CHAIR OF PHILOSOPHY MGIMO(U)

ELITHOLOGY

SPECIAL COURSE OF PROFESSOR ASHIN G.K.

Lecture 1. The subject of elitology, its place in the system of social science

Lecture 2. Genesis of elitology. Protoelithology

Lecture 3

Lecture 4 at the beginning of the XXI century.

Lecture 5. Methodological principles of elitism

Lecture 6. History of Russian elitology

Lecture 7

Lecture 8

Lecture 9. Elitarism and democracy. Elite and egalitarian paradigms

Lecture 10. Elitarism and pluralism

Lecture 11. Transformation and change of elites (based on the history of Russian elites). pre-revolutionary elites.

Lecture 12. The theory of the "new class". Soviet elite (generational analysis)

Lecture 13. Post-Soviet elite, its structure. Political and administrative-bureaucratic elite. Business elite. Cultural elite. Regional elites. Elite relationships.

Lecture 14. Elite recruiting. The problem of elitogenesis.

Lecture 15. Elite education.

Lesson 16. Round table on elitology.

Lecture 1
The subject of elitology, its place in the system of social science

The subject of elitology. Elitology has developed as a complex interdisciplinary knowledge lying at the intersection of political science, social philosophy, political science, sociology, world history, social psychology, cultural studies.

Elitology can be viewed as the science of social differentiation and stratification, more precisely, as the science of the highest stratum in any system of social stratification, of its special functions related to the management of the system as a whole or its various subsystems, in the development of norms and values ​​that serve self-maintenance. system and its development. The elite includes a part of society that occupies a leading position in the development of norms and values ​​that determine the functioning and development of the social system, which is the reference group on whose values, considered exemplary, society is guided. These are either bearers of traditions that hold together and stabilize society, or, in other social situations (usually crisis ones), they are the most active, passionate elements of the population, which are innovative groups. Thus, elitology is a science about elites and, consequently, about the grounds for the differentiation of society, about the criteria and legitimacy of this differentiation.

Finally, often (primarily in political science) the elite is spoken of in narrow the meaning of this term as about the political-administrative, managerial elite. It is this component of elitology that has become (perhaps without sufficient grounds for this) the most important, widespread, “applied” part of elitology, although this is only one of many elitological disciplines. In this narrow sense, the subject of elitology (more precisely, political elitology) is the study of the process of social political management and, above all, the highest stratum of political actors, the identification and description of the social stratum that directly exercises this control, being its subject (or, in any case, the most important structural element of this subject), in other words, the study of the elite, its composition, laws its functioning, its coming to power and the retention of this power, its legitimization as the ruling stratum, the condition for which is the recognition of its leading role by a mass of followers, the study of its role in the social process, the reasons for its degradation, decline (as a rule, due to its closeness), and leaving the historical arena, as not meeting the changed historical conditions, the study of the laws of transformation and change of elites.

AT the structure of the subject of elitology certainly includes the history of the development of knowledge about the elites, that is, history of elitology. At the center of elitology is the study of its laws - the laws of structure (the structure of the elite, the connection between its elements, which are usually subsystems of the elite as an integral system - political, cultural, military, etc.), the laws of the functioning of elites, the interaction between the elements of this system, the dependencies between its various components, the role in which each of these components acts in relation to the elite as an integral phenomenon, the laws of connection and subordination of the elements of this system, - finally, the laws of the development of this system, its transition from one level to another, usually higher, to new type of connections within this system.

Russian elitological school. The term "elitology" is a Russian innovation. It was introduced into scientific circulation in the 80s and has become widespread in Russian social sciences since the second half of the 90s. We can safely say that the Russian school of elitology is taking shape.

The fact that the Russian school of elitology has developed over the past decade and a half is quite understandable. It is known that in Soviet time elitological issues were tabooed. Studies of the Soviet elite were impossible for ideological (and, therefore, censorship) reasons. In accordance with the official ideology, the elite is an attribute of an antagonistic society, and it cannot exist in a socialist society (although the presence of an elite - a privileged layer in the form of, first of all, the top of the party-Soviet bureaucracy, was an open secret). And historically, elitist problems entered Soviet science from the "back door" through the permitted genre of "criticism of bourgeois ideology" (of course, the very term "bourgeois sociology" is just as nonsense as "bourgeois physics" or "bourgeois biology").

The Russian school of elitology is rapidly developing today; its representatives have published more than thirty monographs, hundreds of articles on the most important aspects of elitology. The school of Russian elitology has rightfully taken a leading position not only in the study of Russian elites (a couple of decades ago, one could learn about Russian elites only from the works of foreign Sovietologists and Russian political emigrants), but also in elitological regionalism, in a number of general theoretical problems of elitology.

Elitological thesaurus. Like any emerging science, elitology needs to comprehend and refine its conceptual apparatus, develop a general theory and methodology, transfer theoretical concepts to the operational level, develop empirical studies of elites, and comparative elitological studies.

There are concepts such as elitology, elitism, elitism. The term "elite" is revealed in relation to such terms as mass, class, primarily the ruling class, the ruling group (clique, clan), as well as sub-elite, counter-elite, etc.

The structure of elitology. Philosophical elitology, being the highest level of generalization in elitology, includes, elitological ontology elitological epistemology(including ancient occult science, esoteric epistemology), elitological philosophical anthropology, elitological personalism. A large place in elitology belongs to sociology of elites . Nai more researchers are attracted political elitology.

It is impossible not to note such important sections of elitology as the study of economic, cultural, religious, military elites. Since each sphere of human activity has its own elite, if we even try to list the various elites, we will not succeed, we will go to infinity.

But it is important to emphasize that in each of these sections, along with the specifics, it is possible to single out certain general patterns, create a general theory and methodology of elitology, which “works” in all these specific areas, being refracted in them in a peculiar way.

Lecture 2
Genesis of elitology
Protoelithology

Roots and traditions. Social and epistemological roots of elite theories.

Prehistory of elitology. The first sources that have come down to us, testifying to a serious reflection on the role of rulers and the content and tasks of their activities, date back to the first millennium BC. K. Jaspers did not accidentally name the time between 800 and 300 BC. the "axial era" of world history, when in China, India, the Middle East, ancient Greece and Rome, a breakthrough of the mythological worldview, which constituted the spiritual basis of "pre-axial cultures", occurred, when reflection arises, distrust of direct experience, in the field of which philosophical knowledge grows.

Pay close attention to those in power ancient Chinese thinkers: Guan Zhong(d. 645 BC), Lao Tzu(born according to tradition in 604 BC), Confucius(551-479 BC).

Proto-elithology reached its peak in Ancient Greece, especially in the period U11 - 111 in BC. Heraclitus(c. 540 - 480 BC). Pythagoras(570-497 BC). Socrates(470 - 399 BC). Plato(427 - 347 BC). Aristotle(384–322 BC) Her successor in Ancient Rome was Seneca(1 BC - 65 AD).

Proto-Elitologists of the Middle Ages: Augustine Aurelius (354 – 430), Dionysius the Areopagite(5th century), Thomas Aquinas(about 1224-1274).

Proto-Elithology of the Renaissance: Machiavelli Niccolo(1469-1527)

Proto-Elitologists of the Egalitarian Paradigm: More Thomas (1478-1535)

Campanella Tomaso (1568 – 1639), Winstanley J. (1609 –1652),

Mellier J.(1664 – 1729),Mably G. (1709 – 1785),

Rousseau J.-J. (1712 –1778), Babeuf G. (1760–1797),

Elitism and democratic concepts of the Enlightenment period:

Locke J.Montesquieu C. Helvetius K. A.

Elite paradigm in modern times:

Schopenhauer A. CarlyleT. Nietzsche F.

Lecture 3
Classics of elitology of the late X IX - the first third of the XX century.

mosca Gaetano (1858-1941)

Mosca G. Elementi di scienza politica, Bari, 1953.

Mosca G. The Ruling Class, N.Y.-L., 1939.

Pareto wilfredo (1848-1923)

Pareto V. Critti politici. Torino, 1974.

Pareto V. Compendio di sociologi generale. Torino, 1978.

Ostrogorsky Moses Yakovlevich (1854-1921)

Ostrogorsky M.Ya. Democracy and political parties. M., 1997.

Michels Robert (1876-1936)

Michels R. Zur Sociologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demorratie. Lpz.,1911.

Lecture 4
The evolution of elitology and its typology

Possibilities of typology of elitology

Since the 30s of the twentieth century. elitology is undergoing a complex, at times very bizarre evolution and is currently a very motley conglomerate of various trends, sometimes sharply arguing with each other. Therefore, the systematization, classification, typology of these areas is a complex scientific problem.

This typology can be carried out different grounds. One of these grounds may be chronology; then we can single out the following stages in the development of elitology:

1) late 19th – first three decades of the 20th century- the work of the founding fathers of elitology.

2) second half of the 20s - first half of the 40s- a fascist version of elitism is being formed and, at the same time, a liberal one (the first attempts to reconstruct elitism in terms of combining it with democratic values ​​- K. Mannheim, J. Schumpeter) and aristocratic ( J. Ortega y Gasset).

3) From the middle of the twentieth century. the liberal-democratic interpretation of elitism, the theory of elite pluralism, receives the greatest influence. At the same time, a radical-democratic version of elitology arises, the pathos of which is a passionate denunciation of the undemocratic, elitism of the political systems of Western democracies, primarily the political system of the United States ( R. Mills).

