The Comparative Study of Political Elites

by Robert D. Putnam

The Contemporary Comparative Politics Series will treat the more enduring as well as the more recent themes, approaches, and problems pertaining to the study of political systems. In all cases, the volumes are pointed toward the following goals; to illustrate the relationship between theory and method without being theoretically pretentious or methodologically self-conscious; to underline the essential interrelatedness between fact and value or empirical and normative considerations in politics; to inform the reader in brief compass and in ordinary language, free from the jargon and neologisms of modern social science. The final and overriding goal of the series is to show what the comparative political scientist does and why this is an activity of intrinsic interest for the reader and considerable utility for society.

Genres: Sociology, Politics, Political Science

246 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Robert David Putnam is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. Putnam developed the influential two-level game theory that assumes international agreements will only be successfully brokered if they also result in domestic benefits. His most famous work, Bowling Alone, argues that the United States has undergone an unprecedented collapse in civic, social, associational, and political life (social capital) since the 1960s, with serious negative consequences. In March 2015, he published a book called Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis that looked at issues of inequality of opportunity in the United States. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Putnam is the fourth most frequently cited author on college syllabi for political science courses.[

Reviews

[Adrian Fanaca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not remember it exactly as I read it long time ago. However, I remember Putnam, a great political scientist, compares the economic elites, with the social elites, and with the political-administrative elites. Very interesting insights, which unfortunately I do not have any examples, but a captivating reading, that is I guarantee. And I am sure full of statistics about the American elites of the second part of the 20th century.

[Julie Shuff · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book has so many interesting points about political power and who comprises the elite. Considering it was published in 1976, I think it was surprisingly ahead of its time. I would love a contemporary version of this book to think about social culture/“influencers” as well. I will probably revisit this later to really digest this book, instead of a last minute read through.

[Parker Hewitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is book is a bit of a mixed bag overall. The sections where Putnam does the actual comparative study are, funnily enough, quite dry. That being said, ignoring those bits, which are still quite informative, this book offers an empirically and theoretically informed presentation of elite theory by a master social scientist. The book introduces the reader to classical elite theory, that of figures one would find featured in Burnham's "The Machiavellians." The presentation of this theory here is concise and clear, and the rest of the book is adding necessary nuance that is lacking from the theories of Pareto, Mosca, and Michels. This amounts to pointing out that even though the statement "social goods, including power, are unevenly distributed throughout societies," is quite literally, brutally true, statements like "society is divided between the ruling class and the ruled class" and "the elite is autonomous and self-perpetuating," are quite false. The more appropriate way of thinking about the "class structure" of power in society is almost always some form of pyramid, with the least powerful, being the most numerous, forming the base and there being several tiers on the way up.

Putnam also spends a good bit of time discussing how the elite forms itself and inter-elite dynamics. Elite recruitment and socialization feature prominently in the book. The author notes how the "circulation of elites" plays an important role in the dynamics of any society, and how different nations are better at circulating their elites. This amounts to differences in a society's capacity to accommodate members of non-elite who are both capable and ambitious (a vital task for any regime that hopes to avert revolution, or societal tensions that are likely to be caused by elite rejects). Another important difference is the degree to which societies are able to move members out of their elite. Monarchical and oligarchical societies typify the types where elite circulation is blocked heavily by those already in power. This factor helps to explain, to some degree, how industrialization and education, which both helped to bring more social power for lower classes, as well as increasing their possible claims to elite status, has historically contributed social revolution.

This leads to what, in my view, is one of the stronger arguments against one of the iconic arguments of the classical elite theorists and those who subscribe to their views. Different political institutions genuinely do have differential implications for the constitution of the elite for a society. This means that societies that are democracies, are qualitatively different than other societies in the sense that the elites face a type of pressure that is baked into the political systems themselves. Beyond simple "formulation," societies that have institutions allowing for citizens' input as to who constitutes the elite doesn't abolish the fact that power isn't evenly distributed, but neither does it render impotent the effect the masses does induce. Competitive elections does influence elites to be more responsive, which, under any definition of power that hopes to be coherent, means true elections do have some power of the elites.

Some basic facts and a few interesting myths are also tackled by Putnam, which show his impressive a synthesis skills. While his chapter on the motives and beliefs of the elites, and their sources, is an impressive case of this synthesis, it is almost certainly quite dated. One interesting myth the author discusses the idea of elite behavior being largely determined by self-interest. Because of what Putnam calls the law of increasing disproportion, the elite of any society will be composed mostly of people from the higher socioeconomic tiers. In fact, the higher one's SES the greater chance you are a member of the political elite. According to many Marxists or people who consider themselves "realists" (read cynics) there is actually little empirical evidence to indicate that elite behavior is primarily determined by their desire to benefit their own class. To quote directly from Putnam, "at the elite level the correlations between social background and policy preferences are remarkably weak and unpredictable."

