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There are studied political, social and other grounds of formation of the Transdniestrian political elite and civil society as self-sustained political phenomena. These institutes have been developing not isolatedly but in the framework of those political processes that were typical for the region during the period of its establishment and existence in different social and political conditions. There are summarized and analyzed different aspects of the Ukrainian factor impact over these processes as by direct influence of the Ukrainian political elite and civil society, as well as in the context of ideological concepts formulated in the Ukrainian political discourse during a long period of time. Concrete methods of the Ukrainian political class impact over the Transdniestrian political elite and civil society are also presented. A very special activity of the Ukrainian side could be seen up to 2014, when the Transdniestrian political elite had been considered in Kiev as an independent subject with its own interests that in its turn determined the choice of certain forms of impact. Direct inter-elite communication used to be one of the most meaningful forms of such impact, that allowed to identify the sides’ interests and to find mutually acceptable decisions on the highest and high levels. Since 2014 the situation has changed dramatically. The Ukrainian political elite refuses to recognize the Transdniestrian political elite’s status of a separate (independent) subject and considers it to be a tool for the Russia’s interests’ implementation. There appears a special role of the border factor as of a key resource for pressure over the Transdniestrian political elite, its business interests, options for traffic etc. The same way the Ukrainian side minimized contacts with the Transdniestrian civil society. But at the same time Ukrainians keep for themselves the option for monitoring the Transdniestrian political system. In the Ukrainian political narrative there appears a contradiction, when the Ukrainian political authorities can’t use a symbolic potential of a number of Transdniestrian locations, actual for the modern political ideology of Ukraine only because that these locations are situated on the territory controlled by the Transdniestrian political elite whilst Ukrainians avoid any contacts with the latter.

During the formation of contemporary democracy, its ideologists strived to create a management mechanism that did not resemble monarchy at all, so that to emphasize the radical nature of social-political changes in the transition from pre-industrial to industrial society. The dynastic transfer of power in all its manifestations and at all levels of governance was denounced as outdated, ineffective, and violating the very foundations of the peoples will. The article shows that, despite the initial criticism, dynasties are widespread in contemporary politics. The family is a part of politics and systems of public administration in a truly post-industrial form - as a brand, image, and symbol. The transition to the post-industrial society predetermines a change in the attitude to dynasties and their role not only in politics but also in systems of interaction with the population (electorate). Based on the analysis of other research and authors data on political dynasties at different levels of government in 17 countries, the article proves the changing attitude to political dynasties even within democratic systems. Political dynasties increasingly often contribute to the creation and expansion of social networks, establishing sustainable political ties, ensuring gender presentation in government, etc. There are numerous manifestations of dynasties in countries with different levels of social-economic development (developed and developing) and different types of government (authoritarian and democratic) due to the application of marketing thinking and technologies in politics. Dynasties allow to effectively use the family potential to create and promote political brands, to ensure sustainable social choices of political candidates and parties, to facilitate political socialization of new generations and relative predictability of politicians behavior, who would follow a family line in making important decisions.

Conducting quantitative research (e.g., surveys, a large number of interviews, experiments) with the participation of political elites is typically challenging. Given that a population of political elites is typically small by definition, a particular challenge is obtaining a sufficiently high number of observations and, thus, a certain response rate. This paper focuses on two questions related to this challenge: (1) What are best practices for designing the study? And (2) what are best practices for soliciting the participation of political elites? To arrive at these best practices, we (a) examine which factors explain the variation in response rates across surveys within and between large-scale, multi-wave survey projects by statistically analyzing a newly compiled dataset of 342 political elite surveys from eight projects, spanning 30 years and 58 countries, (b) integrate the typically scattered findings from the existing literature and (c) discuss results from an original expert survey among researchers with experience with such research (n = 23). By compiling a comprehensive list of best practices, systematically testing some widely held believes about response rates and by providing benchmarks for response rates depending on country, survey mode and elite type, we aim to facilitate future studies where participation of political elites is required. This will contribute to our knowledge and understanding of political elites’ opinions, information processing and decision making and thereby of the functioning of representative democracies.

The beginning of the 18th century, the era of the transformations of Peter I, which affected many spheres of the life of Russian society, and, in particular, the restructuring of the upper political elite, were predetermined by the dynamics of the socio-economic and political processes of the XVII century. In other words, in the past changes it is necessary to highlight the objective component, separating it from the subjective characteristics of political figures of a particular historical era and, in particular, the personality of Emperor Peter I. An analysis of the peculiarities of the development of the highest political elite in the XVII century, in the era preceding the Peter the Great’s reforms has been given in the article. It is necessary to be aware of what its portrait was like at the beginning of the transformations, what processes formed it in this way. This allows you to evaluate what are the objective prerequisites for the reformatory actions of Peter I, and what kind of systemic resistance they objectively had to face.

The Brussels-based civil society organizations (CSOs) have been conceived by the EU to act as a bridge between the bureaucratic elites and the citizens of Europe. The institutionalized presence of the major EU-based CSOs has, however, called their legitimacy into question, as exemplified by notions such as ‘revolving doors’ implying homogeneous social, educational, and professional backgrounds shared by both EU officials and CSO leaders. This article therefore asks the following questions: To what extent do the leaders of EU-based CSOs merely reproduce the types of capital that mirror those of the political elites in the so-called ‘Brussels bubble’? To what extent do the CSO leaders bring in other sets of capital and forms of recognition that are independent of the Brussels game? How can we explain differences in the salience of EU capital found across policy areas, types of leadership positions, and types of organizations? Empirically, this article qualitatively analyzes the career trajectories of 17 leaders of EU-based peak CSOs that are active in social and environmental policy areas. Despite the highly integrated and institutionalized characteristics shared by all organizations, we find diversity in the composition of the leaders in terms of the extent to which their career trajectories are embedded in the EU arena.

