Elite Circulation Research Articles

The Circulation of Elites: Soviet Politburo Members, 1919–1987

AbstractThe Politburo since its formation in 1919 has been the ruling elite of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. The traditional wisdom is that a blood purge is just around the corner and that a member's tenure is incalculably chaotic. This wisdom of “Evil Empire” is simply mistaken with respect to the Politburo. A statistical review of Politburo membership from 1919 to 1987 shows that the tenure of members is and was virtually the same as that found for elites in many democratic countries and that violence towards members and ex-members is and was rare, except during the Great Purge of 1936–1939. The traditional wisdom was never correct with respect to members' tenures and, with respect to blood purges, it was only correct during the Great Purge.

The Circulation of Elites: A Review and Critique of a Class of Models

This article reviews a mathematical model of the circulation of political elites. Poisson distributions of turnovers and exponential distributions of lengths of tenure are the mathematics of the model. These distributions are equivalent in applications, if tenure is the time between turnovers. The model is broad in scope; it has been applied to at least 30 jurisdictions from counties to countries and at least seven types of institutions from county commissioners to reigning monarchs in at least 25 studies. The consequences of the model are striking. Congressional seniority, for example, is neutral with respect to reelectability. The model is used in explanation, prediction, deviant case analysis, and measurement of regime stability; but conceptual problems are troublesome in fitting curves, testing statistical theorems, and defining bodies such as caretaker cabinets. Nevertheless, the model is a theory of the circulation of elites and, using a least squares algorithm without transformations, the curve fitting can be implemented in BASIC.

Centralization and Elite Circulation in a Soviet Republic

Central control over personnel placement in the Soviet Union (the nomenklatura system) is widely regarded as the complement to the centralization of substantive policy making and implementation. Some recent studies, however, argue that the central authorities have used their appointments powers to ratify rather than alter the results of the circulation process specific to localities. In order to advance the terms of this discussion, (he present study employs a systemic model of circulation. Here, circulation is regarded as a Markov process involving the movement of vacancies across a stratified hierarchy of 2,034 positions in the Belorussian Republic, and allunion jobs occupied by Belorussian politicans, over the period 1966–86. The model's predictions are reasonably accurate for the full data set but fit the data especially well when all-union positions are excluded, indicating a marginal centralizing influence on elite circulation that results more from the interaction between national and republic personnel systems than from centrally co-ordinated cadres policies in either Moscow or Minsk. Three auxiliary tests also support the conclusions derived from the Markov analysis.

Regionalism in a Systems Perspective: Explaining Elite Circulation in a Soviet Republic

In recent years two lines of research on USSR power and personnel have challenged some long-standing interpretations of the bases of Soviet political activity. In one line, historical studies dealing with the Stalin era have called into question the conventional emphasis, epitomized in the totalitarian model, of a single leader who commands an army of loyal apparatchiki and monopolizes the political agenda. A number of scholars have shown that chaos and confusion in personnel matters were the salient characteristics of this period, rather than a coordinated system for the recruitment, placement, and promotion of cadres—an image suggested by both the totalitarian model and Stalinist boasting of a “monolithic party,” a “unified state structure,” and so forth. In substantive policy, the actual results in implementing regime directives in the Stalin period regularly bore no better than the faintest resemblance to the announced policy. Absent the well-oiled machine highlighted in images of the “totalitarian party,” the regime's failure to control real policy results seems to have followed as a necessary consequence.

