“…164–165). I build on Driver’s critique, arguing that elites – here, federal agencies, courts, and politicians – are composed of multiple subgroups and individuals, with divergent interests, subject to pressures from other elites, resulting in what I term “conflicts of interests.” In conversation with recent scholarship on disagreements, fragmentation, competition and alliance‐building within and among corporate and political elites (e.g., Bull & Aguilar‐Støen, 2019; Genç, 2021; McDoom, 2014; Raleigh & Dowd, 2018; Sveinsdóttir et al, 2021), I use ethnography to analyse elites as assemblages held together – and split apart – by ideologies and emotions. I agree with Driver that elite interests may not be based solely in “raw material self‐interest” but may involve “concepts like honor, altruism, justice, and morality,” (2011, p. 169) and, I suggest, discourses, cultural norms, institutional missions, and empathy.…”