From Power Elites to Influence Elites: Resetting Elite Studies for the 21st Century

Abstract

The dominant theory of elite power, grounded in Weberian bureaucracy, has analyzed elites in terms of stable positions at the top of enduring institutions. Today, many conditions that spawned these stable ‘command posts’ no longer prevail, and elite power thus warrants rethinking. This article advances an argument about contemporary ‘influence elites’. The way they are organized and the modus operandi they employ to wield influence enable them to evade public accountability, a hallmark of a democratic society. Three cases are presented, first to investigate changes in how elites operate and, second, to examine varying configurations in which the new elites are organized. The cases demonstrate that influence elites intermesh hierarchies and networks, serve as connectors, and coordinate influence from multiple, moving perches, inside and outside official structures. Their flexible and multi-positioned organizing modes call for reconsidering elite theory and grappling with the implications of these elites for democratic society.

Keywords

accountability class C. Wright Mills elite theory elites financialization flex nets flex organizations illiberalism inequality influence elites institutional change lobbying military industrial complex neoliberalism post-democracy power cliques power elite revolving door social network theory think tanks Weber 2008 financial crisis

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abbink J and Salverda T (eds) (2013) The Anthropology of Elites: Power, Culture, and the Complexities of Distinction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Acemoglu

Robinson

(2008) Persistence of power, elites, and institutions. American Economic Review 98(1): 267–293.

Acemoglu

Johnson

Robinson

(2002) Reversal of fortune: Geography and institutions in the making of the modern world income distribution. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118: 1231–1294.

Alloway T (2010) Mishkin’s very own Icelandic blow-up. Financial Times, 25 August. Available at: http://ftalphaville.ft.com//2010/08/25/325376/mishkins-very-own-icelandic-blow-up/ (accessed December 2015).

Barley

(2010) Building an institutional field to corral a government: A case to set an agenda for organization studies. Organizational Studies 31: 777–805.

Barthiel M (2015) Newspapers: Fact sheet. State of the Media 2015. 29 April. Pew Research Center. Available at: http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/newspapers-fact-sheet/ (accessed December 2015).

Bauman

(1998) Globalization: The Human Consequences, New York: Columbia University Press.

Bauman

(2007) Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Birtchnell T and Caletrio J (eds) (2014) Elite Mobilities. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

10.

Boissevain

(1974) Friends of Friends: Networks, Manipulators and Coalition, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

11.

Bowden M (2010) The professor of war. Vanity Fair, 30 April. Available at: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/05/petraeus-201005 (accessed December 2015).

12.

Bowman

Folkman

Froud

Haslam

Johal

Leaver

et al. (2015) What a Waste: Outsourcing and How It Goes Wrong, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

13.

Bühlmann

David

Mach

(2012) Political and economic elites in Switzerland: Personal interchange, interactional relations and structural homology. European Societies 14(5): 727–754.

14.

Calabresi M (2013) Promontory’s role in the Dodd-Frank game. Time, 16 September. Available at: http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/16/one-firms-role-in-the-dodd-frank-game/ (accessed December 2015).

15.

Clarke

(2005) Performing for the public: Doubt, desire and the evaluation of public services. In: du Gay

(ed.) The Values of Bureaucracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

16.

Crouch

(2004) Post-Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press.

17.

Dahl

(1967) Pluralist Democracy in the United States: Conflict and Consent, Chicago: Rand McNally & Company.

18.

Dahl

(1989) Who Governs?, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

19.

Davis A and Williams K (2017) Introduction: Elites and power after financialization. Theory, Culture & Society. 34(5–6): 3–26.

20.

Deleuze

Guattari

(1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, London: Athlone.

21.

Denzin

(2001) Interpretive Interactionism, Berkeley, CA: Sage.

22.

Denord

Lagneau-Ymonet

Thine

(2011) Le champ du pouvoir en France. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 5: 24–57.

23.

Dezalay

Garth

(2002) The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

24.

Domhoff

(1967) Who Rules America?, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

25.

Domhoff

(1979) The Powers That Be, New York: Random House.

26.

Domhoff GW (2005) Interlocking directorates in the corporate community. August. Available at: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/corporate_community.html (accessed December 2015).

