Infra-Resources of Regional Political Elites | South-Russian Journal of Social Sciences
Infra-Resources of Regional Political Elites
Vol. 21 (2020) No. 2, Regional and Local Policy
Vol. 21 (2020) No. 2
Regional and Local Policy

Infra-Resources of Regional Political Elites

Bystrova A.S.
Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences — a branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
ORCID ID 0000-0001-6573-111X
Daugavet A.B.
Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences — a branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
ORCID ID 0000-0002-1847-500X
Duka A.V.
Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences — a branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
ORCID ID 0000-0003-1748-7145
Kolesnik N.V.
Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences — a branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
ORCID ID 0000-0003-2323-6799
Nevsky A.V.
Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences — a branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
ORCID ID 0000-0002-1206-8569
Tev D.B.
Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences — a branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
ORCID ID 0000-0001-5442-7585
PDF (Russian)
https://doi.org/10.31429/26190567-21-2-6-25
https://doi.org/10.31429/26190567-21-2-6-25

How to Cite Array

Bystrova A.S., Daugavet A.B., Duka A.V., Kolesnik N.V., Nevsky A.V., Tev D.B. (2020) Infra-Resources of Regional Political Elites. South-Russian Journal of Social Sciences, 21 (2), pp. 6-25. DOI: 10.31429/26190567-21-2-6-25 (In Russian)
Submission Date 2020-05-18
Accepted Date 2020-06-20
Published Date 2020-11-11

Copyright (c) 2020 Алла Сергеевна Быстрова, Александра Борисовна Даугавет, Александр Владимирович Дука, Наталья Владимировна Колесник, Андрей Владимирович Невский, Денис Борисович Тев

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The article analyzes one of the aspects of the regional political elites’ resourse potential on the basis of an empirical study of ten Russian regions. The latter are deputies of regional legislatures, as well as regional members of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. The structural and biographical method was used to examine the database of 650 persons’ biographies. The earlier data (651 entries from 2010 and 606 entries from 2015) are also used to compare the results. The subject of the research is the elites’ infra-­resources understood as characteristics and conditions that allow power groups to effectively use various means of influence. The research dwells upon the educational background of the elite community members and their embeddedness in the region. A change in the educational background has been registered. While in the late Soviet and post-perestroyka times preference was given to technical education, in recent years economic, managerial and military types of education are dominant. On the whole, the level of education among regional political elite is high. Endogenousness, as an important factor in the cohesion or integration of regional elites, has the potential to reduce conflict and the involvement of members of the elite community in the solution of region-wide problems. This figure varies considerably among the federated entities. On the basis of data on place of birth, higher education and place of previous work we built the index «Endogenous core of regional elite». We assume that this indicator is closely linked to the cohesion or integration of regional policymakers. The sparseness varies from 3% to 57%. The data obtained allow making probabilistic predictions about the efficiency of elite activity.

Keywords

regional political elites, deputies, infra-­resources, education, embeddedness, endogeneity, cohesion, recruiting, mobility

