María Luisa Méndez - Böcker

The fortunes of the wealthy are soaring across the globe. Economists have demonstrated that the lion's share of economic growth over the past decade benefits the richest people: the top 1% took 38% of all additional wealth accumulated since the mid-1990s, whereas the bottom 50% captured just 2%. But there is more to this phenomenon than money. The social composition of elites, their cultural profiles, and political importance are just as significant, but less widely understood. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Global Elites addresses this gap by providing comprehensive portraits of who elites are and how they wield power.The chapters offer perspectives from all leading regions of the world, notably Latin America and Africa, and countries ranging from India, China, the USA, to the UK. Contributors-many of whom are leading scholars in this field-explain how elites are increasingly exercising political influence, challenging liberal democracy, and undermining meritocratic beliefs. Elites cannot be seen as throwbacks to older aristocratic formations, such as 'Old Boys Networks'. This volume illustrates how contemporary elites vary across the globe, how they often fly 'under the radar', and how their wealth threatens to short-circuit democratic public life. Elites are now dynamic forces shaping social life in many areas, including racial, gendered, and classed dimensions. By unveiling elites, this Handbook helps readers understand myriad conflicts that abound in contemporary social life.

This book is a study of class formation at the top of the social hierarchies during the turbulent and changing early twenty-first century. Contrary to perceptions that privileged individuals exist according to little more than market and economic logics, the book provides evidence that they are by no means absent from politics and civic engagement. Adopting a focus on reproduction, distinction, and politics, it delves into the complex relationship between cohesion and fragmentation that exists within the most privileged groups formed over the course of the contemporary neoliberal period.By knitting a dialogue between spatial analysis, multiple correspondence analysis, and in-depth interviews, the book provides insights into the intricate relations between institutions and political subjectivities, and the role of space and mothering in the political socialisation of Chile’s most privileged families. The result is a dense description of a social class fragmented by subtle ideological lines based upon economic inheritance, socialisation within homogeneous family environments, paths into the labour market, and social and political activities.This book will constitute a much-needed research resource for academics, students, and professionals in areas such as elite studies, social stratification, inequality, social reproduction, accumulation, political socialisation, and contemporary conservative/progressive views.

This book is a study of class formation at the top of the social hierarchies during the turbulent and changing early twenty-first century. Contrary to perceptions that privileged individuals exist according to little more than market and economic logics, the book provides evidence that they are by no means absent from politics and civic engagement. Adopting a focus on reproduction, distinction, and politics, it delves into the complex relationship between cohesion and fragmentation that exists within the most privileged groups formed over the course of the contemporary neoliberal period.By knitting a dialogue between spatial analysis, multiple correspondence analysis, and in-depth interviews, the book provides insights into the intricate relations between institutions and political subjectivities, and the role of space and mothering in the political socialisation of Chile’s most privileged families. The result is a dense description of a social class fragmented by subtle ideological lines based upon economic inheritance, socialisation within homogeneous family environments, paths into the labour market, and social and political activities.This book will constitute a much-needed research resource for academics, students, and professionals in areas such as elite studies, social stratification, inequality, social reproduction, accumulation, political socialisation, and contemporary conservative/progressive views.