Transnational Elites and Civil Society: Aspects of Interaction

Abstract

This article examines aspects of the interaction between transnational elites and civil society in the modern world. The author focuses in the main on the infl uence 20 of transnational elites on organizations of the “third sector,” political parties and their leadership, and on the media. The articles sets out the principal content borne by the concepts “transnational elites” and “civil society.” The analysis shows that transnational elites tend to turn a well-developed “third sector” into an eff ective counterbalance to the national state. Thus they actively fi nance and support its activities, since the opposition of the “third sector” and the national state weakens them as the main competitors of transnational elites on the world stage. According to the author, political practice of the second half of the 20th century and the fi rst decades of the 21st shows that transnational elites have managed to bring their proteges to political leadership in a number of countries, thus increasing their infl uence on the adoption of many political decisions. In order to achieve their own goals, these elites use and indeed monopolize the media in various countries of the world community as a powerful means of infl uencing public opinion, in the process violating one of the fundamental principles of democracy: equal access to the media for all citizens.

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