/L. This is significantly higher than that of cis-women. Science demonstrates that high testosterone and other male physiology provides a performance advantage in sport suggesting that transwomen retain some of that advantage. To determine whether the advantage is unfair necessitates an ethical analysis of the principles of inclusion and fairness. (...) Particularly important is whether the advantage held by transwomen is a tolerable or intolerable unfairness. We conclude that the advantage to transwomen afforded by the IOC guidelines is an intolerable unfairness. This does not mean transwomen should be excluded from elite sport but that the existing male/female categories in sport should be abandoned in favour of a more nuanced approach satisfying both inclusion and fairness. (shrink)

The dominant theory of elite power, grounded in Weberian bureaucracy, has analyzed elites in terms of stable positions at the top of enduring institutions. Today, many conditions that spawned these stable ‘command posts’ no longer prevail, and elite power thus warrants rethinking. This article advances an argument about contemporary ‘influence elites’. The way they are organized and the modus operandi they employ to wield influence enable them to evade public accountability, a hallmark of a democratic society. Three cases are presented, (...) first to investigate changes in how elites operate and, second, to examine varying configurations in which the new elites are organized. The cases demonstrate that influence elites intermesh hierarchies and networks, serve as connectors, and coordinate influence from multiple, moving perches, inside and outside official structures. Their flexible and multi-positioned organizing modes call for reconsidering elite theory and grappling with the implications of these elites for democratic society. (shrink)

L’étude de 110 histoires de nominations individuelles dans l’administration publique au Gabon permet d’analyser l’importance des solidarités sociales situées en dehors d’une logique ethnique. Les relations individuelles qui prévalent au sein des réseaux des futures élites administratives montrent que la relation ethno-communautaire est latente dans le processus de sélection des élites de l’administration publique. Le lien ethnique devient actif dans le processus de nomination individuelle dès que s’ajoute un lien supplémentaire situé en dehors de l’affinité ethnique, comme les (...) relations d’anciens camarades de « fac », les relations avec les notables locaux et les liens engendrés par l’appartenance à des entités collectives. Cet article étudie la complexité des solidarités ethniques et les dynamiques relationnelles dans les nominations individuelles.A review of the process that led to the appointment of 110 Gabonese civil servants makes it possible to analyze the importance of social solidarity as well as ethnic solidarity factors. A close study of how future members of the elite connect within networks shows that ethnic relations act as a backdrop to the selection process of civil service elites. Ethnic relations are revived as soon as an additional factor is involved : old schools ties, relations with local prominent citizens, as well as connections resulting from memberships of political parties and freemasonry. The article assesses the complexity of ethnic logics and the relationship dynamics in the appointments reviewed. (shrink)

Issues concerning technological risk have increasingly become the subject of deliberative exercises involving participation of ordinary citizens. The most popular topic for deliberation has been genetically modified foods. Despite the varied circumstances of their establishment, deliberative “minipublics” almost always produce recommendations that reflect a worldview more “precautionary” than the “Promethean” outlook more common among governing elites. There are good structural reasons for this difference. Its existence raises the question of why elites sponsor mini-publics and if policy is little affected by (...) the results of deliberations, questions the possibility of deliberative legitimation of public policy. We make this argument by looking at mini-publics on GM foods in France, the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and Switzerland. Deliberative legitimation becomes plausible if elites can attenuate their Promethean outlook. This is possible if ecological modernization discourse pervades their politics; Denmark provides an illustration. (shrink)

We explore the meaning and implications of Bourdieu’s construct of the field of power and integrate it into a wider conception of the formation and functioning of elites at the highest level in society. Corporate leaders active within the field of power hold prominent roles in numerous organizations, constituting an ‘elite of elites’, whose networks integrate powerful participants from different fields. As ‘bridging actors’, they form coalitions to determine institutional settlements and societal resource flows. We ask how some corporate actors (...) become hyper-agents, those actors who ‘make things happen’, while others remain ‘ordinary’ members of the elite. Three hypotheses are developed and tested using extensive data on the French business elite. Social class emerges as persistently important, challenging the myth of meritocratic inclusion. Our primary contribution to Bourdieusian scholarship lies in our analysis of hyper-agents, revealing the debts these dominants owe to elite schools and privileged classes. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the micro-foundations of elite politics by focusing on changes in network structures that emerge from informal conversations. Empirically, we offer a novel “situational conflict” explanation to account for the puzzle of why reformist leaders were periodically ousted during China’s reform era (1977–1992), emphasizing the unexpected power collision that catalyzed the violent crackdown on the Tiananmen movement in 1989. To do so, we employ network analysis and narrative to utilize an original dataset of elite conversations and (...) primary sources that have only recently been made available. We find that ideological cleavage and manipulative brokerage produced each conflict to varying degrees but were contingent on the relational structure arising from elite conversational interactions. Furthermore, the actual unfolding of those conflicts often resulted from key actors’ discrepant understandings of the changing relationships via ongoing interactions at vital moments, such as during the Tiananmen movement. Integrating micro-sociological theories and network analysis, our work has methodological and theoretical implications for unpacking the black box of elite politics and its role in macro-historical change. (shrink)