Connecting Elites and Regions


Book Description

The Early Iron Age Hallstatt C period in Northwest and Central Europe is marked by the emergence of monumental tumuli with lavish burials, some of which are known as chieftain's or princely graves. This new burial rite reflects one of the most noteworthy developments in Early Iron Age Europe: the rise of a new and elaborate way of elite representation north of the Alps.0These sumptuous burials contain beautiful weaponry, bronze vessels and extravagantly decorated wagons and horse-gear. They reflect long-distance connections in material culture and elite (burial) practices across the breadth of Northwest and Central Europe. Research into this period, however, tends to be regionally focused and poorly accessible to scholars from other areas - language barriers in particular are a hindering factor.0In an attempt to overcome this, Connecting Elites and Regions brings together scholars from several research traditions and nations who present regional overviews and discussions of elite burials and material culture from all over Northwest and Central Europe. In many cases these are the first overviews available in English and together they make regional research accessible to a wider audience. As such this volume contributes to and hopes to stimulate research on the Early Iron Age Hallstatt C period on a European scale.




Transregional and Regional Elites – Connecting the Early Islamic Empire


Book Description

Die Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen Orients erscheinen als Supplement der Zeitschrift Der Islam, gegründet 1910 von Carl Heinrich Becker, einem der Väter der modernen Islamwissenschaft. Ganz im Sinne Beckers ist das Ziel der Studien die Erforschung der vergangenen Gesellschaften des Vorderen Orients, ihrer Glaubenssysteme und der zugrundeliegenden sozialen und ökonomischen Verhältnisse, von der Iberischen Halbinsel bis nach Zentralasien, von den ukrainischen Steppen zum Hochland des Jemen. Über die grundlegende philologische Arbeit an der literarischen Überlieferung hinaus nutzen die Studien die archivalischen, sowie materiellen und archäologischen Überlieferungen als Quelle für die gesamte Bandbreite der historisch arbeitenden Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften.




Transregional and Regional Elites


Book Description

To integrate the regions of the early Islamic Empire from Central Asia to North Africa, transregional and regional elites of various backgrounds were essential. This volume is an important contribution to the conceptualization of the largest empire of Late Antiquity. After a theoretical introduction to the concept of 'elites' in an early Islamic context, the papers focus on elite structures and networks within selected regions of the Empire (Transoxiana, Khurāsān, Armenia, Fārs, Iraq, al-Jazīra, Syria, Egypt, and Ifrīqiya). They analyze elite groups across social, religious, geographical, and professional boundaries. Some papers take up contemporary terminology and its application within the sources. While previous studies used Iraq as the paradigm for the entire empire, this volume looks at diverse regions instead. While each region seems to be different based on its heterogeneous surviving sources, its physical geography, and its indigenous population and elites, the comparative approach highlights certain common patterns of governance and interaction across the Empire in its first three centuries.




The Secrets Known Only to the Inner Elites


Book Description

"Through three millennia of recorded history to date, centered around the Mediterranean, the civilized world has been run by two, bitterly opposed elites, the one associated with the faction of Socrates and Plato, the other with the faction of Aristotle. During these thousands of years, until the developments of approximately 1784-1818 in Europe, both factions' inner elites maintained in some fashion an unbroken continuity of organization and knowledge through all of the political catastrophes which afflicted each of them in various times and locales. "It was the elite associated with the Platonic (or, Neoplatonic) faction which organized the American Revolution and established the United States as a democratic constitutional republic. . . . "In the aftermath of the 1815 Treaty of Vienna, the shattering of the power of the Platonic elite in Europe meant in large measure both a scattering of the main forces of that faction, and an associated, increasing loss of the "secret knowledge" through which the Platonic inner elite had formerly developed and exercised its factional power. From that time to the present period, the inner circles of the Aristotelian (or, more exactly, "neo-Aristotelian") faction have been hegemonic increasingly in ordering world affairs. Although humanist (Platonic) factional forces have continued in existence and are represented among political and related elites today, the Platonic elite has lost connection to the body of knowledge upon which its former power depended . . . ."The principal function of this report is to summarily, but systematically identify the "secret knowledge" of the Platonic inner elite. That includes the Platonic's knowledge of the secrets of the enemy, Aristotelian elite . . . ."




The Elite Connection


Book Description

Designed as a textbook for courses in political theory, political sociology and comparative politics, and as a contribution in its own right, this book explores the role of elite relations as a key to understanding democracy. Following a critical review of the literature on classes, democracy and elites, the author argues that although Western democracy is not `governed by the people' and has not created equality, it is unique in that (more than any other regime) it has generated a relative separation of power holders, or a relative autonomy of elites and sub-elites in the control of resources. Developing this argument the author discloses strengths and weaknesses in democracy's infrastructure. The Elite Connection contains a warning that a major danger to democracy stems from the tendency of elites to make incursions into the autonomy of other elites, and to develop excessively close dependency relations, either in subjugation of them, or in collusion with them, which result in threats to civil liberties and to the very foundations of democracy. It argues, however, that democracy has the built-in potential to counter its own subversions. Although it focuses on elites, the book has an egalitarian perspective: it concludes with the argument that the separation of elites makes possible struggles for greater equality. The still relatively independent elites of social movements have the potential of pushing democracy towards greater participation and equality.







Excellent Ordinarity


Book Description







From Competition to Dominance


Book Description

The recent uprisings in the Middle East have cast doubt on the degree to which existing theories of autocracy can correctly identify which groups threaten the autocrats rule at any given time. As a result, these theories are unable to predict fundamental upheavals in established autocracies. Who is the biggest threat to the autocrat, though, the elite or the populations as a whole? In this paper, we evaluate how autocrats respond to perceived threats from the population and elites. We advance the argument that elites with autonomous power resources - economic assets, connections to regional elite networks, etc. - and swing voters, who are easily co-opted to cause problems for the regime, are likely perceived as the greatest threats. We also argue that to the extent that economic growth generates support for the incumbent, in this case the autocrat, actors in areas with high growth will, all else equal, be perceived as posing less of a threat to the autocrat than those in slow growth areas. We assume autocrats put their money where their mouths are and test our argument using the combination of data on federal-regional transfers in the Russian federation between 2001 and 2008 and a novel dataset of regional executive level characteristics. We find limited support for our arguments. On the one hand, transfers do go to politically powerful governors, while growth diminishes the impact of measures of voters preferences on transfers. On the other hand, we find evidence that transfers were aimed towards core, not swing voters, and that powerful regional elites tended to get more transfers, not less, in fast growing regions.




The Role of Local Political Elites in East Central Europe


Book Description

How does the elite continue to affect the evolution of local communities in the developing region of former Sovietized Europe? This book is concerned with the issue of local leadership in the countries of East-Central Europe. It is an attempt to examine, with a comparative method, the profile and the role of the local political elites (members of the Municipal Councils) in six towns in six transitional democracies of the region.