American Elites Research Articles

Where Did the Global Elite Go to School? Hierarchy, Harvard, Home and Hegemony

ABSTRACTWe examine the educational backgrounds of the global elite, using new data on a diversity of organizational leadership roles as well as the population of the super‐rich across the world. Four trends emerge when examining the university education of the global elite. First, we find a small number of globally prestigious universities to take on super prominent roles, suggesting a strongly hierarchical distribution of credentials among the global elite. Second, we find a consistent and unique place for Harvard University within this system. Third, we find evidence for a significant yet variable ‘home‐bias’ in the education of the global elite. This is moderated by the fourth regularity, the hegemony of Anglo‐American credentials. These four global regularities can enhance ongoing research on global elite populations. Our findings are robust to both the removal of all American elites in the sample, to dynamic stratified sampling of the network boundary and to disaggregating the sample into different elite roles. The analysis of this article is the first of its kind to offer a large‐scale descriptive mapping of central tendencies in global elite university education.

Exploring the Polarization of American Elites Based on the Analyses of Candidates’ Statements During the 2020 Presidential Election

ABSTRACT The article consists of three parts. The first contains a theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of US political polarization and discusses the main approaches to its explanation, primarily through the prism of the influence of political elites. The authors note a logical contradiction in the existing concepts, which postulate the existence of an “asymmetry” in the influence of elites on polarization in the United States, arguing that the contribution of the Republicans is more destructive than the contribution of representatives of the Democratic Party. The authors find the growth of political polarization, regardless of party preferences (while noting the importance of elite behavior as one of the central factors of political polarization). The second part examines the phenomenon of affective (or emotional polarization), based on the socio-psychological rejection of representatives of an alien political camp. Based on the results of a network analysis of a two-modal network consisting of pre-election messages and topics selected by the authors themselves, the author notes that all candidates, without exception, are prone to emotional affect as part of their election campaign. The third part is devoted to the study of positional (or ideological) polarization, in which the author, on the basis of Latent Dirichlet Allocation analysis, divides the corpus of campaign messages of candidates into separate topics and, through a comparative analysis, finds a significant distance from “bipartisan” topics (i.e. from the political center) among all candidates.

Practitioners’ perspective of non-contact injury risk factors and injury prevention programming in professional North American male soccer

ObjectiveTo evaluate non-contact injury prevention strategies of professional men's soccer clubs in elite North American league soccer. To understand the application, perceived effectiveness and barriers to implementation. DesignOnline cross-Sectional Study. SettingNorth American elite soccer teams. Participants96 medical and performance support staff of elite North American teams. Main outcome measureThe survey consisted of 20 questions and captured 1) practitioners' demographics; 2) perceptions of risk factors; 3) the use of assessment and monitoring strategies; and 4) perceptions of the implementation of injury prevention programmes’. ResultsInjury prevention programmes were perceived as ‘effective’ (Median 4, Interquartile range 4-4) and reduced injury rates (n = 94, 98%, 95 CI% 93 to 99). A range of potential risk factors were rated as “very important” (4.58 ± 0.52 Likert scale points; mean ± standard deviation). A multi-disciplinary approach to the design, application and monitoring of programmes was generally adopted. Competing training priorities (n = 75, 78%, 95 CI% 69 to 85) and game schedules (n = 71, 74%, 95 CI% 64 to 82) were the most prevalent barriers to injury prevention implementation. ConclusionsInjury prevention programmes were perceived as effective in reducing non-contact injuries. Managing the conflicting priorities between scheduling training, tactical and conditioning goals were considered the key barriers to desired implementation.

Опыт строительства системы обеспечения национальной безопасности в США

The conceptual framework of national security in the United States of America has undergone significant transformation from the identification of national security with the military component of state policy to the modern systemic approach of “security through development”. This paper delineates the peculiarities of USA national security policy, including the principles of exclusivity, messianism, the interpretation by American elites of national security as the ability to counter external threats, the formulation of policies from a position of strength using coercive means, and a solid scientific basis. It is emphasized that the institutional contours of the modern USA national security system were laid down at the turn of the 1940–1950s with the establishment of the National Security Council. The analysis of the experience in constructing the USA national security system is multifaceted and reflects its fundamental characteristics, which have both theoretical and practical significance, enabling the systematic strengthening of national security. Based on the US experience, the author formulates proposals for improving the Russian national security system. The scientific novelty is expressed in the proposal and justification of the establishment of a special position of coordinator for strategic communications within the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation.