Justification of the political elite as the key socio-political resource of military security is the purpose of this article. The method of research is structural and functional analysis of mili tary security through the prism of activating its socio-political resource. As a result of the research, a new approach to classifying the functions of modern political elites as a key resource of military security has been proposed. The article concludes that military security today should be understood as all actions of power structures of the military organization, authorities at all levels of government, as well as public organizations, which are aimed at preventing and neutralizing real and possible threats and dangers of military nature. The problem of military security is one of the central issues for any modern state, since, along with the process of universal globalization, the authorities continue to be the guarantor of the rights and freedoms of their people. Military security is considered to be actions of power structures of the military organization, authorities at all levels of government, as well as public organizations. These institutions and structures aim at preventing and neutralizing any possible threat that is military in nature. Military security and its effectiveness depends on the activities and ideology of political elites in identifying, preventing, eliminating or minimizing of threats. Decision-making on military security takes place with the participation of the entire military and political leadership of the country, which is part of the political elite, and with direct or indirect influence of the wider political elites. The article substantiates the main functions of modern political elites. They include geopolitical function (formation and reproduction of geographic and political-communication borders); normalization function (interpretation of the “normality” of the state in the context of war/world); communication function (ability to understand social interests, values and demands). The author comes to the conclusion that the basis of modern domestic political effectiveness is the stable character of the formation and functioning of the elite, i. e. overcoming its internal fragmentation and fragmentation.

Italy stands out as one of the few countries in Europe to have introduced policies linking public funding for political parties to measures to enhance women’s political representation. However, such policies have proved to be flawed, failing to meet the objectives that they aimed to address. Starting from these observations, this paper opens the ‘black box’ of the policy cycle and analyses the stage of policy formulation that led to gendered party finance, to understand why such ill-defined measures were introduced in the first place. In order to do so we retrace, first, the ‘support structure’ for the adoption of gender representation policies, and identify the relevant elite arena in which the policy was initiated. Then, by analysing parliamentary votes and speeches, we analyse the alliances and the conflict that originated around the policy. We find that, if structural conditions prevented the adoption of a more intrusive policy, its poor design seems to have been the result of the weakness of the support structure for the introduction of feminist policies and of the lack of cross-party alliances among women MPs that might otherwise have promoted the legitimacy of affirmative action.

In this article has been analyzed the structural transformation of the regional political and state-administrative elite, on the basis of which it has been identified as a set of independent, professionally trained leadership groups whose activities are oriented towards the realization of nationally regulated regional interests, which clearly correlates with the development of the institutional system. public administration of the state; the vertical and horizontal levels of interaction between the regional and national elites are specified, their status differentiation is revealed. To establish links between the regional and national elites, D. Pinto proposed the idea of the feasibility of establishing channels of vertical ties that characterize their structural transformation and effective functional impact on the processes of strategic development of the state, which include scientists: economic, political, personal.The article deals with the concept of E.Eleisen on the need to justify the three levels of the regional elite (won by the regional power elite, regional political elite, regional elite), classification of approaches to structural analysis of D. Bradley's regional elite (socio-genetic, geographical).The purpose of the article is to analyze the structural transformation of regional political and state-administrative elites.The article also specifies the vertical and horizontal levels of interaction between the regional and national elite, reveals their status differentiation, develops a strategic set of tactical methods for establishing interaction between them, sets out the basic conditions that affect the system of relations between the regional and nation-wide etheric-elite multivariate strategic political functions of the regional elite that ensure the establishment of technological vertical interaction region at the center of systematized model of interaction between regional elite center, which provides internal structural adjustment of cooperation between regional elites. The article considers the relevant conditions that affect the system of vertical links between regional and national elites in the strategic development processes of the state, proposed by S. Edelswell and D. Epstein.

The article aims to reconstruct the concept of the Lithuanian political elite from the citizens’ perspective, focusing on how the concept is perceived, how the political elite is recognized in social life, and what attributes are associated with this particular concept. Applied qualitative in-depth interview data gathering and inductive data analysis approaches demonstrate that the Lithuanian political elite concept consists of two images: legalistic and charismatic. Although these two images are completely divergent, they are intertwined and successfully coexistent in the minds of citizens. The citizens are tending to apply either a legalistic or charismatic image depending on the circumstances: the legalistic image is applied in recognizing and describing the political elite as an externally existing referent; meanwhile, the charismatic image is applied in building up the normative political elite portrait.

The problem of sanctions effectiveness as a means of a regime change is one of the key issues for researchers in the field of sanctions policy. The case of U.S. and UN sanctions against Iraq is one of the most vivid examples of how sanctions can be effective in terms of limiting the undesirable international behavior of a country, while failing to instigate a regime change and severely hampering the social and economic conditions for general population. The article discusses the dynamics of restrictive measures against Iraq during Saddam Hussein regime, the problems of regimes adaptation to international sanctions as well as the evolution of U.S. and UN sanctions against the country. For this purpose the authors reviewed the key UN sanctions documents, as well as the evolution of the main aspects of Iraqi political regime with regards to the power distribution between different groups. The research shows that sanctions aimed at regime change failed to fulfill this task. Despite constantly degrading social and economic conditions, the Saddam Hussein regime demonstrated considerable resilience. This can be attributed primarily to the use of contradictions of complex tribal and religious composition of the country, as well as to oppression and a relatively effective re-distribution of the scarce resources between different power groups. Under these conditions, even the presence of intra-elite conflicts strengthened the regime, rather than weaken it. Another important factor was the very policy of external pressure on the elite and the country as a whole. The severity of restrictive measures was partially offset by the presence of programs such as “Oil-for-Food”, which, given the poor development of the programs themselves, as well as corruption schemes involving its executors, reduced pressure on the regime and, consequently, the effectiveness of sanctions. Thus these factors contributed to the ultimate failure of the sanctions policy towards Iraq in 1990-2003.

