The conference launched the second year of the Franco–German Research Program “Changing Societies”, organized in cooperation between WZB Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and the French Foundation Maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH). Various scientists from France, Germany, the USA, Switzerland and Poland discussed the topic of economic and political elites and their link to the program’s thematic frame “New Frameworks for Societal Policies and Decision Making” during a two-day workshop.
Three thematic groups were identified, according to the individual research interests: Group 1: Institutionally Rooted Inequalities; Group 2: Elites and Their Discourses; Group 3: The Challenge of Democracy. The following questions were discussed in each working group and gave a common frame for the analysis: First, what are the trends relevant to regulation of our time? Second, which processes or discourses are responsible for the institutionalization of inequalities? Third, what is the role of transnational networks for the establishment of elites?
DANIEL DÜCKERS (German Institute of Global Area Studies GIGA, Hamburg) gave a keynote speech on “Sustainable Well-Being”. Dückers developed a systematic approach to measure sustainable well-being on the ground of the analysis of United Nations conferences and summits documents since 1990 (up to the Agenda 2030). According to Dückers’ analysis, the international community proclaims a specific vision of the good society that shall enable all members to lead good lives. A life is hold to be good when it complies with seven dimensions: rights, equality, freedom, personality development, health, sociality and brotherhood. This concept offers a normative standard to analyze and measure central societal changes, based on a fundamental understanding of the societal developmental process: Positive social change leads to a (sustainable) good society, followed by a (sustainable) good life of all members of the society and finally by a well-being situation.
To illustrate his means Dückers, focused on the equality dimension and presented a new indicator, the absolute equality gap – a component of the Basic Development Index (BDI) that measures distributive equality. In contrast to widespread concepts like the Gini coefficient, which considers the relative income distribution in percentage shares, the absolute equality gap looks at differences in absolute income, comparing the poorest with the richest ten percent of a society. Therefore, focusing on how equal a society is, the absolute equality gap can contribute to develop a new framework for societal change, according to Dückers. Based on a comparison between countries along his alternative measuring reference, he states further that some societies are more equal than others, these societies being African ones. Then, while the Gini coefficient, by trend, holds material rich countries to be the most equal, the absolute equality gap finds almost the opposite – as the gaps in the actual amount of money people have at their disposal appear to be much greater in the OECD countries than in poorer ones.
During the workshop, the participants of the three identified thematic groups came together to present, discuss and exchange on their current research projects. This was used to find answers to the discussion questions with the help of individual research results.
Analyzing the question of the institutionalization of inequalities leads to the necessity of defining inequalities: Who perceives them? Who defines them (as inequalities)? And: How do we measure them? Therefore, acknowledging inequalities as such underlies an evaluation process that takes the following three elements into consideration: value, status and recognition. Group 1 on “Institutionally Rooted Inequalities” concentrated on the causality among the three terms: Education, Labour Market and Migration. This underlies the assumption that the qualification system is an inherent regulation instrument of a society, which defines professional possibilities and chances, including further societal development possibilities and general life path. This causal chain among educational, professional path and general environment often leads to a reproduction of inequalities.
Migration was discussed as a consequence as well as a cause of inequalities: Unequal global economical, societal and political terms engender migration flows, themselves reinforcing a precarious situation by causing brain drain, whereas migrants (as the example of Sub-Sahara Africans in OECD countries shows) tend to deal with unequal chances in the host countries. Here, qualification also defines the terms and status of the migration: The qualification situation in the departure country will determine predominantly the situation in the host country. Forming networks represents one of the strategies used by disadvantaged migrant groups to deal with the consequences of inequalities, foremost by allowing an alternative way of entering the labor market – this taking the restrictive labor market and recognition policies in the OECD countries into consideration e.g. in Germany.
Furthermore, transnationalization was considered as a way of inducing structural changes on the national level, as the case of federal Germany in regard to the PISA Study or the Lisbon Strategy shows. Relating to the three mentioned fields Education, Labor Market and Migration, it was asked: What level of agency do actors have to change institutions?
To define the concepts of elite and discourse, the need to identify the elites and discourses concerned was stressed, as well as of an international standard or definition, bearing in mind the on-going transnationalization process. Two possible understandings of elites were identified, as either a group with a vested interest in reproducing its privileges or a legitimate social group with a specialized decision-making function (or both).
Discourse, it was argued, can be a method (mindset analysis), or a concept. Considering discourse as a method it should be differentiated between discourse analysis (as making sense of something, according to Foucault’s understanding of it) and text analysis (considering text as the product of a discourse). In the discussion, discourses were considered as both contributing to or diminishing inequalities: National identity discourses may, for instance, justify redistributive policies, alleviating inequality in the name of solidarity among members of the national community, while institutionalizing or increasing inequalities vis-à-vis those located outside this community (e.g. between Germany and Greece).
Group 2 on “Elites and Their Discourses” stated that human beings are not able to regulate their societies properly, but they constantly strive to it as their capacity to think is limited to humanity and to a defined time period – in reference to the anthropocene approach. Besides, clear interconnections among the societal fields (political, economic, scientific) could be identified in the frame of questions as the regulation of society, the institutionalization of inequalities or transnationalization and the reproduction of elites. The concept of regulative institutions and institutionalism after the Institutional Theory of Richard Scott was discussed as explaining societal change through institutional change. According to the New Institutionalism, formal norms and legal rules shape social behavior and so regulate societal trends and their eventual changes. Relevant when comparing countries, Cognitive Institutionalism implies the need to take the cultural perspective and the relevance of diverse conceptions into account in the translation of formal norms in institutional and so societal change.
Group 3 on “The challenge of Democracy” identified the logic of capital accumulation as the most important process generating inequalities, which has a natural tendency toward distributive inequality in the absence of regulation – all the more so in the context of globalized capital markets. Therefore, it was agreed upon that global capital as well as any cross-borders issue (e.g. migration and environmental pollution) is relevant for regulation, given the absence of governmental mechanisms situated at the nation-state level.
It was noted that transnational networks, whether in business, education or any other occupational category, produces inequalities in cultural or symbolic capital on the basis of unequal access, thus structuring a (transnationalized) field in the Bourdieuan sense. Transnational networks and elite formation can also be understood from the perspective of governmentality as a process of proliferation of power relations, inextricably tied to institutions and to the production of regulations in the name of the well-being of defined populations. In this latter sense, then, both of the aforementioned meanings of elites can be understood as integral to a transnationalized process of elite formation.
Transcending all these three questions, the access to public sphere was identified as key power element and with it the relevance of communication channels was emphasized. In this frame, digitalization should be analyzed as a powerful instrument, as it permits a direct access to the public sphere whereas raising the question of its instrumentalization by the elites. The reflection on the role of Elites and Their Discourses engendered a broader question on how to ensure an access of what is not being said (outside the mainstream discourse) and to the ones who do not speak to the public sphere.
Group 3 underlined further the apparent trade-off between effectiveness and accountability, asking the question of an evolution over time. The transnationalization and cross-border issue appears to be one predominant actual challenge. In times of globalization, cross-border regulations are necessary. Because the nation state still prevails as regulation entity, certain issues cannot be addressed within this framework, whereas a transnational approach could open the door for new mechanisms of regulation. Considering the question “Which processes or discourses are responsible for the institutionalization of inequalities?” from the opposite perspective, it was asked “When do institutional changes makes a difference regarding inequalities?” Based on the example of the Lisbon Strategy, it was stipulated that the evaluation of changes and of their success on the diminution of equalities is still bound to the national perspective taken.
The question of how to define elites and whether these should be self-referred was raised. Here the trade-off was underlined between the necessity regarding the global infrastructure of transnationally networked elites, so that they might act as relevant stakeholders, and the need for accountability to a still strongly nationally based demos. In regard to the trend of transnationalization, we can ask, What can elites do about it?, And, foremost, What do we want them to do? Taking the results of the three working groups into consideration, the discussion culminated in the question, Who are the some who are the others?
The tension between in- and outsiders will be further handled in the frame of the “Changing Societies” program, as the next workshop on “Migration, Integration, Participation” will focus on a key issue of our times and societies: the challenge of migration, its consequences for societal integration and participation possibilities.
Conference Overview:
Introduction to the Franco–German Research Program “Changing Societies”
Eileen Keller: Presentation of the dfi (Deutsc–Französisches Institut)
Daniel Dückers (GIGA): Sustainable Wellbeing
Working Groups – Part I
Team 1: Institutionally Rooted Inequalities
Moderation: Stefan Stuth (WZB)
Team 2: Elites and Their Discourses
Moderation: Elsa Tulmets (Centre Marc Bloch)
Team 3: The Challenge of Democracy
Moderation: Seongcheol Kim (WZB)
Working Groups – Part II
Final Discussion, Q&A
Next Steps and Future Calls