Elite Dominance

Elite dominance refers to the concentration of political, economic, and cultural power in a small, privileged group that holds disproportionate control over institutions and decision-making and shapes the interests and opportunities of the wider population. Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca argued that all societies are ruled by a minority, and Robert Michels’s iron law of oligarchy claimed that even democratic organizations come to be controlled by leaders. C. Wright Mills’s The Power Elite described an interlocking leadership of corporate, military, and political institutions in the United States, and G. William Domhoff has documented the role of the upper class in policy planning networks. Pierre Bourdieu showed how elites reproduce their position through economic, cultural, and social capital, while Antonio Gramsci explained how dominant groups secure consent through hegemony. Thomas Piketty has analyzed the concentration of wealth, and Mike Savage and colleagues mapped a British elite in the Great British Class Survey. Robert Dahl’s pluralist critique argued that power is dispersed among competing groups, while Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page found evidence of influence by affluent citizens and business groups. Elite dominance remains central to research on power, inequality, democracy, class, and the state.