TY  - CHAP
AB  - Abstract Regardless of whether “elite” is defined with respect to social status, economic wealth, or professional accomplishment, these sources of advantage are blunted by democratic political commitments to equality. This durable dilemma has shaped the institutional development of the American polity and the economy, as those with extra-political advantages have sought new forms of political influence, at times subverting rules or advancing cultural projects that elaborate an image of corporations as moral actors or the development of a “business creed.” American elites have also worked at the margins of the formally democratic policy to construct fields of public action that are accepted as public, legitimate, and admirable, but not strictly democratic. Corporate philanthropy has been central to these efforts. Organizations like the Community Chest can be understood as practical responses to the constraints of ideological commitments to political egalitarianism. This line of response to the democratic dilemma is “constructive” in the nonnormative sense that it produces new fields of social action and reconfigures institutional arrangements. By linking economic position to civic influence, organizations of this type translate economic power into elevated influence over public affairs through the constitution and stabilization of partially hybridized forms or fields.
VL  - 43
SN  - 978-1-78441-680-5, 978-1-78441-679-9/0733-558X
DO  - 10.1108/S0733-558X20150000043020
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20150000043020
AU  - Clemens Elisabeth
PY  - 2015
Y1  - 2015/01/01
TI  - The Democratic Dilemma: Aligning Fields of Elite Influence and Political Equality
T2  - Elites on Trial
T3  - Research in the Sociology of Organizations
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 223
EP  - 241
Y2  - 2024/04/19
ER  -