27.

Domhoff

(2014) Who Rules America? The Triumph of the Corporate Rich, 7th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

28.

Douglas D (2013) The rise of promontory. Washington Post, 2 August. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-rise-of-promontory/2013/08/02/c187a112-f32b-11e2-bdae-0d1f78989e8a_story.html (accessed February 2015).

29.

Dreazen YJ (2008) Obama dips into think tank for talent. Wall Street Journal, 17 November. Available at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122688537606232319 (accessed February 2015).

30.

Eisenhardt

(1989) Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review 14(4): 532–550.

31.

Elliott K, Hamburger T and Becker A (2014) Who funds the new Brookings? Washington Post, 30 October. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/brookings-institution-2014/ (accessed December 2015).

32.

Engerman

Sokoloff

(1997) Factor endowments, institutions, and differential paths of growth among new world economies. In: Haber

(ed.) How Latin America Fell Behind, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 260–304.

33.

Exum A (2013) Abu Muqawama: The agenda. Blog, Center for a New American Security. Available at: http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abu-muqawama (accessed December 2015).

34.

Fang L (2014) Who’s paying the pro-war pundits? The Nation, 16 September. Available at: http://www.thenation.com/article/whos-paying-pro-war-pundits/ (accessed December 2015).

35.

Featherstone

(2014) Super-rich lifestyles. In: Birtchnell

Caletrio

(eds) Elite Mobilities, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 99–135.

36.

Filkins D (2012) General principles: How good was David Petraeus? The New Yorker, 17 December. Available at: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/17/general-principles (accessed December 2015).

37.

Fischer K and Plehwe D (2013) The ‘pink tide’ and neoliberal civil society formation: Think tank networks in Latin America. State of Nature, Winter. Available at: http://www.stateofnature.org/?p=6601 (accessed December 2015).

38.

Geertz

(1973) The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, New York: Basic Books.

39.

Gill

(1991) American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

40.

Ginsberg W (2009) Federal advisory committees: An overview. Congressional Research Service. 16 April. Available at: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40520.pdf (accessed February 2015).

41.

Gissurarson HH (2004) Miracle on Iceland. Wall Street Journal, 29 January. Available at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB107533182153814498 (accessed December 2015).

42.

Glaser

Strauss

(2009) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, London: Transaction.

43.

Glassman ME (2013) Congressional membership and appointment authority to advisory commissions, boards, and groups. Congressional Research Service. 5 February. Available at: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33313.pdf (accessed February 2015).

44.

Guttman

Willner

(1976) The Shadow Government: The Government's Multi-billion-dollar Giveaway of Its Decision-making Powers to Private Management Consultants, ‘Experts’, and Think Tanks, New York: Pantheon Books.

45.

Gylfason T (2011) From crisis to constitution. VOX, 11 October. Available at: http://www.voxeu.org/article/crisis-constitution-insights-iceland (accessed February 2015).

46.

Halpern J (2011) Iceland’s big thaw. New York Times, 13 May. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/magazine/icelands-big-economic-thaw.html?pagewanted=all (accessed February 2015).

47.

Hammond

(1998) Reporting Vietnam: Media and Military at War, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

48.

(2009) Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

49.

Hodge N (2009) Think tanks and the reporters who heart them. Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2009/12/think-tanks-and-the-reporters-who-heart-them/ (accessed July 2016).

50.

Horowitz J (2007) Hot policy wonks for the Democrats: The new realists. Observer, 15 August. Available at: http://observer.com/2007/08/hot-policy-wonks-for-the-democrats-the-new-realists/ (accessed December 2015).

51.

Horowitz J and Aspan M (2013) How promontory financial became banking’s shadow regulator. American Banker, 15 March. Available at: http://www.americanbanker.com/magazine/123_4/how-promontory-financial-became-banking-s-shadow-regulator-1057480-1.html (accessed February 2015).

52.

Jurkowitz M (2014) The growth in digital reporting. Pew Research Center, 26 March. Available at: http://www.journalism.org/2014/03/26/the-growth-in-digital-reporting/ (accessed December 2015).

53.

