Keywords

Introduction

This book introduces the concept of civil society elites. Despite a long fascination in the social sciences regarding the processes leading to the concentration of power and resources in different arenas of social, political, and financial life, scholars have not explored this concept, the possibility of a civil society elite, or the implications of this for the roles that civil society can and is expected to play. The reason for this may be that the concept comes across as counter-intuitive, or even paradoxical. It goes against mainstream understandings of civil society as a sphere for citizen mobilisation and participation. However, contemporary civil society shows anti-democratic tendencies, and an increase in illiberal civil society has been noted. These conceptual inconsistencies and societal developments make civil society elites even more relevant and scientifically important to explore. Through a series of theoretical and empirical investigations into how civil society elites can be understood and examined, and in which situations they are challenged, this book provides novel insights into current debates on elites, populism, and the role of civil society in contemporary liberal democracies.

Civil Society in Transformation

It is widely held that civil society performs key functions in liberal democracies (Diamond, 1994; Habermas, 1998). Scholars, activists, and politicians alike praise its significance as a sphere for citizen mobilisation and participation in-between political elections and alongside political institutions (Keane, 2009; Rosanvallon & Goldhammer, 2008). Through associations, movements, cooperatives, charities, and philanthropy, civil society functions as an intermediary between states and citizens. A vibrant, inclusive, and pluralistic civil society enables citizens to come together and mobilise common concerns, without which citizens risk losing trust in political institutions and decision-making procedures. It is therefore no surprise that the concept of civil society is associated with values of human rights and civility (Shils, 1991), bottom-up processes of self-organisation (Tocqueville, 2003), and deliberative decision-making (Cohen & Arato, 1992).

At the same time, civil society shows elitist tendencies as resources are concentrated into the hands of a few powerful organisations and their leaders (Altermark et al., 2022b; Nye, 1977). Civil society organisations (hereafter CSOs) build hierarchies that form civil society elites who are socialised into powerful institutions (Michels, 1962; Mills, 2000) and who interact and integrate with other elite groups. Research points to a growing concentration of political and economic resources in the hands of a small group of major organisations (Johansson & Uhlin, 2020; Lindellee & Scaramuzzino, 2020). Civil society actors like the Red Cross, Caritas, Barnados, Oxfam, and the World Wildlife Fund are all recognised brands with millions of members, generous donors, extensive turnover, and significant access to corridors of power (Guo & Saxton, 2020). Their leaders tend to enjoy status and prestige from other civil society leaders, the public at large, and leading politicians. Some are active at national levels, while others are part of a ‘European’ or ‘global civil society’ and frequently meet with political and business leaders to discuss societal challenges and the role that civil society can play (Johansson & Kalm, 2015). Their powerful positions allow them to shape decisions that affect not only their members and beneficiaries but also society more generally (Guo & Saxton, 2020).

Oligarchic tendencies (Michels, 1962), in the form of the widening gap between leaders and their constituents (e.g. Hwang & Powell, 2009; Van Deth & Maloney, 2012), have increased the importance of these actors. Major CSOs offer a competitive salary, specialised posts, and promising career prospects (Bovens & Wille, 2017; Hilton et al., 2013). Notions like ‘professionalisation’ and ‘NGOisation’ suggest increasingly distant relations between leaders and members. As professionals take over key areas of decision-making in major CSOs, beneficiaries and members risk being reduced to ‘donors’, ‘checkbook participants’, or ‘credit card suppliers’ (e.g. Skocpol, 2003). These trends suggest greater disparities and social distance between members and civil society elites who are well-educated professionals or philanthropists and who feel at home in elite circles (Heylen et al., 2020; Jordan & Maloney, 2007). At the same time, the elected presidents, hired CEOs, and wealthy philanthropists owe their status and power to the democratic expectations of civil society.

As a sign of elite domination, we find contestations inside civil society on who is a legitimate civil society leader. Today’s activists and movements not only mobilise against felt injustice caused by states, markets, or other elite groups but also claim that civil society leaders and elites must ‘hold up the mirror’ to themselves (Civicus, 2020). Rather than being a vibrant sphere where people come together to address common concerns, these critics argue that civil society is shaped by closure and discrimination on the basis of class, gender, and ethnic lines, thus making it difficult for many people to engage with or take up leadership roles in civil society. Scholars have also found that leaders of major CSOs tend to be white, older, male, and educated at elite universities (Dale & Breeze, 2022; Gibelman, 2000; Lindellee & Scaramuzzino, 2020; Santilli & Scaramuzzino, 2021). These critics may want to revitalise democracy by developing new, more inclusive ways of working in civil societies (Jacobsson & Korolczuk, 2017), but the challengers may also be politically driven or driven by competition for resources or leadership positions (Engelstad et al., 2019).

