Suchergebnisse

Betydningen af institutionaliseret kulturel kapital i form af diplomer fra højere læreanstalter er central for Bourdieus forståelse af dominansrelationer i det franske samfund omkring 1980'erne. Imidlertid viser en prosopografi – en kollektiv, relationel biografi – af de 100 vigtigste danske topdirektører i 2007, at universitetsgrader ikke har samme betydning i Danmark som i større industrilande. Snarere end kulturel kapital har især kapital opnået gennem lang tid på feltet – organisatorisk kapital – og nedarvet kapital betydning. Frem for at fungere som et krav er meritter fra universitetsverdenen snarere en relativt sjælden strategi i karrierevejen mod posten som topdirektør.
Der fandtes således ingen egentlige eliteuddannelser, der fungerede som rekrutteringsgrundlag for erhvervslivets absolutte topposter herhjemme. Studiet tyder på, at man derfor muligvis ikke kan overføre den store betydning af kulturel kapital i det franske samfund til det danske.

Søgeord: Bourdieu, kulturel kapital, geometrisk dataanalyse, magtens felt, elite.

ENGELSK ABSTRACT:

Christoph Ellersgaard and Anton Grau: Cultural Capital among CEOs in Denmark – A Dominant Form of Capital?

Cultural capital in its institutionalized form – i.e. diplomas from élites universities – is a key element in Pierre Bourdieu's understanding of relations of dominance within French society around 1980. A prosopographical study of the 100 most important Danish CEOs in 2007 shows that degrees from élite universities do not play the same pivotal role in a Scandinavian welfare society such as Denmark as they do in France, Britain or Germany. Instead both organizational capital acquired through investment of considerable time in the field and inherited capital are important for CEOs in Denmark. Institutionalized cultural capital in the form of merit from higher education is a rare strategy in the trajectory towards executive position. The article concludes that élite education as a selection potential for top CEOs did not exist in Denmark when the current CEOs accumulated forms of capital giving merit to consideration as CEO candidates. This implies that the importance of cultural capital in the French society is not directly transferable to the reproduction of the field of power in Denmark.

Key words: Bourdieu, cultural capital, geometrical data analysis, field of power, élite.

Siden Folketinget i slutningen af sidste år vedtog at gennemføre en "opdatering af magtudredningen", har vores verdensbillede allerede forandret sig. Dengang stod vi stadig overfor en kommende corona-nedlukning. Magtkritik handlede i høj grad om diskussionerne om begrænsningerne i den personlige frihed i det epidemiramte samfund. Siden da er Coronaen – i hvert fald for entid – lykkelig glemt, mens krigen i Ukraine, energiforsyning, inflation og – lidt mere lokalt – efterretningstjenester og minksager sætter spørgsmålstegn ved relationen mellem politikere, embedsmænd og offentlighed. De store, gradvist mere sammenvævede globale udfordringer, altså klima og biodiversitetsammenbruddet og den globale ulighed og de medfølgende migrantstrømme, er naturligvis stadig uomgængelige. Dette årti har endnu ikke varet tre år, men det virker allerede som en farceagtig gentagelse af mange af det 20. århundredes lavpunkter på fast-forward. Selvom Francis Fukuyama (1989) erklærede (dele af ) historien for afsluttet, har det seneste årti, ikke mindst med legitimitetskrisen for neoliberalismen (Stahl, 2019) og den medfølgende opbakning til anti-system-partier, ført til, at en ny magtudredning må siges at foregå efter afslutningen på historiens afslutning (Hochuli og Hoare, 2021).

Denne forskningsnote identificerer den danske magtelite og undersøger dens sammensætning ved hjælp af netværksanalyse anvendt på det samlede danske magtnetværk 2012-13. Der gives en beskrivelse af tværsektorielle forbindelser i magtnetværket med særligt fokus på magtelitens betydning for sammenhængskraften i netværket. Det samlede magtnetværk består af 5.079 affiliations-netværk, som er indsamlet ved hjælp af den såkaldt inklusive metode. En kerne på 423 personer identificeres (magteliten), hvor koncentrationen af magtfulde forbindelser er særlig stor. Kernen er domineret af erhvervslivet, men er ligeledes et integrerende led mellem institutioner fra erhvervsliv, stat, fagbevægelse og uddannelses- og forskningsverden. Vi beregner desuden odds-ratio for sektorspecifik netværkscentralitet og finder, at personer fra sektorer, som er velrepræsenteret i kernen, har betydeligt højere sandsynlighed end forventeligt for at være velforbundne i andre sektorer.

