Elite Positions Research Articles

SENEGAL NİŞANCILARI VE GOREE ADASINDAKİ KÖLE TİCARETİ İLE FRANSIZ SÖMÜRGECİLİĞİNİN SENEGAL’DE YAŞATTIĞI DRAM

Senegal, an important part of the Islamic world, is a remarkable geography of Islamic culture and civilization with its Muslim presence constituting 95% of its population. It is a country where sectarian divisions have not been seen throughout history, representing the unifying spirit of Sufi tradition instead of conflict culture, and educating important names of Ahl as-Sunnah scholars. The Toucouleur ulama, who draw attention with their scientific studies, have dominated the dynamics of Islamic thought in the region for centuries. This elite position of Senegal was tried to be eliminated with the arrival of colonial powers in the region. In our study, the dimensions of the destruction carried out by the occupation forces in Senegal are discussed. The sad picture of the slave trade on the island of Goree, the formation of the Senegalese Shooters, the desire to put obstacles in the life of faith and worship in Islam, and the direct and indirect administration experiences of France in Senegal are discussed.

Beyond Merkel – East Germans’ Recruitment to Leadership Positions in the German Bundestag

ABSTRACT The representation of East Germans in elite positions has been a broadly debated topic. Most studies show that, comparative to other elite sectors, East Germans are best represented in politics. However, in some areas of the political sector, like the federal government, we find very few East Germans, despite Angela Merkel’s chancellorship. This paper looks at East German representation in parliamentary leadership positions. It finds East Germans remain underrepresented in these positions, especially outside of The Left. It explores three explanatory approaches: (1) there are not enough East Germans in the recruitment pool, (2) East German members lack the desired qualifications and (3) the leadership recruitment process is biased against East Germans. Using statistical analysis based on a biographical dataset including all MPs from the 13th to the 18th legislative period, it finds that both low East German membership in the Bundestag and the existence of a bias lead to underrepresentation of East Germans in those positions. While The Left tries to strongly represent East German interests by recruiting them into leadership positions, East Germans’ access to these positions in all other party parliamentary groups remains low. This has negative effects on the substantive representation of East Germans and on their trust in representative democracy.

(How) Perceived Descriptive Underrepresentation Decreases Political Support: The Case of East Germans

This article asks whether the persistent descriptive underrepresentation of East Germans in Germany’s elite positions contributes to lower levels of political support in Eastern Germany. Based on a population survey including a survey experiment, it shows that citizens in both parts of Germany perceive a descriptive underrepresentation of East Germans. This perception remains stable, even when new information is provided. It is, however, not an attitudinal prejudice about decoupled elites but also based on citizens’ cognitions. Citizens assess this underrepresentation negatively drawing on its negative impact on legitimacy, efficiency, and substantive and symbolic representation. The interaction of perception and negative assessment decreases political support for community, regime and institutions. The perceived impairment of legitimacy and symbolic representation fuels the withdrawal of support more strongly than impaired efficiency and substantive representation. Since both East and West Germans’ political support is connected to descriptive representation, self-interest and sociotropic considerations are relevant. The contribution confirms that the descriptive underrepresentation of East Germans is one determinant of the lower levels of political support for democracy in Eastern Germany impairing the efficiency and legitimacy of democracy in the entire country.

Power Dynamics Among Health Professionals in Nigeria: A Case Study of the Global Fund Policy Process.

Health workers are central to health policy-making. Given health systems' complex, dynamic and political nature, various forms of 'hidden power' are at play as health workers navigate health systems. This study aims to explore the dynamics of power and its sources, and how this shapes policy-making and implementation within the Nigerian health systems context. The case study was the Global Fund grant in Nigeria, and results are based on an in-depth qualitative study involving 34 semi-structured key informant interviews (KIIs), board-meeting observations, and documentary analysis conducted in 2014 and 2016. Participants held mid to senior-level positions (eg, Director, Programme Manager) within organisations involved with Global Fund activities, particularly proposal development and implementation. Data were analysed using thematic analysis in order to gain insight into the power dynamics of health professionals in policy processes. Medical professionals maintained dominance and professional monopoly, thereby controlling policy spaces. The structural and productive power of the biomedical discourse in policy-making encourages global actors and the local government's preference for rapid biomedical models that focus on medications, test kits, and the supply of health services, while neglecting aspects that would help us better understand the poor uptake of these services by those in need. The voices of the repressed groups (eg, non-clinical experts, patients and community based organisations) that better understand barriers to uptake of services are relegated. Professional monopoly theories help illustrate how medical professionals occupy and maintain an elite position in the health system of Nigeria. Structural and agential factors specific to the contexts are key in maintaining this professional monopoly while limiting the opportunities for other health occupations' rise up the social status ladder.

