Transnational Elite Research Articles

From a national elite to the global elite: Possibilities and problems in scaling up.

This research note highlights emerging findings that speak to the challenges of joining the transnational elite, particularly for those coming from the Global South. For a longitudinal study of wealth inheritors becoming more transnational via their educational paths, we spoke with 16 young people who were all in their early 20s and primarily from economic elite families in the Global South. Some participants had clear ambitions, while others were less sure about their future, wondering where they should move and what they should do when they got there. Their various narratives reveal that underlying the possibilities and problems of where to locate themselves was our participants' access to different constellations of economic, social and cultural capital, as well as their race, citizenship and 'home' country's geopolitical situation. Their parents' ambitions that they become part of a global elite remained in most cases largely unfulfilled-despite a significant economic investment in their secondary and university educations. Only a small minority of our participants aspired to and/or were able to secure such transnational futures.

Unfolding the entangled geosemiotics of technologically-mediated gated communities: Mountain View’s (2021) advertisement as a case study

Gated Communities (GCs), as residential enclaves in urban and suburban environments that offer exclusive housing and a multitude of onsite amenities, are burgeoning in many fast-growing Egyptian cities. In the past few years, several upscale Egyptian GCs have received unequivocal attention in high-profile TV advertisements and campaigns which package and technologically mediate social spaces overlaid with aesthetics of unique architectural character, distinctive leisure amenities, social exclusiveness, and prestigious lifestyles. Set against this backdrop, this paper takes up a postphenomenological-geosemiotic approach toward the examination of the affects of elitism that transpire in one upmarket urban enclave’s advertisement, namely Mountain View. Arguably, in the filmic narrative of the promoted social spaces, the technological mediation and intentionality of the camera shot scale modulate multi-sensory and multi-spatio-temporal relationships between viewers and the GC lifeworld/residents that are worthy of scrutiny. Key findings include how POV camera shots are employed and appropriated to mitigate (and mediate) the representation of transnational elite semiotic landscapes and the pertinent affective intersubjectivities of doing eliteness. The systematic analysis of MV’s semiotic aggregate unravels an affective aggregate that is, in essence, a concrete instantiation of Foucault’s notions of heterotopia and (post)-panopticism.

Governmentality, Science and the Media. Examining the “Pandemic Reality” with Foucault, Lyotard and Baudrillard

This article examines the legitimization process of the public health preventive measures implemented in many Western countries following the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Through concepts such as governmentality, disciplinarization and security mechanisms proposed by Foucault, we trace some of the basic principles and implications of the relationship between biopower and medicine, as well as the media dissemination of an official narrative on scientific truth. These reflections are complemented by the contributions of Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard. Lyotard reflects on the relationship between science and a “performative game”, whose own staging is the core of its criteria of truth. Baudrillard shows the relevance of a “hyperreality” in which the signs presented by the media take precedence over the experience of the subjects. We argue that a mediatized version of science, defined through a strong disciplinarization of knowledge and the censorship of dissident voices, played a key role in the establishment of consensus and the legitimization of policies that granted extraordinary power to governments and transnational elites. Although the work of Foucault in this demonstration is essential, the contributions of Lyotard and Baudrillard provide additional elements to understand a fundamental problem: the public acceptance of “truth” as an instrument of governmentality on a global scale.