In today’s political climate, civil society leaders are increasingly accused of being partisan political actors disguised as non-partisan civic actors (Brechenmacher & Carothers, 2018; Toepler et al., 2020). In particular, international organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union, and their affiliated CSOs and leaders, are distrusted. At the same time, critics of these institutions and CSOs have increasingly set up their own CSOs and are also networking at the supranational level. Attacks on liberal civil society are mobilised by various right-wing populist actors who actively oppose liberal CSOs. Following a populist frame, major CSOs—and their leaders—are portrayed as extremely powerful, bureaucratic, and unresponsive to the problems of ‘the people’ (Graff & Korolczuk, 2022; Kalm & Meeuwisse, 2020; Ruzza & Sanchez Salgado, 2021). Paradoxically, populist challengers who claim to represent the people often pursue political changes that also concentrate power in the hands of a narrow elite (Engelstad et al., 2019; Ivanovska Hadjievska, 2022). It is therefore important to avoid the sweeping and often unfounded accusations against actors in civil society that are now often made by right-wing populists for political reasons to justify a ‘shrinking civil space’. The political and cultural context in which civil society is embedded greatly influences the policies that are pursued and the consequences they have.

Aim and Purpose

The purpose of this book is to theoretically explore and empirically analyse civil society elites. We investigate civil society elites as an elite group alongside other elite groups (e.g. political or economic elites) and address questions like who the elected presidents, hired CEOs, and wealthy philanthropists are, where they come from, and what factors explain their power and privileged position. We define civil society elites as actors ‘who have vastly disproportionate control over or access to a resource’ that is valued by others (Khan, 2012a, p. 362). Civil society elites occupy positions that provide them with access, control, or possession of valuable resources that bring advantage and influence inside or outside of civil societies (Hartmann, 2007). However, unlike other elite groups their position is inherently paradoxical because civil society elites represent members, beneficiaries, and constituencies against powerful groups, while at the same time benefiting from their elevated position because they are socialised into elite circles. This position raises questions about whether these leaders embrace particular civil society values and about how well they represent their constituencies.

This book takes a comparative approach and investigates civil society elites across national contexts and thereby draws attention to how structural and contextual features shape the position that civil society elites occupy. Contributions include studies of countries such as Denmark, Italy, Poland, Sweden, the US, the UK (including a study of Hong Kong), and civil society elites at the EU level as a reflection of the supra-national characteristics of civil society elites (see also Altermark et al., 2022b; Johansson et al., 2022; Korolczuk, 2022; Santilli, 2022; Uhlin & Arvidson, 2022 for related studies). By using different research methods and studying civil society elites in different countries and contexts around the world, this book draws attention to the importance of social, political, and economic structures and the particular organisation and orientation of civil societies in different countries. Following discussions on civil society regimes that have shaped comparative civil society research (Salamon & Anheier, 1997, 1998; Salamon et al., 2003), this book seeks to advance knowledge on the contextual factors that shape civil society elites.

Key Contributions

This book makes a series of original contributions. First, through our analytical and empirical explorations of the concept of civil society elites, we seek to bridge elite studies and civil society studies. Elite research has seen an upsurge in recent years (Cousin et al., 2018; Gulbrandsen, 2019; Khan, 2012b, 2016; Savage & Hjelbrekke, 2021), and there are many reasons why social sciences should continue to pay attention to the people at the top of institutional orders (Denord et al., 2020; Engelstad et al. 2019; Korsnes et al., 2017; Savage & Williams, 2008; Vogel et al., 2019). Elite theory posits that a minority of individuals hold the most power in society and are at least partially separated from a state’s democratic election process. Scholars define elites as having key positions in powerful organisations and whose resources and power are institutionally and organisationally embedded (Michels, 1962; Scott, 1996, 2008). Elite research distinguishes between different types of elite groups. Studies into an economic elite reflect the distribution of economic resources and rising inequalities (Friedman & Laurison, 2019; Friedman & Savage, 2017), for instance tied to the 1%, the 0.1%, or the super-rich (Piketty, 2013). Studies into political elites (presidents or ministers) address political leaders’ ambitions to tie resources and power under personal control (Best & Higley, 2018; Best & Hoffmann-Lange, 2018; Vogel et al., 2019) and how this is associated with declining trust in public institutions, decreasing political participation, and growing populism (Conti et al., 2016). Few, however, have investigated civil society elites, although elite philanthropy and private donations have been a long-standing feature of most civil societies, suggesting that there have always been elites in civil society (Barman, 2017; Maclean et al., 2021; Vogel, 2006; Zald & Lounsbury, 2010).

