"The best way to describe running an Eve alliance is like being a CEO of a major multinational company, except nobody gets paid but a shit ton of work still has to get done." :-)

Basically it's weakly hierarchical -- you can't really compel anyone to do anything, but you can set up a system of incentives to persuade people to do what you want. Don't think there's much egalitarianism because a corp needs to function effectively and direct democracy does not scale.