ABSTRACT
Many social theories ascribe a specific and important role to elites, particularly in terms of the functioning of liberal and democratic institutions. It is therefore not surprising that German elites have become a favored subject of social science analyses searching for clues that would further our understanding of Germany's uneven path toward democracy. The elite concept plays an important role in the context of two different theoretical paradigms, both of which focus on fundamental problems of societal integration and democracy: the radical democratic paradigm and the pluralist paradigm. Radical social scientists tend to devote much attention to the degree of openness of elite recruitment. The lack of socioeconomic representativeness among elites has frequently been considered as indicating the existence of serious deficiencies in democratic representation. Ralf Dahrendorf's theory of elites rests on the assumption that social cohesion is a necessary precondition of elite integration.
