| Popis: |
This chapter discusses in detail the main theories and relevant empirical investigations that have contributed to the study of political elites and serve as the theoretical framework for this research. It first contextualises the definition of elite as a category of sociological analysis before briefly discussing the relevance of the term “political elite” and its relation with social class as a category of analysis. The conceptual relationship between elites, political representation and the power structure is then addressed. These discussions are fundamental to contextualise the definition of elites as an object of study in the social sciences and, more specifically, in sociology. Subsequently, the chapter looks extensively at the theoretical-empirical contributions that shaped the definition of this research and serve as the context for its empirical contribution to the study of political elites as a sociological phenomenon. In addition to presenting these theoretical approaches, this chapter examines their limitations, including a detailed discussion of the theoretical definitions of social capital of Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam, in order to identify their main strengths and weaknesses and justify the use and relevance of species of capital as a category of analysis in this research. The recent context of the study of political elites in Latin America and Chile is then presented before, finally, discussing the reasons for using Pierre Bourdieu’s approach to species of capital in defining the categories of analysis used in this research and the empirical contribution it makes. |
