ABSTRACT
More than a quarter of a century has passed since Robert Putnam argued that ‘changes in the composition of political elites’ provide a ‘crucial diagnostic of the basic tides of history’ (Putnam 1976:166). Yet, surprisingly few scholars have used this diagnostic in recent times. As Suzanne Keller reminds us, the ‘19th century was preoccupied with elites while the late 20th century ignores them’ (Keller 1991:xi). This is not to say that elites play no role in social science theory today. The literatures on democratization and economic liberalization are replete with references to elite pacts, elite bargaining and elite constraints. We, as political scientists, have in fact been preoccupied with what elites do in certain settings but we have spent comparatively little time studying who elites are, and how they get to be elites in the first place. Latin Americanists, from a variety of social science disciplines, have recently developed a broad literature on technocratic elites, but Europeanists trained in political science have tended to focus their energies elsewhere. With a few notable exceptions,1
comparative projects are distressingly rare. I use the term ‘distressingly’ because the quality of governance ultimately
rests on the qualities of those who govern. If we ignore these qualities and reify elites as empty vessels who react only to contemporary constraints in an effort to maximize whatever preferences we project upon them, we risk overlooking the essentially human dynamic of politics. Elites formulate preferences and weight constraints in accord with what they have been taught, where they have been, and where they think they might be going. Any vessel’s direction is determined not only by the ‘basic tide’, but by the
An earlier version of this study was written for the Arrábida Seminars of 17-18 September 2001 organized by Professors Pedro Tavares de Almeida and Antonio Costa Pinto and titled ‘Regime Change and Ministerial Recruitment in Southern Europe’. The author is indebted to the organizers for their advice and their patience and to the Luso-American Development Foundation for financial support. Figures used in this contribution are from the 10 March 2003 version of the other essays included in this collection.