Bioetika i geopolitika - rat u Ukrajini kao povod

The article mainly relies on original scientific papers, and reviews of a large number of bioethical works published from the end of the last century to the present day, but it primarily leans on the reviews, critical reflections and comments of the renowned Croatian philosopher Rade Kalanj. He rightfully warned some thirty years ago that biological and genetic research had reached a level ("a borderline situation"/Jaspers) where the question of the relationship between science and ethics is raised anew, but now in a much sharper and more radical form. Today, in light of the war in Ukraine, we would add: the relationship between bioethics and geopolitics. One of the severe consequences of the tragic events in Ukraine is the danger of exacerbating the already significant global hunger, in which, ultimately, it becomes less important whether food is natural/organic or GMO, but rather whether there is any food at all, primarily the grains. Or, on the contrary, there is an abundance of food, but only for those who have money to buy it, and their numbers are decreasing, so it remains to give them food. But in that case, the profits of global capitalism would be missing, which would certainly be unacceptable for the world's transnational elites and practically endanger the foundations of capitalism, marking the end of the global capitalist system/order. So, a major humanitarian catastrophe is looming, supplemented by millions of refugees, not only from Ukraine but also from around the world. This situation will be exacerbated by poor economic consequences, primarily for the EU and then for the whole world, all of which includes the UN and its specialised agencies, primarily UNHCR and UNESCO, in solving serious international problems, which certainly includes the issue of (un)acceptability of bioethical axioms for all civilisations and cultures. Among other things, the question arises as to who will be responsible/blamed for the global humanitarian catastrophe regarding the war in Ukraine: whether, as before, only Russia, or whether the list of accused will be expanded to include "Third World" countries, primarily China and Iran? Ahead of us lies a spectrum of bioethical questions, moral dilemmas, and temptations, especially when the existence of experimental biomedical laboratories on the territory of western Ukraine is revealed, reminiscent of the horrors of Nazi biomedical experiments in World War II.

The “European Yellowstone”: Entrepreneurs of the Wilderness and Transnational Elites in the Romanian Carpathians

AbstractCarpathia—dubbed the “European Yellowstone”—is a private nature conservation project in Romania. Its establishment activates a critical linkage between entrepreneurs of the wilderness and transnational conservation elites. We indicate the contribution of entrepreneurialism to the expansion and adaptation of neoliberal conservation and reveal how biographical contingencies are involved in the making of conservation projects. At the same time, the focus on transnationalism reveals how local projects are designed, scaled‐up, and connected to global neoliberal conservation networks. Carpathia reveals the adaptability of neoliberal conservation and its expansion into the Eastern European peripheries through transnational elites. Its establishment illustrates how private conservation projects become essential sites for securing privileged access to nature in times of global ecological crises and uncovers the varieties of the global geographies of capitalist conservation.

The power of interpersonal relationships: A socio-legal approach to international institutions and human rights advocacy

AbstractThis article further develops and illustrates the argument that relationships between individuals help to explain the success of human rights advocacy in international institutions. Drawing from advocacy theory and socio-legal studies, I shift the attention from collective forms of advocacy to the importance of interpersonal relationships of advocates with individuals in international institutions to influence the development of human rights. I introduce a framework consisting of three analytical steps – mapping the key actors in a network, process-tracing, and biographical research – and apply the framework to three cases of norm development by a United Nations human rights treaty body. My findings highlight the power of interpersonal relationships for the making of human rights, and they inform scholarship on transnational elites, human rights advocacy, and the politics of international law.

Elite agency in the growth of offshore business services in Romania

Processes of outsourcing and offshoring have driven the changing spatial divisions of labour through foreign investment and development of peripheral regions into key offshore destinations for business services. This paper focuses on the role of elites, transnational and domestic, in the transformation of Romania into a major business services offshoring location in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) over the last two decades. The paper reveals the role of elite agency in connecting domestic resources to business services global production networks (GPNs) in order to drive domestic institutional transformation. A lot has been written about the agency of labour; yet there is a gap in our understanding of the agency of elites, specifically how transnational elites articulate with other elites at the national-, meso- and micro-level and produce institutional changes. Drawing on literature on enclave creation and dual economies, the paper illustrates how the alliance between domestic and transnational elites shaped transformation across the sector by implementing labour market flexibilisation and by crafting a ‘sound’ business environment in terms of infrastructure, investment incentives and bureaucratic framework to emulate institutional conditions of the home country. The development of the Romanian business services sector into an ‘enclave economy’ has become dependent on collaborative networks with domestic universities and intermediary organisations, which played a key role in facilitating foreign investment attraction and linking domestic resources to the needs of multinational firms.