Effects of demographic history on recombination hotspots in soybean.

Recombination is the primary mechanism underlying genetic improvement in populations and allows plant breeders to create new allelic combinations for agronomic improvement. Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] has gone through multiple genetic bottlenecks that have significantly affected its genetic diversity, linkage disequilibrium, and altered allele frequencies. To investigate the impact of genetic bottlenecks on recombination hotspots in soybeans, historical recombination was studied in three soybean populations. The populations were wild soybean [Glycine soja (Sieb. and Zucc.)], landraces, and North American elite soybean cultivars that have been genotyped with the SoySNP50K BeadChip. While each population after a genetic bottleneck had an increased average haplotype block size, they did not have a significant difference in the number of hotspots between each population. Instead, the increase in observed haplotype block size is likely due to an elimination of individuals that contained historical recombination at hotspots which decreased the observed rate of recombination for the hotspot after each genetic bottleneck. Conversely, heterochromatic DNA which has an increased haplotype block size compared to euchromatic DNA had a significantly different number of hotspots but not a significant difference in the average hotspot recombination rate. Previously identified genomic motifs associated with hotspots were also associated with hotspots found in the historical populations suggesting a common mechanism. This characterization of historical recombination hotspots in soybeans provides further insights into the effect genetic bottlenecks and selection have on recombination hotspots.

Russia-NATO and Ukraine-NATO relations: from “a new quality” to “a shattered peace”

Political and legal foundations of the relations between Russia and Ukraine with NATO are examined in a comparative manner. The basic documents for interaction were studied in detail: Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation and Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Ukraine.An analysis of statements by offi cials of the USA, NATO, Russia and Ukraine in connection with Russian special military operation in Ukraine is provided. NATO continues its provocative policy of expansion unwinding a spiral of militarization and aggravation of geopolitical tensions in order to achieve superiority. The notorious “open door” doctrine has become so ossifi ed and hardened in its immutability that there is no reason to expect any changes, corrections or simply rethinking of its consequences for the security interests of NATO itself, its members and invitees. A stream of spells and predictable ritual statements, which do not contain the slightest element of novelty, is pouring out from Brussels. Moscow’s view on this is also well known and opposite to NATO’s one: the origin of the current deepest security crisis in the Euro-Atlantics was the destructive policy of the collective West thoroughly saturated with anti-Russian approaches and completely negating the proposals and initiatives that Russia had put forward as a possible solution to existing problems. The naked double standards and rough actions of NATO countries in Eurasia and other regions of the world testify to their desire, through the so-called controlled chaos and suff ering of millions of people, to prevent the establishment of a just multipolar world order implanting in its place a fl awed “rules-based order.” The architects of a unipolar world will be disappointed: hegemony led by the United States is impossible since there are Russia, China and India on the Eurasian continent. American elites cannot help but understand that they live in a country isolated by two oceans, the history of which is far shorter than Russian, Chinese and Indian which stretch back thousands of years.

Antisocial Capital: Community Cohesion and Tax Avoidance among American Elites

Antisocial Capital: Community Cohesion and Tax Avoidance among American Elites

Devil on the doorstep v. bandits in the backyard: Iranian and American theory-laden perceptions and judgements during three US-led Middle East operations

ABSTRACT This article employs conceptual tools from the philosophy of science to shed new light on prolonged Iran-US hostility. Iranian and American elites evidently have negative attitudes towards the other nation, but these attitudes lack systematic and theoretical analysis. We apply the post-positivist concepts of theory-laden perception and judgement to anticipate the impact of established attitudes on foreign policy experts. After considering the cognitive training of each foreign policy community in the 1980s, the article hypothesises each group’s perceptions of and judgements about the other’s behaviour during Operation Desert Storm (1991), Operation Enduring Freedom (2001), and Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003). The concurrence of theory-laden judgements with each nation’s actual decisions indicates the likely contributions of American and Iranian foreign policy experts to the lack of substantial long-term bilateral cooperation, while the instance of a lack of concurrence indicates the possibility of future change. Our cross-disciplinary methodology demonstrates the utility of venturing outside the traditional boundaries of international relations scholarship.