Studying the basic principles of the political elite formation in Russia is the cornerstone for understanding the country’s future strategy and its development vector, since the development strategy will depend on those people who will be at the helm of the country’s governance. There is already a dynamic process of rejuvenating the authorities, representatives of Generation X are actively striding along the political career ladder and gain high positions. The analysis of the career background of “young” politicians, the main political career elevators, its catalysts and inhibitors, and the speed of professional formation has been reflected in our research. The research was carried out on the base of biographies of 370 civil servants who, as of March 1, 2019, held the posts of deputy ministers or deputy heads of federal departments. Biographies were taken from open sources and were digitized in a database. The study examined the career paths of politicians, on the base of which it is possible to allocate the key institutions of the political elite formation and political career elevators.

Maqolada o‘zbek xalqining uzoq yillar davomida liberal islohotlardan holi bo‘lgan tuzim tarkibida bo‘lishi oqibatida milliy ong, siyosiy madaniyat, qadryatlar sohalarida rivojlangan davlatlardan ortda qolish sabablari ko‘rib chiqilgan. Muallif tomonidan bu sabablar millatning taroqqiyoti yo‘lidagi to‘siqlar sifatida ko‘rilib, ularga maxkuraviy taxdid sifatida baho berilgan. Maqolada o‘zbek millatining mafkurasiga nisbatan taxdid xisoblangan belgilarga nisbatan qarashlarni liberallashtirish (muammoni tan olish, dushman obrazlaridan vos kechish, natijani emas muammoni ko‘rish, ularda o‘z-o‘zini isloh qilish ehtiyojini ko‘rish) orqali kurash yo‘lini ishlab chiqish zarurati ilgari suriladi., The article discusses the reasons why the Uzbek people lag behind developed countries in the field of national consciousness, political culture and values, due to the fact that for many years the Uzbek people were part of a system devoid of liberal reforms. The author sees these reasons as obstacles to the development of the nation, and assesses them as an ideological threat. The article argues the need to develop a way of struggle through the liberalization of views (recognition of the problem, abandoning the image of the enemy, seeing the problem, not the result, seeing the need for self-reform) on the symbols of the Uzbek nation, which are considered a threat to the ideology.

The phenomenon of digitalization from a sociological point of view has been considered. The influence of digitalization as a driving force has been revealed both on the life of society and on the methods of its study. The most common methods of the new branch of sociology, called digital sociology, have been given. Existing advantages and disadvantages of these methods have been described. Special attention has been made to the application of these methods in political elite’s research and examples of their usage in scientific researches have been adduced.

This article compares digital arenas such as Twitter with the principles prescribed by the bourgeois public sphere, to examine how close or far these arenas are from Habermas’ original concept. By focusing on one of the criteria, the current influence of elites on political debate, it discusses the Habermasian principles of general accessibility and non-dominance of the elites as prerequisites for a functioning public sphere. This study finds that even though there are few access restrictions on Twitter and despite the fact that no one, in principle, is excluded from the platform, there is no apparent elimination of privileges and the elites maintain their elite status within its borders. Methodologically, the article relies on empirical research of hashtagged exchanges on Twitter during the General Elections in the United Kingdom in 2015. Through the mapping of Twitter as a synthesis of dialogic arenas, it explores the elite-focused discourse and the vocal actors in the stream, underscoring that the presence of the elites, even in an indirect way. Drawing on these elements, the article argues for a reconceptualization of the normative perception of the public sphere, suggesting the notion of exclusion is a complex issue that includes expanding notions of publics to also include those topics being discussed. Finally, it focuses on the significance of journalism in relation to political dialogue and argues that the move towards less elite-centered arenas largely depends on journalism.

For Russia, as a multicultural and multi-confessional state, ethnic and religious factors play an important role in state building and identity formation of its citizens. The post-Soviet history of the Russian Federation has demonstrated their importance in shaping the political identity of Russian regions, especially in the national republics. Thus, for many republics with Muslim population, Islam becomes one of the most important components of everyday life, while for the local elites it is an element of formation of the region's identity policy. The case study of the Republic of Tatarstan is intended to show the factors and incentives for the actualization of the religious factor in the life of the local community and in the political structure of the region. The research, conducted with the help of historical and sociological methods, traces the dynamics of the religious factor: a) at the level of mass consciousness of the Tatar Muslim community; b) at the ideological level. The latter includes the activities of the political and spiritual elites of the region, as well as external influences(Russian domestic and foreign policy, Islamic globalization) on the use and interpretation of the Islamic factor.

Do rebel elites who gain access to political power through power-sharing reward their own ethnic constituencies after war? The authors argue that power-sharing governments serve as instruments for rebel elites to access state resources. This access allows elites to allocate state resources disproportionately to their regional power bases, particularly the settlement areas of rebel groups' ethnic constituencies. To test this proposition, the authors link information on rebel groups in power-sharing governments in post-conflict countries in Africa to information about ethnic support for rebel organizations. They combine this information with sub-national data on ethnic groups' settlement areas and data on night light emissions to proxy for sub-national variation in resource investments. Implementing a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, the authors show that regions with ethnic groups represented through rebels in the power-sharing government exhibit higher levels of night light emissions than regions without such representation. These findings help to reconceptualize post-conflict power-sharing arrangements as rent-generating and redistributive institutions.