Трансұлттық элиталардың қалыптасуы және негізгі топтары мәселесінің кейбір тұстары

The article is devoted to transnational elites in the world economic policy, which occupy an important place in the system of international relations. Many researchers around the world currently distinguish three main groups of transnational elites: the Vatican, the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers. The authors also consider the formation of these three main groups that are at the head of the transnational elites, the main directions and some aspects of their financial policy in the business sector. The history of these groups is rooted in the distant past. For this reason, their socio-economic activity is higher compared to the national economy. In the modern era of globalization, the strength of the national economy of states is associated with transnational companies. In other words, representatives of the business elite can influence the global economy and change its course. Given that the economies of states are directly related to their political, cultural and social spheres, it is important to know how significant the role of transnational companies and transnational elites in this process is. The article will show some aspects of this issue.

‘Hindu civilization’ in business: the World Hindu Economic Forum's intellectual project

Abstract Scholarly debates on ‘civilization states’ now include India as a potential exemplar, in light of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) insistence on a greater Hindu culture and tradition rooted in ancient India. Most of these debates are located in politico-cultural contexts, whereas this article does something different. It examines an economic organization, the World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF), which centres its business strategy and identity around the rhetoric of civilization. WHEF is a distinctive and understudied transnational elite platform that has organic connections with the BJP and Hindu nationalist circles around the world. Drawing on WHEF documentation and interviews with WHEF members, and employing a Gramscian approach, this article sheds light on three social aspects of utilizing the civilizational rhetoric in WHEF's business strategy: a justification of development rooted in the past, a claim of superiority over the West, and a promise of development for the future. It argues that all three aspects make up a particular elite conception of the world shaped around the WHEF members' ideological and material interests. Based on this elite agency, this article argues that the rhetoric of civilization is a product of today's existing global political economy and ultimately serves to reinforce Hindu nationalist sentiments along with neo-liberal market-oriented ideas.

The Changi-Marina Bay Corridor: green strategies for Singapore’s soft power

Singapore’s city-making strategies are seen by many Asia Pacific cities as a model to achieve today’s desired ‘world-class city’ status. They represent a source of innovation to design alternative configurations and rethink established norms of urban and social standards. This article looks at the urban landscape of the city of Singapore through infrastructural systems instead of individual design masterpieces, focusing on the urban corridor defined by the connection of Changi Airport, East Coast Parkway (ECP), and Marina Bay as a single urban entity, unified by a visual and experiential choreography. At a time of intense global competition in the aviation industry, Changi has deployed new strategies to sustain its reputation as an innovative transportation hub. The leg between Changi Airport and Marina Bay is an integral part of Singapore, experienced by the majority of its annual visitors arriving in the city-state. The 19-kilometre route, a major infrastructural project begun in the 1970s and still in progress, is a highly landscaped and scenic artery of the island, through which the airport has injected its hyper-urbanism into the city. While conveying the history of the developments of the Corridor, we consider the soft power strategies used by the city state to develop a form of transnational elite urbanism based on leisure and recreation, where urban planning, design, and green infrastructure play a key role. We reflect on the global and local dimension of Singapore, discussing how the ECP corridor reveals only one side of the city’s double character.On the one hand, this article critically analyses the rhetorical use of landscaping ingrained in the Corridor to attract foreign investment and tourism, where the artificialisation of green interventions has overwritten the presence of the native vegetation and morphology. On the other hand, we reflect on the less evident but nonetheless split that the Corridor has generated between the city’s southern residential areas and foreshore. While cutting through the urban tissue of part of the island seamlessly and without interruption, the Corridor does in fact separate out substantial residential areas, turning Singapore successful green strategies into a form of urban injustice. The twofold nature of the corridor – at the same time, that of the ‘connector’ and ‘divider’ – thus reflects Singapore’s intrinsic ambiguity: its manifestation of global ambitions set against its local realities. This article unpacks the planning mechanisms used to design this development, including the land reclamation powers of the state and the government land sales programme. It also discusses the strategies and choices underpinning the urban sequence of the ECP’s infrastructural nodes, from the Jewel (2019) to the Conservatories (2012). Drawing on official documentation from Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), field research, and using a multidisciplinary lens, this article interpolates architectural and planning studies with insights gleaned by onsite investigation.

