Between Past and Future

This text presents a specific interest in analyzing the role of the elites as a key factor for democratic rule and policy changes. The analysis is based on data from structured interviews with around 300 elite persons in eight elite groups - namely parliament, bureaucracy, political parties/movements, state enterprises, private business, intellectuals, the judicial system and local government. In order to put the elites in perspective the author has also conducted opinion surveys asking some of the same questions among representative samples of the populations in the three countries. Comparing these three rather similar states gives possibilities for singling out conditions for specific national developments in elite structure and policies.