Abstract

Scholarly studies of elites and political elites have a vibrant recent history. My aim here is to provide a selective summary of that history, focusing on the importance of social distinction and the theories of power structure as a theoretical background for understanding the influence of political elites in social change. Since new insights and concerns have emerged in this field, the organization of this essay is not entirely chronological. Even though I may have ignored many relevant contributions, my hope here is to provide some sense of the richness and significance of what have been accomplished by scholars regarding the relationship among elites and representation, the links between elites, democracy and social change and the theories of power structure. In this paper I also study the extent to which the introduction of a new research method by Domhoffian class domination theory opened a new insight in élite studies. Finally, an élite research strategy and two main conclusions are presented subsequently.