Who’s Elite and How the Answer Matters to Politics

We can conceptually classify the general category of political elites into two major segments, each divided into competing factions. Simplifying: one faction is elites outside the state, most importantly corporate and financial elites and other affinity groups. These are interest elites. They seek to influence action by state elites organized into parties: politicians and party officials. A goal of many interest elites is to reduce public knowledge of their activities and clout; the less citizens understand, the more easily interest elites get their way with politicians (Schattschneider, 1960Schattschneider, E. E. (1960). The semi-sovereign people: A realist’s view of democracy in America. Boston, MA: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. [Google Scholar]). Yet citizens need and want to know which elites are responsible for problems. Hence, in the many cases where power-holders seek policies that narrowly benefit their factions and would be unpopular with most others (see, e.g., Hacker & Pierson [2010Hacker, J. S., & Pierson, P.(2010). Winner take all politics: How Washington made the rich richer—and turned its back on the middle class. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. [Google Scholar]] on tax cuts for the wealthy), they compete to direct attention away from their responsibility and toward opposing factions, telling citizens they should be closely monitoring, controlling, and punishing the latter: the real elite.