Bystrova A.S., Daugavet A.B., Duka A.V., Kolesnik N.V., Nevsky A.V., Tev D.B. Infra-Resources of Regional Political Elites. South-Russian Journal of Social Sciences, 2020, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 6-25.

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.