Since the financial crisis, the issue of the ‘one percent’ has become the centre of intense public debate, unavoidable even for members of the elite themselves. Moreover, inquiring into elites has taken centre-stage once again in both journalistic investigations and academic research.
New Directions in Elite Studies attempts to move the social scientific study of elites beyond economic analysis, which has greatly improved our knowledge of inequality, but is restricted to income and wealth. In contrast, this book mobilizes a broad scope of research methods to uncover the social composition of the power elite – the ‘field of power’. It reconstructs processes through which people gain access to positions in this particular social space, examines the various forms of capital they mobilize in the process – economic, but also cultural and social capital – and probes changes over time and variations across national contexts.
Bringing together the most advanced research into elites by a European and multidisciplinary group of scholars, this book presents an agenda for the future study of elites. It will appeal to all those interested in the study of elites, inequality, class, power, and gender inequality.
"Chapter 1: Introduction Johan Heilbron, Felix Bühlmann, Johs. Hjellbrekke, Olav Korsnes, Mike Savage Section 1: The myth of a global business elite Chapter 2: The international business elite – fact or fiction? Michael Hartmann Chapter 3: Degrees of transnationalization: the case of the Dutch business elite Rob Timans and Johan Heilbron Chapter 4: Dynamics of internationalization. A sequential analysis of the careers of Swiss Banking elites. Pedro Araujo Section 2: Scrutinizing the power elite and the field of power Chapter 5: A Place at What Table? An Analysis of Symbolic Capital Hierarchies at the Norwegian Central Bank’s Annual Dinner. Johs. Hjellbrekke and Olav Korsnes Chapter 6: The gendered reproduction of the upper class. Maren Toft and Magne Flemmen Chapter 7: A Scandinavian Variety of Power Elites? Key Institutional Orders in the Danish Elite Networks Anton Grau Larsen and Christoph Houman Ellersgaard Chapter 8: The anatomy of the British economic ""elite"". Mike Savage, Katharina Hecht, Johs Hjellbrekke, Niall Cunningham and Daniel Laurison Section 3 Social closure and reproduction strategies Chapter 9: The Social History of a Capitalist Class: Wealth Holders in Stockholm, 1914-2006. Martin Gustavsson and Andreas Melldahl Chapter 10: Beyond Meritocracy: Wealth Accumulation in the German Upper Classes. Nora Waitkus and Olaf Groh-Samberg Chapter 11: Gendering the elites: an ethnographic approach to elite women’s lives and the reproduction of inequality. Luna Glucksberg Section 4: Elite education, recruitment and legitimacy Chapter 12: The Elite Placement Power of Professors of Law and Economic Sciences. Felix Bühlmann, Thierry Rossier and Pierre Benz Chapter 13: Elite … but not that elite. Envisioning Elite Status at a sec"
Olav Korsnes is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bergen, Norway Johan Heilbron is a historical sociologist and Director of Research at the Centre Européen de Sociologie et de Science Politique de la Sorbonne (CESSP-CNRS-EHESS) in Paris, France Johs. Hjellbrekke is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bergen, Norway, and Director of the Norwegian University Centre in Paris, France Felix Bühlmann is Assistant Professor of Life Course Sociology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland Mike Savage is Martin White Professor of Sociology and co-Director of the International Inequalities Institute, LSE, UK
