Tribune. The shock wave produced by the publication of Camille Kouchner’s book La Familia grande (Threshold, 206 pages, 19 euros) has the consequence of highlighting the power strategies of people who are, in the Weberian sense of the term, “Ideal-types” of the French politico-administrative elite. Public opinion thus discovers, at the discretion of journalists’ inquiries or acts of free speech, mores that flout the republican meritocratic ideal.
Generalized interpersonal skills, all-out networking strategies, the race for honors which no longer leaves room for the general interest … These practices shock the French all the more because they very often concern “Heirs”, in the sense that the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu gave to this term, already very largely endowed with social capital. Therefore, the question arises whether this elite does not constitute an oligarchy imposing its views on political power.
The debate is not new. We find the premises in Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) from the end of the 19th century.e century, but it is obviously the publication, in 1914, of the book by Roberto Michels (1876-1936) The Political Parties, an essay on the oligarchic tendencies of democracies which will fuel an uninterrupted debate.
The thesis is well known: the oligarchic phenomenon is inevitable and affects even the most democratic organizations – Michels takes the example of the German Social Democratic Party. The professionalization and bureaucratization of organizations, coupled with the apathy of the masses, favors an elite which becomes almost irremovable. One of the great weaknesses of the thesis as exposed by Michels comes from the fact that it does not define the oligarchy.
He describes certain characteristics, including the virtual irremovability, but is careful not to offer a definition. However, we find in Michels the idea that the oligarchic phenomenon is inseparable from a corruption of political mores. Indeed, the will to preserve power at all costs leads the leaders to favor strategies which aim to neutralize the oppositions by the use of anti-democratic methods.
Illusion
Since then, several definitions of the oligarchy have been given. We will retain, for our part, that proposed in 2005 by the American sociologist Darcy Leach, which defines it as “An illegitimate concentration of power in the hands of a well-established minority”. The terms used are not neutral, but it is clear that the passage from the elite system to oligarchic drift raises the question of legitimacy.
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