В современном обществе назревает необходимость повышения эффективности системы рекрутирования региональных политических элит, учитывая огромное влияние данной социальной группы на результативность развития как региона, так и всей страны. Объясняется это во многом стратегически важными позициями, которые занимает политическая элита в общественной структуре. Речь идет не только о концентрации властных ресурсов. Политические элиты определяют стратегическую направленность политического процесса, динамику развития всех сфер общественной жизни, формируют политическое пространство., In modern society, there is a need to increase the effectiveness of the recruitment system of regional political elites, given the huge influence of this social group on the effectiveness of the development of both the region and the entire country. This is largely due to the strategically important positions that the political elite occupies in the public structure. It is not only about the concentration of power resources. Political elites determine the strategic direction of the political process, the dynamics of the development of all spheres of public life, and form the political space.

Economic models of democratic decision-making tend to assume that voters have preferences and politicians adjust their platforms to conform to voter preferences. However, the direction of causation (mostly) goes the other way. Political elites offer policy platforms and voters adopt the policy preferences of their political anchors. Because the choices of individual voters do not affect aggregate political outcomes, voters tend to vote expressively, and might vote for outcomes they would not choose if the choice were theirs alone. The concept of expressive preferences is well-established. This paper takes the next step by explaining how voters form their expressive preferences. Expressive preferences tend to be anchored in a political identity associated with a candidate, party, or ideology, and people's political preferences on most issues are derived from their anchor preferences, which are defined by political elites.

This research aims to find how the number of political representation of Dayak ethnic in central Kalimantan increased in the 2009 election where in 1999 election, they only had low political representation. Data in this research were collected using qualitative method. Data were obtained through in-depth interview, literature study, and documentation study. A number of political elite from Dayak ethnic in Central Kalimantan was used as a key informant and indigenous community leader was used as a supportive informant. This research found that in 1999-2004 election, political education was still targeted for creating political awareness in the segmentation of political elite. Political elite had just worked optimally in 2009 election by raising social and economic issues in the internal of Dayak ethnic as a tool to achieve collective identity in the election.

The socio-political processes developed in Georgia in the 90s of the twentieth century led to the political transformation of the country. The political changes that began during this period led to the ideological and value transformation of elite structures, including procedural changes in the mechanisms of elite circulation. All this was reflected in the country's domestic and foreign policy.In Georgian reality, the main part of the society is focused on a specific political figure, however, the elite groups united around this leader differ from each other in their values and ideological orientation. At the same time, all post-Soviet political leaders followed different paths of accumulating social and political capital, which became an important component of developing their individual political charisma.The article discusses the features of 4 political leaders of post-Soviet Georgia (Z. Gamsakhurdia, E. Shevardnadze, M. Saakashvili, B. Ivanishvili) and the political processes related to them.

The article examines the modern authoritarian regime, considers its characteristics and manifestations. The author gives an overview of modern authoritarian regimes. The purpose of this article is to determine the nature and features of the authoritarian regime, as a kind of political regime, as well as the reasons that lead to its emergence or maintenance in the country. It is noted, that the authoritarian regime is not an evolutionary form of state development, it is always a logical consequence of the socio-political processes taking place in the country. It is noted, that it appears against the background of breakthrough processes, when the political system of the state needs changes, but these changes occur under the influence of the political elite, not society, which in turn allows us to identify the preconditions for an authoritarian regime in the state. It is stated, that the authoritarian regime is not an evolutionary form of state development, it does not provide high-quality succession of power, it is unable to offer new trends and transformations of public life due to the inability of one person to change their worldview, adapting to social demands and processes. It is noted, that most authoritarian countries do not proclaim, do not identify themselves in this way, but on the contrary try to position themselves as countries that promote democratic values. Authoritarian regime as such is not perceived by most countries in the world, as it is characterized by unstable, non-transparent and unpredictable development of socio-economic and socio-political processes. The dominance of liberal democracy in the tradition of economic relations demonstrates the tendency of socio-political preferences of most business elites to operate in the conditions of projected democratic regimes. It is concluded, that the authoritarian regime is based on the imperative planting of those values that will contribute to the maintenance of power, and therefore dominated by state ideology, which is planted by the forces and means of state propaganda. Citizens are deprived not only of real influence on the formation of state policy, but also of tools for supervision and control over the activities of the state apparatus

This article analyses why the political transformations following the Arab Spring took different paths in Egypt and Tunisia. Based on data from field interviews conducted between 2012 and 2018 as well as press analyses, we argue that a strong factor why Tunisia was more successful in establishing democracy is that it had a higher level of inter-elite trust. Moreover, we show that the establishment of inter-elite trust depends on the presence of functioning trust-building arenas during the transition and the early democratic consolidation period. To investigate the role of inter-elite trust, we develop a theoretical-analytical framework, drawing on Arab Spring literature, transition theory, scholarship on democratic consolidation, and research on trust.

This work explores Esiaba Irobi’s Cemetery Road (2009) and Ojo Rasaki Bakare’s Once Upon a Tower (2000) with a view to examining the manner in which Irobi and Bakare represent the Nigerian academic elite in the chaos that hobbles Nigerian public universities and the country in general. Through Louis Althusser’s idea of Ideological State Apparatuses, the work analyses how the two playwrights deploy character, setting and other dramatic elements to capture ways in which the Nigerian academic elite, especially those in Nigerian public universities, promote disorder in the polity. The two plays show that some members of the Nigerian academic elite are involved in using undemocratic methods for personal gains and to create anomie in universities and in Nigerian society at large. The work reveals that the academic elite, as represented in the two plays, are not different from the corrupt Nigerian political elite because both are preoccupied with violent and corrupt acts, thereby undermining peace, stability and development in the country. It contends that the two playwrights’ representations of the Nigerian academic elite are important not only because they challenge the assumed binary opposition between the Nigerian ruling elite and the Nigerian academic elite, but also because they illuminate the complexity of the recurring chaos in Nigerian universities and the country in general. Consequently, the playwrights invite the Nigerian academic elite to engage in critical self-interrogation, genuine scholarly and community-based activities that are geared towards real national development.

