Fringe nobles and boundary maintenance: An exploration

Abstract

This article explores a sub-group of elites at the border to non-elites that I shall call fringe nobles. It develops the theoretical interest in this group, understood as a structural ideal-type. It then fleshes out the characteristics of it with the help of historical examples of relational studies of fringe nobles before complementing this with a case-study on study motivation of German fringe noble economics students. The habitus of this group is characterized by a taste for purification and field-specific extreme positions – in the field of contemporary economics, this seems expressed by the likely uptake of an ultraliberal position. The article then goes on to explore the links of this position-taking with a specific feeling of threat before turning to the position-taking of fringe noble economists in the field of politics. The article concludes with a plea for a sociology of fringe nobles by formulating further empirical and theoretical questions.