Bystrova A., Daugavet A., Duka A., Kolesnik N., Nevskiy A., Tev D. Regional’naya politicheskaya elita: basseyn rekrutirovaniya i kar’yera [Regional political elite: careers and pool of recruitment]. Vlast’ i elity [Power and Elites], 2020, 7 (1): 76–122. (In Russian)

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the recruitment pool and career paths of regional politicians. The empirical basis of the study is the biographical database of the political elite of 10 subjects of the Russian Federation (deputies of regional legislatures, as well as deputies of the State Duma and members of the Federation Council representing the regions). The study was carried out using the structural-biographical method, in which the structure of the regional elite groups is studied in connection with the biography of the people composing these groups. As a result, a number of trends in the recruitment of the political elite were identified. The study showed that a significant minority of the regional deputy corps is rooted in the Soviet nomenclature, and also some politicians have experience in serving in law enforcement agencies. There is a noticeable trend of the professionalization of the deputy corps, which, however, is strongly restrained by the fact that most legislators work on the non-full time basis. The bureaucratization of the composition of regional legislatures is expressed, especially of their leading stratum, in which there are many entrants from administrative bodies, primarily of the regional level. One of the most important trends in the recruitment of the political elite is plutocratization, that is, the influx of business representatives into the legislature. The deputy corps is distinguished by a high degree of social closure: it is dominated by people from the “managing stratum”, there are almost no people who occupied “workers'-and-peasants” positions in the post-Soviet period, and people from middle, intermediate social and professional categories are poorly represented.