Elites and Transatlantic Crisis

Discussion of the transatlantic crisis is rife with allusions to elites and elitism. Policy failures by elites are widely perceived as main causes of the crisis, and bold elite actions are viewed as essential if it is to be allayed. At no time since Pareto completed his Treatise on General Sociology a hundred years ago have elites been more prominent in public discourse than at present. Although elitism continues to be denounced as a cancer in the corpus of democratic politics, it is apparent that amid crisis elites must act decisively as guardians of democratic practices and procedures. It may not be too much to say that the elite perspective is gaining traction from the transatlantic crisis, at the same time that the crisis affords an opportunity to sharpen the analysis of elites and elitism. The panels of the section will explore these possibilities.