The interior structure of elites is also something that should automatically seem to be important to anyone who has read history. Institutions alone cannot explain the decisions of elites, and neither can their SES. Personal ideology and beliefs matter. The fact that there are policy differences in countries that are disparate in their elite composition is explained by all of these factors, namely ideological beliefs, history, institutional factors, and, weakly, elite background.

Another fundamentally wrong belief is again one held primarily by Marxists. The Marxist view, one that was, of course, held by Marx himself and, at least at one point, by Burnham is that the economic conditions, as determined by the means of production, are the main driver of social change in societies. Putnam states that instead, "traditional and emergent elites" are not "mere spectators of an economically determined drama."

To quote again: “Indeed, the rule of an elite is legitimate... if and only if the nonelite believe it is.” Because of this, a leader’s authority is to some extent a function of their compliance with the expectations of his followers. This means that legitimacy can constrain or sustain elite power. Elites can build legitimacy by satisfying the desires of the non-elite, but this is a less secure way of building legitimacy. Symbols and ideology, and the manipulation or strategic deployment of such items, are also vital to building the legitimacy of the elite. Mosca denies that “political formulas are mere quackeries aptly invented to trick the masses into obedience… The truth is that they answer a real need in man’s social nature; and this need, so universally felt, of governing or knowing that one is governed not on the basis of mere material or intellectual force, but on the basis of moral principle, has beyond any doubt a practical and real importance.” The implication that elites are also subject to the influence of the political formula raises the possibility that the legitimating myths of a political system actually can foster elite responsiveness to non-elites. The elites, of course, can try to make changes to this formula but their attempts need to be accepted by the masses in order for them to fundamentally alter how this formula constrains what is possible for them to do. The Tsarist regime in Russia was brought down due to many factors, but one of the major ones was the decline in the legitimacy of the regime in the view of the masses. One of the key tasks of the Bolsheviks after they had taken power, as Sheila Fitzpatrick points out, was to build up the legitimacy of their regime. A regime that is massively out of joint with the perceived justifications of legit rule will enjoy little support of the people, and in a modern, complex society having the people's at least passive consent is vital.

Because of this basic fact, nations with democratic institutions and formulae, again, truly are different than non-democratic nations. Roberto Michels' so-called "iron law of oligarchy" states that even in the most ideologically democratic organization, the power will be distributed in such a way that a few members have a disproportionate sway on decisions. But, "despite some limitations and imperfections... competitive elections based on universal suffrage offer hope of mitigating the iron law of oligarchy." And quoting Schumpeter approvingly Putnam includes "the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote." Elections aren’t just tools for picking the guy who most aligns your values, it also fosters elite accountability to non-elites. The support of the non-elites are oftentimes a vital elite resource. Even if it were only a part of the process of getting into and staying in power, the elites have an incentive to pay attention to the wants and needs of the voters. Fundamentally this comes down to the ambitious nature of would-be elites, the competition they face in getting power, and the amount of information available to both elites and masses when this song and dance are occurring. Elites with no ambition will have no reason to want to stay in or even acquire power, making them unresponsive to concerns of legitimacy. If a nominally ambitious elite faces no competition for their position then they have no incentive to garner more support, and if there is nothing in terms of information for the people who ultimately put that elite into their position (in democracies this would be the voters) then the elite can do one thing but be perceived to have done another.

Putnam has managed to cram very insightful and interesting things away in this slim, unassuming, and interesting book. Fundamentally, it goes a long way to making the political world more understandable than almost any other book that I have ever read. There are many things that are admirable about this work, but what I appreciate most about this is book makes it clear that while some factors play a very large role in the dynamics and evolution of a society, no one factor dominates. Simple theories trying to explain all of history by a single primary factor, be it the elites themselves, the means of production, or the ideas in the heads of people in a society all fail to tell us why things happened the way they have, and the way the will in the future. The beliefs of elites, their ability to preserve or build legitimacy in the views of the masses, the institutional factors connecting the different tiers of the power pyramid that make up society, and even the individual decisions and beliefs of figures as major or minor as one can find can ultimately alter the course of societies. Read this book if you care to know more about how societies work, and why they differ.