The Sociology of Elites

Front Cover
Routledge, 2007 - Elite (Social sciences) - 133 pages

In view of the drastically growing divide between rich and poor, people in many industrialized countries are asking about the responsibility of elites for society. Are the activities of elites determined primarily by their responsibility for the common good of the population or by their interest in enlarging their own power and wealth?

This book pursues two aims in attempting to come up with an answer to this question. Its first aim is to present a well-founded overview of the most important sociological elite theories, ranging from the classics in the field, Mosca, Michels, and Pareto, to Dahrendorf, Keller, and Bourdieu. Its second is to use the examples of the world’s five largest industrialized nations (France, Germany, the UK, Japan, and the US) to empirically demonstrate how the elites of a given country, above all the political and economic elites, are recruited and how they cooperate with one another.

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Contents

Functional elites
22
Elites and classes
39
National education systems and elite recruitment
61
Copyright

4 other sections not shown

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The Sociology of Elites
Michael Hartmann
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Michael Hartmann
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Common terms and phrases

academic alumni Bourdieu 1989a business elite business sector Cambridge candidates career central classic dichotomy companies consensus cultural Dahrendorf decisions democracy democratic dominant class Dreitzel École Polytechnique economic capital elite and mass elite educational institutions elite positions elite research elite theories elite universities Enarques example exclusive fact factor families Field and Higley France French functional elites functionalist German graduates Grandes écoles Grands Corps groups habitus Hartmann Hoffmann-Lange ibid important income industrial influence Japan Keller large corporations Lasswell leadership less major Mannheim Michels middle classes Mills Oxbridge party percent persons PhD holders play population power elite principle private schools public schools recruitment role ruling class Saint Martin social background social selection society sociology strata strategic elites structures studies subelites term tion Todai top echelons top executives top positions upper class upper middle upper middle-class Vilfredo Pareto Weimar Republic

References to this book

About the author (2007)

Michael Hartmann is Professor of Sociology at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.

Bibliographic information

TitleThe Sociology of Elites
Volume 50 of Routledge studies in social and political thought
AuthorMichael Hartmann
Editionannotated
PublisherRoutledge, 2007
ISBN0415411971, 9780415411974
Length133 pages
  
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