4) 70s - the beginning of the XXI century. The continued dominance of political pluralism (in particular the theories of elite pluralism and polyarchy) is being challenged by neo-elitism, which asserts the elite structure of the political system of the United States and other Western countries (as well as non-democratic political systems, which, in fact, goes without saying), and pluralism is not attacked only by radical democrats, but also by a number of conservative political scientists (T. Dai).

It is possible to classify elitological theories according to the methods of substantiating elitism ( biological, psychological, technological and etc.).

The division of elitologists according to political orientations and commitments also seems justified. And here we will see (sometimes not without some surprise) that almost all directions and shades of the modern political spectrum are represented in elitology. Let's try to list them (from right to left): fascist version of elitism, conservative-aristocratic, liberal-democratic, left-wing radical (sometimes turning into anti-elitism, sometimes bashfully hiding its elitist avant-gardeism), communist elitism. The latter, even more carefully than the left radicals do, masks his elitism and therefore can rightly be called hidden elitism: he assures that under “real socialism” the elite does not exist and cannot exist, while in reality the nomenklatura elite has full power. and institutional privileges.

Finally, it is possible to divide elitology on a geographical basis, more precisely, on a regional basis. Here one can single out Western Europe as the cradle of elitology, then the elitology of the United States, where after the Second World War the center for the development of elitology shifted. The elitology of developing countries has its own characteristics, where the traditional and modernization elites are at the center of research. And elitology in Russia has an undeniable specificity. Under the conditions of totalitarianism and the strictest ideological prohibitions, it was predominantly underground dissident or émigré, at least in relation to the study of Soviet elites, and now it is rapidly gaining momentum, reaching a leading position in the field of general theory and history of elitology, elitological regional studies.

Of interest are comparative elitological studies. Thus, they show that if European elitology is more characterized by a value approach, then for North American it is a structural-functional one.

Lecture 5
Methodological installations of elitism

Let us consider the theoretical and methodological guidelines from which the authors of elitist theories proceed and, in particular, to psychological justification his. Arguments "from psychology" are one of the most common explanations for elitism. These arguments can be roughly divided into three groups: instinctivist, Freudian and behaviorist.

instinctivists: the division of society into an elite and a mass is a consequence of genetically programmed instincts. The instincts of herd, obedience are inherent in the majority, the immoderate thirst for power is inherent in the minority.

Behaviorists they proceed from the fact that the external environment determines behavior, and the desire of people to get into the elite is a consequence of social incentives.

Among the psychological interpretations of elitism, the Freudian interpretation of this problem is the most widespread. Z. Freud believed that the differentiation of society into an elite and a mass grew out of generic forms of authority. He especially emphasized the need of a person learned from childhood to be protected by his father, arising from the “infantile helplessness” of a person. The tyrannical power of the father over the children leads to the rebellion of adult sons and the murder of the father. But the children experience longing for their father and remorse. This psychological conflict is resolved through the idealization of the murdered father and the search for his substitute. This substitute father is usually an authoritarian leader, an authoritarian elite. For them, he experiences the same ambivalent feelings - love and fear, respect and hatred that their father had previously awakened in them. The power of the elite appears to Freud as inevitable. “Just as it is impossible to do without compulsion to cultural work, it is also impossible to do without the domination of a minority over the masses, because the masses are inert and short-sighted, they do not like to give up impulses, they do not listen to arguments in favor of the inevitability of such a refusal, and the individual representatives of the mass encourage each other. in the other, permissiveness and licentiousness. Only through the influence of exemplary individuals, recognized by them as their leaders, do they allow themselves to be persuaded to hard work and self-denial, on which the state of culture depends. All this is good if individuals with an extraordinary understanding of vital necessity, who have managed to achieve dominance over their own inclinations, become leaders.

Neo-Freudians believe that the main psychological mechanisms that give rise to an elitist social structure are sadistic-masochistic. E. Fromm believes that sadistic orientations prevail in the elite, masochistic - in the mass; they explain the flight of millions of people from freedom to authoritarian dictatorships, the readiness to submit to the ruling elite and even to get masochistic satisfaction from this submission, which turns out to be the greater, the more complete this submission is. Fromm subtly remarks: “... in psychological terms, the lust for power is rooted not in strength, but in weakness ... This is a desperate attempt to acquire a substitute for strength when there is not enough genuine strength ... "power" and "strength" are completely different things". Fromm describes three sadistic tendencies, which are the basis for elitist personality orientations: 1) a person's desire to make other people dependent on himself and dominate them, turn them into his tools, "sculpt like clay"; 2) the desire not only to have absolute power over others, but also to exploit them, use and rob them; 3) the desire to make other people suffer physically and morally. It is clear that these orientations are deeply immoral and pathological.

Civilization approach to the elite. Interesting and fruitful in many respects is the civilizational approach to the elite, formulated at the end of the last century. N. Ya. Danilevsky. Elitarism developed in the civilizational concept A. Toynbee: "Acts of social creativity are the prerogative of either single creators or a creative minority." This creative minority is the elite; civilization develops when the elite is dynamic and degenerates when its creative potentials dry up. his creative potential, but now retains power only through brute force. The civilizational approach to the elite was applied P. A. Sorokin: “Any organized group is always socially stratified. There is not a single permanent social group that would be “flat” and in which all its members would be equal. This is “a myth that has never become a reality in the entire history of mankind.” The pyramid of stratification is strong when the elite consists of the most capable and talented; when the elite becomes closed, immobile, does not allow the most talented representatives of the social lower classes to govern, society is doomed. We note the original modification of the civilizational approach in the works L. N. Gumilyova. He connects the development and growth of civilizations with the quality of their passionarity, activity, creative upsurge, which are most pronounced among the elites; he even calls them "passionarity viruses".

Bureaucracy and the Elite. There is an obvious need to find out the relationship between the elite and the layer of people professionally engaged in managerial activities - the bureaucracy. And it is no coincidence that the concept of the bureaucracy of the famous German sociologist and political scientist Max Weber regarded as an important contribution to elitology. According to Weber, the bureaucratic elite replaced the aristocratic. Voluntary power, based on the whims, feelings, prejudices of its bearers and therefore unpredictable power is replaced by the rule of experts who make optimal decisions, whose actions are predictable, are replaced by power based on dispassionate formal rules and procedures, backed up by strict discipline, in other words, irrational administration is replaced by rational . Power shifts from personal to impersonal.).

Technological determinism and elitology. The organizing theory of the elite is now widespread (it is also called functional or technological). In accordance with it, the formation of the elite depends on those functions that in a certain era play a dominant role in society. With the changing nature of modern production, the management function has become decisive, making those who exercise it the elite of society. Technological elitism has evolved significantly over its centuries-old history. The first form of it was technocratic theories. Their founder T. Veblen believed that the main role in modern production is played by the engineering and technical intelligentsia, and it should be the elite of society. The second generation of technological determinists was led by J. Burnham, who, in his programmatic work "The Managerial Revolution", argued that capitalism would be replaced not by socialism, but by "managerism"; the managerial revolution will bring to power a new ruling class, the executive elite. And in a post-industrial society, he believes Daniel Bell, the elite is hierarchized according to new criteria. Referring to the objective process of increasing the role of scientists and specialists, neotechnocrats claim that they are the elite of the post-industrial, information society, because they have scientific knowledge, professional experience, and the ability to manage modern organizations. This elite is not only more efficient, but also more fair, because it recognizes only one value, one merit - knowledge, this is the merit elite, meritocracy.

Lecture 6
History of Russian elitology

The origin of Russian proto-elitology refers to at least the 11th century. AT Russkaya Pravda by Yaroslav the Wise(978–1057), the social stratification of the population, the rights and privileges of the elite layer are fixed, two classes are legalized - princely men and commoners. The former constituted the privileged estate (primarily the princely retinue), through which the princes ruled their principalities and defended themselves from enemies. It is no coincidence that the life of the “prince of her husband” was guarded by a double vira. famous Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky believed that "the highest class ... of Russian society, which was ruled by the prince of Kyiv, was the princely squad", which was divided into princely husbands or boyars, and the younger squad - the youths. First Kyiv Metropolitan Hilarion, set by Yaroslav the Wise, compared the Kyiv princes with the Roman emperors, sought to create an ideal image of the ruler: the source of his power was God's will, this is a courageous, formidable, but gracious sovereign, defender of Christianity. Chronicler and hagiographer Nestor(X1-beginning of the 11th century) interpreted the emergence of the state as a kind of social contract between the people and the prince, to whom the people entrusted "to rule and reign", legitimizing his right to rule; while there are references to divine providence. AT " Assignment" Vladimir monomakh(1053-1125) depicts the image of a virtuous Christian ruler who observes the gospel commandments and does not allow lawlessness. The “Word of Daniil the Sharpener” (11th century) contains advice to the prince to bring wise and just people closer to him, removing the ignorant and greedy.

Hegumen of the Pskov Monastery Philotheus(1465–1542) wrote about God's chosen power of the great princely power, put forward the idea of ​​the messianic role of Russia and its rulers: "... two Romes fell, and the third stands, the fourth will not happen." prince A.M. Kurbsky(1528-1583) considered it necessary for the sovereign to have wise advisers, advocated the Duma under the tsar, consisting of boyars (analogous to the Western European aristocracy), which would restrain the absolute, despotic power of the monarch. IvanIV Terrible in his message, he argued that the prince should be an autocrat, responsible not to people, but to God, to punish the recalcitrant boyars.