How do mainstream political executives cue their politicised constituencies on European integration? Moving beyond static expectations that EU politicisation induces executives to either undermine, defuse or defend integration, this article theorises executives’ incentives under different configurations of public and partisan Euroscepticism in their home countries. Expectations are tested on the sentiment and complexity that executives attach to European integration in almost 9,000 public speeches delivered throughout the Euro Crisis. It is found that national leaders faced with sceptical public opinion and low levels of partisan Euroscepticism rhetorically undermine integration, whereas European Commissioners faced with similar conditions are prone to defend it. These responses intensify disproportionally with growing public Euroscepticism, but are moderated by Eurosceptic party strength in surprising ways. When such challenger parties come closer to absorbing the Eurosceptic potential in public opinion, executive communication turns more positive again but also involves less clear rhetorical signals. These findings move beyond existing uniform expectations on mainstream responses to Eurosceptic challenges and highlight the relevance of different domestic configurations of EU politicisation.

The author has set as his goal the identification of significant political features in state corporate structures reflecting the existing model of state corporatism in the political space ofRussia. The author considers such factors as the state character of corporate structures, the elitist nature of corporate structures, the solution of political tasks and the provision of power, the low efficiency of activities, and the influence of these factors on the transformation of relations in the political space between senior officials and representatives of corporate structures.

The article analyzes contemporary political processes in the newly independent states of post-Soviet Central Asia. The peculiarities of functioning of their centralized political systems, as well as the interaction of the executive (the president and the government) and the legislative (parliament) branches of power are considered in the context of the authoritarian type of government that prevails in most countries of the region. Attention is drawn to the use by the ruling elites for the purposes of political mobilization of procedures for electoral democracy (elections, etc.), which is mostly of a formal nature. The place in the power structures of both officially recognized political parties and opposition ones is defined, which are divided mainly into secular and religious (Islamist). Informal political structures that function in a number of cases in the form of regional communities, territorial or ethnic clans are considered in the article as a specific characteristic of Central Asian societies. Based on the analysis of the political process in the Central Asian countries, it was concluded that the whole period of post-Soviet transit has come to an end and that authoritarian but consolidated regimes of a new type are emerging in the region; they form a sovereign statehood and an independent foreign policy strategy.

The personalization of politics has become a central concern in political science. This is also true for parliamentary governments, where the Prime Minister has allegedly acquired an increasing relevance. Nonetheless, a key question remains unanswered: How can we estimate the Prime Minister Policy Autonomy (PMPA) in parliamentary governments? Moreover, what are the determinants of this autonomy? This article aims to answer these questions by proposing a novel and easily replicable index of PMPA, based on data from an analysis of Prime Ministers’ and members of Parliament’s parliamentary speeches, and specifically from cosine similarity analysis. In this article, we explore PMPA by focussing on two most different cases of coalition governments, Italy and Germany between 1994 and 2014. A multilevel regression analysis shows that coalition-related factors strongly influence PMPA, party-related factors are somewhat relevant, and the Prime Minister-related factor (its selectorate) does not have a significant impact on such autonomy.

The US political system is repeatedly subjected to significant deviations from those constitutional provisions that determine the relationship between the three branches of power. The scientists use such phrases as «Jacksonian democracy» or «Imperial presidency» to illustrate the attempts of American presidents to intervene those issues which constitutionally assigned to the other branches of power. In general, despite these deviations from legally established rules, the elites retained a general consensus on the notion of stable domestic and foreign policies. As the main threat to this stability, the possibility of organizing a revolution from above was considered. However, in November 2016 D. Trump managed to be elected under the slogan of such a revolution, becoming the first the president in the political history of the United States, which has no firm support among the elites. Undoubtedly, such a success illustrated serious problems within American society, that’s why the reasons of the conflict between D. Trump and his opponents could be found first of all in the ideological sphere. The newly elected president proposes a transformation of the fundamental basics that determined the vectors of US foreign and domestic policy in recent decades. In this case, unlike the historical precedents considered in this paper, D. Trump’s criticism goes beyond simple accusations on the pages of the mass media or in statements of the leading representatives of the American political establishment. It takes a form of an acute confrontation between the branches of power and within them. The analysis of this situation is proposed in the article, both from the point of view of political and legal sciences, which could help to make a forecast on the chances of D. Trump to become a winner in this conflict within the American political elite.

Author analyzes the practice of functioning of political elite of modern Russia, the phenomenon of high rating of one of its actors and the crisis of alternative political leaders. The article pays special attention to the existing, in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the breadth of presidential powers. Separately discusses the features of current and in General closed for the controlled companies to the private process of formation of the Russian political elite. According to the author, this process takes the form of selection of candidates by a narrow circle of senior officials for subjective reasons, in connection with which the political elite even more segregated from the controlled companies and rising to a new, unattainable level of elitism. Referring to the existing practice of the presidential elections in Russia in the early 90-ies of XX century to the present focuses on the stagnation of the political opposition, lack of political competition among major political parties and their low electoral support in view of the existing political absenteeism. In the article the author considers the historical context of the formation of elite groups and privileged minorities, and draws attention to features of "technocratic parliamentarism", which is inherent in States with a parliamentary form of government and does not implement at present in Russia, with its prevailing system of governance by public authorities. In conclusion, the special attention of author is turned on the existing in society political absenteeism, latent protest potential and, as a consequence, the request for the renewal of political elites, particularly in the framework of the upcoming presidential elections of the Russian Federation in 2018, the participation of new candidates. According to the author of the inventory of such social demand companies will allow to stop the risks enhance the destructive part of economic and regional political elite, will enhance the possibility of rotation of political elites, strengthen the role of civil society institutions and lead to the reproduction of an authoritative political leaders.

