Elite Cohesion and Social Closure: The Evolution of Reproduction Processes in the Core of Swiss Elite Networks (1910-2015)

In this article, we study the changes of demographics of the core of Swiss elite networks for a period of 105 years to explore the relationship between network cohesion and social closure, linked to different processes of elite reproduction. We investigate changes in gender diversity, elite background, educational and professional closure, cosmopolitan capital and geographical integration of the most interconnected and central elite group. We show that since the 1910s the elite core experienced a progressive movement from a family-based process of reproduction among integrated corporate elites to an educational and professional-based mode of reproduction within a more integrative corporatist core during the 1950s and 1980s. This movement still accelerated when the core desegregated into a fragmented business elite since the 1990s (and into a loose-knit pluralistic group for some years after the financial crisis), although some individual examples show, as suggested by the international literature, that in the corporate world family-based reproduction relying on the inheritance of billionaire corporate assets still endures.