References

  1. Aberbach, J. D., Putnam, R. D., Rockman, B. A. (1981). Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press.
  2. Andrushchak, G. V., Gohberg, L. M., Kovalyova, N. V., Kuzminov, Ya. I. (Eds.) (2014). Obrazovaniye v tsifrakh: 2014: kratkiy statisticheskiy sbornik [Education in Figures: A Short Statistical Compendium: 2014]. Moskva.: NIU VSHE.
  3. Barsukova, S., Zvyagintsev, V. (2006). Mekhanizm “politicheskogo investirovaniya”, ili Kak i zachem biznes uchastvuyet v vyborakh i oplachivayet partiynuyu zhizn’ [Mechanism of Political Investment, or How and What for Russian Business Takes Part in Elections and Covers the Expenses of Party Life]. Polis. Politicheskie issledovaniya [Polis. Political Studies], 2, 110–121. DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2006.02.09.
  4. Best, H. (2010) Associated Rivals: Antagonism and Cooperation in the German Political Elite. In H. Best & J. Higley (Eds.) Democratic Elitism: New Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (pp. 97–116). Leiden, The Netherlands; Boston: Brill.
  5. Borovskaya, M. A., Gohberg, L. M., Kuzminov, Ya. I. (Eds.) (2019). Obrazovaniye v tsifrakh: 2019: kratkiii statisticheskiii sbornik [Education in Figures: a Short Statistical Compendium: 2019]. Moskva.: NIU VSHE.
  6. Burnham, J. (1943). The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom. New York: The John Day Company.
  7. Bystrova, A., Duka, A., Kolesnik, N., Nevskiy, A., Tev, D. (2008). Rossiyskiye regional’nyye elity: innovatsionnyy potentsial v kontekste globalizatsii [Russian Regional Elites: Innovative Potential in the Context of Globalization]. In I. I. Eliseeva (Ed.) Globalizatsiya v rossiyskom obshchestve: sb. nauch. trudov [Globalization in Russian Society: a Collection of Scientific Papers] (pp. 99–243). Spb: Nestor-Istoriya.
  8. Dolgopolov, D. (2018, October 1). Eksperty proyekta “Goszatraty”: bol’she poloviny sredstv goszakaza v regionakh Rossii poluchayut mestnyye postavshchiki [Experts of the “Goszatraty” Project: Over Half of the State Order Funds in the Regions of Russia are Received by Local Suppliers]. 7x7. Novosti, mneniya, blogi [7x7. News, Opinions, Blogs]. Retrieved from https://7x7-journal.ru/articles/2018/10/01/eksperty-proekta-goszatraty-bolshe-poloviny-sredstv-goszakaza-v-regionah-rossii-poluchayut-mestnye-postavshiki
  9. Dorling, D. (2010). The Return to Elitism in Education. Soundings, 44, 35–46.
  10. Dye, T. R., Zeigler, L. H. (1984). Demokratiya dlya elity: Vvedeniye v amerikanskuyu politiku [The Irony of Democracy: An Uncommon Introduction to American Politics]. Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literature.
  11. Engelstad, F. (2018). Models of Elite Integration. In H. Best & J. Higley (Eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (pp. 439–457). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  12. Federal’naya sluzhba gosudarstvennoy statistiki [Federal State Statistics Service] (2010). Vserossiyskaya perepis’ naseleniya 2010 goda [All-Russian Population Census 2010]. Retrieved from https://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/perepis2010/croc/perepis_itogi1612.htm
  13. Finansovy universitet pri Pravitel’stve RF [Financial University of the Government under the Russian Federation] (2014). Reytingi vuzov po formirovaniyu predstaviteley elity gosudarstvennogo upravleniya v Rossii [Rankings of Universities by Education of Elites of State Administration of Russia — 2014]. Retrieved from http://www.old.fa.ru/news/Documents/GovElite.pdf.
  14. Gaman-Golutvina, O. V. (June 2, 1999). Terrarium yedinomyshlennikov [Terrarium of Like-minded People]. Nezavisimaya gazeta [Independent Newspaper].
  15. Gaman-Golutvina, O. V. (2016). Politicheskiye elity kak ob’’yekt issledovaniy v otechestvennoy politicheskoy nauke [Political Elites as an Object of Research in National Political Science]. Politicheskaya nauka [Political Science], 2, 38–73.
  16. Giddens, A. (2003). Ustroyeniye obshchestva: Ocherk teorii strukturatsii [The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration]. Moscow: Akademicheskiy proyekt.
  17. Granovetter, M. (2004). Ekonomicheskoye deystviye i sotsial’naya struktura: problema ukorenennosti [Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness]. In V. V. Radayev (Ed.) Zapadnaya ekonomicheskaya sotsiologiya: chitatel’ sovremennoy klassiki [Western Economic Sociology: Reader of Modern Classics] (pp. 131–158). Moscow: ROSSPEN.