Russian thinker of the 11th century. I. S. Peresvetov pointed out the harm of specific separatism, autocracy of nobles and boyars, opposing them to the service nobility, advocated the strengthening of a centralized state. A Croatian-Russian public figure made a certain contribution to Russian proto-elithology Yuri Krizhanich(1617-1683), author of the book "Politics", outlining science "for sovereigns and advisers." He is a supporter of "perfect autocracy", which should not be tyrannical, for which it should be supported by just laws. The tyrant "does not care about the common good, but about his own self-interest" And further: "the honor, glory and duty of the monarch is to make his people happy." Not a state for a monarch, but a monarch for a state.

FROM was an original thinker I.T. Pososhkov; self-taught, a staunch supporter of the reforms of Peter 1. In his main work, The Book of Poverty and Wealth, he outlined a program of economic and political reforms carried out from above by the sovereign-reformer .. Feofan Prokopovich, an associate of Peter 1, who was part of his "scientific squad", wrote about the important role of educating the people, educating them to be kind, conscientious. He considered a monarchy to be the best form of state, to which “the people unquestioningly, serenely, and also voluntarily obeyed,” wrote about the advantages of electing people from the people to elite positions by running. unfit for ranks occurs.

A.N. Radishchev for the first time in Russian society, he considered governance and the relationship between the elite and the masses not from the standpoint of the elite, but from the standpoint of the object of its management - the people. He calls the socio-political system of Russia a "monster": serfdom, autocracy, despotism oppress society. He is a supporter of the natural right of people who “have adopted the same constitution by nature and therefore have the same rights, therefore, they are equal in everything and are not subject to others. Autocracy is the most contrary to human nature.

In the first half of the 19th century, the elite paradigm remains predominant. Even one of the leaders and ideologists of the Decembrists P.I.Pestelya his Russkaya Pravda speaks of “the division of the members of society into those who command and those who obey. This division is inevitable.” We find a certain departure from the elite paradigm in the works of another Decembrist N.M. Muravieva. Of particular interest is his draft constitution (1824): “The Russian people, free and independent, is not and cannot be the property of any person and any family. The source of the supreme power is the people.

The ideology of liberal reformism in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. was built on an elitist paradigm, albeit slightly democratized. We note that on behalf of AlexandraI during the period of his liberal ideas, Count N.N.Novosiltsev developed a draft constitution, which said: "... the legislature of the sovereign is assisted by the state diet ... May the Russian people from now on forever have popular representation."

This also applies to the famous project "Introduction to the Code of State Laws" of the closest collaborator of Alexander I M.M. Speransky. For the first time in Russia, he formulated the principle of separation of powers, referring to the traditions of popular representation.

The rise of political thought, which developed in the spirit of the egalitarian paradigm, dates back to the second half of the 19th century. It manifested itself primarily in the work of M.A. Bakunin. “To give society such a structure that each individual ... finds, appearing in life, almost equal means for the realization of his various abilities,” he dreamed. Having joined the First International, he sharply criticized Marx: “The state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, propagated by Marx, will be the “despotism of the ruling minority”, covered with demagogic phrases that it is the expression of the people's will. But this minority, say the Marxists, will consist of workers. Yes, probably from former workers, but who, as soon as they become rulers or representatives of the people, cease to be workers and begin to look at the whole laboring world from the height of the state, will no longer represent the people, but themselves and their claims to rule the people.

Such egalitarianism fell out of the general chorus of conservative elitist literature. Even liberal elitism was a rarity in it. Let us note the works of B.N. Chicherin, one of the leaders of the liberal Western wing in the Russian social movement. A supporter of parliamentarianism, he wrote that "parliament gives the state capable figures."

The position of a philosopher and political scientist of a conservative direction is interesting K.N. Leontieva: “Which of the ancient and new states we look at, we all find the same thing in common: simplicity and uniformity at the beginning, more equality and more freedom ... than it will be after ... Then we see more or less strengthening of power, division of estates ”(Note that this position is deeper than that of one of the recognized classics of elitology G. Moska, it is more historical).

Elitology of the 20th century- a stormy battle between two paradigms known to us. We give the floor to the famous representative of the egalitarian concept, the theoretician of anarchism, Prince P.A. Kropotkin. “At all times, two currents fought in human societies. On the one hand, the popular masses worked out, in the form of custom, a number of institutions necessary in order to public life was possible to ensure peace in their midst ... and to help each other in everything that requires united efforts. And at all times, magicians, shamans, soothsayers, priests and chiefs of military squads also appeared among people, striving to establish and strengthen their power over the people. They rallied among themselves, entered into an alliance and supported each other in order to rule over people, keep them in obedience, manage them and make them work for themselves.

It is known that criticizing Kropotkin and other anarchists V.I.Lenin prepared a revolution under egalitarian slogans. It is another matter whether they were sincere, or whether they were covering for leaderism, hidden elitism. Let us turn to the works of V.I. Lenin. In his famous book What Is to Be Done?, a typically elitist view of the working class's ability to develop its own socialist consciousness is substantiated. It is argued that the proletariat itself is only able to develop a trade unionist consciousness, while socialist consciousness, the ideas of the socialist revolution, can only be introduced into the working-class movement from outside - by intellectuals who have taken the position of the working class. The organizational structure of the “new type” party turns out to be elitist through and through. A narrow layer of party functionaries, its elite, and a wide layer of party members who carry out the decisions of its leadership - such was the germ of the future "new class". When the party came to power, its elite structure was reproduced on the scale of the largest country in the world.

To the classics of Russian elitology applies M.Ya. Ostrogorsky. His fundamental work "Democracy and Political Parties" was published in French in 1898, i.e. 13 years earlier than the book on the same subject by R. Michels "On the Sociology of Political Parties in Modern Democracy", published in 1911 .

The most prominent representative of the elitism of the twentieth century was one of the largest Russian philosophers N.A. Berdyaev, who can rightly be considered a classic of Russian elitology, its aristocratic version.

“The aristocracy was created by God and received its qualities from God. The overthrow of the historical aristocracy leads to the establishment of another aristocracy ... any desire to enter the aristocracy, to rise to the aristocracy from a lower position is essentially not aristocratic. Only natural, inborn aristocracy is possible... True aristocracy can serve others, serve man and the world, because it is not busy with self-exaltation, it initially stands high enough. She is sacrificial. This is the eternal value of the aristocratic beginning ... The rights of the aristocracy are innate rights, not acquired ... Only the aristocracy is possible and justified by God's grace. The plebeian-proletarian demand for egalitarian justice and recompense to each according to the amount of labor is an encroachment on the flowering of life, on divine abundance ... ". In his works, Berdyaev develops the ideas of God-manhood - summarizing the rich heritage - from the geniuses of patristics to V. Solovyov. Since God created man in his own image and likeness, since God is God the creator, creativity is a quality that brings man closer to the divine. The development of the creative essence - the elitization of the personality - this is the approach to the divine. In Berdyaev's personalist hierarchization, the highest level is a creative personality, its highest manifestation is genius, which includes creative ecstasy, this is the path to holiness.

The great Russian sociologist paid great attention to the problems of elitology P.A. Sorokin.. Sorokin is one of the founders and classics of the theories of social stratification and social mobility. He was especially interested in his upward mobility into the elite. The monopoly of power in the hands of a narrow privileged stratum hinders upward mobility, makes society "closed", decaying, hinders the most talented people from the "lower" social strata - i.e. from the people, which is detrimental to society. His theory of “tadpoles” is interesting - talented people from the lower strata of society, a potential elite who, with their intellect and abilities, surpass the noble ruling elite, which remains in power, preventing the “tadpoles” from entering the elite, turning it to the counter-elite. The social balance in society is disturbed. “When the aristocracy is strong and talented, then it does not need any artificial barriers to protect it from encroachment by the “upstarts”. But when she is untalented, then the same urgent need is felt in artificial obstacles, like a crutch for a disabled person, which, in fact, happens in history.

Once again, we note that the current rise of elitist studies in Russia in the last decade and a half is explained not only by social needs, but also by the fact that they could rely on the centuries-old Russian elitist tradition.

Lecture 7
History of American Elitology

The English colonies in North America, founded at the beginning of the 11th century, were ruled by the English king and governors appointed by him; elements of self-government were strictly controlled and limited. The thesis of a number of political scientists that the governance of these colonies has been democratic since their inception is more than controversial. The view of those historians and political scientists who believe that the management of the colonies in the early period of American history was quite elitist with a certain interspersing of democratic elements associated with elements of representative principles in a number of colonies concentrated in the hands of a wealthy minority seems to be justified. The overwhelming majority of the colonists were disenfranchised primarily because of the high property qualification, as well as on religious and gender grounds. In the 60s–70s. the views of American democrats are radicalizing, they oppose the concept of home rule - state self-government - to submission to the British crown. One of the first and most influential ideologues of Home Rule was an outstanding American educator, naturalist and politician B. Franklin. Accepting the concept of the state as a social contract, he emphasized that if the rulers violate this contract, the people have the right to overthrow the anti-people government. Franklin opposed slavery, founded the first abolitionist society, taking part in the work on the Declaration of Independence, and then the US Constitution.

