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Changes in Elite Patterns

SHORTLY BEFORE THE END OF HIS PRESIDENCY, ON 14 FEBRUARY 2008, President Vladimir Putin gave a press conference in the Kremlin, devoted to the results of his presidency. Putin’s estimation of his own activity as president was very positive: ‘I do not see any serious failures. All the tasks are achieved, the majority of the problems are solved’, the president answered in response to a question. In order to reach an understanding of Putin’s leadership, a comparative analysis of the ruling elites of Yel’tsin’s and Putin’s presidency is of crucial importance, since elite groups are the key element of contemporary Russian politics. In this connection there is a question concerning the theoretical framework of such comparison. Hegel argued that any substantial analogy demanded a theory as its basis. Gaetano Mosca’s distinction between feudal and bureaucratic forms of political power is a useful framework for comparative analysis, drawing on the works of Niccolo Machiavelli and Max Weber. Mosca regarded the feudal political type as based on the merger of power and property, while the bureaucratic form of power emerges from a diversity of economic and political management (Mosca 1939, pp. 80–83). In contemporary political science terms, the feudal type of organisation could be defined as oligarchic, since the merger of power and property is a key feature of an oligarchy. Since medieval Europe was a conglomerate of small political formations, it serves as a classic example of feudal organisation. The organisation of European political power underwent substantial changes in the twentieth century. At present, the primary influence of economic elites on political recruitment and on political decision-making is not direct. A specialised bureaucracy fulfils political management functions. Mosca is known to have considered Russia as a state managed by bureaucracy during long periods of its history (Mosca 1939, pp. 83–85). This character of Russian political and social organisation was due to factors such as extremely hostile climatic conditions, repeated instances of external aggression, which determined the primacy of the state over other political institutions (Fonotov 1993). Over these historical periods, the Russian political elite developed within the state, overlapping with the highest echelon of administrative and political bureaucracy. The ruling elites of Kievan Russ and the Moscow State (boyars), and the Imperial Russian nobility and bureaucracy,