Spain as the EU’s ‘champion’ in Latin America: elites, government trustworthiness, and free trade

ABSTRACT This paper addresses attitudes around the projection of the EU among Latin American elites, namely the determinants of support for a Free Trade Agreement between the two regions and the trustworthiness of the EU government. We take as data elite surveys conducted in 15 Latin American countries (2014–2019) and consider sociodemographics, ideology, support for democracy, views of foreign powers, exports to the EU, and electoral democracy. Results show that ideology and support for democracy are key determinants of support for an interregional FTA, and that the trustworthiness of governments in the US, China, and Spain covary with attitudes toward the EU. The latter (trust in the government in Spain) proves to be the main driver and, furthermore, its impact is conditional on the economic strength (observed as exports) of the EU: wherever the EU is not a strong economic actor in Latin America, trust in the Spanish government does nothing but improve the image of the EU.

The Ideological Origins of “Written” Constitutionalism

ABSTRACT: Americans have long argued that during the Age of Revolutions, the “early modern” world became “modern” thanks to a set of political innovations in the nature of government. Paramount among these was the creation of nation-states founded on the “invention” of written constitutions—beginning with the new United States, whose form of written constitutionalism served as a model for other polities. This article challenges that narrative. Building on recent scholarship on the coproduction of writing practices and state formation, it argues that the mode of constitution-making inaugurated in the aftermath of the American Revolution represented less a moment of origin than an ideological project of revising the relationship between document and statecraft characteristic of the early modern British Empire. Early American elites sought to portray the written constitution of empire as archaic as they defined their own species of written constitutionalism as an innovation, one they posited as the template for a normative form of the “modern” state.

Trends in the Development of US–China Relations After the 2020 Presidential Election in the Context of the Information and Political Discourse of American Elites

In a short period, from 2016 to 2020, China has transformed from the main trade and economic partner of the United States, during the years of Barack Obama’s presidency, to one of the leading opponents of the US administration. This article analyses the reasons for the growing tension in US–China relations and the trade war as the apogee of this confrontation considers the discourse of American political elites in the media regarding China’s participation and role in the demarcation between states and assesses the prospects of relations between the two countries under the Democratic administration of Joe Biden, with a focus on the information agenda in the United States. The quantitative results of the topic modelling analysis show that the ongoing ideological shift of discourse from the Democrats and lack of any discussion of trade negotiations resulted in 2022 demonstrate that the shift from the economic sphere to ideology has been completed. The tensions between China and the United States have transferred to the political-diplomatic stage with a new danger for the United States and NATO interests coming to the surface—Russia and its policy in Eastern Europe.

Comparative Analysis of Body Composition Profiles among Latin American Elite Football Players Competing in Europe

It has yet to be determined whether or not differences in body composition are present between international and non-international players playing in the same elite professional club competition. Similarly, it is not yet clear whether or not differences in body composition exist according to ethnic origin where relative homogeneity is to be expected among soccer players. There is no single anthropometric profile that guarantees sporting success, as success differs according to characteristics. The aim of this study was to assess the description, comparison, and correlation of the body composition profile of Latin American professional football players playing in European leagues. The sample was composed of 238 Latin American male football players from European professional football leagues of Spain, Italy and England during the competition period. Differences were found in all measures. The present study shows that Latin American professional football players playing in Europe have significant differences in various body composition variables such as weight, height, WC, skinfold and fat values. This means that training, revalidation after injury and the classifications of sporting performance carried out in European football clubs should take into account the anthropometric difference between Latin American and European players.

Big Historical Data Analysis of the China Threat Discourse among American Elites

Big Historical Data Analysis of the China Threat Discourse among American Elites

Поляризация американских элит (На основе анализа программных заявлений кандидатов во время президентских выборов 2020 г.)

The article is devoted to the study of political polarization in the United States through the prism of the influence of various groups of American elites on this process. Empirically analyzing the campaign messages of Joseph Biden, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, which were spread by their electoral staff during the 2020 presidential campaign, and using the methods of network and LDA analysis, the authors attempt to determine to what extent the Democratic and Republican leaders tend to use tools that polarize society and whether the nature of the influence of these parties on the American society differs. Having documented the presence of all types of political polarization in the United States, the authors show that both Republicans and Democrats significantly add to polarization because, on the one hand, they fuel emotional tension in the society, and on the other hand, they deny legitimacy to the principles of their opponents. The analysis carried out in the article clearly demonstrates that all groups of the American political elites, regardless of party affiliation, are nearly equally susceptible to affective and positional polarization, including those whose political activity is usually assessed as depolarizing. All this refutes the widespread notion that the Republican Party, which exploits the Us vs. Them dichotomy for narrow political purposes, is primarily responsible for the polarization in the country, indicating that something bigger, rather than the rise of right-wing populism or the increased popularity of nativist movements, explains the crisis processes that have been unfolding in the recent years in the United States, as well as in other old democracies.

Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives: The Lost Story of Enslaved Africans, Their Arabic Letters, & an American President by Jeffrey Einboden

Reviewed by: Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives: The Lost Story of Enslaved Africans, Their Arabic Letters, & an American President by Jeffrey Einboden Kambiz GhaneaBassiri (bio) Islam, Thomas Jefferson, Slavery, North Africa Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives: The Lost Story of Enslaved Africans, Their Arabic Letters, & an American President. By Jeffrey Einboden. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 352. Cloth, $29.95.) Did Thomas Jefferson have knowledge of the presence of Muslims in the territories over which he presided? Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives is an admirable attempt to decisively answer this question with a "Yes." While digging in various archives for Arabic writings from antebellum America, Einboden discovered two Arabic manuscripts that had been written by "runaway" slaves detained in rural Kentucky. A "frontier pioneer" named Ira P. Nash carried the manuscripts to Washington and handed them to the president on October 4, 1804. Based on his communications with Nash, Jefferson thought that these manuscripts "'contained' the Africans' own 'history, as stated by themselves'" (178). He thus sought to have them translated so that "if practicable," he "may procure the release of the men if proper" (156). Unfortunately, the specialists who were consulted on Jefferson's behalf were not able to decipher the Arabic writings in these manuscripts. Einboden reads one of them as Surat al-Nas, the last chapter of the Qur'an, and the other he identifies as illegible but likely to contain "verses from [End Page 184] discrete chapters of the Qur'an" (305, n13). He argues that their exact content is not as significant as their context. They "represent intentional acts of authorship, embodying a deep 'history,' while also seeming to articulate anxieties particular to . . . their [authors'] present enslavement" (178). Much of Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives aims to narrate this deep history of Jefferson and other American elites' interactions with Islam by tethering their biographies to the unpublished Arabic writings that Einboden discovered in the course of his years of research. This resulting story is significant for Einboden because it challenges the widespread assumption that the presence of enslaved Muslim Africans was invisible to the Founders. The question that Einboden sets out to answer, "How could these two pages—authored in Arabic by fugitive West Africans—have stayed submerged for more than two centuries?" (6), is all the more perplexing given that nearly every week of Jefferson's political life has been documented and analyzed. By bringing Jefferson's biography into conversation with contemporary Arabic writings, Einboden hopes to expand the canon of early American history and to integrate Muslims into how we imagine the political formation of the United States today. While I wholeheartedly applaud Einboden's aim, Jefferson's Fugitive Muslims falls short of realizing it in a compelling way. It is overwritten and under-theorized. For example, in a chapter discussing the signing of a treaty between Morocco and the United States, Einboden writes, Instead of December 1786, Jefferson waited until January 1, 1787, to trace his signature on the treaty. Mirroring the Ramadan autograph of Morocco's emperor—who had ratified the treaty on the first day of Islam's holiest month—Jefferson signaled his own approval on New Year's Day. Not a season of fasting in Paris, but a feast (32). One wishes that rather than resorting to such rhetorical associations between Jefferson and the Arabic documents he encountered, Einboden would have spent more time exploring the theoretical and historical ramifications of translating such emerging political concepts as "Citizens of the United States" into Arabic. What does this written exchange tell us about how citizenship in a nation–state was understood by Americans and Moroccans at this time, and how was it projected to shape international and diplomatic relations? Elsewhere, while discussing Jefferson's efforts to have the abovementioned manuscripts translated, Einboden writes, [End Page 185] Twenty-two years before, in 1785, O'Brien had petitioned Jefferson's help to save him from Muslim imprisonment [in North Africa]; now in 1807, Jefferson was petitioning O'Brien to help save two Muslims from American incarceration [by translating their Arabic writings]. In 1785, Jefferson had advised O'Brien to keep quiet and discreet in Muslim lands; now, Jefferson was asking O'Brien to divulge...

