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 precisely what this edited volume does, 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 , Germán Cano , José María Lasalle , Margarita León , Agustín José Menéndez , Clara Ramas , Cristina Santamarina , Gonzalo Velasco , José Luis Villacañas and Ermanno Vitale , form a puzzle with pieces from both philosophy and social sciences, in which a complex and worrying landscape is drawn, although some possible lines of escape are also perceived.