THE ROLE OF CROSS-CLASS ALLIANCES AND ELITES IN COORDINATED EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN DENMARK. CES Open Forum Series 2018-2019, September 4, 2018

Explanations for coordination between labor and capital in Northern Europe continue to cause debate among scholars of comparative political economy. On one hand, power resource scholars argue that strong trade unions promoting equality are necessary for coordination. On the other hand, employer-centered theories argue that employers are the primary actors in promoting coordination due to the comparative advantages stemming from coordination. To inform this debate, we study the case of Denmark by combining a unique database of 5.000 elite affiliations with 80 stakeholder interviews spanning a decade. We argue that trade union power resources are necessary for coordination. However, only when certain segments of labor can forge powerful alliances with key employers for the economy will coordination persist. The network analysis identifies a powerful cross-class alliance between trade unions and employer associations in manufacturing. Interviews with stakeholders show that coordination in industrial relations and related institutional spheres such as education and industrial policies serves this alliance’s interests in safeguarding international competitiveness of manufacturing. However, intra-class allegiances ensure that the alliance constantly has to consider the interests of outsider organizations

From integrated to fragmented elites. The core of Swiss elite networks 1910–2015

This article focuses on historical elite dynamics and investigates elites' integration over time. We describe the changing relations and composition of the central circles in Swiss elite networks at seven benchmark years between 1910 and 2015 by relying on 22,262 elite individuals tied to 2587 organizations among eight key sectors, and identify for each year the most connected core of individuals. We explore network cohesion and sectoral bridging of the elite core and find that it moved from being a unitary corporate elite, before 1945, to an integrated corporatist elite, between the 1950s and 1980s, before fragmenting into a loose group, with an increased importance of corporate elites, in the 1990s onwards. The core was always dominated by business and their forms of legitimacy but, at times of crisis to the hegemony of corporate elites, after the Second World War and (only) shortly after the 2008 financial crisis, elite circles expanded and included individuals with delegated forms of power, such as politicians and unionists. In the most recent cohort (2015), the share of corporate elites in the core is similar to the one before the First World War and during the interwar period. This return to the past echoes findings on wealth inequality and economic capital accumulation by a small group of individuals organized around the most powerful companies

Delineating the corporate elite: Inquiring the boundaries and composition of interlocking directorate networks

Corporate elite studies have for long investigated networks of interlocking directorates to test and corroborate key theoretical expectations regarding the cohesive organization of such an elite and their ability and willingness to act on behalf of general business interests. These studies typically collect data on a list of 50, 100, 200 or 500 corporations ranked by economic size, sometimes stratified in sectors. The sampling approach often follows previous studies in order to increase comparability. These relatively arbitrary sampling practices are problematic because they impact the empirical results and our therefore the conclusions drawn from it. Using a sample of 3251 Canada‐based corporations, we establish that indeed different sampling criteria – that is sample size, proportion of financial firms, inclusion of state‐owned enterprises and so on – significantly impacts network properties of corporate elite networks. We establish rather disturbing differences, especially for smaller sample sizes (<100). Subsequently, we develop alternative demarcation criteria of the corporate elite based on a k‐core decomposition. We conclude by emphasizing that the sampling decisions in interlocking directorate studies should much more be carefully be thought through in future research on the topic, both in corporate elite studies and beyond

Elites and inequality: a case study of plutocratic philanthropy in the UK

This paper investigates the role of elite philanthropy in the context of rising global inequality, asking whether large-scale philanthropic donations by elites are well placed to help tackle structural inequality. The challenges posed by such “plutocratic philanthropy” are explored through analysis of a network of the top 30 philanthropists in the United Kingdom and their connections to businesses and foundations, which shows their financial scale and connectivity. This new data is embedded into a review of the most recent social science literature on elites, which focuses on elite reproduction, how wealthy families perceive inequality, and how and why they engage in philanthropic activities. From this data, the paper develops an analysis of the current landscape of inequality, based on the work of British sociologist Mike Savage (2015), arguing that elite philanthropy as an ecosystem— made up of capital, people and institutions—is not well placed to systemically challenge inequalities, because the financial size of elites’ philanthropy tends to be dwarfed by their business activities, and the social functions of philanthropy help maintain the advantaged positions of elites. The paper concludes with informed policy considerations on the role of elite philanthropy in light of the results of the analysis

Networks of Power

Networks of Power reconstructs the course of political history in the poorly documented Naco Valley from the fourteenth through early sixteenth centuries. Describing the material and behavioral patterns pertaining to the Late Postclassic period using components of three settlements in the Naco Valley of northwestern Honduras, the book focuses on how contests for power shaped political structures. Power-seeking individuals, including but not restricted to ruling elites, depended on networks of allies to support their political objectives. Ongoing and partially successful competitions waged within networks led to the incorporation of exotic ideas and imported items into the daily practices of all Naco Valley occupants. The result was a fragile hierarchical structure forever vulnerable to the initiatives of agents operating on local and distant stages

Identifying the Elite

Who are the members of the most powerful group in the Danish society? To answer this question, we explored the elite through two different methodological approaches. Using correspondence analysis, we charted the oppositions structuring two exclusive groups, the 100 most important Danish CEOs and the 1,527 elite individuals identified in the Danish Power and Democracy Study in 1999. Through social network analysis, we identified and explored the integration of a core of the power network in Denmark – the power elite - and the inner circle of the corporate elite. The importance of how the elite is defined or identified is discussed in relation with the most widely used method for the study of national elites. With the positional method the size and composition is defined as the data is constructed. We propose a new data sensitive method that identifies a cohesive elite with social network analysis. This lets us analyse the composition and like C.W. Mills identify the key institutional orders in Denmark