Multiple Officeholding in Local and National Elective Positions

Combining a national electoral position with one or several local electoral positions is frequent among elected national officials in France, while it is legally prohibited or the object of cultural taboo in other European countries and the United States. This element of the French political system, for example being simultaneously a mayor, a regional councillor and a member of parliament, is referred to in this paper as “multiple officeholding” (cumul des mandats). It is an important part of the relationship betw-een those who govern and those who are governed, of the integration between the center and the periphery, and the quality of democratic representation. The thesis developed here is that multiple officeholding leads to distortion in territorial political representation. From a theoretical point of view, multiple officeholding constitutes the framework of an ideal-typical organization of powers, called here the “oligarchic overlapping model,” as contrasted against a model in which the power is more diffused and fragmented. For example, in the first model, there is little circulation of elites from and to the civilian society, but there is some circulation within the elite from and to various levels of government; In the latter one, each level of government has its own system for recruitment of political leaders, which means more circulation between elites and society

Multiple Officeholding in Local and National Elective Positions

Combining a national electoral position with one or several local electoral positions is frequent among elected national officials in France, while it is legally prohibited or the object of cultural taboo in other European countries and the United States. This element of the French political system, for example being simultaneously a mayor, a regional councillor and a member of parliament, is referred to in this paper as “multiple officeholding” (cumul des mandats). It is an important part of the relationship betw-een those who govern and those who are governed, of the integration between the center and the periphery, and the quality of democratic representation. The thesis developed here is that multiple officeholding leads to distortion in territorial political representation. From a theoretical point of view, multiple officeholding constitutes the framework of an ideal-typical organization of powers, called here the “oligarchic overlapping model,” as contrasted against a model in which the power is more diffused and fragmented. For example, in the first model, there is little circulation of elites from and to the civilian society, but there is some circulation within the elite from and to various levels of government; In the latter one, each level of government has its own system for recruitment of political leaders, which means more circulation between elites and society

Urban Society in Colonial Spanish America: Research Trends

In 1972 James Lockhart summarized for LARR the state of social history research on colonial Latin America and proposed far-reaching methodological innovations. The time is ripe for another assessment if only because of the prolific ongoing research. But this very luxuriance hinders an overview of the whole field. Let me therefore focus on Spanish American urban society, with its stratification and elite circulation. Where Lockhart's article led into his message, mine reviews the outcome of his and other research strategies; it also concentrates on English-language publications and excludes theory and methods not directly related to this area.

Pareto, Powerhouse Football, and AP Polls 1968–1984

Using Pareto’s concept of circulation of elites as a guiding principle, the Associated Press (AP) final Collegiate football polls were analyzed for the years 1968-1984. It appears that Pareto’s conception of the circulation of elites is a useful framework in understanding the changes that occur in the rankings of NCAA Division I football teams as measured by the AP final polls. There appears to be three levels of circulation: (a) those involved in very minor shifts up and down; (b) those that shift considerably but still remain in the standings; and (c) those that circulate in and out of the polls.

Attitudinal Change and Elite Circulation: French Socialist Candidates in 1967 and 1978

The effects of elite circulation on attitudinal change in the French Socialist Party between 1967 and 1978 are examined using interview data to estimate aggregate party change, which is decomposed into change due to conversion of old elites and change due to the replacement of old elites by new ones. A typology of net party change is constructed, and the degree of stability of elite opinion is investigated at the district level. It is found that elite circulation can be a force for organizational continuity as well as for organizational change, and that there is stability of elite opinion at the district level only on issues pertaining to traditional local party orientations or constant district interests.

Congressional Turnover and the Election of Women

IMPORTANT societal institutions typically change only very gradually over time both in terms of their composition and (not coincidentally) in terms of their operating and their decisions. Sociologists such as Pareto and Mosca described the process by which the ruling in various societies are altered in composition as elite circulation. In a relatively stable democratic society such as the United States, elections have been viewed as, among other things, a means to assure that this circulation of elites proceeds in a gradual, peaceful manner, resulting in a more or less pluralistic apportionment of power among social groups at any given point in history. One important assumption of this view is that institutions such as Congress, state legislatures, school boards, or city councils are structured in such a way as to allow rapid turnover in personnel. This assumption must be met if new social groups are to have any chance of achieving even a moderate level of representation. Yet there is evidence that democratic rules of the game (equal and easy access to the ballot, universal suffrage, frequent elections) may not always be sufficient to ensure that the assumption of openness or high turnover is met. In particular and in the example on which we shall focus in this paper recent studies have documented a decreasing amount of personnel turnover in the U.S. Congress as incumbency (for reasons which are not agreed upon) appears to confer an increasingly greater electoral advantage. (See, for example, Erickson 1971; Ferejohn 1977; Fiorina 1977; Kostroski 1973; Mayhew 1974.) Jones (1977) and others have documented the decline of competitve House of Representative seats from 1914 through the seventies.' A striking measure of this change is the following: between 1861 and 1881, each newly elected House had a majority of members serving their first terms; in the middle of this century each new House had only about 15 percent first-termers. Clearly one implication of this is that Congress as an institution is resistant to the type of social change which might bring new groups, such as women or blacks, into political prominence. In the present paper, then, we are interested in a general phenomenon, i.e., the rate at which social or political institutions change (in terms