Heart disease diagnosis using optimized features of hybridized ALCSOGA algorithm and LSTM classifier

ABSTRACT Cardiac disease is the predominant cause of global death mainly due to its hidden symptoms and late diagnosis. Hence, early detection is important to improve quality of life. Though traditional researches attempted to predict heart disease, most of them lacked with respect to accuracy. To solve this, the present study proposes a hybridized Ant Lion Crow Search Optimization Genetic Algorithm (ALCSOGA) to perform effective feature selection. This hybrid optimization encompasses Ant Lion, Crow Search and Genetic Algorithm. Ant lion algorithm determines the elite position. While, the Crow Search Algorithm utilizes the phenomenon of position and memory of each crow for evaluating the objective function. Both these algorithms are fed into Genetic Algorithm to improve the performance of feature selection process. Then, Stochastic Learning rate optimized Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) is proposed to classify the extracted optimized features. Finally, comparative analysis is performed in terms of accuracy, recall, F1-score, and precision. Moreover, statistical analysis is performed with respect to Sum of Squares (SS), degree of freedom (df), F Critical (F crit), F Statistics (F), p, and Mean Square (MS) value. Analytical results revealed the efficiency of proposed system over conventional methods and thereby confirming its efficiency for predicting heart disease.

“Fragile representation” or Women in Big Politics: The Case of the Administrative Elite

The research of the feminization of administrative politics is important to understand the transformation of power and the overall development of the Russian society amidst political, economic and social instability. This article presents the study results for the administrative elite in ten Russian regions (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Rostov, Kaliningrad, Kostroma and Novosibirsk Oblasts, Khabarovsk and Stavropol Krais, Republic of Dagestan). The analysis of the socio-demographic characteristics of the administrative elite showed no significant differences between men and women in terms of age, birthplace, as well as the type and the place where first (and subsequent) higher education was received. Studying the career trajectories of women in the ministerial elite showed that they most often occupy elite positions, like men, in middle age, but less often come from economic and security structures; horizontal and vertical movements mostly take place within the same professional institution - executive power agencies. The author identified regional governments with similar gender specifics (relative gender parity and relative gender imbalance). The study revealed that more feminized governments are formed in bordering and economically successful regions, while gender imbalance is most characteristic for the governments of economically dependent regions and those located in the south of the Russian Federation (with some exceptions).

Elites on Equality: Room for Gender Balance and Ethnic Diversity in Leadership Positions?

Access to resources, wealth, and power positions varies systematically with membership in social categories. This article asks what role the elites themselves – as holders of power and regulators of access to influential positions – can play in maintaining, but also changing, the demographic composition of elites. Drawing on a unique survey among the entire Norwegian elite, we investigate what holders of elite positions believe are the main causes of gender imbalance and lack of ethnic diversity, and whether their beliefs influence their willingness to implement measures to promote gender equality and ethnic diversity. In line with expectations drawn from the literatures on policy representation and critical frame analysis, we find a strong, positive relationship between the belief in the importance of institutionalized causes of inequality and the willingness to introduce ameliorative measures to increase diversity. Conversely, we find a negative relationship between the belief in individualized explanations, such as the lack of qualifications, and the willingness to introduce measures. As elites are key holders of power, the findings imply that how elites view the causes of categorical inequality has strong bearings on the room for structural change.