Language and symbolic boundaries among transnational elites: A qualitative case study of European Commission officials

AbstractPrevious research has asked whether European integration leads to the formation of a new kind of ‘transnational class’ or ‘elite’ in and around the European institutions in Brussels. This paper focuses instead on intra‐group distinctions and symbolic boundaries between EU professionals from different countries. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of language as a marker of distinction, it argues that language continues to be a resource for symbolic boundary making. Empirically, this paper builds on in‐depth interviews with officials of the European Commission, who are at the heart of an emerging transnational elite of EU professionals. It shows that while Commission officials are multilingual and use multilingualism to construct themselves as a transnational group, intra‐group symbolic boundaries continue to be drawn based on competence in the Commission’s two main working languages, English and French. Overall, this paper points out the overlooked importance of language differences for transnational professionals’ symbolic boundary making.

COPRODUÇÃO DE CONHECIMENTO EM GESTÃO EM (A PARTIR DE) PAÍSES E SOCIEDADES EMERGENTES

ABSTRACT In an era of decolonization and empire, the management field embraced the US-led neoliberal counterrevolution and challenged the Eurocentric theory-practice hierarchy to produced relevant knowledge through managed learning theories. This contested reformist and market-centric management revolution (MR) against the threat of “reverse relevance” fostered by emerging/resurging barbarians subalternizes Southern theories-practices of the multifaceted field of development administration-management (DA) and de-develops the global majority by privileging large corporations and transnational elites. MR expanded in the 1990s through a post-Washington Consensus social perspective based on re-Westernalizing whitening appropriation-containment dynamics of developmental neoliberalisms and Southern counter-hegemonic movements informed by dewesternization and decolonial dynamics which challenge-reaffirm racial capitalism structures. In an Age of Development, MR was re-organized in the 2000s in response to “irresponsible” hybridisms in emerging countries and societies triggered by Southern learning-unlearning-relearning dynamics. This article investigates the Southern co-production of relevant knowledge in Brazil through subversive complicity, focused on a privileged organization-school nexus. Analysis shows how managers and researchers (re)mobilize Southern theories-practices to co-produce relevant knowledge from a transformational-reformist perspective. In the end, the article presents discussions and suggestions for collectively re-appropriating Southern relevant knowledge engaged with the ‘other’ in emerging/resurging societies in both the South and North.

Commissions in Transitional Justice: The Transnational Elites in the Engine Room

Commissions in Transitional Justice: The Transnational Elites in the Engine Room

Lessons for Left-Wing Populism from the 2010s Austerity Wave in Europe

Lessons for Left-Wing Populism from the 2010s Austerity Wave in Europe

The Golden Billion: Russia, COVID, Murderous Global Elites.

SUMMARYThis essay tells the story of the hot, brooding summer that preceded Russia’s “special military operation” attack on Ukraine: an attack that could not legally be called a war and that many people in Russia supported even while they neither trusted the media nor cared to talk about politics. Rallying support for this undeclared war, Russian state rhetoric drew on images of WWII fascism, NATO expansion, and morally rotten transnational elites: themes resonant with long‐standing feelings of hurt national pride and personal abandonment in the face of spiraling social stratification. To many of its supporters, “the war seemed a relief after many years of stagnation,” wrote the Moscow‐based journalist Shura Burtin (2022). “Like a fire in prison: at least there’ll be some commotion.” This essay describes a high point of this pregnant stagnation. Written in August 2021, it draws on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in North‐Western Russia to examine the idea that a “Golden Billion” of the world’s most powerful people governs to exterminate the rest of us—at a moment when this idea seemed eminently reasonable.

