Globalized National Elites

Globalization is a powerful process, which fundamentally challenges and changes the contemporary international system. Pandemics, terrorism, natural disasters, economic crises etc. all together form a new kind of global challenge, because no national or international actor is capable of facing these tasks single handed. Assuming that global collective action is essential to face these problems, the project analyzes the structural determinants of the international system in a first step: the rise of emerging powers in an increasingly multipolar and interdependent international system. Subsequently it focuses on actors capable of facing global challenges within this global environment: the elites. The goal of the paper is to inquire whether there is one global elite, competing national elites or regional networks of globalized elites.