Kapferer

(2005) New formations of power, the oligarchic-corporate state, and anthropological ideological discourse. Anthropological Theory 5(3): 285–299.

54.

Kaplan

(2013) The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, New York: Simon and Schuster.

55.

Karatzogianni

Robinson

(2010) Power, Resistance and Conflict in the Contemporary World: Social Movements, Networks and Hierarchies, London: Routledge.

56.

Khan

(2012) The sociology of elites. Annual Review of Sociology 38: 361–377.

57.

Klein J (2007) Runners-up: David Petraeus. Time, 9 December. Available at: http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/article/0,28804,1690753_1695388_1695379,00.html (accessed December 2015).

58.

Kurczewski J (ed.) (2007) Lokalne Wzory Kultury Politycznej [Local Patterns of Political Culture]. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Trio.

59.

Lewis M (2009) Wall Street on the tundra. Vanity Fair. Available at: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/04/iceland200904 (accessed February 2015).

60.

Light

(2010) The True Size of Government, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

61.

Lipton E, Williams B and Confessore N (2014) Foreign powers buy influence at think tanks. New York Times, 6 September. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html?_r=0 (accessed December 2015).

62.

Lopez L (2013) Elizabeth Warren wants to take this Goldman Sachs aluminum story and run right over Wall Street with it. Business Insider, 23 July. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-banking-on-wall-st-commodities-2013-7 (accessed February 2015).

63.

Lozada C (2009) When CNAS talks, people listen. Washington Post, 7 June. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/05/AR2009060501967.html (accessed December 2015).

64.

McGann JG (2015) 2014 global go-to think tank index. Think Tank and Civil Societies Program, University of Pennsylvania. Available at: http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=think_tanks (accessed December 2015).

65.

Menzies H (1999) Digital networks: The medium of globalization, and the message. Canadian Journal of Communication 24(4): 203–221. Available at: http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1125/1033 (accessed December 2015).

66.

Michels

(1967 [1911]) Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, trans, Paul E and Paul C. New York: Free Press.

67.

Mills

(1956) The Power Elite, New York: Oxford University Press.

68.

Mishkin FS and Herbertson TT (2006) Financial stability in Iceland. Iceland Chamber of Commerce. May. Available at: https://rafhladan.is/bitstream/handle/10802/3564/555877819Financial%20Stability%20in%20Iceland%20Screen%20Version.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed July 2016).

69.

Mizruchi

(1982) The American Corporate Network: 1904–1974, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

70.

Mizruchi MS (2007) Power without efficacy: The decline of the American corporate elite. Working Paper. Available at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/∼mizruchi/seminar-paper1.pdf (accessed December 2015).

71.

Mizruchi

(2013) The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

72.

New York Times (2015) A regulator’s deal with Promontory skirts a big problem. Editorial, 20 August. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/opinion/a-regulators-deal-with-promontory-skirts-a-big-problem.html?_r=0 (accessed December 2015).

73.

North

(1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, New York: Cambridge University Press.

74.

Olafsson

(2011) Icelandic capitalism: From statism to neoliberalism and financial collapse. In: Mjoset

(ed.) The Nordic Varieties of Capitalism, Bingley: Emerald Publishing.

75.

Ong

(1999) Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logic of Transnationality, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

76.

Pew Research Center (2006) State of the News Media 2006: An Annual Report on American Journalism. Pew Research Center. Available at: http://www.journalism.org/topics/state-of-the-news-media/2006/ (accessed July 2016).

77.

Pew Research Center (2016) The State of the News Media: An Annual Report on American Journalism. Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Available at: http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/state-of-the-news-media/2016/ (accessed July 2016).

78.

Protess B and Silver-Greenberg J (2013) Former regulators find a home with a powerful firm. New York Times, 9 April . Available at: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/for-former-regulators-a-home-on-wall-street/?_r=0 (accessed February 2015).

79.

Reed

(2012) Masters of the universe: Power and elites in organization studies. Organization Studies 33(2): 203–221.

80.

Ricks TE (2009) A military tactician’s political strategy. Washington Post, 9 February. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020802321.html (accessed December 2015).

81.

Ricks TE (2011) Best defense. Blog. Foreign Policy. Available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/13/travels-with-paula-i-a-time-to-build/ (accessed December 2015).

