This handbook, published in 2025, stems from the Sociology of Elites seminar that I have been co-leading for several years with Paul Lagneau-Ymonet and François Denord.

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The accumulation of wealth, knowledge, connections, and prestige grants certain institutions, organizations, and a select few individuals the power to make decisions that affect the lives of the many. The resources they mobilize and the means at their disposal to assert their views, promote what matters to them, or defend their privileges are such that it is more necessary than ever to look “upward” and investigate those who hold power.

To do so, nothing compares to a classical approach in the social sciences. Attentive to the forms of differentiation, principles of hierarchization, and modes of coordination that structure society, this approach draws—according to the opportunities and setbacks that mark all empirical research—on tried-and-tested methods: observation, interviews, archives, and statistics. “Using every available tool” to investigate high-ranking civil servants, business elites, and political actors is the guiding principle of this manual.

Its three authors present theories, methods, and “tricks of the trade” for analyzing—that is, describing, explaining, understanding, and critiquing—what takes place both at the top and at the bottom of social hierarchies. It is by equipping ourselves to account for the structure of power that we can collectively imagine ways to escape it.

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