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North

Civic Preparation of American Youth: Reflective Patriotism and Our Constitutional Democracy

American elites’ continuing descent into polarization and the ongoing disintegration of civic culture and institutions highlight the need for educational leaders to learn from national consensus efforts in civics reform that have been forged by experts from the center left and center right. From a conservative perspective, this requires center-left colleagues to recognize the drawbacks of prioritizing civic engagement over civic education, the latter encompassing fundamental knowledge and civic virtues. The recent study Educating for American Democracy provides a balanced view of a national consensus framework for improvements that can be undertaken by states and localities, emphasizes civic knowledge and civic virtues as the foundation of informed participation, and features Tocqueville’s concept of “reflective patriotism” as indispensable to a healthy American constitutional democracy. I argue that if American elites do not invest in such preparation for informed, committed citizenship, we risk the kind of self-inflicted crisis that Lincoln addressed in 1838 when he warned of an impending national “suicide.”

Адаптивное лидерство в условиях “двойного сдерживания”: образ действия США в меняющемся миропорядке

The article is devoted to the study of various adaptation modes in the U.S. foreign policy amid changes in the international environment. The author looks into the drivers of American leadership in the first post-Cold War decade and critically assesses how the changes in the international system affected them having brought the current state of the world to the “great power rivalry” mode. As a result, the paper observes, the “dual containment” of China and Russia is effectively becoming the organizing idea of American foreign policy, the conditions under which the U.S. were presented as a role model are being eroded, while American elites continue to strive to keep the United States’ hegemonic position in the international system. The author considers the “adaptive leadership” theory and ways in which it conjugates with the “adaptive behavior” theory of J. Rosenau, arguing that for the moment, the U.S. are undergoing the so called convulsive mode of adaptation. The article further scrutinizes the essence of such adaptation in concrete areas and seeks to answer how adequate the measures adopted by the United States today are for the goals and objectives that they pursue. The author presumes that in the absence of key drivers for the adaptive leadership – the factor of time, renewed national identity, new quality of governance by qualitatively new elites, and new consensus among the elites over the role the U.S. should play in the world, – the United States opts for some sort of “expedited” adaptation. It includes persuasion through ideology, incitement though economic measures, coercion through force, and ultimately exposes U.S. foreign policy more like that of a hegemon and less like that of a leader. The paper argues that in the mid-term perspective, the domestic politics of the United States will be dependent on the formation of the aforementioned renewed leadership drivers, while America’s foreign policy will signal how successful the adaptation processes are.

How Ukrainian Scientists Help American Elites Understand the Discourse of War. The Response of Ukrainian Intellectuals to US Intellectuals Regarding the Media Effect of Noam Chomsky about the Russian War in Ukraine

How Ukrainian Scientists Help American Elites Understand the Discourse of War. The Response of Ukrainian Intellectuals to US Intellectuals Regarding the Media Effect of Noam Chomsky about the Russian War in Ukraine

Edward Albee: A Dramatist in Protest

This study is an attempt to explore the major social and moral concerns of Edward Albee (1928- ) in two of his famous plays: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? and The Death of Bessie Smith . In these plays Albee reveals his protest against corrupt cultural values and the false concept of manhood and womanhood .He also exposes the perverted husband-wife relationships which lead to frustrations and nightmares . Themes of social inequality , racial distinction , loss and death are never absent of Albee‟s mind. In his representations of the American social life , Albee focuses on the artificial nature of many human relationships in his society .Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? is a realistic portrayal of thedominance ofthe illusive dreams of the American elite . The play is set in an American college.It presents the events of one night spent by two couples who stay up drinking after a party given by the President of the college. The four characters of the play reveal the history of their marriages.George is a middle-aged professor of History.Martha, his wife , is the daughter of the President of the college.Nick is a young professor of Biology. Honey, his wife, is a rich heiress of her father.Albee criticizes their mercenary marriages.Edward Albee believes that despite the material richness of the American society , the American civilization is essentially empty . This idea is reflected through the sterility of the characters in the play.The two families in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? are childless.George and Martha create an illusive dream by pretending that they have a handsome child. The episode of the imaginary child is used to expose the loneliness of those people. The child does not exist at all ; it is a shared illusive dream of George and his wife to add some solace to their barren life