Information and Participation in Soviet Local Government

Previous articleNext article No AccessArticlesInformation and Participation in Soviet Local GovernmentMichael E. UrbanMichael E. Urban Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 44, Number 1Feb., 1982 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2130284 Views: 3Total views on this site Citations: 6Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1982 Southern Political Science AssociationPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Philip G. Roeder Modernization and Participation in the Leninist Developmental Strategy, American Political Science Review 83, no.33 (Aug 2014): 859–884.https://doi.org/10.2307/1962064Michael E. Urban Centralization and Elite Circulation in a Soviet Republic, British Journal of Political Science 19, no.11 (Jan 2009): 1–23.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123400005299Michael E. Urban Local Soviets and Popular Needs: Where the Official Ideology Meets Everyday Life, (Jan 1988): 136–158.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19335-6_7Michael E. Urban Conceptualizing political power in the USSR: Patterns of binding and bonding, Studies in Comparative Communism 18, no.44 (Dec 1985): 207–226.https://doi.org/10.1016/0039-3592(85)90064-XMichael E. Urban, John McClure The folklore of state socialism: Semiotics and the study of the Soviet state, Soviet Studies 35, no.44 (Nov 2007): 471–486.https://doi.org/10.1080/09668138308411498Samuel Long Abstracts of Documents in this Supplement, (Jan 1983): 1–590.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5956-0_1

Pseudoparticipation and Countermobilization: Roots of the Iranian Revolution

The Iranian revolution presents a unique challenge to social scientists. Marked by massive popular participation (primarily in urban areas), by the rejection of violence by the revolutionaries, and by the rapid fulfillment of its goals, the Iranian experience seems to elude prevailing paradigms for the study of revolution. Although there were several factors that made the country ripe for revolution—widespread feelings of relative deprivation, a state apparatus under pressure from the international system, impeded elite circulation, and conflicts among various social classes—none of these alone can explain why the upheaval occurred. While it is unlikely that a definitive explanation of the revolution can ever be found, virtually all theories of revolution implicitly ask two questions: (1) What social conditions lead to revolution, and (2) What is the nature of participation in such revolutions? It is with the first of these questions that this essay is primarily concerned.

Patterns of Ethnic Succession: Blacks and Hispanics in New York City

Ethnic succession is one of the pronounced rhythms in the life of New York City. Political scientists will recognize it as a homely variant of Pareto's circulation of elites, and it seems fair to take it as a measure of the vigor of our society and our capacity for self-renewal. In the late 1950s Nathan Glazer and I, collaborating on a study of the ethnic groups of New York City, saw ethnic succession as a central dynamic of the city's organizational life. At that time, for example, the Irish had dominated the political life of the city for generations; yet just as clearly they were departing that scene, and this was the opening observation in our chapter devoted to them. Indeed, in the aftermath of the municipal elections of 1977 there was (for what a diligent researcher would probably find to be the first time in at least a century) not a single Irish name on the Board of Estimate, the central governing body of the city made up of the mayor, the comptroller, the president of the city council, and the five borough presidents. Ethnic succession was not, however, the central theme of our study, which had as its more elemental purpose the mere assertion that ethnicity was still a force in the life of New York City (and by extension, the nation) and was not going away. The first proposition received grudging assent at the time; at election season the editorials deploring the persistence of the balanced ticket were as predictable as the accompanying admonition to all citizens to make certain to vote. (So much for the influence of editorialists. The balanced ticket cheerfully persists while voting participation steadily declines!) But the thought that

