The corporate power of the British monarchy
Capital(ism), wealth and power in contemporary Britain
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3533894 |
|---|---|
| Authors | L Clancy (0000-0002-4688-0184, Lancaster University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 330-347 |
| Publication date | 2021-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0038026120916105 |
| OpenAlex | W3004002653 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 33 |
This article offers a critical analysis of the British monarchy within wider political economies of wealth and power. While sociology has renewed its interest in 'the elites', the British monarchy is often positioned as an archaic institution, an anachronism in relation to corporate forms of wealth and power, and therefore irrelevant. This article counters this framing by revealing the mechanics, technologies and actors 'behind the scenes', in order to expose and demystify the relationship between the symbolic and political-economic functions of the monarchy. To do this, I (re)conceptualise the monarchy as a corporation, 'The Firm', oriented towards, and historically entrenched in, processes of capital accumulation, profit extraction and other forms of exploitation. The article maps out The Firm's labour relations, financial arrangements, inter/national relationships and networks, and the legal status of The Crown and its components in order to demonstrate how 'old' and 'new' forms of wealth intersect and converge in contemporary Britain. This article is intended as a provocation to sociological studies of elites to suggest that, in overlooking monarchy, we are overlooking a key component of contemporary capitalism, and a key component in the reproduction of inequalities today
Absolute monarchy · Archaeology · Capitalism · Corporation · Economics · Framing (construction) · Monarchy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · History · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Neo-royal urbanisms
News, elites and sex crimes
Mothering Performance
‘Do We Need to Talk about Prince Harry?’
Between Fact and Fiction
On the powerlessness of the contemporary British monarchy
Monarchy and urban change
Sovereign spectacles
Death and denial in the city
Crisis and capitalism
Rethinking elites in British sociology
Capitalism and Slavery
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Money, Markets, and Monarchies
Come on Down?
Policing the Crisis
The Corporation That Changed the World
Class and Contemporary British Culture
The class ceiling
The Global City
Ireland Inc
Queen’s Day – TV’s Day’
Doing impact work while female
The Queen's Other Realms
Australian and Commonwealth republicanism
The Company
Voluntary Service and State Honours in Twentieth-Century Britain
Commercial Nationalism
Brief History of Neoliberalism
The Monarchy and the Constitution
Against Meritocracy
The rentierization of the United Kingdom economy
Beyond Public and Private
The forces that shape us
Elite Formation, Power and Space in Contemporary London
Racism, Crisis, Brexit
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |