🔗 Circulation of Elites

🔗 Sociology

The circulation of elite is a theory of regime change described by Italian social scientist Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923).

Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another.