Among the ideologues and leaders of the American liberation movement, there has been a sharp demarcation between the radical democratic and moderate conservative wings, sometimes taking the form of a confrontation between anti-elitist and elitist. The most prominent representative of the radical democratic direction was T.Jefferson, moderately conservative - A. Hamilton. Developing the ideas of popular rule, Jefferson contrasted the aristocratic and democratic approaches to this problem: "The masses of men are not born with saddles on their backs, to be ruled by a privileged few, spurring on, with the help of law and the grace of God." The democratic ideas of Jefferson, who developed the ideas of European enlighteners about equality and natural human rights, about popular sovereignty, were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

A major ideologue of elitism in America of this period is the second president of the United States (1797 - 1801) John Adams. The highest stratum of society, which performs the function of managing society, developing culture, he considered the most important element of the social structure. Attempts to limit his power and influence are not very promising. Adams himself respected the titles. He even suggested that the President of the United States be addressed with the words: “Your Gracious Majesty” (compare this with the attitude to the titles of T. Jefferson or T. Payne as “tinsel”). Adams, along with Hamilton and Madison, defended the thesis of the need for a strong state, expressing primarily the interests of wealthy citizens. Adams, like Hamilton, proceeded from the fact that every society must be divided into two parts - a privileged minority and an unprivileged majority. J. Adams, A. Hamilton, D. Madison justified economic inequality, believing that universal equality would mean giving up freedom. Madison believed that the Senate should be the spokesman for the "wealth of the nation."

Since the emergence of the United States, two ideological traditions have developed in them: one is elitist, represented by A. Hamilton, J. Adams, D. Madison, which later turned into a conservative ideology, the other is egalitarian (more precisely, moderately egalitarian), to a certain extent anti-elitist, the most prominent representatives which were T. Jefferson, E. Jackson, A. Lincoln. A new stage in the development of American democracy was associated with the presidency E. Jackson(1829 - 1837). At the center of his socio-political program was the widespread involvement of the masses in government, the desire to deprive the elite of the monopoly on the implementation of state functions. To do this, he proposed to simplify the system government controlled so that government posts could be filled by ordinary people, whose educational level, of course, was inferior to the educational level of the elite. The very style of Jackson's presidency had a strong influence on the development of the democratic process in the United States. He was actually the first president - a native of the lower strata of American society. Jackson criticized the "aristocratic" government of the country, especially during the presidency of George W. Washington, J. Adams, J. K. Adams.

It is during the Jackson presidency that a visit to the United States falls A. Tocqueville who gave a deep analysis of the American socio-political system. Tocqueville also believed that the decisive force in the United States of the Jacksonian period was the masses, not the elite. Tocqueville comes to the conclusion that in the United States the process of transformation of the elites is taking place optimally, because there the members of the emerging elite of the aristocracy quickly adapted to the changing situation, readily turning into a democratic elite. He writes: “The principle of democracy went beyond the boundaries of the community and spread to the activities of the government, all classes made concessions for its sake ... it became the law of laws. Democracy has triumphed. The upper classes obeyed it meekly and without resistance as an evil that has become inevitable from now on. Thus, the aristocratic elite is replaced by a bourgeois one, it is tolerant of the objectively inevitable changes in society, finding its place in the new power structure, in the new elite. In other words, in order not to be a victim of change, the aristocratic elite is in a hurry to lead them.

During the civil war of 1861 - 1865. the problem of the abolition of slavery came to the fore - a problem that had not been solved before, as if driven inside, and for A. Lincoln were characterized by elements of social egalitarianism. Lincoln defined democracy as "government by the people, for the people, by the people".

The confrontation between two tendencies in American political thought - elitist and anti-elitist (with a strong interspersing of egalitarianism) reflects the real confrontation between the elite and the masses. At the end of the 19th - the first third of the 20th century, it took the form of a confrontation between the liberal-conservative, individualistic ideology (unlimited freedom of private property, non-interference of the state in the socio-economic process), which directly expressed the interests of the capitalist elite, and egalitarian-democratic liberalism, which continued the traditions of Jackson, Lincoln, who emphasized the principle of equal opportunities as the core of the US political culture and advocated the prevention of extreme inequality in the structure of the population .. During the period of the Republican presidents of the conservative wing W. Harding, C. -economic elites strengthened. The positions of American left politicians have significantly weakened.

The situation changed significantly during the crisis of 1929-33, which the Americans called the "Great Depression". A way out of the deepest crisis was proposed by President F. D. Roosevelt and his "brain trust". It was the famous "New Deal" - the salvation of American capitalism through deep reforms, progressive taxation of corporations and the redistribution of national income in favor of the masses. Characteristically, the American upper class, primarily the economic elite, frightened by Roosevelt's reformist plans, seeing them as a threat to their privileges, was mostly opposed to him. Roosevelt proved that the mission of the political elite, especially in times of crisis, is to see further than the representatives of the class whose interests it objectively expresses (and at the same time the interests of the country as a whole) do, that the New Deal was the best way to stabilization of the American socio-political system. This course proposed a model of relations between the elite and the masses, in which contradictions do not grow into conflict, into a social revolution, but are resolved through compromises, a model that went beyond the time frame of the "new course" and continues to exist to this day.

At the same time, the establishment is being institutionalized in the United States, a “secular register” is being published, which lists the “chosen ones”. Their aristocratic clubs (their sociological analysis was given by the American sociologist W. Domhoff) are a kind of elite headquarters.

The American school of elitology was formed later European school. Its main directions begin to form in the 30s - 40s of the twentieth century; after the main works of V. Pareto and G. Mosca were translated and published in the USA in the 1930s, interest in elitistological issues grew, and then the term “elite” itself became widespread (moreover, a number of American political scientists considered this term undemocratic, that in a democratic society the term "leadership" is preferable).

In the 1930s and 1940s, several centers of elitological research were created in the United States. The founder of one of them, in our opinion, the most fruitful, was G. Lasswell(1902 - 1978). Many modern US elitologists consider Lasswell their teacher. In the field of theoretical political science, he tried to synthesize the behaviorist and Freudian approaches to political science, to create a single integrated political science, focused not on desk research, but on field research. He can be called a pioneer in the study of political elitology and the undisputed leader of the liberal interpretation of elitism.

The leader of the other school was a professor at New York University J.Burnham, who proposed the technological rationale for elitism. In his programmatic work The Managerial Revolution (1940), he contrasted the socialist revolution with the revolution of managers, which would bring to power a "new ruling class" - the ruling elite. He refers to this elite the top managers of the largest corporations, as well as the leaders of government institutions; he admits that the socio-political system he promotes (state-monopoly capitalism) can be called a "type of corporate exploitation": the managerial elite "exploits the rest of society." He led the Machiavellian school of elitism.

Since the 1950s, pluralism has become the most influential trend in political science and sociology. In the early 1950s, its main representatives, such as D. Risman and others, believed that the term "elite" was undemocratic, preferred the term "leadership" to it, and argued that there was no elite in the United States. Later R. Dahl, based on the theory of the compatibility of the elite and democracy, put forward the idea of ​​"polyarchy", many centers of power in a pluralistic society.

In the 50s - early 60s. of the twentieth century, the most prominent American elitologist was R. Mills. He was a radical left-wing sociologist, leader of the American "new left", a critic of the American political system. He was subjected to sharp criticism, if not to say, persecution by a number of his colleagues - conservative, and sometimes liberal sociologists and political scientists, died early. Today, the most influential left-wing American elitologist close to neo-Marxism, who prefers the term "ruling class" to the concept of "elite", is W. Domhoff.

In the 70s, a direction appeared in American elitology, which many political scientists call "neo-elitism". Its representatives are T. Dai, H. Zeigler and a number of others criticize the pluralistic interpretation of the American political system, considering the elite as an attribute of any social structure, and the American political and economic elites as the most qualified elites in the world.

Lecture 8
The concept of the elite

In the 20th century, the term "elite" became firmly established in sociological and political dictionaries, despite numerous objections from a number of sociologists and political scientists. The opinion that the term "elite", introduced into the sociology of V. Pareto, is unfortunate, that elitarists, considering the elite as the subject of the political process, belittle the role of the masses, that it contradicts the ideals of democracy, has been repeatedly expressed in the literature, moreover, by authors who adhere to the most diverse political orientations - from communists to liberals.

There are also purely terminological objections regarding the fact that it is wrong and even immoral to use the term “elite”, the etymology of which leaves no doubt that the best, most worthy people are meant, in relation to those in power, among whom we more often see people cynical, unscrupulous, cruel; it was not for nothing that F. Hayek wrote in “The Road to Slavery” that “the worst are in power.” social attitude, in itself is not constructive. Since there is a certain phenomenon - the special role of the ruling minority in the socio-political process, then an appropriate term is needed to fix it. It is another matter that Pareto introduced not the most successful term, but to look for a replacement for it with another - “ruling elite”, “ruling class”, “ruling minority”, “ruling strata”, “controlling minority”, etc. gives little - because it will be a dispute about words ...

Etymology of the term and its application. The term "Elite" comes from the Latin eligere - to choose; in modern literature has received wide circulation from the French elite - the best, selective, chosen. Since the 17th century, it has been used to denote goods of the highest quality. In the 19th century, this concept was also used in genetics and breeding. At the end of the XIX century. V. Pareto introduced him to sociology.

What is an elite? When answering this question in the constructions of the elitistists, we will not only not find unanimity, but, on the contrary, we will come across judgments that sometimes refute each other. If we sum up the main meanings in which this term is used by sociologists and political scientists, we get a very mixed picture. Let's start with the definition of Pareto: these are people who have received the highest index in their field of activity, who have reached the highest level of competence, “people occupying a high position according to their degree of influence and political and social power, ...“ the so-called upper classes ”and constitute the elite, "aristocracy" (aristos - the best) ... the majority of those who enter it seem to have, to an extraordinary degree, certain qualities - no matter good or bad - that provide power" Among other definitions, we note the following: the most active in the political in relation to power-oriented people, an organized minority that controls the unorganized majority (Mosca); “the highest ruling class”, persons enjoying the greatest prestige, statuses, wealth in society, persons with the greatest power (G. Lasswell). Here is a generalized definition of the elite: it is a social group that controls a large share of the material, symbolic and political resources of society. Its members occupy the highest positions in the hierarchy of status and power, received by them ascriptively (by prescribed status) or receptively (thanks to their own merits). The elite are those people who hold the highest positions of power, control most of the property, and have the highest prestige.” It is generally believed that the number of these people is approximately one percent of the population.

