L'Élite des politiques de l'État

What happens behind the formal authorities of power (the president and ministers)? How and by whom are the new programs of public politics defined? These are the interrogations that guide this inquiry, leading to the heart of decision making processes, and centering on the role of high functionaries and members of administrative cabinets.

William Genieys advances the thesis of the emergence of a state political elite. Solidly institutionalized and very specialized, these groups of actors observed in the sectors of defense and social protection are mobilized around their vision of public politics and act in order to safeguard "the" model of social security or still yet of French style defense.

Fifty years after the denunciation of the misdeeds of The Power Elite on the healthy functioning of American democracy by Charles Wright Mills, this work reopens the debate. Contrary to the dominant theses on the “end of the State” in the context of globalization and the European built economy, the political elite is in the process of giving institutional advantage back to the State.

William Genieys directs CNRS research at the Center of Political Studies of Latin Europe (Cepel). He teaches comparative politics and the sociologie of elites at the University Montpellier I. He is an equal co-director of the Political Science review South Pole.