The article provides a theoretical analysis of political elites in small states. The author uses comparative analysis and descriptive approach to demonstrate main challenges that small countries ruling class is facing. The article states that regardless of widespread use of small state concept in political science and international relations theory its definition is still essentially contested. The author elaborates on the quantitative and qualitative approached to the given notion. The conclusion is that small states are not a “small copy” of great powers, and their foreign policy actions are driven by a specific and unique logic. The main feature of this logic is dependency, and asymmetrical relationship with major powers. This shapes the specifics of small state elites’ political preferences and interests. The article highlights the relevancy of theoretical scrutiny of activity and behavior of political elites of small states. Presented analysis of various cases of political elites’ actions and strategies can to contribute to elite theory. Mainly, contribution is possible in the study of interconnection between internal and external (international) political factors that are influencing actions of elite. This area of research is especially relevant at the current stage of elite theory development. Globally, increase in number of small states, expansion of their toolkit of influence in international system, and erosion of boundary between domestic and foreign policy of states can be considered as a burning issue in Political Science. Also “factor of size” in the field of elite studies in different individual states and interstate associations can further contribute to the discussion.

Participation of the church organizations in political process is considered. The Church as an institution takes an active part in international relations. Activity of the religious organizations on the international scene has ambiguous character. They, in a historical retrospective, used policy of interference in internal and in foreign affairs of the states. It is shown that religious institutes are capable to exert impact on policy of the state. Religious organizations have shown and have a contradictory impact on interstate relations. The church organizations tried to be active participants in political life. With the strengthening of secular power, religious organizations have not ceased to use political technologies of pressure on the policies of the ruling class. They changed them and adapted them to new political realities. As a rule, the church as an institution enjoys authority among the population in most countries. The world view of many social groups is still formed under the influence of religious doctrines and concepts. The church, as well as the state, can mobilize the supporters. Many of them are ready to advocate the interests of church in political process. The fate of many political regimes, directly depended on interaction with the leadership of the church. In turn modern political actors try to strengthen own political power by means of religious institute. The ruling class is interested in participation of church in policy. Their cooperation is mutually advantageous. Activization of the church organizations in political process depends on activity of the state. In Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church enjoys popularity. She actively advances interests of the Russian political elite which in turn give to ROC various support. Along with this, the church strives to counteract the spread of Western ideals in the country. Priests actively preach traditional Christian values in the socio-political process. Their influence increases every year.

During the existence of theSoviet Unionthe influence of Islam on politics was minimized. In Soviet times, Islam in the Central Asian republics felt some oppression until the late 1950s. It was due to constant persecution and anti-religious propaganda within the framework of the Soviet policy of atheism. After Khrushchev's thaw there began a reverse process of gradual release of Islam from the underground, which culminated in the era of perestroika and glasnost. The weakening of the central government and the struggle of the foreign forces against theUSSRinstigated the development of radical Islamism in the region. This period was characterized by the revival, politicization and radicalization of Islam.

We studied the effect of events for the recruitment of young people into the federal elite held by the state authorities and the United Russia party over the past 15 years. The article presents advantages and disadvantages of staff projects: "Political Plant", "Youth Primaries" and "Leaders of Russia". As a result of these projects implementation, the concept of “youth” has become essentially blurred. The degree of youth involvement in these projects has increased. But there was no significant influx of young personnel to leading managerial positions through these measures, which reveals an underestimation of the young people’s role in the social and political development of the country by the current elite. Each new project started before the beginning of the next federal election., Изучен опыт проведения органами государственной власти и партии «Единая Россия» мероприятий по рекрутированию молодежи в федеральную элиту на протяжении последних 15 лет. Представлены преимущества и недостатки кадровых проектов: «Политзавод», «Молодежный праймериз» и «Лидеры России». В результате осуществления данных проектов произошло сущностное размывание понятие «молодежь». Увеличился масштаб вовлечения молодежи в представленные проекты. Но значительного притока молодых кадров на ведущие управленческие позиции посредством данных мероприятий не произошло, что свидетельствует о недооценке действующей элитой роли молодежи в общественно-политическом развитии страны. Каждый новый проект начинался перед началом очередных федеральных выборов.

We investigated the relation between economic and social attitudes and the psychological underpinnings of these attitudes in candidates (N = 9515) in the Finnish 2017 municipal elections. In this politically elite sample, right-wing economic attitudes and social conservatism were positively correlated (r = 0.41), and this correlation was predominantly driven by those on the economic left being socially liberal, and vice versa. In terms of underlying psychological processes, consistent with dual process models of political ideology, the anti-egalitarian aspect of social dominance orientation was more strongly associated with right-wing economic attitudes, and the conventionalism and aggression aspects of right-wing authoritarianism with social conservatism. Our results show that even in a non-United States context in which the masses organize their political attitudes on two independent dimensions, these dimensions are moderately aligned among certain parts of the political elite, and that the political attitudes of the political elite can be traced to underlying psychological motivations. We argue that equality concerns could play a role in explaining why the left-right and liberal-conservative dimensions are more strongly aligned among those on the left and those more liberal.

First ladies are increasingly acquiring political capital, influencing governments, and becoming candidates. However, the specialized literature has not documented this trend. In this article, we argue that the involvement of this group of women in the Executive Power makes it necessary to consider them as part of the political elite. To have a better understanding of the political influence of the first ladies, we propose a typology that generates four categories in which we then classify the 88 women who held the position between 1990 and 2016. Las primeras damas están crecientemente adquiriendo capital político, influyendo en gobiernos y lanzándose como candidatas. Sin embargo, la literatura especializada no ha documentado esta tendencia. En este artículo, argumentamos que el involucramiento de este grupo de mujeres en el Poder Ejecutivo amerita que sean consideradas como parte de la élite política. Para tener un mejor entendimiento de la influencia política de las primeras damas, proponemos una tipología que genera cuatro categorías en las que luego clasificamos a las 88 mujeres que estuvieron en el puesto entre 1990 y 2016.