The concept of elite is closely related to the problem of social stratification: the elite is the highest stratum in any system of social stratification.

The definitions existing in political science differ from each other in terms of the breadth of the concept of elite. Proponents of a narrower definition refer only the highest echelon of state power to the elite, supporters of a broader one refer to the entire hierarchy of managers, highlighting the highest level of power that makes decisions that are vital for the whole country, the middle link that makes decisions that are significant for certain regions, certain areas of social activity and, finally, an extensive bureaucracy. In order to hierarchize the structural elements of the elite, S.Köller introduces the concept of “strategic elites”. The term “super-elite” or elite in the system of elites also appeared. In relation to the lower structural levels of the elite, the term “sub-elites”, regional elites, etc. is proposed. Finally, in the political elite itself, one should distinguish between the ruling elite and the opposition (if it is a “systemic” opposition fighting for power within the framework of a given political system) and the counter-elite, whose goal is to change the entire political system.

If we group the various definitions of the elite, then two main approaches to this problem will come to light: value and structural-functional. Proponents of the first approach explain the existence of the elite by the “superiority” (primarily intellectual, moral, etc.) of some people over others; the second approach - the exceptional importance of management functions for society, which determine the exclusivity of the role of people performing these functions. But both of these interpretations of elitism are flawed. One - value - can easily turn into mysticism and a primitive apology for those in power, the other - functional - into tautology and again apologetics.

Indeed, when asked who has power in a particular society, the functional elitist usually answers: one who has power, mainly because he heads certain institutions of power. But the real problem is to explain why a certain elite group has seized positions of power. Marxism can be treated in different ways, but it was precisely in this respect that he clearly formulated the problem, trying to reveal how the economically dominant class, which owns the means of production, turns out to be the politically dominant class, that is, the class exercising political power. The institutional approach, which is closely related to functionalism and is widespread in political science, interpreting the elite as a group of persons who occupy leadership positions in the most important social and political institutions - governmental, economic, military, cultural, then it sins with the absolutization of the formal mechanism of power, misunderstanding of its social class nature. .

However, the value interpretation of the elite suffers, in our opinion, from even greater shortcomings than the structural-functional one. To the question of who rules society, an elitist with a value orientation can answer: wise, far-sighted, worthy. However, any empirical study of the ruling groups in any current (and past) political systems will easily refute such a statement, because it will show that too often they are cruel, cynical, corrupt, self-interested, power-hungry individuals who do not disdain to achieve their goal by any means. . But if the requirements of wisdom and virtue for the elite are a norm that is completely refuted by reality, then - let us pardon the pun - what is the value of the value approach?

There are different kinds of elites; moreover, the criteria for selecting these elites may be different. When singling out, for example, the cultural elite, the value criterion “works”. Another thing is when we isolate the political elite. Then the political scientist is forced to turn to the altimetry criterion, because if he is guided by the value criterion, elitology may ... lose its subject! After all, the real powers that be are far from examples of morality, far from always being “the best”. So if, in accordance with the etymology of the term, the best, chosen, highly moral are considered elite, then political figures are unlikely to fall into their composition at all, in any case, the vast majority of them. Then in what sense can the term be used in political science? Apparently, it is rather in the altimetry, functional.

Finally, we believe that it is necessary to clearly distinguish between political philosophy and political sociology in the structure of political science (along with other political science disciplines, for example, political psychology, political history etc.). So, within the framework of political philosophy, since it is of a normative nature, one should prefer the value, meritocratic criterion, and within the framework of political sociology, we are forced, alas, to focus mainly on the altimetry criterion.

The approach of a political sociologist differs from a cultural one. Culturologists usually apply the term "elite" to outstanding cultural figures, sometimes it acts as a synonym for "spiritual aristocracy". For the sociologist of politics, the elite is that part of society (the minority) that has access to the instruments of power. Therefore, judgments that we in Russia lived for several decades without an elite, because the best people were destroyed or languished in concentration camps, were in emigration or "internal emigration" - judgments that can sometimes be found in the literature of recent years - these are moral, axiological judgments but not political science. Once there was a power process, it was carried out by certain institutions, certain people; it is in this – functional sense – that the political scientist uses this term (regardless of the moral, intellectual and other qualities of the elite).

Special mention should be made of the discussions on the problems of the elite in our country. In Soviet scientific literature, the term "elite" was first introduced in the second half of the 1950s. It is introduced, so to speak, through the “back door”, namely through the permitted genre of “criticism of bourgeois sociology” (a term as absurd as “bourgeois physics” or “bourgeois biology”). In other words, we could only talk about elites in capitalist countries, and in a negative context. It is known that in Soviet times, elitistological issues in relation to the analysis of social relations in our country were tabooed. The official ideology claimed that in the USSR there is no exploitation of man by man, therefore, there is no and cannot be a dominant exploiting class, there is no and cannot be an elite. This was a lie: under Soviet rule, there was a higher social stratum (and the elite can be considered system of social stratification), which performed managerial functions, possessed institutional privileges, that is, all the attributes of an elite, albeit a very specific elite.

Any ruling class ideologically justifies and substantiates its domination. The Soviet elite, this "new class", went further, it hid its very existence, this class did not exist in the Soviet ideology. It was believed that in the USSR there were only two friendly classes - workers and collective farmers, as well as a layer of intelligentsia. And this elite was especially careful to hide their privileges - special distribution centers, special housing, special summer residences, special hospitals - all this was elevated to the rank of state secrets.

Elite Discussions, about the change of elites, about their quality, about the very term "elite" in relation to the political leadership of Russia, about whether the post-Soviet elite is an established social stratum, or whether it is at the beginning of its formation, has been widely deployed in our country in last years. The well-known Russian sociologist Zh.T. Toshchenko strongly objects to the fact that the current rulers of Russia are called the elite. And there is no shortage of arguments to support this position. How can one call an elite in its true meaning people whose rule has led to a dramatic deterioration in the life of the population, to a reduction in its numbers? Then maybe these are examples of morality? Alas, this is one of the most corrupt groups in Russian society, whose members think more about their own enrichment than about the well-being of the people. In that - main reason alienation between the people and the elite. These people quite soberly consider their “entry into power” as temporary and, accordingly, act as temporary workers, concerned primarily with quick personal enrichment. Having been in power and falling out of it, they usually turn out to be very rich people, large shareholders of banks and corporations, and owners of solid real estate. A significant part of them are former party and Komsomol nomenclature officials, as a rule, of the second and third echelons, who managed to use the situation, easily changed their beliefs, often they are former shadow workers who have now legalized themselves, sometimes they are people with a criminal past. And these people really like it when they are called "elite". It tickles their ego. So is the term “elite” correct in relation to them? Perhaps it would be more correct to call them the ruling group or clan? But then the same approach should be applied to the political elite of other countries, also not distinguished by high morality. Wouldn't this dispute then be a dispute about words, a dispute of terminology? If, in accordance with the etymology of the term, the best, highly moral are considered elite, then political figures are unlikely to fall into their composition at all, in any case, the vast majority of them. A. Einstein, A. D. Sakharov, A. Schweitzer, Mother Teresa will get here, but the current political leaders will not. Then in what sense can this term be used in political science?

Judgments that we in Russia lived for many decades of the twentieth century without an elite, because the best people were destroyed or languished in concentration camps, were in emigration or "internal emigration" - judgments that can often be found in the literature of recent years - these are moral judgments, but not political science. Once there was a power process, it was carried out by certain institutions, certain people, whatever we call them; it is in this functional sense (and not moralizing) that the political scientist uses this term, regardless of the moral, intellectual and other qualities of the elite.

The answer to the question that interests us, in our opinion, is connected with the need to distinguish between political philosophy and political sociology in the structure of political science (along with other political science disciplines, such as political psychology, political history, etc.). The specificity of political philosophy lies not only in the fact that it represents the highest level of generalization of the political life of society, but also in the fact that it emphasizes the normativity of political processes, while political sociology describes and explains real political processes, which are sometimes very far away. from normative. And within the framework of political philosophy, precisely because it is of a normative nature, one should prefer the value, meritocratic criterion, and within the framework of political sociology, we are forced, alas, to focus mainly on the altimetry criterion.

It should be recognized that the Russian post-Soviet political elite is a phenomenon that is emerging rather than established.

Lecture 9
Elitism and Democracy

Elitism versus democracy

"Democratic elitism"

Elite and egalitarian paradigms. Finding the optimum

Since its inception, elitism has been an alternative to democracy. Elitarism proceeds from the inequality of people, while democratic theory proclaims their equality, even if only political, without guaranteeing social and economic equality. A In a democracy, the people are the subject of political power. For elitism, this subject is the elite. If Lincoln defined democracy as “the rule of the people, for the people and by the people”, then for an elitist this definition is unacceptable, especially his two final words, since Lincoln did not take into account that it is “technically impossible” to exercise the rule of the people, especially in a large country, and therefore it is necessary to delegate powers for political management to the elite, because the people are incompetent in politics, uninformed and misinformed, and if they really ruled themselves, they would only harm themselves; his interests are far better served by a "wise" and "prepared" elite.

