The data collected on members of the local elites of the three largest city-regions (Basel, Geneva and Zurich) are integrated in the more general OBELIS database on Swiss Elites. Currently, the OBELIS database includes elites from four sectors at the national level: Economic, Political, Administrative and Academic (+ national sociability associations) and covers nine dates: 1890, 1910, 1937, 1957, 1980, 2000, 2010, 2015 and 2020. The elite status of individuals is defined by the position/function held in these four spheres at the date mentioned. A description of all the different samples of the Swiss elites can be consulted on the website. The data allows researchers to understand the elites through a relational analysis (network analysis) to highlight the interrelations between these elites. The data is also suitable to conduct prosopographical analysis.
As for national elites, the identification of local elites of the three largest Swiss city-regions also follows a positional approach by selecting all individuals occupying leading positions in the major local economic, political, cultural and academic institutions for the 7 benchmark years: 1890, 1910, 1937, 1957, 1980, 2000 and 2020.
For the economic sphere we collected information on all the committee members of the regional chambers of commerce as well as directors of the most important companies of the three cities’ leading economic sectors. This includes the major banks and insurance companies for the financial sector; for Basel, all the major textile (until 1937) and chemical-pharmaceutical companies; for Geneva, the major watch-making companies, as well as a few other industrial companies; and for Zurich, all the major companies from the machine industry. The total number of companies varies from 49 in 1890 to 35 in 2020. The smaller sample for the recent period is due to the strong concentration process in all economic sectors, involving mergers and acquisitions as well as bankruptcies. For these companies, all CEOs/general directors and directors’ board members were taken into account. For the political sphere, we included all members of the cantonal (regional) and local (city) parliaments and governments for Geneva and Zurich, whereas in Basel, where the city’s territory fully coincides with the canton, only the members of the cantonal parliament and government were considered. For the academic sphere we include all full and extraordinary (associate) professors of the three cities’ universities until 1957, and, for the more recent dates, a selection of professors according to the occupation of institutional positions or according to their scientific reputation. Finally, the committee members of the three cities’ fine art societies are included as urban elites from the cultural sphere.