Peruvian Encomenderos in 1630: Elite Circulation and Consolidation

THE object of this article is to shed light on the circulation of colonial Spanish American elites.1 Treatments of this theme are frequently encountered. As the bureaucrats took control, we are told, the conquistadors and their descendants lost position through impoverishment, lawsuits, and revocations. Newcomers waxed rich in trade, acquired land, purchased office and title, and married colonial heiresses. There is little agreement, however, on the means or extent of this social turnover.2 Here an attempt will be made, for seventeenth-century Peru, to relate upward mobility to residence in the viceregal capital and access to the viceroy. The study ranges over Greater Peru, with its capital Lima and its three audiencia districts of Quito, Lima, and La Plata (or Charcas), in which viceroys held appointive power. The time reference is 1630 although for purposes of comparison the conquest generation is considered as well. Among the conquerors of Peru, the encomienda was the hallmark of success. This grant of Indian labor and tribute within a defined boundary afforded the grantee a lordly rank and life-style. Enco-

Peruvian Encomenderos in 1630: Elite Circulation and Consolidation

Peruvian Encomenderos in 1630: Elite Circulation and Consolidation

The Study of Elite Circulation: Who's on First and What's He Doing There?

The Study of Elite Circulation: Who's on First and What's He Doing There?

Family Firms and Industrial Development: The Lebanese Case

Previous articleNext article No AccessFamily Firms and Industrial Development: The Lebanese CaseSamir Khalaf, and Emilie ShwayriSamir Khalaf Search for more articles by this author , and Emilie Shwayri Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Economic Development and Cultural Change Volume 15, Number 1Oct., 1966 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/450197 Views: 4Total views on this site Citations: 13Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1966 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:I. William Zartman A Theory of Elite Circulation, (May 2019): 119–149.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06079-4_7Giacomo Solano, Gerrit Rooks Social capital of entrepreneurs in a developing country: The effect of gender on access to and requests for resources, Social Networks 54 (Jul 2018): 279–290.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2018.03.003Janet Tai Landa, Janet W. Salaff The Socio-Economic Functions of Kinship and Ethnic Ties in the Establishment and Growth of the Tan Kah Kee Family Firm in Singapore: A Transaction Costs Approach, (Jan 2016): 249–276.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54019-6_11Gerrit Rooks, Kim Klyver, Arthur Sserwanga The Context of Social Capital: A Comparison of Rural and Urban Entrepreneurs in Uganda, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 40, no.11 (Apr 2014): 111–130.https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12107Esra Memili, Hanqing Fang, James J. Chrisman, Alfredo De Massis The impact of small- and medium-sized family firms on economic growth, Small Business Economics 45, no.44 (Jul 2015): 771–785.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-015-9670-0G. Rooks, A. Szirmai, A. Sserwanga Network Structure and Innovative Performance of African Entrepreneurs: The Case of Uganda, Journal of African Economies 21, no.44 (Jun 2012): 609–636.https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejs011Susana Durão Bibliografia, (Jan 2002): 333–349.https://doi.org/10.4000/books.etnograficapress.2705David Pistrui, Harold P. Welsch, Joseph S. Roberts The [Re]-Emergence of Family Businesses in the Transforming Soviet Bloc: Family Contributions to Entrepreneurship Development in Romania, Family Business Review 10, no.33 (Jul 2016): 221–237.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-6248.1997.00221.xEui Hang Shin, Seung Kwon Chin Social affinity among top managerial executives of large corporations in Korea, Sociological Forum 4, no.11 (Mar 1989): 3–26.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01112614 John H. Hamer Rivalry and Taking Kinsmen for Granted: Limiting Factors in the Development of Voluntary Associations, Journal of Anthropological Research 38, no.33 (Sep 2015): 303–314.https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.38.3.3629851Paul D. Starr Social Patterns and Norms in Lebanon and the United States, Human Relations 29, no.44 (Apr 1976): 357–366.https://doi.org/10.1177/001872677602900404Samir Khalaf Primordial ties and politics in Lebanon, Middle Eastern Studies 4, no.33 (Dec 2006): 243–269.https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206808700103Anant R. Negandhi Advanced Management Know-How in Underdeveloped Countries, California Management Review 10, no.33 (Apr 1968): 53–60.https://doi.org/10.2307/41164117

