Quantitatively comparing elite formation over a century: ministers and judges

Abstract This paper employs elite formation quantitative indices to directly and transparently compare the role of the Irish secondary school system in the formation of Ireland’s political and judicial elites, over its history as an independent country (1922–2022). Whereas other elite studies have tended to compare either the same elite formation systems or the same elites, across countries, we examine the eliteness, influence and exclusiveness of one formation system in the creation of two very different societal elites. Our results suggest that the secondary schools that educated Ireland’s superior court judges were significantly more elite and influential than those that educated its cabinet ministers. Additionally, the vast majority of the secondary schools that educated superior court judges, and about 30 per cent of those that educated cabinet ministers, were fee-paying schools, a category of school that constitutes only a tiny fraction of the secondary schools in the country.