Principal Investigator: Jay Rowell (CMB Berlin)

Funding: Volkswagenstiftung
Project partners: Louise Ashley (Queen Mary University of London), Christian Schneickert (University of Magdeburg), Marlène Benquet (IRISSO), Sébastien Michon (SAGE - Uni Strasbourg)
Duration: 2025 - 2029

The project investigates how the financial and consulting elite contributes to the increase of wealth inequalities and related repercussions on the environment, social spending or public regulation. Mobilizing a comparative sociology of elite professions, the project will study social reproduction, the formation, consolidation and expression of worldviews as well as mobilities into other industries and politics in Germany, France, the UK and the EU. Through interviews and a longitudinal survey, the project will first research selection and socialization mechanisms forging a self-image of deservingness which legitimizes the high monetary rewards of the financial and consulting elite and their wealthy clients. These qualitative insights will then complement the analysis of a series of original biographical databases. By focusing on new patterns of elite formation, the project will study mobilities and networks of influence linking financial and consulting elites with other sectors of the economy and politics. It will explore how worldviews, priorities and cognitive tools brought into other elite fields through career mobility, consulting and lobbying impact the way in which governments and corporations operate in a world confronted with existential issues such as climate change, the sustainability of the welfare State, as well as wealth, income and social polarization.