Chasing shadows: from the power elite to a new paradigm

Abstract

This article provides a brief overview of the patterns that characterize scholarship on private and secret race- and ethnic-based organizations. It begins with a pithy recount of the public fascination with secret and private organizations that is complicated by its intersection with race and ethnicity. It then moves to examine the first steps of scholarship that framed secret orders as rather one-dimensional reflections of nefarious elites. Next, it shows how recent scholarship both continues and adds nuance to that trend by demonstrating five key characteristics of modern inquiry: (1) the examination of power and elitism alongside local exigencies that inflect and modify elite agendas; (2) these groups' simultaneous navigation of public and private identities; (3) the growing emphasis on non-US-based groups; (4) the use of new methodologies and data sets; and (5) the attentiveness of modern scholarship to the climate of fascination and distrust with secret and private organizations.