The elite hunter is back. Hanspeter Kriesi once annoyed the powerful of Switzerland with his studies. Today he says: "The SVP is not a danger to democracy."

Hanspeter Kriesi researched the functioning of the Swiss elite between 1970s and 1980s, focusing on measuring power through social science methods rather than political polemics. His research involved interviewing influential figures to rank the most powerful men in Switzerland, with the top position held by a civil servant. Kriesi's work suggested that the previously understood structure of the Swiss elite, characterized by a sense of distributed power among institutions, was no longer accurate. The study revealed that influence resided more within associations and administrative networks than in parliamentary politics. The resulting ranking highlighted representation from various groups, including freedom-thinkers, business representatives, and specific social demographics, with the most influential positions often being held by civil servants. Later developments saw this elite structure evolve as political dynamics shifted, leading to a fragmentation of power blocs.

The narrative traces the shift from a perception of an elite ruled by consensus to the reality of a "cronyocracy" embedded within administrative and association networks. The key tension lies between the objective measurement of power presented by Kriesi’s empirical work—which revealed a specific distribution of influence—and the subjective, self-protective narratives of the elite regarding their status. When Kriesi sought to imprint this ranking, particularly naming Jolles as number one, the resistance from his supervisors indicates that challenging the established hierarchy carried institutional risk, suggesting a desire to maintain the existing power dynamic rather than engage with the proposed structural critique. The ultimate consequence is the subsequent collapse of this perceived consensus following major political upheavals in the 1990s, leading to fragmentation and a shift from centralized consensus to polarized public debate. Kriesi's persistent optimism, which frames the contemporary struggle as a cultural one concerning migration and sovereignty rather than an imminent democratic end, suggests an attempt to anchor change in rational structures, even while acknowledging profound systemic decay. The pattern of resistance—by silencing the findings or re-sorting names alphabetically—demonstrates how power structures actively manage knowledge that threatens their cohesion.