Abstract
The aim of this article is to understand the recent transformations of Swiss elites. Based on a database of political, economic and administrative elites covering the whole twentieth century, we investigate the social background, education and coordination mechanisms of Swiss elites. We find that for a long time, they maintained their power through a combination of a socially narrow recruitment and a coordination model including the army as meeting place, a corporatist organisation of the economy and multipositionality between political and economic fields. As a result of the increasing internationalisation of managers of Swiss firms, this model of elite coordination has eroded since the 1990s and led to a (relatively) unpredictable transition phase.
Swiss elites; Political, economic and administrative elites; Multipositionality
*The grey lines correspond to common board members; the bolder the lines are, the more board members the firms share with each other. Dark grey points: banks; white points: other firms. The size of the points corresponds to their centrality degree (number of links) in the network.
*The grey lines correspond to common board members; the bolder the lines are, the more board members the firms share with each other. Dark grey points: banks; white points: other firms. The size of the points corresponds to their centrality degree (number of links) in the network.