Audit partner workload, gender and audit quality

PurposeThe paper aims to investigate the relation between the auditor's workload (LogAPW) and audit quality. Further, it explores whether the presence of a female audit partner (hereafter FEM) influences the LogAPW effect on audit quality.Design/methodology/approachA dataset of 1,629 firm-year observations from 181 companies listed in the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm for the years 2010–2018 has been analyzed. The testable hypotheses have been tested using least squares regressions clustered at the Swedish public-listed companies (client-firm) level.FindingsThe research findings first indicate that overburdened audit partners (APS) are associated with lower-quality audits, consistent with the “busyness hypothesis.” Nevertheless, the adverse association turns to be positive for FEMs, supporting the thesis that FEMs have more tendency, as compared to their male counterparts, to preserve their partnership's position in the public-audit firms. Collectively, these results seem sound, as the results hold unchanged after controlling for the endogeneity concerns and provide the same conclusion for a host of additional measures for both the client-firms' discretionary accruals and the LogAPW.Research limitations/implicationsEven though a lower magnitude of the client-firms' discretionary accruals corresponds to a lower-opportunistic behavior of managers, the research is limited to by which lower values of earnings management reflect a better-quality financial reporting. Given that the empirical analysis has been confined to the Swedish Corporation, the regression results might not be generalizable for other countries with different contextual features.Practical implicationsThe study might participate to the ongoing debate about the introduction of more women to the public-audit firms' elite positions (e.g. partnership) by providing evidence for the favorable female auditor effect on the quality of the client-firms' financial reporting.Originality/valueThe regression results provide a preliminary evidence on how does the presence of a FEM mitigate the inverse relation between the LogAPW and audit quality, which is an issue that has not been examined before.

Nuclear Power Policy in the UK since 2010: Multiple-Elitism or Neo-Pluralism?

This study presents an analysis of nuclear power policy in the UK since 2010, associated with the Coalition government and successive Conservative government policies to address climate change and to deliver affordable and clean energy. From the analysis of semi-structured interviews with elite participants and the policy documents, this study explores in detail nuclear power policy in the UK since 2010. It applies two theories of policy process to explore the policy continuity and change in this area: multiple-elitism and neo-pluralism. In this case study continuity is a feature in nuclear power policy domain. The case study reveals battles between environmental NGOs, business groups and the government to change policy directions. Countervailing power associated with neo-pluralist theory emerged significantly to oppose special interests emphasised by multiple-elite theory. This countervailing power appeared in different forms: the emergence of social movements in nuclear power policy area, and the communication between different actors on the issue of nuclear power in an issue network. Nuclear power emerged as a privileged technology in the energy mix. It enjoyed government and business support, and key elite positions were found to advocate for this technology despite some opposition. Overall, a combination of multiple-elitist and neo-pluralist features were found in the policies pertaining nuclear power policy in the UK since 2010.

INVESTIGATION OF ADNAN MENDERES FROM THE ELITE THEORY PERSPECTIVE

In the present study, the purpose was to examine Adnan Menderes from the perspective of Elite Theory. For this purpose, Historical Research, Content Analysis, and Leader Analysis Methods were employed in the study. After information was provided about the elite and the Elite Theory in the study, the life of Menderes was examined in terms of the Elite Theory. At the end of the study, it was concluded that Menderes, who was a socio-economic and political elite, was banned from power “by force” in line with Pareto’s “Elite Rotation Theory”. It was determined that when Menderes was in the ruling elite position, he acted in line with Michels’ Bronze Law Theory of Oligarchy. Finally, it was also concluded that the negative relations of Menderes with other elites were contrary to Mills’ Power Elite Theory.

Aspiration for cosmopolitan capital and ambiguous loss: Chinese exchange students’ experiences in U.S. higher education institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This study adopts a critical phenomenological approach to explore the impacts of COVID-19 on the transnational educational experiences of Chinese college students in short-term academic exchange programmeshosted by universities in the United States. This study uses concepts of cosmopolitan capital and ambiguous loss to interpret the pandemic experiences of Chinese students. Accordingly, the current study promotes scholarly conversation about the meanings of global student mobility in the time of COVID-19, especially international exchange students who have missed learning opportunities in their academic, social, and cultural lives and have lacked social and emotional supports. Overall, this study expands the growing body of evidence on the impacts of COVID-19 on global student mobility and provides critical insights into the nexus between cosmopolitan elite positions and structural problems of the cosmopolitan social hierarchy within the specific cross-national context of higher education between the U.S. and China.

Gendered Norms and Family Roles in the Narratives of Hungarian Elite Members and Their Partners

Abstract Our paper contributes to studies on the enduring underrepresentation of women in elite positions through the analysis of elite members’ and their partners’ narratives on career and partnership. Using a dataset of 34 individual interviews (17 couples) among Hungary’s political, economic, and cultural elite, we explore how narrators project themselves in the context of their marital relationships and family roles. We identify three pairs of narratives during our analysis. Narratives show the positions from where narrators discuss the theme of career and partnership as elite member/partner, power couple/non-power couple, and male/female. Our findings show that narrative positioning is significantly gendered, and it is strongly connected to the traditional gendered role system. Having an elite position or pursuing a career calls for explanation only from women. In the meantime, a non-power couple position calls for explanation from men, which suggests the increasing presence of the norm of equality in the Hungarian elite.