  18. Gromov, A. D., Platonova, D. P., Semyonov, D. S., Pyrova, T. L. (2016). Dostupnost’ vysshego obrazovaniya v regionakh Rossii [Availability of Higher Education in the Regions of Russia]. Moscow: HSE.
  19. Hartmann, M. (2010). Elites and Power Structure. In S. Immerfall, G. Therborn (Eds.) Handbook of European Societies. Social Transformations in the 21st Century (p. 291–323). Berlin; New York: Springer.
  20. Hicks, A., Misra, J. (1993). Political Resources and the Growth of Welfare in Affluent Capitalist Democracies, 1960–1982. American Journal of Sociology, 99(3), 668–710.
  21. Hoffmann-Lange, U. (2018). Theory-Based Typologies of Political Elites. In H. Best & J. Higley (Eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (pp. 53–68). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  22. Huskey, E. (2010). Elite Recruitment and State-Society Relations in Technocratic Authoritarian Regimes: The Russian Case. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 43(4), 363–372.
  23. Isayev, D. P., Trapsh, N. A. (2016). Upravlencheskaya elita sovetskikh i rossiyskikh regionov v rakurse transformiruyushcheysya professional’noy identichnosti [Managerial Elite of Soviet and Russian Regions from the Perspective of Transforming Professional Identity]. Gumanitarnyye i yuridicheskiye issledovaniya [Humanities and Law Studies], 4, 49–57.
  24. Kolesnik, N. V. (2019). Obrazovatel’nyye trayektorii rossiyskoy elity: regional’naya proyektsiya [The Educational Trajectories of the Russian Elite: a Regional Projection]. Mir Rossii [Universe of Russia], 4, 30–48.
  25. Kryshtanovskaya, O. (2019). Elita v setyah: novye formy obratnoy svyazi v tsyfrovuyu epohu [Elite in Social Networks: New Forms of Feedback in the Digital Age]. Tsyfrovaya sotsiologiya [Digital Sociology], 2(2), 4–11. DOI 10.26425/2658-347X-2019-2-4-11.
  26. London, B., Anderson, K. L. (1985). Population Density, Elites, and the Destribution of Infrastructural Resources in Thailand. The Sociological Quarterly, 26(2), 235–249.
  27. Meisel, J. H. (1962). The Myth of the Ruling Class: Gaetano Mosca and the “Elite”. With the first English Translation of the Final Version of “The Ruling Class”. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
  28. Mills, C. W. (1959). Vlastvuyushchaya elita [The Power Elite]. M.: Izd-vo inostr. lit-ry.
  29. Putnam, R. (1996). Chtoby demokratiya srabotala: Grazhdanskiye traditsii v sovremennoy Italii [Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy]. Moscow: Ad Marginem.
  30. Putnam, R. D. (1976). The Comparative Study of Political Elites. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
  31. Rogers, M. F. (1974). Instrumental and Infra-Resources: The Bases of Power. American Journal of Sociology, 79(6), 1418–1433.
  32. Semenova, V. V., Chernysh, M. F., Sushko, P. E. (Eds.) (2019). Sotsial’naya mobil’nost’ v uslozhnyayushchemsya obshchestve: ob’’yektivnyye i sub’’yektivnyye aspekty [Social Mobility in an Increasingly Complex Society: Objective and Subjective Aspects]. Moscow: FNISTS RAN.
  33. Shestopal, Ye. B., Seleznyova A. V. (Eds.) (2012). Chelovecheskiy kapital rossiyskikh politicheskikh elit. Politiko-psikhologicheskiy analiz [Human Capital of Russian Political Elites. Political and Psychological Analysis]. Moscow: RAPN; ROSSPEN.
  34. Starostina, Yu. (26 February, 2020). Schetnaya palata nazvala Chechnyu liderom regional’nogo protektsionizma [The Accounting Chamber Named Chechnya as the Leader of Regional Protectionism]. RBK [Russian Business Channel]. Retrieved from https://www.rbc.ru/economics/26/02/2020/5e55460d9a79472e99363438.
  35. Sumner, W. G. (1998). Narodnye obychai. Issledovaniye sotsiologicheskogo znacheniya obychayev, maner, privychek, nravov i etiki [Folkways]. Rubezh [Frontier], 12, 10–32.
  36. Tev, D. B. (2016). Federal’naya administrativnaya elita Rossii: obrazovatel’nyye kharakteristiki [Russia’s Federal Administrative Elite: Educational Characteristics]. Mir Rossii [Universe of Russia], 3, 76–96.
  37. Vitkovskaia, T. (2019). Politicheskoye prostranstvo promyshlennyh gorodov Urala: krupnye predpriyatiya v politike i upravlenii [Political Space of the Industrial Cities of the Ural Region: Large Enterprises in Policy and Management]. Vlast i elity [Power and Elites], 6(1), 197–215. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31119/pe.2019.6.1.9.