There has been a notable rise of social media in Vietnam's politics in recent years. The use of social media in generating and exchanging content for public consumption has become increasingly complex and sophisticated. The development of social media has led to the public being better informed about key political and economic issues of public concern. Social media is also playing a visible role in the competition among political factions. Increased exposure and public scrutiny has had a great impact on the way the political apparatus operates and the closed-door preparations made by party-state elites to select top leadership. This paper examines the patterns of use of social media and highlights some of its prominent features and roles in Vietnam's politics. I investigate the impact that social media exerts, as well as the constraints on its use for the public.

La discusión sobre desarrollo lleva ya décadas en el ambiente académico internacional. No hay ni siquiera acuerdo sobre cómo éste debe ser definido. En cuanto a cómo avanzar en la senda del desarrollo, el foco se centra en las políticas públicas. Los analistas, sin embargo, se preocupan más por el aspecto de la gestión de las políticas. Esto le resta énfasis a la reflexión sobre las políticas en sí mismas, a sus fundamentos. En este terreno, aparecen las ciencias sociales haciendo su papel. De los hallazgos de sus investigaciones derivan los enfoques teóricos, que pueden ser divergentes. Desde una óptica general, los enfoques que llegan a aplicarse dependen del carácter de las instituciones prevalentes en cada país. Las instituciones pueden ser conservadoras o transformadoras. El que sea vigente uno u otro tipo de instituciones refleja la orientación de la elite política. Esto lleva al dilema ciencia o poder. El poder se separará de la ciencia si logra posición dominante una elite de índole conservadora. Sucederá un cambio político cuando haya un contexto externo favorable al cambio e internamente se configure una elite de cambio con una propuesta sostenible., Discussion on development goes on for decades in the international academic circles. There’s no agreement not even in how it should be defined. As regards how to move forward in the path of development, focus is centered in public policies. Analysts, however, are more concerned about the management of policies. This diminishes thinking on policies themselves, on their foundations. In that area, social sciences turn out to perform their task. Out of their research findings, theoretical approaches are derived, which may be divergent among themselves. From a general point of view, the particular approach which turns out to be applied depends on the character of the institutions prevalent in the particular society. Institutions may be either conservative or transforming. To have one or the other character depends on the political elite orientation. This takes us to the dilemma science or power. Power will disentangle itself from science if a conservative elite succeeds in attaining a dominant position. Political change will take place when there is an external context prone to change and when a domestic elite favourable to change with a sustainable proposal in mind is made up.

A series of crises and traumatic events, such as the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 global financial crisis, seem to have influenced the environment within which modern political leaders act. We explore the scholarly literature on political leadership and crisis since 2008 to evaluate what sorts of questions are being engaged, and identify some new lines of inquiry. We find several scholars are contributing much insight from the perspective of leadership and crisis management. Several analysts are investigating the politics of crisis from a decentralist perspective, focusing on local leadership in response to challenging events. As well, studying how citizens interpret, respond to, or resist leaders’ signals is a developing area of inquiry. While our study reveals some debate about the nature of crisis, and whether the context has changed significantly, most of the scholarship reviewed here holds modern politicians face large challenges in exercising leadership within precarious contexts. (author's abstract)

Politics in democracy and dictatorship is markedly different; democracy and dictatorship are also associated with distinct policy outcomes. Do political regimes also select different leaders, i.e., do democratic leaders have distinct personal backgrounds to those of their peers in dictatorships, do they tend to hold different prior careers and posts while climbing the “greasy pole” of politics? The aim of this paper is to introduce the new data on leaders’ careers in democracy and dictatorship and compare their personal background, experience in politics, careers and significant posts prior to their tenure, and details about their time in office, inter alia. In general, democratic leaders differ from nondemocratic ones in terms of their educational, social and career background. The paper also finds significant differences among leaders in different nondemocratic regimes, and suggests possible venues for further research.

Among the recent literature about leadership and crisis situations two main strands are to be observed: structuralist ones mainly treat political leaders as reactive agents who have relatively little room for maneuver, while constructivist ones put greater emphasis on the opportunities in interpreting crises. Our claim is that there is a third analytical possibility mainly neglected in recent literature that is even more voluntaristic than the constructivist approaches. In this scenario, there is no external shock; leaders do not only interpret, but also "invent" crises. To make our claim plausible, we build a conceptual-descriptive typology of the potential relationships between crisis situations and agency. The typology is founded on Kari Palonen's differentiation between Machiavellian and Weberian types of contingency, but uses his originally conceptual historical argument for analytical purposes. To underpin our theoretical argument, we present short illustrative examples to all three types of crisis scenarios (the structuralist, the constructivist, and the voluntarist one). (author's abstract)

Political leaders are often perceived as unresponsive to the daily concerns of citizens, especially when European integration is concerned. Academic research, however, provides at most mixed evidence for the existence of such a gap. This article tries to shed light on this discrepancy by introducing an alternative measure to study leaders' responsiveness - narrative congruence - and explores the assumption that responsiveness increases leaders' credibility in the eyes of their voters. As narrative congruence is a more intricate measure that captures leaders' and followers' policy preferences and argumentation, it may better capture the gap between their positions and therefore provide a more adequate explanation for citizens' support for their leaders than traditional congruence measures like issue saliency and ideological distance. To provide a first test of this, the technique of cognitive mapping is introduced and used to explore the congruence in beliefs on European integration of four Dutch political leaders and their followers. Although the study finds a significant gap between some leaders and their followers’ narratives on Europe, it finds no evidence that this narrative congruence is related to the credibility of these leaders in the eyes of their followers. (author's abstract)

