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William K. Carroll, Corporate Power in a Globalizing World: A Study in Elite Social Organization. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2004, 282 pp. Many students of corporate power have been [...]

Resume: Tout en y contribuant, la sociologie canadienne a ete transformee par le renouvellement du courant de l'economie politique canadienne qui prit naissance au debut des annees soixante-dix. La tradition [...]

Thirty-five years after John Porter published his first elite study, 25 years after "The Vertical Mosaic" and 15 years after the next generation of elite studies marked by "The Canadian Corporate Elite" appeared, Richard Ogmundson claims to have discovered a deceit in the methodology and presentation of their collective findings. In the author's opinion, Ogmundson resorts to cheap shots and assertions. His technique is to create caricatures then denigrate those who actually conduct research. The corporate elite studies have not hidden their assumptions and methodological decisions from unsuspecting readers. Appendices have been used to expand on the data, decisions, and sources. The author invites the reader to examine the original texts where they will find detailed guides through each specific stage and decision of the elite analysis. Recall that this work was conducted under the supervision of John Porter.

There is a certain satisfaction when people find one's work significant enough to elaborate, even if their purpose is to refute parts of one's analysis. Sociologist Elizabeth Baldwin says she set out to see the effect of including the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in author's study of the private media elite. She found the effect to be negligible. However, left in the wake of this non-finding is a misinterpretation and distortion of the methodology, the author actually used in the media study and her charge that he have not been systematic in the criteria he used. Baldwin says that there are four main methodological faults that she alleges make author's methodology "problematic." The author ignored the possibility that there might be systematic differences between individual media groups in the extent they overlap with the economic elite. He neglected the possible effect of excluding some members of the media elite. He has not sufficiently specified how he selected the media elite to represent each of the media groups; he has apparently been inconsistent in his choice of criteria for that selection.