Forms of capital, social change and the weight of the past: the effective agents of the Swiss field of power 1910-2015

Rossier, Thierry and Lunding, Jacob Aagaard (2025) Forms of capital, social change and the weight of the past: the effective agents of the Swiss field of power 1910-2015. Sociology. ISSN 0038-0385

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Abstract

In this article we delve into the elites’ evolving forms of power to study the relationship between social change and capital accumulation. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of the field of power and relying on the identification of the field’s effective agents in Switzerland, we investigate the changing relations among the most important forms of capital. We use prosopographical data spanning six historical periods from 1910 to 2015 and thanks to multiple correspondence analysis we uncover the changing structure of the field of power. We show the dominance of economic and organisational network powers throughout history. While both forms of power opposed before the Second World War, they could be accumulated together between the 1950s and the 1980s but opposed again in the recent period. The article contributes to ‘big picture’ sociology, offering historical accounts of broad social trends and provides evidence of a recent return to past inequality logics.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	LSE
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences
Date Deposited:	26 Mar 2025 12:00
Last Modified:	01 Apr 2025 16:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127653

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