Civil society research mainly conceptualises civil society as a sphere for citizen participation, mobilisation, and expression of interest against states and markets (Alexander, 2006). While such functions are certainly relevant, both theoretically and empirically oriented civil society research tend to downplay the competition and conflicts among civil society actors over resources and the ordering, stratification, and hierarchies among civil society actors (collective or individual) that emerge (see, however, Gulbrandsen, 2020; Johansson & Uhlin, 2020; Lindellee & Scaramuzzino, 2020). Liberal civil society theory tends to regard civil society as something normatively good, thereby downplaying conflicts and power inequalities. Although Marxist and Gramscian theorists see civil society as a sphere of indirect domination entailing both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces (Buttigeg, 1995), elites have not received much attention here either. Similarly, post-structural or Foucauldian-inspired perspectives appear to disregard the idea of civil society elites (Dean & Villadsen, 2016).

Moreover, much civil society research has sought explanations and understandings of civil society, its actors, and its practices in states or in markets. Empirical studies that come under labels such as third sector, non-profit, or voluntary sector studies have focused on what takes place within organisations and have paid less attention to leaders of major CSOs and movements. This book offers a different perspective as we investigate competition over valuable resources, forms of social stratification, and power asymmetries inside the field of civil society. This suggests that knowledge on civil society’s democratic potential cannot only be sought after in studies of what government or businesses do (or do not do), but must also include how civil society is internally structured.

The concept of civil society elites allows us to understand transformation processes in civil society differently. While many scholars have acknowledged the growing divisions between actors in the sector, divisions between leaders and members, and increasing ideological polarisation, mainly driven by external actors, few scholars have captured these as trends of elitism. Much previous research has examined how changing relations between states, markets, and civil societies affect CSOs and social movements, but few have focused attention on those who lead large organisations and movements and the power and influence they can exert because of such transformational processes. This book therefore provides and promotes knowledge about the mechanisms behind elitisation processes as a new approach in public and academic debates about the transformation of civil societies.

Themes of Investigation

This book puts forward four broad themes for empirical and theoretical inquiry of civil society elites, namely the composition, reproduction, integration, and contestation of civil society elites. Based on a wide range of empirical cases and original cross-country investigations, we will be able to draw conclusions on the phenomenon of civil society elites beyond current debates on civil society regimes, country models, or political contexts. Each theme is analytically separable, yet empirically integrated, and thus constitutes the logic by which the book is organised.

Civil Society Elite Composition

Elite composition constitutes a cornerstone in elite research because it attracts attention to the social profile of people at the top of different social orders. Elite research has typically focused on types and models of elite groups, often in a comparative fashion. This includes the investigation of national models of elites and their composition, size, and formation related to political, social, and cultural systems (Dahl, 1961; Mills, 2000; Useem, 1984). Much research has explored national elite types aimed at country case analyses and cross-country comparisons (e.g. Gulbrandsen & Engelstad, 2005; Larsen, 2016; Ruostetsaari, 2007).

A series of chapters in this book compare civil society elite composition across countries and civil society regimes. In Chap. 2, Sevelsted and Lunding investigate the composition of civil society elites in Denmark. The chapter gives an original historical account on the changing nature of civil society elites using data from the Danish Who’s Who since the start of the twentieth century. The chapter notes that the Danish civil society elite has a more elite background and that more of them were born in the capital than other elites. They are increasingly well integrated with the state and the education sector, but to a lesser extent with politics. This historical account thus shows that composition, reproduction, and integration are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.

Chapter 3, by Lee and Scaramuzzino, takes off where the previous ended. Instead of addressing elite composition in a historical sense, Lee and Scaramuzzino provide an original comparison of civil society elite composition in Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the UK and in connection to the general population. The chapter explores an elite survey with leaders of top CSOs in the abovementioned four countries and investigates the so-called ‘civil society elite-masses gap’. The authors draw attention to the paradoxical position of civil society elites, who are expected to be representative of the people despite the exclusive social composition of the top-level leadership strata.

