Session Organizers

Alice KROZER
Centre of Development Studies
University of Cambridge, UK

Katharina HECHT
London School of Economics, UK

An exciting development in the field of sociology has been a recent upsurge in studies concerning themselves with society’s upper echelons in terms of their economic, political, social or cultural status. Accordingly, the call for proposals to participate in our ISA 2021 panel on ‘Elite Perceptions of Inequality Compared’ received a great number of outstanding paper submissions. Thankfully, we were able to accommodate an international selection of papers due to the generous concession of an additional conference slot on behalf of the RC02 Committee. We arranged two panels; the first focused on the larger context of Policy, Institutions and the State, and the second on Identity, Practices and the Legitimation of Wealth.

Previous work on elite perceptions has highlighted the importance of meritocratic ideas of ‘hard work’ and talent, and of considering views towards inequalities of gender, ‘race’ and ethnicity, as presented on our panels at the ISA 2018 conference in Toronto. To understand how these different dimensions of inequality influence elite perceptions in a cumulative and intersecting fashion, the aim of our sessions this time around was to move beyond the one-dimensional idea of privilege to understanding the web of privileges experienced and how they are perceived by members of the elite. Moreover, to implement successful poverty and inequality reduction policies, it is crucial to understand contextually embedded elite perceptions and the mechanisms of privilege accumulation in place. To that end, we asked our participants to relate current perceptions to the history of place in which ‘their’ respective elites find themselves in.

In this vein, Elisa Reis inaugurated the first panel with her presentation on the temporal dimension of Brazilian elites, exploring how they deal with negative externalities of social cohesion. Being one of the few scholars having conducted comparable interview series with elites periodically since the early 1990s, Reis is in a unique position to analyze changes in elite perceptions and their variations over time. Compared to a readily available discourse of meritocracy, the beginning of the pandemic brought about a strong feeling of social interdependence among the country’s wealthy. The policy challenge for a context as unequal as Brazil, she argued, lies in the question of how to maintain this notion of interdependence beyond the current crisis.

Having thus cast the scene for elites’ stances towards redistribution, Graziella Moraes Silva presented her research on the controversial nature of cash transfers (CTs) in Brazil and South Africa, respectively – two of the world’s most unequal countries, both with significant CT programs. Based on hundreds of survey participants, she finds that the repertoires employed by elites regarding the meaning of “giving money to the poor” differs not only by country, but also between their political and economic subgroups.

The ensuing presentation by Emilia Schaigorodsky elaborated on this question of who ‘the elites’ actually are, besides being rich, extending the spatial comparison to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Examining dozens of statements made by business chambers between 2016-2020, she concluded that elites justify their place in society in normative terms, perceiving themselves (to varying degrees) as “guardians” of the rest of society. Their perceived role of promoters of economic growth putting business first thus perpetuates inequality via the (outdated) discourse of “trickle-down economics”.

The final presentation of this panel, by María Luisa Méndez and Modesto Gayo closed in on the Chilean case and the socio-spatial trajectories of upper class participants, as well as their understanding of what being a “good citizen” entails. Mendez and Gayo observe a significant fragmentation with regards to cultural and political discourses mobilized in the qualitative accounts collected, allowing them to group participants into wealthy inheritors, ‘achievers’, and newcomers to the segment, respectively.

Complementing these findings of changing elite perceptions over time, as well as diverging discourses as to their purpose in society and political/redistribution views, Alice Krozer and Katharina Hecht shared the finding from their research that elites also rely on context-dependent narratives to account for their origin: for instance, elite narratives in Mexico utilise historic events like colonialism to explain and legitimise their privileges, whereas in the UK elites rely on economic/market-based explanations. This finding connected the discussion to our second panel focusing on Identity, Practices and the Legitimation of Wealth.

Here, scholars discussed elite family relationships, inheritance and the legitimising role of philanthropy and meritocracy. Jessica Sklair discussed her research on elite Brazilian business families. She found that her participants perceived the preservation of privilege as a social responsibility, and being wealthy as a noble condition because one is ‘giving back’. Therefore, Sklair argued that for the families in her study, philanthropy justifies wealth accumulation. 

In the following, Elisabeth Schimpfossl presented findings of her research of Russian multi-millionaires and billionaires. While her participants also legitimated their wealth by pointing to philanthropy and entrepreneurship, they additionally referred to ‘personality traits and intelligence’. Schimpfossl’s participants talked about their ‘strong genes’, ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ and ‘talent’ which was often traced back to the Russian intelligentsia. 

Finally, Katie Higgins discussed her research on wealthy entrepreneurs in North-West England. She found that wealth managers and parents in wealthy families use money as an educational tool for heirs, by tying inheritance to ‘meritocratic’ achievements such as education or entrepreneurship. Higgins therefore argued that family wealth is a key pedagogical site in the families of her study.

Our two sessions thus brought together researchers who explored and compared the context-specific, spatially and historically embedded elements of elite perceptions, and how these fit into elites’ accounts of their own privileges. It was such a pleasure to host these panels. Many thanks to RC02 and Aaron Pitluck and Dustin Stoltz for their support with the organization of the sessions.