Agrarian crises and producerist populism in French rural unions: limits and potential for an emancipatory rural politics

The article examines the reactions of two important agricultural trade unions in France, the ?Confédération Paysanne and the Coordination Rurale, to the liberalisation and financialisation of the ?European Common Agricultural Policy. It highlights the adoption of a "producerist populism" approach ?focused on the role of transnational economic and financial elites in co-opting the state, reducing ?public aid and as the main driver of the economic crises experienced by French farmers. The article ?traces the manifestations of this approach in the claims and analyses of the two unions in the face of ?recent economic developments in the wheat and dairy sectors in France. It argues that the producerist understanding of the crises in agriculture leads these two farmers unions, from opposite political backgrounds, to develop common arguments, opening to strategic alliances. Finally, based on the current ?debate on authoritarian populism in rural areas, the article discusses the interest in overcoming these ?narratives in favour of a more emancipatory rural perspective.?

Формирование цифровой элиты как новой страты глобально-информационного общества

Introduction. The article is devoted to the analysis of the process of formation of the digital elite, determines the legitimacy and regularity of its appearance as a new stratum of the global information society. The paper shows that the study of the process of formation of the digital elite, and the strengthening of its power components is relevant and at the same time complex, with no unambiguous judgments in modern political science. It requires increased attention of the Russian state to the problems of information security and the protection of information sovereignty. Methods and materials. When preparing the article, the author relied on the concept of the global information society, as well as a systematic analysis of the digital society and its strata as a single, complexly organized organism. The methods of comparative analysis, structural and institutional approach and scientific forecasting were used. Analysis. The author examines the general trends of the genesis of the global digital society, the current stage of human development, determines the essence and main features of the new emerging social stratum of this society – the transnational digital elite, its significance and influence on the development of world and Russian society. The article substantiates the thesis that through the digital management of society and the economy, transnational elites have the potential to establish global world governance in the long term. However, according to the author, such a prospect is not deterministic, but is only one of the options for the future development of mankind. The paper also reveals some features of the modern Russian digital transformation, examines the possibilities of the emergence of the Russian digital elite. Results. According to the results of the study, it is concluded that the formation of the digital elite occurs as a result of the gradual transformation of the ruling national and transnational elites, their transition to digital management technologies.

Political Limit of Neoliberal Democracy: The Strategy of Inequality

The paper studies political consequences of the establishment of neoliberal democ-racy, which means the onset of a post-political state of the world. It is demonstrated that at the “end of politics,” the democratic principle of equal rights turns into its opposite—a radical inequality between transnational elites, personifying the power of “pure” capital, and the local population, representing the idea of “pure” life. Neoliberal democracy is studied as a limit concept, which shows the exhaustion of the democratic principle of equality. The paper shows that the return to democracy as the principle of equality becomes the driving ambition of modern politics of activism as a subjective process, unfolding in places where a situation of radical inequality arises.

Reply to Bogdan Iancu’s Verfassungsblog Review of 'Transnational Networks and Elite Self-Empowerment: The Making of the Judiciary in Contemporary Europe and Beyond' by Cristina E. Parau (OUP, 2018)

Reply to Bogdan Iancu’s Verfassungsblog Review of 'Transnational Networks and Elite Self-Empowerment: The Making of the Judiciary in Contemporary Europe and Beyond' by Cristina E. Parau (OUP, 2018)

Transnational Elite Self-Empowerment and Judicial Supremacy. Reply to Conor Gearty’s review of Transnational Networks and Elite Self-Empowerment: The Making of the Judiciary in Contemporary Europe and Beyond (OUP 2018)

Transnational Elite Self-Empowerment and Judicial Supremacy. Reply to Conor Gearty’s review of Transnational Networks and Elite Self-Empowerment: The Making of the Judiciary in Contemporary Europe and Beyond (OUP 2018)