Elite și putere. Comentarii pe marginea lucrării lui Mattei Dogan, Configurații ale elitei la vârful puterii

Abstract

The few and powerful` in a society have always stirred the interest and fascination of people, be it kings, maharajas or, in the modern era, state presidents or owners of large financial empires. A similar interest, doubled by a remarkable analytical and explicative effort, has been found amongst sociologists. Starting with illustrious precursors such as Nicolò Machiavelli, continuing with famous sociologists such as Gaetano Mosca, Roberto Michels, Vilfredo Pareto or C. Wright Mills down to our days, an impressive number of researchers have studied and continue to study the elites from the most various theoretical perspectives. Mattei Dogan has a well established place at the top of this list of theoreticians and researchers, and this statement is more than a polite formula. Dogan is the initiator of the committee on research on elites within the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and he is also the scientist who has coordinated this committee for more than 30 years, leading to a high scientific prestige of the research activities.