Abstract
In this chapter the quantitative analysis is carried out to respond to the main objective of this research. Using datasets for members of the Chilean political elite in 1990–2010, this chapter examines the effect of species of capital on the access of certain individuals to strategic positions in the political field, comparing the legislative and executive branches, as represented by deputies and ministers, between 1990 and 2010. As indicated in previous chapters (mainly in Chap. 3), although there is extensive literature on the concepts of social, cultural and economic capital, there is a lack of empirical research examining comparatively the effects that these three forms of capital can have on both the formation of elites and their functioning, which is precisely the focus of this research. The analysis begins with a descriptive analysis of the 386 members of Chile’s political elite that responded the survey. This is followed by a logistic regression analysis (logit models) to measure the effect of the different forms of capital in the case of ministers and deputies. The analysis comprises six models, considering individuals who served as minister or deputy in three different periods: 1990–2010, 1990–2000 and 2000–2010.
Portions of this work were originally published as “Political, Social, and Cultural Capital in the Chilean Political Elite, 1990–2010,” Latin American Politics and Society volume 62, number 1, pages 121–41 (Garrido-Vergara, 2020).
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Notes
- 1.
Unlike Foucault, who considers power as “ubiquitous” and “all-encompassing” (Pickett, 1996) and, therefore, beyond any social structure, institution or agency (Foucault, 1982, 1983), Bourdieu sees power as a social construction that is culturally and symbolically instituted. Bourdieu’s main contention is that power is constantly legitimised in the interplay of multiple agencies and structures. In Bourdieu’s theory, the “fields” are the different social and institutional “arenas” in which people communicate, reproduce and share their dispositions and subjectivities (habitus). Moreover, the fields are structured by a set of relationships, which determine their networks and specificity (i.e. educational, cultural, political, business, economic). According to Bourdieu, individuals experience power in different ways depending on the field as they are constantly competing for the distribution of different kinds of capital (Bourdieu , 1984, 1986, 1990).
- 2.
Some 20% of the individuals that responded the survey switched political party during the period studied. In this case, the last party to which they belonged is considered.
- 3.
Party membership on its own was not included as a variable because too large a proportion of the respondents belonged to a party.
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Garrido-Vergara, L. (2020). Measuring and Comparing Species of Capital in the Chilean Political Elite, 1990–2010. In: Species of Capital in the Political Elite. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41172-5_9
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