According to the constitutions of democratic countries, the supreme power belongs to the people. However, it is no secret that the political reality of even the most advanced democratic countries is very far from this standard. An ordinary citizen understands that decisions important for his life are made without him, that he not only cannot influence these decisions, but also learns about them post factum from the media. In other words, he is an object of socio-political management, but by no means a subject. Modern political systems do not ensure the decisive participation of the majority of the population in making decisions that are vital to it, often acting as a mechanism for alienating the people from political power. Democracy, many political scientists believe, can at best be a form of elite government approved by the people.

But the attacks of radical elitistists on democracy in our time can hardly count on popularity. A different interpretation of relations by the ideology and practice of elitism and democracy is much more common. Recently it has become fashionable to write about the "historical reconciliation" of elitism with democracy. The Italian elitologist N. Bobbio argues that the followers of Mosca managed to reconcile elitism and democracy: the elites break up into the ruling and the opposition. When this process acquires a contrasting character, we are dealing with a dictatorship. When they can rule in stable order, we are dealing with a democracy. The theory of the elite and the theory of democracy are thus reconciled, since democracy is no longer "identified with the sovereignty of the people (!), but rather a system with more mobile and open elites."

To connect the concept of Mosca-Pareto with democratic theory, a radical revision of elitism was required, which was carried out in the 30s-50s. J. Schumpeter and K. Mannheim. Schumpeter proposed to modernize the concept of democracy as a system that allows the masses to make a choice from competing elites. In his "market" concept of democracy, various elites put their programs "for sale" and the masses of "buyers" accept or reject them in elections. Mannheim also took a similar position, seeking to combine the elite and democracy. “The actual policy-making is in the hands of the elite, but that doesn't mean society isn't democratic. For it is enough for democracy that citizens, although they do not have the opportunity to directly participate in governance, at least sometimes express their feelings, approving or disapproving of this or that elite during elections. The liberal version of elitism was developed by G. Lasswell: democracy differs from the oligarchy not in the absence of an elite, but in its open, representative, responsible character.” These views were later summarized by P. Bahrakh in the monograph “Democratic elitism”.

The attempt of democratic elitism to combine the elite and democracy, provided that the elite is open, seems attractive at first glance. But the fact that this distorts the very concept of democracy is alarming. The most important issue of democracy - the participation of an ordinary citizen in political life - becomes secondary, and the problem of social stability, directly related to the stability and continuity of the elite, ready to abide by the democratic "rules of the game", comes to the fore.

We are faced with yet another paradox of democracy. Carried out to the end, the idea of ​​democracy should deny the elite, although political practice indicates its presence in all political systems. Both models are extremes, they are Weberian ideal types (which, however, open up the possibility of explaining social processes). Then, rather, it should be assumed that democracy means a certain optimum in relations between the elite and the masses, where the presence of the elite is a means of optimal management, and not an end in itself, not a self-sufficient center of society. Although it is theoretically possible - albeit in a very distant future - a model of a political system where all members of society have such a high management culture that they do not need a special elite stratum. And this model is not an empty abstraction, it is a landmark, the approach to which is the implementation of de facto democracy.

Both extremes in relations between the elites and the masses are unfavorable for the political system - both the blind following of the masses by the elite, and the complete distrust of the masses in the elite, whose power ceases to be legitimate. Democracy can be viewed as a political system that ensures the control of the masses over the elite, which does not give the elite the opportunity to deprive the masses of political subjectivity, but, on the contrary, initiates their activity.

The solution to the question - whether society can function without an elite - is possible both at the level of political philosophy and political sociology. Within the framework of political philosophy, which is predominantly a normative theory, one can speak of a society without an elite as the ideal of democracy. Within the framework of political philosophy, which describes the real political process, sometimes very far from the normative one, we identify the role and functions of the elite in modern political systems, incl. democratic (thereby recognizing at this level the legitimacy of the theories of democratic elitism). In any case, the ruled should not succumb to the demagogic promises of the seekers of power and not lose vigilance and healthy suspicion towards those in power.

Lecture 10
Elitism - pluralism
Power structures and elite structures in the United States

1. Theories of political pluralism and their criticisms

2. Neo-elitism. Models of US political structure

3. The end of the XX - the beginning of the XXI century. Continuation of the discussion.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, there have been heated discussions among American political scientists about the structure of power in the United States. Who is the subject of power and the subject of political control? The most famous US political scientists, such as R. Dahl, T. Dai, W. Domhoff published books under similar titles: Who Rules? Who rules America?

The answers to this question are given not only very different from each other, but sometimes directly opposite. By the end of the century, the intensity of this controversy did not subside. Over the past decades, the emphasis has only changed, the personalities of the debaters have changed, and the empirical material has expanded. By the end of the century, this controversy was institutionalized, developing within three established areas - political pluralism (power is pluralistic, determined by the interaction of various interest groups), elitism (power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people occupying leading positions in the most important socio-political institutions), and finally, that this power is not released from its hands by the ruling class of the USA, which represents primarily the financial oligarchy, the owners and top managers of the largest corporations.

The conflicting positions can be summarized as follows:

Main debatable questions	Critical theories of the elite	Functional theories of the elite	Pluralistic theories of the elite
Are strong independent elites needed in advanced industrial countries?	Not
Does the presence of strong independent elites translate into exploitation of the population?
Is the US run by an elite(s)?

However, this controversy is being conducted in Western political science, so to speak, not "on an equal footing." Among these points of view, the pluralistic concept undoubtedly prevails, at least quantitatively.

	R. Mills model	Model D. Riesman
Power levels	A - the ruling elite	Rejects the ruling elite
	B - set of groups with different interests	B - same as Mills
	C - the masses, the unorganized public is practically powerless	C - masses (unorganized people), having some power over "interest groups"
Trends for change	Growing concentration of power	Growing Power Dispersion
Management Process	One group identifies critical policy issues	Who determines the policy depends on the particular issue. Competition between organized groups

At the end of the XX - beginning of the XXI centuries. in American political science, three main concepts of the structure of political power in the United States are fighting: pluralism, neo-elitism, and the neo-Marxist concept of the ruling class.

Typology of US Political Power Concepts
(late 20th - early 21st century)

	Elite pluralism	neo-elitism	The concept of the ruling class
	R. Dahl	T. Dai	W. Domhoff
Is there a single center of power	Not	Yes (power elite)	Yes (dominant class)
Upper stratum cohesion level	Low. The elites are specialized, each controlling mainly their area. Elite competition.	High. The differences relate to particular issues. When it comes to f fundamental interests of the system, competition recedes into the background. The Elite is a tight-knit group, though not a closed one.	High. The ruling class is dominated by the wealthy from the world of large corporations and banks.
Political orientation	Predominantly liberal.	Predominantly conservative.	Left-wing, neo-Marxist
Is a strong, cohesive elite useful to society?	No, it is dangerous for democracy, it is a threat to tyranny	Yes, provided that it is a qualified, efficient elite.	No, it leaves the masses defenseless, increases their level of exploitation
Who is the subject of the policy?	Interest Groups	ruling elite	ruling class

We would like to caution against final judgments that may sound like a sentence. Deciding which of the disputing parties is right cannot be decided by abstract theorizing. The correctness of any decision can be confirmed by empirical sociological research. And when solving the problem under study, we will rely, as a certain guideline, on understanding the differences between the approach of political philosophy, which emphasizes normativity, and the approaches of political sociology, which focuses on the description of the existing social process.

Lecture 11
Transformation and change of elites
(based on the history of Russian elites)
Pre-revolutionary elites

1. Patterns of the change of elites

2. Pre-revolutionary elites of Russia and

A century ago, V. Pareto formulated the theory of the circulation (circulation) of elites, which, in his opinion, explains social dynamics. The social system strives for equilibrium and, when it is removed from such a state, returns to it over time. This process forms a social cycle, the course of which depends primarily on the circulation of elites. They “arise in the lower strata of society and in the course of struggle rise to the highest, flourish there and eventually degenerate and disappear ... This circulation of elites is a universal law of history.”

According to Pareto, there are two main types of elites that successively replace each other. To designate these types of elites, Pareto uses N. Machiavelli's famous opposition of rulers - "lions" and rulers - "foxes", two methods of management ¾ with the help of resourcefulness and cunning (in the second case). The first type of elite ¾ "lions", they are characterized by extreme conservatism, rough "power" methods of government. The second type of elite ¾ "foxes", masters of demagoguery, deceit, political combinations .. Constant change of one elite by another ¾ the result of the fact that each type of elite has certain advantages, which, however, over time cease to correspond to the needs of the leadership of society. Therefore, maintaining the balance of the social system requires the replacement of one elite by another.

A society dominated by the elite of "lions" - retrogrades, is stagnant. In contrast, the elite foxes are dynamic. The mechanism of social balance functions normally when a proportional influx of people of the first and second orientations into the elite is ensured. The cessation of the circulation of elites leads to the degeneration of the ruling elite, to revolution.

The very concept of elite circulation in Pareto seems to be very vague and lends itself to various interpretations, it is not clear whether the concept of “circulation of elites” refers to the process of dynamics of non-elites into elites or to the replacement of one elite by another. Pareto does not distinguish between the concepts of change (that is, a radical change in the social base of the elite, a change in the ruling classes), and transformation of elites (a sharp increase in the level of mobility of representatives of the lower strata of society into the elite). We will introduce this distinction.

