RUSSIAN POLITICAL ELITE MOBILITY: SPECIFICS, FORMS AND STAGES

Abstract

Social mobility is an integral social process naturally manifesting itself in the course of socio-political development. One of the founders of the concept of “multidimensional mobility” P. A. Sorokin aptly noted that in modern society the movement of an individual and social object or value which make up the essence of the mobility process are interconnected and cover various spheres of social life. The political subsystem of society and the segments operating within its boundaries, including the political elite, are no exception here. The progressive, stable and innovative development of modern society is impossible without updating its subsystems, primarily the political one, which, in turn, directly depends on the  political elite renewal, the arrival of new politicians. With this in mind, the author dwells, first of all, on the definition and analysis of the basic features of political elite mobility. It is also noted, that some recently published research works considered elite mobility a type close to political circulation, or a regrouping of the ruling elite. However, the author believes that the process of political elite mobility cannot be reduced to a kind of political circulation only. The mobility of the political elite is a process of transformation of the elite personnel potential, a form of social and political mobility, of both progressive and transitive varieties, contributing to the replenishment of the elite with new political actors who change their positions. This process is close to circulation, but it is neither a change of elites nor, at the same time, leading to a systemic elite renewal. Under normal conditions, it indicates a certain modification of the political elite (in relation to the ruling elite group) and partly spontaneously objective transformation (regarding the non-ruling, counter-elite). The author considered the specifics and forms of political elite mobility, based on the analysis of the biographies of 685 political elite representatives, including both members of the ruling elite group (heads of the executive, legislative and judicial authorities of the federal level), and the counter-elite (leaders and leadership of leading political parties, social movements and organizations).

The results of the author’s analysis of the biographies of 685 political elite representatives allowed to identify and characterize such forms of elite political mobility as linear-traditional and transitional (liminal), including forms identified according to the criteria of levels, manifestation forms and activity fields.