Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

"Global Economic Elites in Comparative Perspective. The Methodological Challenges of Analyzing Informal and Volatile Economies. Lessons from Argentina"

by Gabriel Levita (CONICET)

19/06. 2PM. Online.

Abstract

What do we know about national economic elites around the globe? How can we compare countries with vast differences in economies and social structures? In this lecture, I will present the first results of the World Elite Database (WED) project, which compares the social characteristics of economic elites from 16 countries. Then, using the local team data, I will delve into the case of Argentina, a volatile economy with a large informal sector, where most local elites prefer to keep their companies off the stock market and have shifted between different strategies of interest representation towards politics throughout recent history. This poses methodological challenges when assessing economic elites using a positional criterion and has theoretical implications for identifying national elites and understanding their behavior. I hope this argument can travel to other developing countries with significant informal economic sectors and help achieve better comparative studies.

Gabriel Levita is an associate researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and an assistant professor at the National University of Lanús and the Universidad del Salvador, Argentina. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Political Studies from the University of Buenos Aires and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. His current research interests include political elites, Latin American legislatures, populism and political outsiders in Latin America, Argentine politics, and agricultural policy in Mercosur countries. He is the editor-in-chief of Revista SAAP.

Zoom link:
https://hu-berlin.zoom-x.de/j/62327721769?pwd=CV4jTISqRsDRJgVBTCbyJtl2yE41ZU.1

Meeting-ID: 623 2772 1769
Passwort: 582816