What has become of the elites? This is the question that guides this book, and the answer is anything but simple. The paradox of a democratic society that tolerates high levels of elitism and hierarchical submission is not new, but its recent mutations demand our attention. The worsening inequality, the increasing polarization, the anti-elitist impulses surfacing here and there, the opacity of the exercise of power in a supposedly transparent world, and the transformation of the oligarchies that run the world and the way in which they do so present a scenario that is fruitful to approach from different angles. And this is what this collective volume, coordinated by Andrea Greppi, professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid and expert in theories of democracy and political representation.

Taken together, the texts that make up this book, signed by Fernando Broncano, German Cano, Joseph Mary Lasalle, Margaret Leon, Agustín José Menéndez, Clara Ramas, Christina Santamarina, Gonzalo velasco, Jose Luis Villacañas y Ermanno VitaleThey form a puzzle with pieces from both philosophy and the social sciences, in which a complex and worrying landscape is drawn, although some possible lines of escape are also perceived.