Elites in Sustainability Research: A Bourdieusan Study of Editorials

In modern social systems, the profession of the scientist represents “expert labor” and is one of the elite occupations to which society grants a high status (Abbott, 1988). The reward system of science itself involves mechanisms—such as prestigious prizes and career incentives—which reinforce the formation of “elites within the elite,” such as Nobel Prize winners or the “prestige elite” of highly cited authors (Korom, 2020). Robert K. Merton (1968) famously thematized Matthew’s effect, a dynamic of elite formation through which more financial resources and prestige are accrued by those scientists who have already successfully secured them. As recently found (Schirone, 2023), research in quantitative science studies has combined the Mertonian sociology of science with the viewpoint of Pierre Bourdieu, another central figure in the scholarship on elites. For Bourdieu (2004), scientific elites are groups of agents who occupy a power position in a research field because of their capital. This latter concept applies to various types of resources besides economic capital: information and knowledge (cultural capital), networks of acquaintance and collaboration (social capital), and legitimation as a member of the group with a corresponding degree of prestige in the field (symbolic capital).