The Elites of International Criminal Justice: Complementing and Challenging the State

Abstract

Criminal law enforcement was long considered the sovereign domain of the bureaucratic state.
However, since the end of the Cold war, states have created international criminal courts tasked with enforcing international criminal law. These courts are part of a wider field of international criminal justice in which different elites work to support, promote or critique this enforcement. We know relatively little about these elites and how they deploy different forms of power to impact international criminal justice. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and based on a multiple correspondence analysis with 64 modalities, this article contributes a critical analysis of 365 elite agents in the field of international criminal justice. Three dimensions shape distinctions between subgroups of this elite: The first dimension separates elites with practical expertise from those involved in research and academia; the second structures the relationship between agents with high volumes of different types of capital from those that rely more on specialized expertise; and the third differentiates those with political capital from those without it. These distinctions are embodied in elites that hold both generic and field-specific capital, and have roots in national, transnational and international institutions and organizations. Here their professional capital gives them access to different power resources. The deployment of these power resources shape whether criminal law enforcement outside of the state complements and challenges state power.

Keywords: Elites, international political sociology, sociology of law, international criminal justice