Global Elites in Flux: Cultural Capital and Power after Globalization

OpenAlex İngilizce

In the post-globalization era, global elites face a transformed landscape of resurgent national sovereignty and civilizational rhetoric. This article examines how transnational power-holders—once emblematic of a borderless world – are recalibrating their cultural strategies and legitimacy mechanisms amid these shifts. Drawing on cultural sociology and elite theory (Bourdieu, Bauman, Castells, Gramsci), the analysis integrates non-Western scholarly perspectives. It reconceptualizes cosmopolitan elite culture under conditions of de-globalization. We argue that global elites are neither passive victims of “de-globalization” nor static cosmopolitans. Instead, they act as cultural brokers who selectively adjust their identities and narratives. Some accentuate patriotic or civilizational themes to align with ascendant state-centric discourses, while others redouble on universalist rhetoric through new transnational alliances. Comparative illustrations from Western countries, Russia, China, and Türkiye demonstrate that elites are actively adapting to a fragmented world order. These shifts suggest that sociological inquiry needs to move beyond treating globalization as a given context and toward analyzing the cultural dynamics of elite power in a fractured world—one where questions of meaning, identity, and legitimacy have become as pivotal as economic forces.