The patterns of transformation and change of elites are clearly visible in the more than a thousand-year history of Russia. Using its example, we can reveal the dependence of the quality of the elite and the stability of the socio-political system on the degree of its openness. Let's try to briefly describe the early Russian elites. G. Mosca wrote that in societies in the early stages of development, "individuals who show more abilities in war easily achieve superiority over their comrades." He directly calls Russia a characteristic example of the military elite as historically the first. V.O. Klyuchevsky also believed that "the highest class .... of Russian society, which was ruled by the prince of Kyiv, was the princely squad." She was divided into higher ( princely husbands or boyars), and lower ( youths). As for the Norman theory of the origin of the state in Russia, it should be noted that the process of folding the statehood of the East Slavic tribes began to take place even before Rurik, and, most importantly, the invitation to “kingship” was generally quite common in Europe (especially in the case of internal disagreements in the process of competition for power) and was often more like "hiring" a prince (monarch).

Russkaya Pravda by Yaroslav the Wise records the social stratification of the population, the rights and privileges of the elite stratum. It clearly indicates that in relation to the prince, people are divided into two classes ¾ on princely husbands and commoners. The first served the prince, they made up his retinue, the highest privileged class, through which the princes ruled their principalities, defended them from enemies; it was, so to speak, the princely elite. It is no coincidence that the life of the “prince of her husband” was guarded by a double vira. Among the princely husbands, a class of large landowners ¾ boyars, who enjoyed a wide range of privileges. The prince endowed senior representatives of the princely squad with administrative functions, left them in the regions, volosts of his principality “for feeding”, due to the lack of money in the treasury to pay for them. These people became less and less dependent on the center. This is especially true of the specific princes, who felt themselves to be independent kings in their fiefdoms. Moreover, the fragmentation of destinies from one princely generation to another was characteristic. The feudal fragmentation of Russia led to its weakening and became one of the main reasons for the defeat in the battles with the Golden Horde.

During the period of the rise of Moscow, which became the center that collected Russian lands, the composition, structure, mentality of the political and administrative elite of Russia changed in a certain way. The gathering of Russia was accompanied by the entry into the Moscow service of many princes, boyars from the principalities annexed to Moscow, as well as the entry into the service of the Moscow sovereign of noble foreigners from Lithuania, German principalities, and the Golden Horde. Grand Duke, and starting from Ivan IV, the tsar appointed governors who ruled individual regions, appointed boyars and other members of the elite to lucrative positions that ensured the "feeding" of their owners. It must be said that the traditions of "feeding", which were deeply rooted in the Russian elite and represented essentially institutionalized corruption, had a corrupting effect on this elite, and on society as a whole. It is possible to explain (but not justify) the reasons for this phenomenon. ¾ both objective (the need for an extensive administrative elite in a vast country and the lack of money to reward them for their service, primarily due to the huge costs of continuous wars), and subjective (the most lively readiness of elite members to get the maximum benefit from occupying their administrative post).

With the creation of a centralized Russian state, the role of the monarch changes; he is no longer the first among other princes, he is an autocrat, "God's anointed", exercising authoritarian rule, breaking the resistance of self-willed princes and boyars. The role and self-consciousness of the political and administrative elite is changing, which is increasingly striving to rule the Russian land not in parts and not alone, as their ancestors did, but collectively, through the central government.

A country with a vast territory, forced to constantly defend itself from the raids of nomadic tribes in the East (and increasing its territory also mainly in the East) and from the expansion of the West, a country whose development was hampered by the Tatar-Mongol yoke, a country that chronically lagged behind Western countries, was forced to constantly catch up with the West in order to survive, had to resort to a mobilization, forced type of development, to a model of modernization that required a huge effort of all the forces of the people, and in the conditions of a constant lack of money in the treasury. This type of development assumed an authoritarian, militarized political system that relied on coercive methods of solving problems, a system with a vertical hierarchical control system. This authoritarian power also assumed an authoritarian elite, which is the conductor of this power.

The Romanov dynasty continues its course towards strengthening autocratic rule. Under Mikhail, and especially under Alexei, an apparatus of a service bureaucracy was created, which steadily pressed the elite of the aristocracy. Cathedral code 1649 streamlines the system of centralized government through a system of orders that manage the affairs of the state.

Radical changes in the system of state administration and, accordingly, in the system of the political and administrative elite took place under Peter I. Peter was aware of the dead end of the traditional closed elite system, which did not give him the opportunity to implement his bold modernizing plans. He needed capable and energetic modernizers, he needed a managerial elite capable of overcoming the inertia of traditionalism. And he knew how to find organizational talents, raising the most capable, proven representatives of the lower strata of society to the elite. The process of modernization of society necessarily turns out to be a process of modernization of the elite.

The course of Peter the Great for the modernization of the country required the replacement of the traditional elite by the modernization elite. And Peter I created an extensive bureaucratic system of government, largely based on the management models of Western European countries. This bureaucracy was called upon to be the conductor of an absolutist domestic and foreign policy. The policy of modernization demanded the rejection of the principles of parochialism in the formation of the elite, the creation of a single hierarchized structure of bureaucracy. The document that determined the legal consolidation of this hierarchy was the “Table of Ranks of all ranks of military, civil and courtiers” of 1722. He established that the basic principle of the formation of the administrative and military elite should not be nobility of origin, but qualifications, fitness for service, personal merit.

Building the elite on the principle of vertical hierarchization, the state receives the most important mechanism for exercising its centralized absolutist power. The reforms of Peter I, carried out from above (as well as all reforms in Russia), forcibly, demanded elites of an authoritarian type, elites wholly dependent on the power of the monarch, exercising centralized, rigid power, receiving awards and privileges for service. The nobility becomes the basis of the elite This award is much more often than the money were estates that complained to the sovereign. By the way, here a contradiction inevitably arises, which was revealed with all its force a little later. The inheritance granted for the service of estates freed a significant part of the nobility from the need to enter the civil service and accelerated the process of creating a bureaucratic layer, the very one that in the 19th century began to be called "raznochintsy".

During the 300-year reign of the Romanov dynasty, the composition and structure of the Russian political and administrative elite changed significantly. Under the first Romanovs (17th century), the most important state issues were resolved at Zemsky Sobors, at which the central and local elites were represented, the top of the boyars were members of the Boyar Duma, which performed advisory functions under the tsar; but in the 18th century, as Klyuchevsky states, the boyars were destroyed. Russia becomes an empire; the emperor is endowed with unlimited power, the system of state administration is based on the principles of bureaucratic centralization. Under Peter I, the Boyar Duma was replaced by the Senate, which decided administrative, legislative and judicial issues. In the 18th century, according to Klyuchevsky, the place of the boyars “was taken by a new bureaucracy to know, consisting of veteran administrative businessmen ... this bureaucracy adopted some of the political habits of the aristocracy and strove to turn from a simple government tool into a government class, into an original political force, and therefore can be called bureaucratic aristocracy.

After the suppression of the restoration of the Decembrists, who can be considered a counter-elite who tried to overthrow the autocracy and serfdom, the military-bureaucratic absolutism of Nicholas I was established, the bureaucracy finally turned into a self-sufficient caste, striving to subjugate all aspects of human life.

Russia's defeat in the Crimean War demonstrated backwardness ¾ social and technical, the rottenness of the military-bureaucratic system. In our opinion, the attempts of Alexander II to liberalize the system of government in Russia and modernize its elite are respected. The largest of the reforms ¾ the abolition of serfdom, significant reforms such as the reform of local self-government (zemstvos), judicial reform, which meant the initial step towards a rule of law state. The reforms that had begun were interrupted by the assassination of the tsar and the prevalence of the conservative elite, which impeded the process of liberalization.

The gap between the people and the elite grew and reached its apogee in the reign of Nicholas II and resulted in the revolution of the twentieth century. During the revolution of 1905-1907. Nikolai was forced to make significant concessions in the direction of the constitutional limitation of autocracy, the convocation of the State Duma. Nevertheless, the ruling elite retained its estate character; the nobility, despite its undoubted weakening and impoverishment, retained its main positions in the elite. This elite could not adapt to the changed situation, to the demands of industrial society, and endlessly clashed with the Dooms. To this were added internal contradictions in the elite under a weak (let’s say otherwise, soft) indecisive tsar, the confrontation between the ruling elite and that part of the political elite that was recruited through a new channel for Russia ¾ through elections to the State Duma. The efforts of the Duma opposition and the attacks of the liberal and socialist press, seeking to compromise the government (in many ways, this criticism was fair) were crowned with success. The ruling elite completely exhausted the trust of the people, lost legitimacy in their eyes, and in the February revolution there were no serious social forces that would support a crumbling regime.

Let's try to give a general assessment of the pre-revolutionary elites. This assessment will be clearly low, despite some, albeit infrequent, rises of this elite - be it the "sons of Petrov's nest", the military and diplomatic elite of Catherine II, the liberal administrative elite and the diplomatic elite (led by the future Chancellor A.M. Gorchakov) Alexander II. In general, this elite was a closed caste, the pass to which was not the mind, but the nobility, where nepotism, clanism, bribery, and corruption flourished. Of course, compared with the subsequent elite, for example, with Stalin's thugs, many Russian political scientists now see this elite in a rosy light. However, if we evaluate it according to world criteria, the assessment, we repeat, will be low. It was at the beginning of the twentieth century that the deepest crisis of the political elite of tsarist Russia was revealed, which lost all authority in the eyes of the masses. The tragedy of Russia ¾ in the fact that in the conditions of the most difficult crisis caused by the war, the devastation of the winner among the heterogeneous counter-elite turned out to be the most extremist forces.

Undoubtedly, the change of elites occurs when the old ones are unable to respond to the challenge of history. Pre-revolutionary Russia experienced a severe crisis ¾ economic, social, military, and a significant share of responsibility for it falls on the ruling elite, which was unable to solve the problems of modernizing the country. Their solution was claimed by the counter-elite, which, having come to power and turned into the ruling elite, tried to solve this problem by the most cruel, sometimes terrorist methods, choosing the mobilization-militaristic path of the country's development.

