Reputation and elites: Scandals and symbolic capital in liberal Spain

Abstract

This article analyses the importance that prestige and reputation played in the social legitimacy of liberal elites. While the literature has traditionally assumed that the social preeminence of liberal elites relied on their control of the “mechanisms of influence” (e.g. clientelism and patronage), and to their adscription to broader spaces of sociability (e.g. political parties and networks of affinity), our intention is to examine the function that public image played in the survival (and decline) of political elites. By focusing on a scandal that affected one of the great press baron dynasties in Barcelona, the article will uncover the historical transformation of moral values concerning the values of legitimacy and authority, and at the same time examine how the growing importance of public opinion and the press profoundly transformed routine liberal politics. In this way, scandals will be used as an heuristic tool to renew the study of elites based on an interdisciplinary perspective that combines cultural and media history.