Fragmentation of the Inner Circle of Power: Circulation between the Finnish Elites in 1991–2021

The study outlines the changes that have taken place in the Finnish elite structure regarding elite circulation from 1991 to 2021. The study first explores the changes in the openness of the elite structure by analysing vertical circulation (i.e., maintenance and accumulation of elite positions), and second, in the coherence of the elite structure by analysing changes in horizontal circulation, (i.e., mobility between the elites). In terms of methodology and data, the study was based on the positional approach, where the elite members were identified on the grounds of previous studies and public documents as individuals who held the highest ranking positions of influential organisations within seven sectors of society. The findings were interpreted in the light of elite structure typology. As regards vertical elite circulation from 1991 to 2021, the maintenance of elite positions and the accumulation elite positions among same individuals decreased. Concurrently, the horizontal elite circulation reduced as a result of decreased mobility of individuals between various elites. Consequently, the elite structure moved slightly towards a fragmented elite structure type since the early 1990s.

Cadre parents and their entrepreneur children? The dual-track intergenerational reproduction of elites in China: 1978\u20132010

This article documents and conceptualizes a mode of reproduction of elites in a society in transition from state domination to market orientation. By focusing on China’ marketization, we explore how parents’ advantageous backgrounds have influenced the chance of their children’s attainment of certain elite positions (administrative, technocratic, or market) and whether these patterns have varied across three periods (1978–1992, 1993–2002, and 2003–2010). Using data obtained from the 2011 China Social Survey, we find that although parents’ advantageous status has a persistent effect on children’s status attainment, the reproduction of the state elite and market elite still follows two separate tracks: the children of cadres do not show significant advantage in the process of becoming entrepreneurs and managerial elites, and the children of entrepreneurial and managerial elites are less likely to join cadres. We also find that the effects of the reproduction model are still enhanced and shaped by state power in different periods. These findings demonstrate the important interplay between family background and contextual inequality and give a deeper understanding of the different trajectories of elites in contemporary China.

Comparative Analysis of Regional Elite of The Communist Party and «Just Russia»: Social Characteristics and Channels of Recruitment

The article presents a comparative analysis of the socio-demographic characteristics and recruitment channels of the regional political elite of CPRF and «Fair Russia». The study uses heads of regional party branches as a political elite group that holds key positions in party structure and selects candidates for all levels of elections. The empirical data includes 170 representatives of the party elite. The analysis showed differences in the age structure of the party elite. The largest demographic group of the Communist Party is people over 60 years old, in «Just Russia» the same group is between the ages of 40 and 50. During the last years, CPRF begun management reform and system renewal of staff policy by young party leaders, in contrast to «Just Russia» where the system of elite recruitment is rather random. The representation of women in the elite of both parties is insignificant and amounts to 9% in the Communist Party and 11% in the «Just Russia». The study traces an increase in the share of professional lawyers among the younger generation (25-40 years old) of regional elite in both parties. Finally, we have identified significant differences in the key recruitment channels of elite groups. About 50 per cent of persons from CPRF were appointed to the elite position because of their long and active party work. In «Just Russia», the key recruitment channel is large and medium-sized regional business.

Racial Inequality in Employee Selections: The Effect of Employment and Diversity Practices

Organizational practices have been shown to contribute to the reproduction of social inequality, i.e., unequal opportunities and outcomes based on social group membership. However, little is known about how organizations can effectively help overcome patterns of social inequality. We address this gap by integrating insights from the social inequality and the diversity literatures. We examine the relationship between organizational employment and diversity practices and selection decisions, which are primary gatekeeping mechanisms that enable or restrict access to organizational positions. We hypothesize that minorities are more likely to be selected through internal promotion than external hiring decisions and in organizations that foster inter-group interaction through mentoring. Moreover, we hypothesize that diversity managers moderate the relationship between employment practice and selection decisions. We test our hypotheses on a data set of more than 41,000 partner selection decisions in US Law Firms between 2007 and 2017. We contribute to the literature on social inequality in organizations by showing how different organizational employment practices affect access to elite positions and to the diversity practices literature by better explaining which practices can effectively help mitigate the negative consequences of stereotyping on access to elite positions for minorities.

