Political Elites in the Transatlantic Crisis

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Heinrich Best, John Higley

   Pages 1-22

3. Structure and Agency: Lessons from Pareto on the Study of Elites, Democracy and Crisis

   • Joseph V. Femia

   Pages 23-35

4. Is ‘Europe’ the Lesser Evil? Limits of Elite Crisis Resolution in a Limitless Crisis

   • Heinrich Best

   Pages 36-57

5. Facing the Crisis: The European Elite System’s Changing Geometry

   • Maurizio Cotta

   Pages 58-80

6. Central European Elites in the Crisis

   • Pavol Frič, György Lengyel, Jan Pakulski, Soña Szomolányi

   Pages 81-100

7. British Elite De-Coupling from Classes

   • David Lane

   Pages 101-120

8. Why Can’t US Business Elites be Moderate Keynesians? The Issue is Power, not Economics

   • G. William Domhoff

   Pages 121-137

9. Elite Compromise, Crisis and Democracy: The United States, Norway and Italy Compared

   • Fredrik Engelstad

   Pages 138-154

10. When Political and Financial Elites Clash: Narratives of Blame, Power and Legitimacy in the Transatlantic Crisis

    • Alasdair Marshall

    Pages 155-169

11. Conclusions

    • Heinrich Best, John Higley

    Pages 170-180

12. Back Matter

    Pages 181-188

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Beliefs held by US and European elites about unregulated markets and a currency union without fiscal union led to a transatlantic crisis unmatched in severity since the Great Depression. Leading scholars of elites analyze how elites have responded to the crisis, are altered by it and what this 'hour of elites' means for democracy.

• democracy
• depression
• globalization
• Keynes

'A masterful portrait of how non-elected (and elected) elites have been pivotal actors in the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, bringing together a group of excellent analyses by leading scholars of the field.'

Antonio Costa Pinto, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal

"While economists rushed to publish their explanations for the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, little has been written about its impact on political systems. This collection of essays by a distinguished panel of authors shows how elites struggled to shore up the existing system of Euro-Atlantic institutions. Globalization has its limits, and national political elites still have a role to play, but it is unclear whether they are capable of acting together to prevent future systemic crises.'

- Peter Rutland, Government Department, Wesleyan University, USA

• Friedrich-Schiller Universität, Jena, Germany

  Heinrich Best

• University of Texas, Austin, USA

  John Higley

Maurizio Cotta, University of Siena, Italy G. William Domhoff, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA Fredrik Engelstad, University of Oslo, Norway Joseph V. Femia, University of Liverpool, UK Pavol Fri? Charles University, Czech Republic David Lane, University of Cambridge György Lengyel, Corvinus University, Hungary Alasdair Marshall, University of Southampton, UK Jan Pakulski the University of Tasmania, Australia So?a Szomolányi Comenius University, Slovakia

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