When the old boy’s network unravels

A handful of leaders with multiple roles once controlled Switzerland’s most powerful entities, from parliament to Credit Suisse. Today, researchers paint a very different picture of power in Switzerland – one that is less Swiss. The word 'elite' is often applied to athletes, or top educational institutions. But for social scientists, the term perfectly describes Switzerland’s most powerful decision-makers. "Sometimes, people think that when we are speaking about elites, we are speaking about a small number of people who are really good at something,” Felix Bühlmann, a professor of social and political sciences at the University of Lausanne, told swissinfo.ch. “Actually, the word elite comes from ‘elected’. We in the social sciences speak about elites as groups of people who can make decisions of great importance to their societies.” Bühlmann is the lead author of “Transformation of the Swiss Elite”, the first paper in a new research series called Social Change in ...