In the first two decades of the 21st century, Latin America and the Caribbean consolidated their position as one of the most unequal regions on the planet, despite cycles of economic growth, partial redistributive reforms, and the expansion of social policies. The extreme concentration of income and wealth in the top 10%, and particularly in the wealthiest 1%, is linked to structures of economic, political, media, and technological power that transcend national borders and reconfigure forms of domination. From a situated perspective of the Global South, the study of elites is therefore not limited to describing the social system from "above," but rather involves questioning how these groups organize and legitimize themselves, and how they contribute to producing and naturalizing persistent inequalities in a context of contested democracies.

The region has witnessed profound shifts in accumulation patterns and the relationship between capital and the state. The classic forms of oligarchic power and diversified economic groups are now superimposed on financial, extractive, technological, and media elites, as well as new business actors who directly occupy the presidency, ministries, and cabinets, and intermediary agents who, through the deployment of expert legal and accounting knowledge, configure transnational circuits for the movement and organization of capital at a global level. These processes are part of the geopolitical reconfiguration of the world order, marked by the relative decline of US hegemony, the rise of China, and the emergence of an unstable multipolar world. Latin America and the Caribbean find themselves trapped in new forms of dependency and subordinate integration, while certain segments of their elites reposition themselves as privileged mediators of flows of capital, technology, and natural resources.

In this context, the rise of platform capitalism and digital infrastructures, which operate as devices for data extraction, labor reorganization, and the construction of common sense, becomes central. Global and regional technology companies concentrate economic power, surveillance capabilities, and political influence through the algorithmic management of communication, advertising, and information circulation. The expansion of this platform economy in the Global South relies on weak regulatory frameworks, precarious labor practices, and the capture of state agencies, which reinforces both the concentration of power among digital elites and the vulnerabilities of the working majority.

In parallel, the expansion of discourses on “sustainable development” and “green transitions” opened a new arena for intervention by economic, financial, and technological elites, where environmental language functions both as a vector for regulatory reforms and as a strategy for legitimizing privilege and perpetuating extractive models. The language of sustainability, responsible investment, and corporate social responsibility has been appropriated in an ambivalent way: on the one hand, it enables certain reforms and mechanisms for environmental regulation and protection; on the other, it operates as a strategy for legitimization and “greenwashing” that allows for the maintenance of extractive, agro-export-oriented, or heavily fossil-fuel-dependent accumulation patterns. From the Global South, it is crucial to analyze how these “sustainable” corporate discourses are articulated with the continuity of privileged institutions, low tax progressivity, and the capture of public agendas surrounding the ecological crisis and energy transitions.

Likewise, the region has served as a testing ground for both progressive governments seeking to challenge privileges and advance redistributive policies, and for new right-wing movements and authoritarian projects that, in alliance with factions of the elites, promote anti-state, anti-tax, anti-gender, anti-immigrant, and climate change-denying agendas. Disputes surrounding democracy are currently played out in the interplay between economic, political, media, and religious elites, think tanks, and transnational foundations, all of which actively participate in shaping narratives about merit, order, security, family, nation, and the common good. From a situated perspective, analyzing these dynamics requires considering both the historical evolution of elites in Latin America and the recent shifts in the mechanisms for creating and legitimizing privilege.

Viewing these processes from the Global South also involves questioning Eurocentric assumptions that sharply separate state, market, and civil society, or that conceive of elites as homogeneous actors functioning according to a single rationality. In Latin America and the Caribbean, elites are constituted in heterogeneous fields, traversed by cleavages of class, race, gender, territoriality, and colonial ties, where old oligarchic lineages, new business groups, globalized technocrats, and emerging digital elites coexist. At the same time, their power is sustained by their articulation with subaltern actors, mechanisms for managing daily life, credit and debt systems, and forms of state and paramilitary violence.

The Working Group on Elites, Inequality, and Democracy is thus situated at the intersection of three key processes for the contemporary Latin American and Caribbean context: the consolidation of structures of extreme inequality; the reconfiguration of elites within the framework of financial, digital, and green capitalism; and the crisis and struggle of democracies, marked by dynamics of state capture, authoritarian offensives, and social resistance. From a critical and comparative perspective of the Global South, the Group aims to study these processes relationally, paying attention to both historical continuities and 21st-century innovations in the modes of power concentration, the legitimization of privilege, and the erosion or expansion of democratic possibilities in the region.

