How Powerful are Transnational Elite Clubs? The Social Myth of the World Economic Forum

Abstract

This article analyses the extent and nature of private authority in global political economy by examining one of its most publicised instances, the World Economic Forum (WEF). In Davos, Switzerland, the annual meetings of the WEF have attracted the world economic and political e´lite for more than 30 years. Appraisals of the WEF diverge widely. For many years, Le Monde Diplomatique, the French monthly close to the anti-neoliberal globalisation movement, has described the World Economic Forum as ‘the meeting place of the masters of the world [which] has undoubtedly become the centre of hyperliberalism, the capital of globalisation, and the main home of the “pensée unique” ’. George Soros, the well known hedge-fund manager turned philanthropist, has described the meetings of Davos, of which he is a regular participant, as a ‘big cocktail party’. These contrasting views on the influence and power of the WEF in global politics and economy mirror the position of those holding such claims: those closely associated with the Forum are inclined to deny its power and those fiercely opposed are likely to emphasise its overarching influence. From a theoretical perspective, however, these opposing views express disagreement on one outstanding feature of the changes associated with ‘globalisation’: the significance of new agents in the global political economy beyond states and markets.