"The Atlas of Power" maps organized power in Denmark to show how organizations, companies, associations, state councils, committees, and the whole community are bound together by networks.

Pepper Culpepper's seminal Quiet Politics and Business Power has revitalized the study of when business elites can shape policies away from public scrutiny. This article takes the concept of quiet politics to a new, and surprising, set of actors: trade union leaders. Focusing on the case of Denmark, it argues that quiet politics functions through political elite networks and that this way of doing politics favors a particular kind of corporatist coordination between the state, capital, and labor. Rather than showing macrocorporatist coordination between the two classes and governments, it identifies representatives of business and labor that hold privileged positions in political elite networks. Representatives of segments are found in industries important for the Danish economy, specifically, the exporting manufacturing sector. Being at the core of the network requires not only a key position in the Danish economy but also an understanding that politics is often done best without politicians and voters. The analysis shows that trade union and business association representatives work closely on a wide number of issues through quiet politics, using their extensive network to broker and foster agreement between different stakeholders.

What is the relationship between the various forms of power held by elites in contemporary society? Using Bourdieu's notion of the field of power, we address this question by exploring the division of labour of domination among contemporary Danish elites. Via a specific multiple correspondence analysis of 44 variables with 198 categories, we examine the relationship between the volume and distribution of various forms of capital held by 423 individuals at the core of Danish elite networks, arguing that they constitute effective agents in the field of power. We find three major differentiations between: (1) established and newcomers; (2) public and private forms of legitimation; and (3) rural or industrial-based, but nonetheless organisationally well connected, elites and the social elite surrounding Copenhagen state nobility. The legitimising pole of the field of power does not necessarily derive its positions from the cultural field but can also rely on delegated forms of capital.

Although the business elites in western societies have a very privileged social background in common, there are substantial differences in the reproduction mechanisms and social trajectories leading to a position within this elite group. These differences are explored by comparing the career paths of the top 100 CEOs in Britain, France, Germany and Denmark. In France and Britain, this reproduction is mediated through degrees from elite universities. In Germany, the principle of admission is the incorporated cultural capital acquired through an exclusive bourgeois origin combined with any university degree. Elite universities also hold little importance for Danish top CEOs, partly due to the institutions' historic decline; instead, reproduction is mediated through time spent in the economic field, placing the case of the Danish CEOs between that of their British and German counterparts. Specific trajectories of Danish executives, in particular sales people, are identified using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and cluster analysis.

AbstractIn this contribution, we introduce 'career hubs' as an alternative to interlocking directorates and propose to study transnational corporate elite networks with this new concept. Career hubs, the most frequent common career organizations, put emphasis on knowledge brokering and allow us to study a larger variety of organizations to understand the form and the spread of elite networks. We use a sample of 1366 firms on the Forbes 2000 list of 2018 and investigate the careers of 16,500 top executives by linking these data to the BoardEx database. We find three types of career hubs: global audit and consulting firms, financial firms participating in a transatlantic banking alliance and large US consumer goods conglomerates – and highlight the mechanisms through which they shape the spatial structures of finance led capitalism. In the conclusion, we consider the implication of our results for the literature on corporate networks and propose a series of future research avenues in the career hub perspective.

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.

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.

Abstract
Career narratives among the Danish power elite often include the facilitating presence of an elite superior. We explore the role patrons play in the mobility narratives of the Danish power elite. Drawing from a highly select group identified in the core of elite networks, we interviewed 37 individuals selected for maximal variation in career paths, networks and positions within the power elite. We referenced the concept of patrimonialism to understand the relations between patrons and protégés in building an elite career and develop a typology identifying three kinds of patrimonial relations described by elites, intra-organizational relations to mentors and patriarchs and inter-organizational relations to sponsors. We then empirically explore the three types of patrimonial relations. Finally, we argue that each of these patrimonial relations reinforce elite cohesion, even in the supposedly critical case of good governance in Denmark. Hence, patrimonial relations present a crucial perspective for understanding contemporary power structures.