Elites and Social Change

This book offers a selection of papers from the conference which was held by the Sonderforschungsbereich (Collaborative Research Center) 580 in Dornburg near Jena, Germany. International experts discuss key issues of contemporary sociological research on the late socialist societies, their power and functional elites, and their experiences of transition.
In its first section, the recruitment and careers of socialist and post-socialist administrative and economic elites is observed. In its second section, the focus is on elites as creators and creations of social and political change.
This book is an excellent analysis showing that elites play the decisive role in the multi-layered process of societal transition, just as they provided the key to understanding the societal dynamics and mechanisms of state socialism before the collapse of the system.

Editors:
Prof. Dr. Heinrich Best is professor of sociology at Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany, where he holds the Chair of Social Science Research Methods/Structural Analysis of Modern Societies.
Dr. Ronald Gebauer teaches sociology and methods of empirical social research at the Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena.
Dr. Axel Salheiser is research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre 580, Jena.