Reintroducing Vilfredo Pareto

Giovanni de Ghantuz Cubbe is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research interests include political realism and elite theory, as well as democratic elitism, the crisis and transformation of contemporary Western democracies, populism, and Italian and German political thought at the turn of the twentieth century. He is the author of Rechtspopulismus, Nation und Territorium: AfD in Ost- und Westdeutschland, Lega in Nord- und Süditalien (2025), and editor of Robert Michels, L’ascesa del fascismo in Italia e altri scritti tedeschi (1919–1928) (2026).

• Introduction 1. The Social and the Political 2. Derivations and Ideologies 3. Equilibrium and Dynamism 4. The “Few” and the “Many” 5. Sociology and Economism Conclusion: The Relevance and Limits of a Classic

‘Combining philological precision with theoretical sensitivity, the author reconstructs Pareto’s conceptual architecture in a way that is both historically grounded and analytically accessible. Rather than offering a merely historical reading, the book situates Pareto within contemporary debates on elites, democracy, political realism, and ideology, thereby demonstrating the enduring relevance of his work while remaining fully aware of its limits. Even where one may disagree with certain interpretative emphases, the study stands out for its intellectual honesty, conceptual clarity, and remarkable breadth of scholarship.’Maurizio Bach, Professor Emeritus at University of Passau, Germany.‘Classics endure not because they provide all the answers, but because they persist in posing fundamental questions from which we cannot escape. Avoiding both apologetics and ideological dismissal, the author presents a Pareto who continues to challenge us on the role of non-logical elements in social action, the circulation of elites, the relationship between politics and economics, and the dynamics of social change. This is not simply a new interpretation of Pareto, but an original reflection on enduring questions in the social sciences.’Roberta Iannone, Full Professor at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.