Power Elites

Sociologists have taken an interest in elites since the discipline started to take form in the nineteenth century. Alexis de Tocqueville’s explorations of the formation of the United States and modern society clearly highlighted the key role played by legal professionals in this process and how they offered an important alternative to the landed elites who still dominated in Europe (Tocqueville 1842). Half a century later, Max Weber explored modern society by highlighting how the bureaucratization of the state via legal rationalization created a professional corps of jurists who effectively exercised (delegated) state power (Weber 1978). Moreover, the modern state and society developed a professionalization of politics which challenged other, previously established, forms of power and domination. Both authors were however very much aware that there was no complete transformation from older forms of power to a meritocratic and democratic society and its agency.

This tension between...