Elite Theory and Empirical Elite Research Amid Transatlantic Crisis

Abstract

While classic and modern elite theories primarily focus on the aggregate level and discuss the structure, functions and quality of elites in a general way, empirical elite research analyses individual-level data on elites. Empirical elite studies, moreover, have dealt mostly with single national elites, longitudinally or by comparing different elite sectors. Comparative elite studies have been rare and mostly limited to parliamentarians, political executives and top civil servants. Their theoretical focus has necessarily been limited. Rather than discussing elites in a general way, they have used theories of social mobility or theories of representation to explain the social backgrounds and political outlooks of elites and have analysed changes within the elites or in the relationship between them and citizens by relating them to broader societal developments such as modernisation or democratisation. However, the increasing availability of data generated by empirical elite research (both cross-sectional and longitudinal) facilitates a search for empirical regularities that transcend individual nations. Meta analyses comparing the results of national elite studies can be used to test broader theoretical questions about the structure and quality of elites. For example, democratisation in the CEE countries has elicited a large number of empirical studies bearing on the formation or breakdown of elite settlements. The current economic-political crisis in the trans-Atlantic world affords opportunities to test which economic, institutional and political conditions may be polarizing national elites and undermining the consensus that has characterised elites in many countries in Europe and North America since the 1950s. The panel invites papers dealing with the meta-theoretical question of how the gap between elite theory and empirical elite research may be narrowed in light of the crisis, as well as papers demonstrating theoretical implications of research on elites in the face of crisis (e.g. elite recruitment, attitudes and networks).

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