CONCENTRATION, SPECIALIZATION, AND INTERLOCKING AMONG INSTITUTIONAL ELITES.

This paper examines top institutional leadership in both the public and private sectors of society-industry; communications, transportation, and utilities; banking; insurance; law; civic and cultural affairs; government; foundations; education; the military; personal wealth; and political finance. The purposes are to develop a systematic definition of a national, institutional elite; to measure the concentration of authority in top institutional positions; to examine the extent of interlocking and specialization among institutional elites, and to describe the pattern of recruitment to top institutional positions. The study data do not really permit any inferences about interaction, communication, informal association or mutuality of interest, among the institutional elites. But it is believed that debate over the concentration of power in the U.S. will be better informed by continuing attempts to systematically define institutional elites, to measure the real extent of interlocking and specialization, and to examine the actual paths of recruitment to top institutional positions.