In Chap. 4, Santilli and Scaramuzzino explore elite composition from a methodological point of view. Alongside studies of elites at the top of institutional orders, the so-called positional method in elite research, they suggest that civil society elites should also be captured through a reputational approach and an analysis of claims-making. The chapter explores these different approaches in the context of Italian civil society and investigates what elite composition each model captures. Their application finds that method selection is crucial regarding the key question on drawing the horizontal and vertical boundaries of an elite.

Civil Society Elite Reproduction

Studies into elite reproduction fall back on the distinction between reproduction and circulation, where the former suggests stability at the top and the latter suggests changes within a group of elites. Michels (1962), who studied trade unions and the German Social Democratic Party, pointed to elite reproduction when new groups were assimilated with old groups due to socialisation into organisations and leadership (Diefenbach, 2019; Heylen et al., 2020). With regard to elite circulation, Pareto (1991) argued that history constitutes a ‘graveyard of aristocracies’ as elite groups are always replaced by new elites. Others have put more stress on the significance of class structures or educational systems as factors that drive elite reproduction and homogeneity at the top (Hartmann, 2000; Karabel, 2005; Khan, 2012b, 2005; van Zanten, 2014). Scholars have also investigated how associations, social clubs, and social networks allow and/or restrict access into elite groups and top positions (Bond, 2012; Cornwell & Dokshin, 2014; Denord et al., 2011; Kadushin, 1995). Some have focused on norms, attitudes, and preferences as means for selecting some while excluding others (Ellersgaard et al., 2019; Ruostetsaari, 2007, 2015). Others have investigated leadership training as a mechanism of elite reproduction of civil society leaders (Altermark et al., 2022a; Ivanovska Hadjievska et al., 2022).

Three chapters in this book investigate civil society elite reproduction. In Chap. 5, Altermark and Johansson provide an analysis into prizes and awards as a means by which civil society leaders are consecrated into a group of extraordinary citizens in society. However, they find that such consecration differs across national contexts. Civil society elites are praised by the state (through royal honours or presidential medals) in some cases, while they are praised by their peers (civil society prizes and awards) in others. Following Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital, the authors claim that these patterns lead to different modes of elite reproduction.

In Chap. 6, Voyer addresses civil society elite reproduction through a different approach as she investigates the social and cultural reproduction of economic elites as they engage as volunteers in elementary schools in the city of New York. Rather than investigating the reproduction of a civil society elite, she shows that civic activities and arenas allow a social glue that binds other elite groups together and provide a means for economic elites to legitimise their wealth through their charitable work.

In Chap. 7, Chi Lai expands this further through an analysis of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. She shows that the club developed into one of the world’s largest charities and functioned as a place for bringing economic and political elites together as an elite of civil society. The empirical material for her chapter consists of an analysis of club leaders’ personal and professional backgrounds, showing stability at the top for more than a century. Chi Lai finds that civil society elites come from privileged backgrounds and with extensive access to valuable resources, such as money or political capital, and that voluntary engagement and key leadership in CSOs binds them even closer together.

Civil Society Elite Integration

Integration is a central concept in elite research, often related to studies of elite interaction and interlock (Burris, 2005; Edling et al., 2014; Gulbrandsen, 2012). Here we find Mills’ classic notion of ‘the power elite’ (2000) referring to elite integration across different sectors. Notions like ‘revolving doors’ or ‘pantouflage’ offer a different approach as they stress mobility between sectors (van Zanten, 2014). Others have put more stress on elite integration as a practice as elites engage in loose networks and shift positions (Wedel, 2009, 2017), for instance, through notions like boundary crossing and boundary-spanning practices as elites move between elite positions in different sectors or fields (Lewis, 2008, 2012; Reed, 2012). Studies into elite philanthropy is illustrative as philanthropists take up key positions on boards (Ostrower, 2002) and by doing so exchange money for the ‘do good’ capital that civil society offers (Dean, 2020; Maclean et al., 2021). Some have also studied civil society elite integration, for instance, tied to EU institutions (Uhlin & Arvidson, 2022).

In a series of chapters, the authors analyse patterns of elite integration and factors enhancing and/or restricting integration across sectors and groups. In Chap. 8, Arvidson and Uhlin investigate the motivation of elite boundary crossing and how this leads to inter-elite integration. The authors provide an analysis of drivers and motivations related to an elite boundary-crossing career and find three ideal types of border crossers, namely elites who move to impose values from their sector of origin, elites who leave a sector where they no longer feel at home, and elites who move back and forth across sector boundaries to gain influence.