Fraternities, Social Distance, and Anti-Semitism Among Jewish and Non-Jewish Undergraduates

A NUMBER OE' discussions of American college fraternities have referred to issues relevant to the study of status placement and social mobility. In a research report by Levine and Sussman, fraternities emerge as ageand social classgraded organizations which train undergraduates in life styles appropriate for particular adult statuses.' Less recent but still germane is Waller's examination of the rating and dating complex.2 In part, it treats the fraternity-sorority system as an important part of the process by which prospective marriage partners are selected within various prestige categories. Fraternities have also been viewed as organizations involved in the circulation of local elites, conferring and maintaining high status among particular members of more diverse student bodies.3 Two general impressions arise from a consideration of this past research. 1. Fraternities help to maintain differences in ascribed status by taking into account family characteristics or personal characteristics typically acquired in families of different status when considering candidates for membership. 2. A major latent function of a fraternity system is to provide for the, undergraduate culture a system of sponsored mobility which operates simultaneously with (though sometimes at odds with) the system of contest mobility that is more characteristic of the purely academic realm of student life.4

Some Comments on "The Empirical Classification of Formal Groups"

but not even the authors of Toward a General Theory of Action identified this bias with scientific procedure in general. third question to which the volumes under review fail to give a satisfactory answer is perhaps the most serious one. Behavioralists are prone to talk very much more about their discipline, and about the encyclopaedia of social sciences than they are to deal with specific problems. clearest illustration of this shift of interest is provided by Professor Kirkpatrick's somewhat pompous essay on The Impact of the Behavioral Approach on Traditional Political Science (Ranney, pp. 1 ff.). But are disciplines and their interrelations really so important? Is it not much more important to get down to particular problems, explain puzzling observations, without worrying about the nationality of the theories? It is this third question which grows into a suspicion if we survey the 19 essays assembled in the two volumes edited by Marvick and Ranney. Some of these essays are very informative, e.g. those by Dogan and Guttsman in the former, or that by Stein Rokkan in the latter volume. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that they are fruitful because their authors are unconcerned (and, probably, ignorant) of behavioralism and other approaches, but deal with their problems employing all tools, behavioral, institutional, or otherwise, which they find available. This is not to say that deliberate behavioralism cannot lead to useful results. essay by Eulau and others on Career Perspectives of American State Legislators is unusually interesting (although the confessed behavioralist would probably ask whether a competitive party system is a variable). But it seems that the contributions to these volumes are useful to the extent to which they abstain from either programmatic declarations or a deliberate restriction to what is acceptable to the behavioral school. Much could be said about the essays in these volumes in their substantive context. Thus, Marvick's volume, while it has stimulated the study of political elites, stops short of some of the more difficult questions of elite circulation, or of the relation of elites to their social mother groups. In general, the volume edited by Marvick is by far the more useful of the two. But if we confine ourselves here to the merits of the behavioral approach, one final remark must be made. Politics is one of the most exciting subjects of study for the social scientist. It would be a great shame indeed, if by an undue concern with methods of limited applicability we managed to dampen this excitement for our students, our public, and for ourselves.

The Mandarins: the circulation of elites in China, 1600–1900. By Robert M. Marsh. The Free Press of Glencoe, III. Pp.xvii + 300. U.S.$5.00

The Mandarins: the circulation of elites in China, 1600–1900. By Robert M. Marsh. The Free Press of Glencoe, III. Pp.xvii + 300. U.S.$5.00