Suchergebnisse

Der Beitrag führt in eine Abendveranstaltung des 32. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (2004) ein, die unter dem Titel "An der Spitze der Gesellschaft. Altes Geld, neue Kräfte und Leute wie du und ich" stand. Der Verfasser setzt sich mit dem Elite-Begriff auseinander. Er definiert Elite als dynamisches Gebilde von Personen mit Macht und von Netzwerken, die gesamtgesellschaftliche Rahmenbedingungen mitbestimmen, soziale Prozesse in Gang setzen und normative Präferenzen klären. (ICE2)

Within the legal mobilization framework, sociolegal scholars identify elite support as a key indirect benefit of litigation. Court-centered strategies generate support from influential state and private actors, and this support helps a movement to achieve its goals. Instead of assuming elite support to be a decidedly positive step in a movement's trajectory, a more contextual analysis situates elite support as a complex, dynamic factor that movement advocates attempt to manage. Such support may at times create political and legal risks that jeopardize a movement's progress. My analysis of the marriage equality movement suggests a tentative typology with which to approach elite support: Elite support appears generally productive for a movement when it leads to action consistent with the movement's strategy. On the other hand, elite support may pose significant risk when it prompts action inconsistent with the movement's strategic plan, even if it is consistent with the movement's substantive positions. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

This HSR Special Issue assembles contributions on current topics of elite research. They deal in particular with the challenges globalization poses for the traditional linkages between citizens and their representatives and their impact on political legitimacy. We argue that these developments upset the balance between a broad elite consensus embracing universal values and citizens' fears that their representatives pay too little attention to their demands to fight the negative effects of globalization on the country. We develop a unified theory of representative elites by combining three theorems: The theorem of antagonistic cooperation, the principal-agent theorem and the challenge-response theorem. While the first explains how elite consensus ensures effective policy making, the second demands responsiveness to citizen demands, and the third implies that fundamental social and political changes produce strains for established intra-elite and elite-citizen relations.

"Erst nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg wurde der Elitebegriff herausgelöst aus seinen antidemokratischen und faschistischen Vereinnahmungen und als 'Funktionselite' ein sozialwissenschaftlich verwendbarer Begriff; er bezeichnet das obere Segment der Gesellschaft, das sich durch Bildung, Qualifikation und Leistung zu legitimieren hat. In der Bevölkerung und in der kritischen Öffentlichkeit werden Eliten sowie Forderungen nach 'neuen Eliten' weiterhin mit Skepsis gesehen." (Autorenreferat)

This HSR Special Issue assembles contributions on current topics of elite research. They deal in particular with the challenges globalization poses for the traditional linkages between citizens and their representatives and their impact on political legitimacy. We argue that these developments upset the balance between a broad elite consensus embracing universal values and citizens' fears that their representatives pay too little attention to their demands to fight the negative effects of globalization on the country. We develop a unified theory of representative elites by combining three theorems: The theorem of antagonistic cooperation, the principal-agent theorem and the challenge-response theorem. While the first explains how elite consensus ensures effective policy making, the second demands responsiveness to citizen demands, and the third implies that fundamental social and political changes produce strains for established intra-elite and elite-citizen relations.

This article argues that recent political changes in Bolivia, leading to the first indigenous president in the country's history being inaugurated in 2006, unsettled the traditional schemes of societal stratification, as well as the traditionally accepted markers of elite-hood. As a consequence, not only have new elites come to the fore, but they also modified the material, symbolic and political parameters with which elites demonstrate and affirm their position, leading to new searches for self-positioning as elites. Some sectors of the old elites developed an egoistic, revengeful subjectivity bringing bloodshed to the country. The new elite, on the contrary, is fragmented, confused and in part reluctant to perform as elite. © 2011 Brill.

Who are the members of the most powerful group in the Danish society? To answer this question, we explored the elite through two different methodological approaches. Using correspondence analysis, we charted the oppositions structuring two exclusive groups, the 100 most important Danish CEOs and the 1,527 elite individuals identified in the Danish Power and Democracy Study in 1999. Through social network analysis, we identified and explored the integration of a core of the power network in Denmark – the power elite - and the inner circle of the corporate elite. The importance of how the elite is defined or identified is discussed in relation with the most widely used method for the study of national elites. With the positional method the size and composition is defined as the data is constructed. We propose a new data sensitive method that identifies a cohesive elite with social network analysis. This lets us analyse the composition and like C.W. Mills identify the key institutional orders in Denmark.