printRecruitment Mechanisms and Effectiveness of the Federal Administrative Elite
Borshchevskiy G.A.
Dr. Sci. (Polit.), Prof., Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia borshchevskiy-ga@ranepa.ru
Borshchevskiy G.A. Recruitment Mechanisms and Effectiveness of the Federal Administrative Elite. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2018. No 9. P. 80-92
In this article we explore the specifics of career and recruitment channels for the senior civil servants (SCS) in Russian federal ministries using methods of document analysis, content analysis of the websites, comparative biographical analysis, regression-correlation and factor analysis. We introduce the concept of the SCS in the Russian practice. We hypothese the recruitment methods and the relationship between the type of career of the SCS and the effectiveness of the ministries, based on a sample of 381 biographies of the active SCS. We show that career bureaucrats and technocrats prevail among the SCS, but the share of political appointees in the ministerial corps is high. The SCS can be refered to as elite of the society by their characteristics. The SCS layer is heterogeneous, and the predominance of the command principle of the SCS recruitment was not confirmed. The ministries, headed by career bureaucrats, successfully implement public programs; the dynamics of development in the sectors they lead are higher. We propose to create in Russia a Service of Senior Civil Servants with the functions of selecting and evaluating the SCS.
Aberbach J. D., Rockman B. A. (2006) The Past and Future of Political-Administrative Relations: Research from “Bureaucrats and Politicians” to “In the Web of Politics” and Beyond. International Journal of Public Administration. No. 12: 977–995.
Andrews R., Downe J., Guarneros-Meza V. (2013) Public Sector Reform in the UK: Views and Experiences from Senior Executives: Country Report. London: Coordination for Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future.
Bourgault J., Dorpe K. van. (2013) Managerial reforms, Public Service Bargains and top civil servant identity. International Review of administrative Sciences. No. 1: 49–70.
Dowding K., Dumont P. (eds.). (2009) The Selection of Ministers in Europe: Hiring and firing. London, New York: Routledge.
Fleischer J., Seyfried M. (2015) Drawing from the bargaining pool: Determinants of ministerial selection in Germany. Party Politics. No. 4: 503–514.
Gaman-Golutvina O.V. (2016) Political elites as an object of research in the national political science. Politicheskaya Nauka [Political Science]. No. 2: 38–73. (In Russ.)
Georgiou I. (2014) Seeing the Forest for the Trees: An Atlas of the Politics-Administration Dichotomy. Public Administration Review. No. 2: 156–75.
Gorshkov M. K. (ed.) (2017) Russian Society and the Challenges of Time. Moscow. (In Russ.)
Groeneveld S., Tummers L., Bronkhorst B., Ashikali T., Thiel van S. (2015) Quantitative Methods in Public Administration: Their Use and Development through Time. International Public Management Journal. No. 1: 61–86.
Hansen M. B., Steen T., Jong M de. (2012) New Public Management, Public Service Bargains and the challenges of interdepartmental coordination: a comparative analysis of top civil servants in state administration. International Review of Administrative Sciences. No. 1: 29–48.
Hartmann M. (2010) Elites and Power Structure. In: Immerfall S., Therborn G. (eds) Handbook of European Societies. Berlin, New York: Springer.
Huskey E. (2010) Pantouflage a la russe: The Recruitment of Russian Political and Business Elites. In: Fortescue S. P. (ed.) Russian Politics from Lenin to Putin. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kryshtanovskaya O. V. (2005) Anatomy of the Russian elite. Moscow. (In Russ.)
Magomedov K. O. (2017) Public administration and civil servants in the field of sociology. Gosudarstvennaya Sluzhba [Public Service]. No. 3: 6–11. (In Russ.)
Martynov M. Y., Gabberkorn A. N. (2017) Features of mass consciousness perception of corruption in Russia. Sotsiologicheskiye issledovnaiya [Sociological research]. No. 6: 79–84. (In Russ.)
Nisnevich Y. A., Ryabov A. V. (2017) Post-Soviet Authoritarianism. Obshchestvennye Nauki i Sovremennost [Social Science and Modernity]. No. 4: 84–97. (In Russ.)
Pivovarov Yu.S. (2015) On the “Soviet” and ways to overcome it. Polis. Politicheskie issledovaniya [Polis. Political studies]. No. 2: 53–67. (In Russ.)
Ribbins P., Sherratt B. (2013) Reforming the Civil Service and revising the role of mandarin in Britain: A view from the perspective of a study of eight permanent secretaries at the Ministry of Education between 1976 and 2011. Public Policy and Administration. No. 1: 21–44.
Semenova E. (2011) Ministerial and Parliamentary Elites in Executive-Dominated System: Post-Soviet Russia 1991–2009. Comparative Sociology. No. 6: 908–927.
Shutov A. Y. (ed.). (2016) Elitology and strategies for the development of modern Russia. Rostov-on-Don. (In Russ.)
Solovyov A. I. (2017) Political leader in the administrative environment of public administration, or “Who is the master of the house?”. Polis. Politicheskie issledovaniya [Polis. Political studies]. No. 2: 60–81. (In Russ.)
Tatham M., Bauer M. W. (2016) The State, the Economy, and the Regions: Theories of Preference Formation in Times of Crisis. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. No. 4: 631–646.
Tev D. B. (2016) Federal administrative elite of Russia: career paths and recruitment channels. Polis. Politicheskaie issledovaniya [Polis. Political studies]. No. 4: 115–130. (In Russ.)
Vilkov A. A., Vorontsov A. S., Ponedelkov A. V. (2017) Politico-administrative elites: genesis, development problems at the present stage. Izvestia Saratovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta [Bulletin of Saratov State University]. No. 2: 198– 203. (In Russ.)
Zarankin I. A. (2016) Theoretical approaches to the study of career trajectories of political actors. Vestnik RUDN [Bulletin of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia]. No. 1: 15–22. (In Russ.)
Zborovsky G. E. (2017) Russian society in the mirror of social inequality. Sotsiologicheskiye issledovnaiya [Sociological research]. No. 4: 3–7. (In Russ.)
Zotov A. A. (2017) Social selection and anthropological component of the theory of updating and circulation of elite of V. Pareto. Sotsiologicheskiye issledovnaiya [Sociological research]. No. 5: 136–140. (In Russ.)