ABSTRACT
Social scientists and historians just as routinely assign elites pivotal roles in analyzing political regimes, revolutions, social movements, democratic transitions and breakdowns, changing ideologies, and changing policies. Structural integration involves the relative inclusiveness of formal and informal networks of communication and influence among the persons, groups and factions in a national elite. Concrete indicators of an unstable regime are revolutions, uprisings, or coups d'etat aimed at changing the personnel controlling government executive offices and not primarily orchestrated by extra-national forces. The classical elite theorists dwelled heavily on the relationship between elites and masses, stressing two key processes: elite circulation and elite mobilization of mass support. The long-term persistence of elite configurations that originate with nation-state formation highlights the pivotal importance of elite cooperation or conflict during that formative process. But while initial configurations usually last over long periods, subsequent elite transformations sometimes occur, and they account for most major, lasting political changes in nation-states.
