Transnational Elites: Imperial Histories, Global Power and Public Resistance Today

British Academy Conferences bring together scholars from around the world to present, discuss and consolidate new research in the humanities and social sciences.

Today’s increasing economic inequality goes hand in hand with an uptick in elite power worldwide, raising concerns about eroding democratic governance and diminishing social cohesion. Although this trend has inspired vital new scholarship, much of this approaches elites through a national lens, and lacks attention to the past and present imperial and (neo)colonial contexts in which they operate. Yet, public debate about the role of oligarchs and kleptocracy, widespread tax evasion and use of offshore finance, and the siphoning of wealth from the Global South through them, all demonstrate the need for greater academic analysis of the transnational – and specifically imperial and (neo)colonial – dimensions of elite formation and power today. This two-day conference will make a major contribution to this scholarly agenda by bringing together leading international and interdisciplinary scholars to explore the roles and influence of contemporary transnational elites in an increasingly unequal world.