The paper deals with the range of problems regarding the relation between decisions of political elite in small states and their striving for occupying a certain niche in external (foreign) political environment. The typology of such niches is proposed. The article deals with economic, military, political, and ideological dimensions of political elites' decisions in the Baltic states. The article makes the case of the following hypothesis: the exploitation of the "Russian threat" concept by political elites of the Baltic states is aimed at occupying a special niche within the Euro-Atlantic community. The narrow corridor for political maneuver imposed by strategic imperatives of NATO induces political elites of the Baltic states to attract attention of powerful states, which brings resources, finances and more prominent status. Inciting confrontation with Russia serves as a means for internal political consolidation, proving loyalty towards NATO, and contributes to individual careers of politicians with the EU institutions. The choice of 'conflict model' entails side-effects: slowdown of social and economic development in the long run. The following research inference is made: by means of conflict model which is being realized within external political niche ("gate-keeper" and "missionary" types) political elite of the Baltic states gain additional resources in the middle-term perspective. However, in the long term this political course generally reduces opportunities for political and economic development of small states. In theoretical and methodological dimension the research results confirm productivity of three-level analysis approach towards activity of political elite. The most general level of analysis deals with empire units of international relations which structure the environment for small states' elites actions. At the middle level it is possible scrutinize different varieties of external (foreign) political niches available to a certain small state. The third level of analysis deals with investigation of concrete economic, military, political and ideological decisions of political elite within a certain external (foreign) political niche.

This article considers the legitimacy of political regimes in the Baltic States by analysing three major parameters: confidence in political institutions, level of corruption, and the development of their party systems. The author identifies the major crisis trends in the legitimacy of the political regimes of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The article stresses the problem of legitimacy reproduction resulting from the limited representation of the national party systems. Special attention is paid to compensatory mechanisms used by political elites to ‘artificially’ reproduce legitimacy. It makes sense to analyse the deficit of legitimacy in the Baltic States not only in the context of threats to democratic institutions but also considering weaknesses of public institutions and insufficient resources to ensure stateness. This requires developing a hypothesis about smaller states ‘importing’ legitimacy from larger states and intergovernmental organisations, in whose zone of influence they are included. In other words, the EU and NATO can provide smaller states not only with economic and military resources but also legitimation ‘resources’ using their prestige to support the belief of local residents that there is no alternative to the current political system of social organisation. Legitimacy deficit increases the risks of a rift between political elites in the Baltic States, which can become a prologue to a deep political crisis. In these conditions, compensatory mechanisms cannot be considered as targeted exclusively at broad social strata. They are also aimed at political elites, whose consolidation or ‘encapsulation’ is achieved by exaggerating external threats and resorting to repressive measures in an attempt to develop an ethnonational consensus. These methods are used to ensure self-preservation of the Baltic States political regimes within the current ideological and institutional configuration.

The article considers the methodological foundations of the study of the social dynamics of political elites. The author notes that the problems of changes and development of political elite were widely studied in both classical and modern elitology. The purpose of this article is to show the advantages and disadvantages of different theoretical models in the study of the dynamics of elite groups.

Since Xi Jinping took power in late 2012, analysts have puzzled over how best to define his political trajectory. Is he consolidating power and building a personality cult around himself, or is he strengthening the Party as an organisation? I tackle this issue by focusing on the transformation of personnel policies under Xi. I highlight an increasing concentration of power in the hands of Party leaders at all echelons. At the institutional level, the Party increasingly controls the management and disciplining of officials. At the level of the individual cadres themselves, promotion processes are increasingly managed behind closed doors and less importance is being given to objective criteria for cadre advancement. The age-based rules which structured the promotion of officials and ensured a high level of personnel turnover within the party state are also de-emphasised. I argue that these changes are paving the way for a more clientelist and aging party state.

This paper analyses the interaction of domestic political elites and external donors against the backdrop of Mozambique's decentralisation process. The empirical research at national and local levels supports the hypothesis that informal power structures influence the dynamics of this interaction. Consequently, this contributes to an outcome of externally induced democratisation different to what was intended by external actors. The decentralisation process has been utilised by ruling domestic elites for political purposes. Donors have rather focused on the technical side and ignored this informal dimension. By analysing the diverging objectives and perceptions of external and internal actors, as well as the instrumentalisation of formal democratic structures, it becomes clear, that the ‘informal has to be seen as normal'. At a theoretical level, the analysis contributes to elite-oriented approaches of post-conflict democratisation by adding 'the informal' as an additional factor for the dynamics of external-internal interaction. At a policy level, external actors need to take more into account informal power structures and their ambivalence for state-building and democratisation.

Resumo O presente texto busca sintetizar a discussão de alguns autores sobre a formação e transformação das elites políticas no Equador e o surgimento emancipatório de uma elite política indígena neste país. O objetivo principal foi entender a formação de uma elite indígena intelectual e política no Equador. Trata-se de uma pesquisa predominantemente teórica com base em revisão bibliográfica e consultas a documentos do governo de jornais. A metodologia utilizou métodos de revisão bibliográfica e sistematização de conceitos para a observação de campo durante o doutorado sanduíche no Equador, em 2016. Como resultados alcançados, verificamos como os movimentos sociais e políticos indígenas aparecem no cenário nacional; e finalmente, como se dá a formação de uma elite indígena intelectual e política no Equador. Abstract This article synthesizes the discussion of some actors about the formation and transformation of political elites in Ecuador and the emancipatory rise of an indigenous political elite in this country. The main objective was to understand the formation of a political and intellectual political elite in Ecuador. It is a predominantly theoretical study based on a bibliographic review and consultation of government documents and journals. The methodology used a bibliographic review and systematization of concepts for the field observation conducted during a doctoral fellowship in Ecuador in 2016. The article presents the theme and the context in which the process takes place; the formation and maintenance of elites; and discusses the formation of an indigenous political and intellectual elite in Ecuador, verifying how indigenous political and social movements appear in the national situation.