In Chap. 9, Arrigoni investigates a particular type of Italian foundation, foundations of banking origin (Fobs), as a case of elite integration. She illustrates how a set of people, who are already powerful in other fields, constitute themselves as a new political elite by virtue of their leadership role in civil society. Her prosopographic study shows what fields they came from and the capital they possessed before entering elite roles in Italian civil society. However, instead of defining them as moving from one field to another, Arrigoni proposes that these types of civil society elites gain their power from mixing logics from different fields and by operating both within and outside of formal structures. They form an interstitial elite in between fields.

In Chap. 10, Lee, Platek, and Scaramuzzino pay interest to a classic theme in elite integration, namely interlocking boards. The authors analyse the inter-organisational networks emerging from interlocking leaders among the most resource-rich national-level CSOs in four countries. Based on a social network analysis, the authors find small components of tightly connected organisations in the Italian and Polish cases, mainly around similar policy areas. In Sweden and in the UK, they find a handful of key CSOs that link the majority of the resource-rich organisations, thus occupying powerful network positions.

Contestation of Civil Society Elites

Elites are contested because their resources and positions are desired by others. Elites face counter-elites, referring to individuals whose ‘views and goals differ significantly from those of the ruling body of a country’ (Sekeris, 2017, p. 152). Due to the reproduction of elites and their protective practices, new non-institutional challenger actors often arise (Graff & Korolczuk, 2022; Hutter & Borbath, 2019; Norris & Inglehart, 2019). Civil society leaders have almost by default been understood as elite challengers, as ‘non-established elites’, or as ‘counter-elites’ (Domhoff, 2009; Etzioni-Halevy, 1993, 2001). However, the boundaries have been blurred by the rise of populism (Engelstad et al., 2019) as populist leaders claim to be by and for ‘the people’ and accuse civil society of being elitist (Korolczuk, 2022) and have investigated the divides between conservative and liberal elites (Kalm & Meeuwisse, 2022).

In a series of three chapters, this book investigates by whom and on what grounds civil society elites are challenged. We use the term ‘elite contestation’ in a dual fashion because civil society elites can be contested while they themselves contest other elite groups. In Chap. 11, Kalm and Meeuwisse explore what types of contestations civil society elites face across Europe. The background to their investigation is the major structural trends of a shrinking civic space and marketisation processes. The chapter benefits from a survey of civil society elites in Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the UK. Kalm and Meeuwisse find that the elites seem to be challenged most often from within their own organisations and on professional rather than ideological grounds. More profound contestations tend to be directed at the organisations they lead rather than at them as leaders. The differences observed reflect the structural orientation of national civil societies.

In Chap. 12, Korolczuk explores elite contestation in a particular fashion as she investigates the increased pressure on liberal and left-leaning civil society actors by the state. Instead of addressing civil society elites as challenged by other civil society groups, this chapter analyses the strategies employed by the ruling party in Poland to marginalise the position of some civil society actors while promoting others. The chapter finds that although the state has limited tools to promote elite change within civil society, its challenges of independent CSOs contributes to the process of democratic erosion, which undermines democratic values and civil society as an independent sphere in society.

In Chap. 13, Landorff investigates elite challenges as competition over valuable positions in institutionalised fields. Through an empirical investigation of the European Parliament’s public hearings in the field of animal welfare, the chapter explores which civil society actors occupy incumbent elite positions and which civil society actors act as their challengers. The chapter shows how animal welfare organisations act as challengers to established civil society practices in the European Parliament by using the Intergroup as a venue to facilitate cooperation, resource concentration, and access to political elites beyond official parliamentary structures.

In the concluding Chap. 14, Johansson and Meeuwisse use Michels’ concept of ‘oligarchic elites’ and Mills’ theory of a ‘power elite’ to reflect on the volume’s main findings and the paradoxical meaning of the concept of civil society elites. For example, the two approaches prove useful in distinguishing between the elites of civil society (‘oligarchic elites’) and the elites in civil society (‘power elites’). Some themes for further research on civil society elites are also suggested.

The volume also contains an appendix that describes the data produced in the research programme ‘Civil Society Elites? Comparing Elite Composition, Reproduction, Integration and Contestation in European Civil Societies’, on which several of the chapters in the volume are based.