Felix Bühlmann

New directions in elite studies

Since the financial crisis, the issue of the ‘one percent’ has become the centre of intense public debate, unavoidable even for members of the elite themselves. Moreover, inquiring into elites has taken centre-stage once again in both journalistic investigations and academic research.

Cosmopolitan Capital and the Internationalization of the Field of Business Elites: Evidence from the Swiss Case

The aim of this contribution is to explore how the recent internationalization and the increasing importance of ‘cosmopolitan capital’ has impacted on the structure and character of the field of the Swiss business elite. For this purpose we will develop the notion of cosmopolitan capital and comparatively investigate the field of the Swiss business elite in 1980, 2000 and 2010 with multiple correspondence analysis. We can show that in this period international managers with transnational careers and networks not only grow in number, but come to conquer the apex of the biggest and highest capitalized Swiss firms. At the same time, national forms of capital decline in importance and Swiss managers themselves are differentiated increasingly into national and international fractions.

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ELITES IN SWITZERLAND: Personal interchange, interactional relations and structural homology

ABSTRACT As a legacy of the early stages of its state building process, Switzerland continues to be characterised by a cohesive elite whose members simultaneously occupy political and economic positions. Whereas sectoral analyses of the economic or political elite are widespread, few researchers have scrutinised the connections between business and politics. Therefore, this paper focuses on the linkages between the economic and political fields. Based on a joint multiple correspondence analysis of the CEOs and board members of the 110 largest Swiss companies in 2000 and 256 parliamentary members, we examine the interactional and objective relations between the fields through an analysis of personal interchange, participation in meeting places and structural homology of educational capital. It appears that the connections between elites are cumulative: in each field, the dominant faction shares a background in law or engineering, participates in meeting places, and personally moves between the fields. Reversely, the dominated, which come from a rather heterogeneous educational background, are excluded from interactional relations and moves between the two fields. That the two forms of elite coordination coincide and reinforce each other could be typical for a small country with little differentiated fields, where elite members quickly get to know each other and can easily meet on a regular basis.

The Swiss business elite (1980 2000): how the changing composition of the elite explains the decline of the Swiss company network

Abstract In this paper we analyse the decline of the Swiss corporate network between 1980 and 2000. We address the theoretical and methodological challenge of this transformation by the use of a combination of network analysis and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). Based on a sample of top managers of the 110 largest Swiss companies in 1980 and 2000 we show that, beyond an adjustment to structural pressure, an explanation of the decline of the network has to include the strategies of the fractions of the business elites. We reveal that three factors contribute crucially to the decline of the Swiss corporate network: the managerialization of industrial leaders, the marginalization of law degree holders and the influx of hardly connected foreign managers.

Introduction: Sequence Analysis in 2014

Since its introduction in the social sciences in the 1980s, sequence analysis (SA) has enhanced our understanding of a broad range of social processes. In this chapter we recall fundamental underlying sociological concepts, such as narratives, trajectories, stages, events, transitions and the role of the context. We also differentiate levels of sequential complexity that have consequences on the way SA is applied. Following this, we sketch out the intellectual, technical and sociological factors that made SA converge around a core program defined by specific fieldwork, data, time frames and statistical tools. The core program has ensured a set of common standards, while at the same time leaving room for variants and alternatives. The book discusses both these standards and identifies a set of new challenges. Among these, sequence comparison implies rethinking about the notion of sequence, its sociological underpinnings, its mathematical robustness and the value of competing algorithms. Life course sequences continue innovating, for example on multiple life domains, linked lives, the subjective dimension of trajectories and the role of age. Beyond sociology, SA sheds new light on political issues at the levels of individuals, groups and institutions. Improvements also take place regarding sequence visualisation, from network graphs to event-based synchronisation and optimisation of graphical representation that are both rich in information and intuitive to capture.

European top management careers: a field-analytical approach

ABSTRACT Research on European business elites has been dominated by a ‘national career model’ approach, arguing that each country has a specific top management career pattern. In recent years, this line of argument has been challenged due to the increasing international circulation of top managers. To examine the impact of internationalisation on career models, we will draw on a database of 916 top managers in Germany, Switzerland, France and Britain. Our field-analytical analysis reveals that the most important career distinction – between internal and external careers – is valid beyond national models. In addition, international managers do not constitute a separate homogenous group: in some countries, they imitate national career patterns; in others, they pursue complementary strategies.

The Rise of Professors of Economics and Business Studies in Switzerland: Between Scientific Reputation and Political Power

This paper studies the rise of professors of economics and business studies in the second half of the 20th century in Switzerland. It focuses on three types of power resources: positions in the university hierarchy, scientific reputation and extra-academic positions in the economic and political spheres. Based on a biographical database of N = 487 professors, it examines how these resources developed from 1957 to 2000. We find that professors of economic sciences were increasingly and simultaneously successful on all three studied dimensions – especially when compared to disciplines such as law, social sciences or humanities. This evolution seems to challenge the notorious trade-off between scientific and society poles of the academic field: professors of economics and business increased their scientific reputation while becoming more powerful in worldly positions. However, zooming in on their individual endowment with capital, we see that the same professors rarely hold simultaneously a significant amount of scientific and institutional capital.

Geneva"s philanthropists around 1900: a field made of distinctive but interconnected social groups

This article analyses the social profile of Genevas philanthropists around 1900. It shows that, contrary to what the literature on philanthropy argues, philanthropists belonged to varied social groups defined by diverse forms of capital (economic, social and cultural) and were involved in philanthropic activities related to their social status. Together, those philanthropists formed a social field. They were connected to each other and even needed to collaborate on specific issues. The article argues that interconnections between actors reinforced their social position. By examining this field through both quantitative and qualitative methods, the article highlights relationships and ties between actors and shows how they collaborated on the basis of commonly held principles.

Trajectories of Vulnerability: A Sequence-Analytical Approach

A growing proportion of the European population faces situations of vulnerability. Stable employees feel more and more at risk of losing their job or of experiencing a deterioration of their employment situation (Gallie et al. 1998). The share of standard employment relationships are declining, whereas atypical and precarious employment is on the rise (Hipp et al. 2015). In addition, joblessness in different forms—invalidity insurance, social assistance, early retirement—has also grown in recent decades (Paugam 2005). One of the unresolved issues is the relative scope of these phenomena. First, the advocates of what we could call exclusion thesis contend that only a small and marginal group is touched by material poverty and that this deprivation is inherently accompanied by isolation and segregation (Paugam 2005). A second approach, most famously brought forward by Robert Castel (2002), contends that not only the margins but also the larger zones of the labour market are characterised by precariousness. In a third perspective, it is asserted that work, even in formerly prestigious and well-paid occupations, is less and less socially recognised (Bourdieu 2003; Paugam 2000).