82.

Rozen L (2010) Mil intel report sign of more defiance by the generals? Politico, 6 January. Available at: http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0110/Mil_intel_report_sign_of_more_defiance_by_the_generals_.html (accessed December 2015).

83.

Russo A (2015) When think tanks bypass media outlets and do their own ‘journalism’. Washington Monthly, 1 December. Available at: http://washingtonmonthly.com/2015/12/01/when-think-tanks-bypass-media-outlets-do-their-own-journalism/ (accessed July 2016).

84.

Ryle G (1971) Collected Essays, 1929–1968: Collected Papers, vol. II. London: Hutchinson.

85.

Sanger DE, Shanker T and Schmitt E (2009) Obama gives ways to rate efforts in Afghan region. New York Times, 17 September. Available at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04E5DE113AF934A2575AC0A96F9C8B63 (accessed December 2015).

86.

Savage M and Williams K (eds) (2008) Remembering Elites. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

87.

Savage

Warde

Devine

(2005) Capitals, assets, and resources: Some critical issues. British Journal of Sociology 56(1): 31–47.

88.

Scannell K and Braithwaite T (2012) MF Global won praise for risk handling. Financial Time, 2 March. Available at: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8844c36c-7825-11e1-b237-00144feab49a.html#axzz3tqbEt6Kb (accessed December 2015).

89.

Scott

(1991) Who Rules Britain?, Oxford: Polity Press.

90.

Scott

(2008) Modes of power and the reconceptualization of elites. In: Savage

Williams

(eds) Remembering Elites, Malden, MA: Blackwell.

91.

Seabrooke

Tsingou

(2009) Power elites and everyday politics in international financial reform 2. International Political Sociology 3(4): 457–461.

92.

Sennett

(2006) The Culture of the New Capitalism, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

93.

Shaxson

(2011) Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World, London: Vintage.

94.

Sklair

(2001) The Transnational Capitalist Class, Oxford: Blackwell.

95.

Source Watch (2010) Lobbying firms. Available at: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lobbying_firms (accessed February 2015).

96.

Streeck W and Thelen KA (eds) (2005) Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

97.

Useem

(1984) The Inner Circle, New York: Oxford University Press.

98.

Van Apeldoorn

(2000) Transnational class agency and European governance: The case of the European Round Table of Industrialists. New Political Economy 5(2): 157–181.

99.

Van der Pijl

(1998) Transnational Classes and International Relations, London: Routledge.

100.

Vogl J (2015) Der Souveränitätseffekt [The Sovereignty Effect]. Zurich: Diaphanes.

101.

Wade R and Sigurgeirsdóttir S (2010) Lessons from Iceland. New Left Review 65(September–October). Available at: http://newleftreview.org/II/65/robert-wade-silla-sigurgeirsdottir-lessons-from-iceland (accessed February 2015).

102.

Wedel

(2001) Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe, New York: Palgrave.

103.

Wedel

(2004) Blurring the state–private divide: Flex organisations and the decline of accountability. In: Spoor

(ed.) Globalisation, Poverty and Conﬂict: A Critical Development Reader, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

104.

Wedel

(2009) Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market, New York: Basic Books.

105.

Wedel JR (2010) Selling out Uncle Sam: How the myth of small government undermines national security. August. Outsourcing National Security Initiative, New America Foundation. Available at: http://www.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/SellingOutUncleSamAug10.pdf (accessed February 2015).

106.

Wedel

(2014) Unaccountable: How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security, New York: Pegasus Books.

107.

Wilbanks C (2013) Ex-SEC Chief Schapiro takes revolving door back to private sector. CBS Moneywatch, 2 April. Available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-sec-chief-schapiro-takes-revolving-door-back-to-private-sector/ (accessed February 2015).

108.

Winters

(2011) Oligarchy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

109.

Yin

(2014) Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 5th edn. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

110.

Zald

Lounsbury

(2010) The Wizards of Oz: Towards an institutional approach to elites, expertise and command posts. Organization Studies 31(7).

111.

Zweigenhaft

Domhoff

(2006) Diversity in the Power Elite: How It Happened, Why It Matters, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.