Social inclusion through social status and the emergence of development traps

AbstractThis paper investigates the long‐run implications of concerns for status when heterogeneous agents care about their relative consumption with respect to an endogenous benchmark consumption of their reference group. Agents endogenously choose whether to enter the rat race to consume the benchmark level of a social participation, status, good to gain access to socially advantaged and privileged groups because relative consumption determines agents’ relative position in society which is ultimately instrumental in the accumulation of wealth and absolute consumption. The dynamical analysis predicts that increases in mean incomes and reductions in inequality over the long‐run process of development foster the competition for status, raise the cost of access to the reference group and drive the onset of multiple stable steady‐state equilibria. This mechanism governs the endogenous transition from a Solovian‐type stage to a development traps equilibrium at which the poorest dynasties are excluded from the reference group and trapped in a low‐income stable equilibrium while the richest dynasties strive to differentiate themselves from the poorest ones to reap the economic benefits of the elite position in society.

BILATERAL RELATIONS OF PHILLIPINES AND MALAYSIA: THE ERA OF AND AFTER PRESIDENT MARCOS

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the foreign policy of the Philippines to improve their economic position after being in the country's internal political turmoil. The exploring on the bilateral relations between the Philippines and Malaysia since the leadership of President Carlos Garcia until President Rodrigo Duterte. At the international level, the termination of US military bases from the country in 1992 invites major challenge to the Philippines in the international arena, that changes the fate of the political elite position among Filipinos. The Philippines claim to Sabah as part of its territory, while Indonesia declares the region of Borneo as its territory through the desire of Sukarno to establish Indonesia Raya. The claim of Sabah by the Philippines for over thirty years. The conflict in the southern Philippines over the MILF and MNL as well as the latest issue relating to the economic downturn in 1997 until 1998 generates a relationship that cannot be avoided between the Philippines and Malaysia. The support of the two countries towards the United Nations and the positive support towards the role of ASEAN's makes bilateral relations between Malaysia and the Philippines. The contributions on the harmonious relationship between the Philippines and Malaysia is the result of the spirit of Asian countries formed through policies of both countries to support ASEAN.

Say my name? Anonymity or not in elite interviewing

ABSTRACT This article discusses anonymizing elite interviewees. Based on our experiences with interviewing professional elites and ultra-elites in different research projects, we describe how the types of conflicts involving analysis and publication change when interviewees are not promised anonymity. We discuss how contextualizing the elite positions of anonymized interviewees becomes increasingly difficult in interviews with persons who hold prestigious positions of authority and are interviewed in their official capacity. Masking interviewees can create conflicts with regard to the researcher’s presentation of results, the transparency of the research and the ability of interviewees to talk back. We show how working with non-anonymized interviewees – and even using excerpts from interviews on public radio – can be an option in qualitative research. However, non-anonymized interviews with elites should be considered only in some instances and may seriously hamper the validity of the material in other cases.

Contested ease: Negotiating contradictory modes of elite distinction in face-to-face interaction.

Research on elites and elite schooling mainly theorize the embodied elite distinction of ease as a dispositional phenomenon, drawing on a Bourdieusian framework. I respond to this by developing an interactionist perspective on embodied elite distinction not as a function of social position, but rather as means of communication used more or less actively to manage others' impressions of one's social position. Drawing on ethnography and interviews, I explore how students at two Swedish upper secondary schools with different elite profiles-an economic elite school and a meritocratic elite school-negotiate what counts as successful performances of their elite position in face-to-face interactions during conferences for "young leaders". The findings suggest that in order for performances to be honored as "confident ease," which is attributed with prestige and moral legitimacy in the peer group, the interacting students had to share the impression that the interaction was a "merit situation". In interactions defined as "privilege situations," similar behavior was labelled as arrogant superiority and seen as illegitimate performances of elite position. While "confident ease" was the hallmark of the male students at the economic elite school, the findings suggests that "confident awareness" may be understood as a contradictory mode of elite distinction characterizing the female students from the meritocratic elite school. They display confidence while simultaneously exploiting the unease they felt in the conference to craft a morally legitimate performance of their elite position. While the findings confirm that students' classed, gendered and moral dispositions are central to navigate elite distinction, they also demonstrate that meanings of such embodied distinctions emerge in relation to how situations are defined and are dependent on the interacting students' combined ability and interest to maintain working consensus on the definition of the situation.