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

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

A Very Economic Elite - The Case of the Danish Top CEOs

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The meaning of merit: talent versus hard work legitimacy

Elites often use merit to explain, justify, and make sense of their advantaged positions. But what exactly do they mean by this? In this paper, we draw on 71 interviews with elites in Denmark and the UK to compare self-justifications of meritocratic legitimacy. Our results indicate that while elites in both countries are united by a common concern to frame their merits as spontaneously recognized by others (rather than strategically promoted by themselves), the package of attributes they foreground vary significantly. In the UK, elites tend to be “talent meritocrats” who foreground their unique capacity for ideational creativity or risk taking, innately good judgment, and “natural” aptitude, intelligence, or academic ability. In contrast, in Denmark, elites are more likely to be “hard work meritocrats” who emphasize their unusual work ethic, extensive experience (as a signal of accumulated hard work), and contributions outside of work, particularly in civil society. We tentatively argue that one explanation for this cross-national variation is the role that different channels of elite recruitment play in amplifying legitimate notions of merit. In the UK, for example, elite private schools act to nurture ideas of exceptionalism and natural talent, whereas in Denmark elite employers socialize the connection between hard work and success. These findings suggest that nationally specific understandings of merit can have quite different implications for the legitimation of inequality

Kulturel kapital blandt topdirektører i Danmark - En domineret kapitalform?

Betydningen af institutionaliseret kulturel kapital i form af diplomer fra højere læreanstalter er central for Bourdieus forståelse af dominansrelationer i det franske samfund omkring 1980’erne. Imidlertid viser en prosopografi – en kollektiv, relationel biografi – af de 100 vigtigste danske topdirektører i 2007, at universitetsgrader ikke har samme betydning i Danmark som i større industrilande. Snarere end kulturel kapital har især kapital opnået gennem lang tid på feltet – organisatorisk kapital – og nedarvet kapital betydning. Frem for at fungere som et krav er meritter fra universitetsverdenen snarere en relativt sjælden strategi i karrierevejen mod posten som topdirektør. Der fandtes således ingen egentlige eliteuddannelser, der fungerede som rekrutteringsgrundlag for erhvervslivets absolutte topposter herhjemme. Studiet tyder på, at man derfor muligvis ikke kan overføre den store betydning af kulturel kapital i det franske samfund til det danske. Søgeord: Bourdieu, kulturel kapital, geometrisk dataanalyse, magtens felt, elite. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Christoph Ellersgaard and Anton Grau: Cultural Capital among CEOs in Denmark – A Dominant Form of Capital? Cultural capital in its institutionalized form – i.e. diplomas from élites universities – is a key element in Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding of relations of dominance within French society around 1980. A prosopographical study of the 100 most important Danish CEOs in 2007 shows that degrees from élite universities do not play the same pivotal role in a Scandinavian welfare society such as Denmark as they do in France, Britain or Germany. Instead both organizational capital acquired through investment of considerable time in the field and inherited capital are important for CEOs in Denmark. Institutionalized cultural capital in the form of merit from higher education is a rare strategy in the trajectory towards executive position. The article concludes that élite education as a selection potential for top CEOs did not exist in Denmark when the current CEOs accumulated forms of capital giving merit to consideration as CEO candidates. This implies that the importance of cultural capital in the French society is not directly transferable to the reproduction of the field of power in Denmark. Key words: Bourdieu, cultural capital, geometrical data analysis, field of power, élite

Temaredaktørernes forord:Hvad skal en magtudredning ved afslutningen på historiens afslutning svare på?

Siden Folketinget i slutningen af sidste år vedtog at gennemføre en ”opdatering af magtudredningen”, har vores verdensbillede allerede forandret sig. Dengang stod vi stadig overfor en kommende corona-nedlukning. Magtkritik handlede i høj grad om diskussionerne om begrænsningerne i den personlige frihed i det epidemiramte samfund. Siden da er Coronaen – i hvert fald for en tid – lykkelig glemt, mens krigen i Ukraine, energiforsyning, inflation og – lidt mere lokalt – efterretningstjenester og minksager sætter spørgsmålstegn ved relationen mellem politikere, embedsmænd og offentlighe

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