Political elites
Last update: 21 Apr 2025 21:17First version:
Are they inevitable? If so, how do we tame them? If not, are they desirable? Establishments vs. oligarchies. Meritocracy. Decadence.
- See also:
- Congress
- Democracy
- ibn Khaldun
- Networks of Political Actors
- Partisanship
- Political Decision-Making and Public Policy
- Recommended:
- Stanislav Andreski, Military Organization and Society
- Almost any good book on archaeology. They have a marvellously hard-bitten way of looking at political power, almost as flinty-eyed as Tacitus's.
- F. G. Bailey, Humbuggery and Manipulation: The Art of Leadership
- G. W. Domhoff, Who Rules America? and the updated edition, Who Rules America Now?
- Chris Hayes, Twilight of the Meritocracy
- ibn Khaldún, The Muqaddimah
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
- Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy
- Tacitus, The Annals and The Histories
- Nicolas Tackett, The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy
- Not altogether recommended:
- Olúfémi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)
- To read:
- Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival
- Tom Bottomore, Elites and Society
- Clifford W. Brown, Jr., Lynda W. Powell and Clyde Wilcox, Serious Money: Fundraising and Contributing in Presidential Nomination Campaigns
- Elizabeth Drew, Whatever It Takes: The Real Struggle for Political Power in America
- Joseph V. Femia, The Machiavellian Legacy: Essays in Italian Political Thought
- Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Beyond Right and Left: Democratic Elitism in Mosca and Gramsci
- John Gledhill, Power and Its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics
- Kristin Kanthak, "Top-Down Divergence: The Effect of Party-Determined Power on Candidate Ideological Placement", journal of Theoretical Politics 14 (2002): 301--323
- Richard Lachmann, Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite conflict and Economic Transitions in Early Modern Europe [Or, how capitalism was born from the quarrels of tyrants]
- Fred S. McChesney, Money for Nothing: Politicians, Rent Extraction, and Political Extortion
- A. J. McGann, Bernard Grofman and W. Koetzle, "Why party leaders are more extreme than their members: Modeling sequential elimination elections in the U.S. House of Representatives", Public Choice 113 (2002): 337--356
- Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class
- John D. Nagle, System and Succession: The Social Bases of Political Elite Recruitment
- Pareto
- Natasha Piano, Elites and Democracy: Italian Elite Theory, American Political Science and the Problem of Plutocracy [Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 2020]
- Mark Schneider and Paul Teske with Michael Mintrom, Public Entrepreneurs: Agents for Change in American Government
- John Waterbury, The Commander of the Faithful: The Moroccan Political Elite
- Richard W. Wilson, Compliance Ideologies: Rethinking Political Culture
- Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff, Diversity in the Power Elite: Have Women and Minorities Reached the Top? [1998]
