Longitudinal Elite Networks (LONGLINKS) (LONGLINKS)

Abstract:

Elites are the subject of a rapidly growing international research field. Speaking to this field, LONGLINKS brings into focus the relationship between the long-term development of Danish elite relations and the Danish political economy, i.e. civil society, business and state. The project hypothesises that, over the past century, the composition and internal organisation of the elite have changed significantly under the influence of both gradual changes in the Danish political economy and in the face of major external shocks such as the German occupation under World War Two. Drawing on a unique data source in the form of the biographies of more than 20,000 individuals portrayed over the 1910-2017 period in the reference work Kraks Blå Bog (the Danish equivalent to Who’s Who), LONGLINKS addresses the following overall research question: What is the long-term relationship between changes in the political economy and changes in the composition and internal organisation of the Danish elite?