After a period in which interest in elites among social scientists went into decline, elite studies
are now reviving. But it is important to understand why the decline occurred. We critically
examine the largely contradictory explanations put forward by Scott and Savage and their
related proposals for new research. We suggest an alternative approach that, we believe,
would prove more rewarding. This entails treating elites quite extensively, but understood as
small-N entities, clearly distinct from social classes. On this basis, elites can be characterised
through prosopographical methods – the construction of collective biographies of their
members. More reliable accounts can thus be produced of the social composition of different
elites and in turn questions addressed of how far skewness in their recruitment results from
the processes through which they are formally constituted and how far from the composition
of the ‘pools’ from which their recruitment primarily occurs. Further questions follow of the
implications not only for equality of opportunity but also for the wastage of talent and loss of
diversity in elite memberships and for the so far neglected issue of the quality and the
effectiveness of elites in whatever field they exist.