The Working Group on Elites, Inequality, and Democracy aims to address a field of study that, despite its recent expansion, still presents significant theoretical and political gaps when viewed from the perspective of Latin America and the Caribbean. Classical literature on elites has focused on the occupation of formal positions of power and the concentration of strategic resources in the hands of organized minorities. However, it is necessary to update these discussions in light of the transformations of financial, digital, and green capitalism, geopolitical reconfigurations, and the rise of authoritarian and far-right projects in the region.

In theoretical terms, the Group seeks to articulate three traditions: the sociology of elites and power, the political economy of inequalities, and critical democratic theory on political regimes, representation, citizenship, and the quality of democracy. This articulation allows us to think of elites not only as national "topoies," but also as nodes in transnational networks that connect extractive, financial, media, and technological capital, multilateral organizations, think tanks, and governments, configuring a complex framework of regulatory capture, symbolic influence, and the redefinition of the boundaries between the public and private spheres. Likewise, the relational approach proposes to study, together, the strategies of elites and the resistances, negotiations, and disputes raised by subaltern actors, social movements, territorial organizations, and political coalitions that seek to democratize power and contest the very meaning of democracy.

The social relevance of this topic stems from the central role of elite actions in shaping structural inequalities, influencing public policy, and influencing the quality of democracies in the region. In contexts where tax pressures are often regressive, fiscal policies are captured, and social protection systems are fragmented, elite decisions regarding investment, capital flight, political financing, and corporate social responsibility strategies directly impact the distribution of income, labor, and risk. The Working Group aims to generate knowledge that illuminates these connections, providing comparative evidence and situated qualitative analyses to understand both the reproduction of privilege and the possibilities for democratizing the economy and the state.

On an intellectual level, the Group proposes a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, it seeks to revisit Wallerstein's (1999) call to "open up the social sciences," questioning disciplinary compartmentalization and inherited postulates that naturalize the separation between "economy," "politics," and "society," and that tend to view Latin American experiences as secondary cases of theories produced in the Global North. On the other hand, it aims to construct a Southern perspective that acknowledges the contributions of recent research on elites in the region, but also connects them to contemporary debates on platform capitalism, the ecological crisis, structural racism, taxation, patriarchy and care work, and multipolar geopolitics.

The question of democracy permeates and structures these discussions. In societies marked by the concentration of economic and media power, extreme inequality, and state and paramilitary violence, the forms of intervention by elites in the political sphere are not limited to campaign financing or holding office, but also include the production of narratives about "order," "economic freedom," "meritocracy," and "sustainability" that seek to legitimize the status quo and delegitimize redistributive, feminist, anti-racist, or environmental demands. Analyzing these symbolic disputes is crucial to understanding why certain forms of inequality become tolerable, inevitable, or even desirable, and how they are articulated with attacks against multilateralism, human rights, or the commons.

The GT will thus contribute to renewing studies on elites from four angles:

a) deepen the analysis of the mechanisms of state capture, the institutions of privilege and the forms of structural and instrumental influence of the elites on public policies;

b) examine the links between economic, political, media and technological elites in the production of authoritarian projects, with emphasis on digital devices and cultural battles;

c) investigate how the agendas of "just transitions", "green capitalism", and "technological innovation" are appropriated, reformulated, or resisted by different elite factions in a regional and comparative context, and how these disputes are articulated with narratives, conflicts, and democratic regressions.

d) to provide conceptual and empirical tools for the design of fiscal, labor, environmental and digital regulation policies that contribute to democratizing power and reducing inequalities.

From CLACSO's perspective, the Working Group's relevance also lies in its capacity to connect academic research with training and public engagement. The Group aims to produce critical knowledge in dialogue with social organizations, unions, feminist, environmental, and territorial movements, as well as with public policy decision-makers. Through comparative research, training programs, educational materials, and communication initiatives, it will seek to contribute to debates on fair taxation, platform regulation, energy transitions, state democratization, and the development of alternatives that broaden the horizons of social, environmental, and gender justice in Latin America and the Caribbean.