Lecture 12
Soviet elite

The October Revolution was perhaps the most complete, radical, rapid change of elites in the history of the country's mankind, more radical, in particular, than during the French Revolution of 1798-1793. The closed noble and bureaucratic elite of tsarism degraded, showed a lack of political will, demonstrated its inability to govern a great country, modernize it, and absorb the best representatives of the "lower" strata. As P.A. wrote in this regard, Sorokin, “the degenerate ruling class stubbornly refused to participate in the “talented nuggets”, “self-taught” from other strata, not wanting to curtail their rights and ready to reject any talented “newcomers.

Payback was coming soon. Energetic, young, cynical, ruthless representatives of the counter-elite came to power, who, unlike the old elite, managed to establish contact with the masses, mobilize them to overthrow the tsarist elite, and then the elite of the “compromisers”. The extreme left, extremist representatives of the counter-elite won. These new leaders acted under the slogans of egalitarianism, anti-elitism. However, it soon turned out that instead of building a society without an elite, a new, Bolshevik elite came to power, and the methods of domination of this elite turned out to be not only authoritarian, but also totalitarian.

But how did it happen that the Bolsheviks, who came out with egalitarian slogans, mobilized the masses to fight against the ruling elite of the exploiting society, having taken power, themselves turned into a new elite of the society, which they, without hesitation, called socialist, in which there are no exploiting classes and which goes towards overcoming class differences?

The revolution, directed against the exploiting elite, against the elite of tsarism, the elite of the bourgeoisie, was itself largely elitist. The revolution was carried out by a minority of society ¾ Petrograd proletariat, sailors. True, this minority loudly declared that it was acting on behalf of the vast majority of the population, the working masses, that they were the foremost spokesmen for the interests of the people. Moreover, the majority of the people, due to illiteracy and oppression, have not matured to understand their interests. These interests are expressed by the vanguard of the proletariat, the hegemonic class marching at the head of the working masses. Did this scheme correspond to reality? Soon the answer to this question was received. The elections to the Constituent Assembly showed that the Bolsheviks were in the minority, which, however, did not bother them. Elections based on the struggle of parties for votes were declared bourgeois. The counter-elite, which had turned into an elite, did not even think of giving up power. On the contrary, its entire policy was aimed at retaining this power, at turning it into total power, into the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This turn of events was not unexpected for the most astute thinkers, who predicted the degeneration of left-wing radical leaders into an authoritarian, oligarchic elite, which, having come to power, would control the masses by dictatorial methods. Suffice it to recall "Demons" by F.M. Dostoevsky, in which left-wing extremist conspirators sought to seize power in order to manipulate the masses, using terrorist methods against them.

The theory of the "new class". The question of the ruling stratum or ruling class that arises after the socialist revolution was raised long before the October Revolution and was discussed for decades after it. In this regard, the concept that later became known as the theory of the “new class” is of undoubted interest. Even M. Bakunin wrote that the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, propagated by Marx, would be “despotism of the ruling minority”, covered up by demagogic phrases about what it expresses popular will, it will be the control of the vast majority of the masses by a privileged minority. “But this minority, say the Marxists, will consist of workers. Yes, probably from former workers, but who, as soon as they become rulers or representatives of the people, cease to be workers and begin to look at the whole laboring world from the height of the state, will no longer represent the people, but themselves and their claims to rule the people. And this despotic minority can easily include exorbitant ambitious people striving for power. The question is whether a society without an elite is possible and how it can be implemented in practice, and whether the communist ideal drawn by Marxists will not be a cover for a new form of omnipotence by an elite that seizes power and establishes a cruel dictatorship, not disdaining for "universal happiness" by no means (as Dostoevsky wrote about it in Possessed). Many thinkers have expressed doubts about this. Regarding the Marxist claim that the dictatorship of the proletariat will be short-lived, and its goal will be to educate the people, Bakunin expresses deep skepticism, arguing that "no dictatorship can have any other goal than to perpetuate itself."

The organizational structure of the new government turns out to be elitist through and through. The ruling party according to Lenin (see “What is to be done?”) assumed a “narrow layer of party functionaries”, its elite, and a wide layer of party members who carried out the decisions of its leadership - such was the germ of the future “new class”. When the party came to power, the elite structure of the party was reproduced on the scale of the largest country in the world. After October revolution Lenin wrote about the decisive role of the revolutionary vanguard of the working class (that is, the party, but in fact the party elite) in the leadership of society. Lenin himself recognized that "the policy of a party is determined not by its composition, but by the enormous, undivided authority of that thinnest layer that can be called the old party guard." Stalin frankly wrote about this: "The Communist Party as a kind of Order of the Sword-bearers within the Soviet state." And Trotsky wrote that the dietetura of the proletariat turned out to be the dictatorship of the party, and the dictatorship of the party - the dictatorship of its top. It was Trotsky who played an important role in developing the theory of the "new class", he wrote about the bureaucratic degeneration of the leading elite of the party under Stalin.

The development of a holistic concept of the "new class" belongs to M. Djilas, who argued that the "communist system" serves as the basis for the emergence of a new privileged class, which is the bureaucratic top of the party and the state, which has unlimited power. The concept was continued by M. Voslensky, who used the term "nomenclature" instead of the "new class".

Soviet elite. Generational analysis So far, we have been talking about the Soviet elite as a whole. But this elite has undergone a complex evolution: each new generation of this elite is similar to the previous one, and, at the same time, differs significantly from it. Therefore, the evolution of the Soviet elite can be represented as a change of generations of the elite, each of which has specific characteristics.

Four generations of this elite can be distinguished. First ¾ the “Leninist guard”, who carried out the revolution, dreamed of a world revolution, considered the Russian revolution as the basis of the world revolution; they were ready to throw countries and peoples into its fire, including their own. Within this elite, a fierce internecine struggle for power unfolds after the death of Lenin.

The second generation of this elite ¾ Stalinists, cruel, disciplined executors of Stalin's will, fanatically devoted to the charismatic leader. There is a change in the orientations of this elite - a course towards building socialism in a “single country”, towards modernization of the militaristic-mobilization type, “spurred on” by large-scale repressions, which a number of political scientists qualifies as genocide against their own people.

The third generation of the Soviet elite ¾ the elite of the bureaucracy and party functionaries, whose leaders were Khrushchev and especially Brezhnev, who maximized its rights and "liberties". It was a period of institutionalization and routinization of the nomenklatura elite, a time of relatively stable elite careers. At the end of this period - in the 70s - the first half of the 80s, the gerontocratic elite of stagnation was in power.

Finally, the fourth (and last) generation of the Soviet elite is the “perestroika” elite. It was heterogeneous in composition, although politically it was dominated by reformers led by Gorbachev, who sought to modernize the stagnant socio-political system, build socialism with a "human face", and pursued a policy of glasnost and democratization of the regime. The tragedy of this elite was that it had certain limits to its reformism associated with the Soviet partocratic regime. The socio-political system that they ruled was fundamentally unreformable, it needed not modernization, but transformation into a different socio-political system. But this function could not be performed by this elite (then it would not have been the Soviet elite), it was already performed by the post-Soviet elite. Many political scientists consider the rule of this elite (and not without reason) as an exchange of power for property.

More than six years of perestroika were a period of dramatic personal changes in the ruling elite of society, but it remained as the same social group. And for this reason alone, perestroika was doomed. Thus, although perestroika brought about unprecedented changes in the composition of the elite, it was not a change of elites, it was a transformation of the same elite. The change of elites remained on the agenda.

One of the results of perestroika was the conversion of the power of the ruling elite into property. And then on the agenda is the conversion of ownership of power.

Lecture 13
post-soviet elite

1. Has there been a change of elites?

2. The structure of the post-Soviet elites.

3. Political and administrative elite

4. Economic elite

5. Cultural elite

6. Regional elite

7. Relationship between elites: conflict or consensus?

The main thing in elitology is how to optimize the relationship between the elite and the masses, where the interests of the masses will be a priority (the elite for the people, and not the people for the elite) - this is democracy. Another important thing is the relationship between elite groups, between elites. Today, political scientists write about the emerging split in the Russian elites - between the oligarchs and the "Chekists" (we are talking about the top of the "siloviki" and bureaucracy). In this regard, the question is interesting: what is better for the population - a single, cohesive elite or split into competing groups? The answer is ambiguous. For the stability of the political system, a single elite is preferable. Discord among the elites is a threat to stability. But the presence of competing groups in the elite is good for democracy: these groups are forced to seek the support of the masses, their role is growing, they are the arbiter. In general, the people should not rely on the ruling elite, so as not to be fooled (the elite have their own group interests that do not coincide with the mass ones). Now some elitologists are writing about the "revolt of the elite" against the masses. The elites have their own subculture, their own living standards, their own preferences, their own mentality, their own value orientation (mostly pro-Western), they prefer to educate their children in the US or Germany, which makes us think about the question: is this elite ours? So, let's rely not on the ruling elite, but first of all on ourselves, we will actively create a civil society that singles out its informal elite, and we will strictly control the ruling elite. In a civil society, it is not the elite who governs the people, but the people hire political administrators, managers to effectively manage society in the interests of the majority, and dismiss these managers if they do not perform these functions. This will be a tragedy for the authoritarian elite, but it opens the way for not controlled, but genuine democracy.

Lecture 14
Recruitment of political elites

1. The process of recruiting elites and its features

2. Typology of elite recruiting.

3. Recruitment of elites in Russia Traditions of localism. Nomenclature. Neonomenclature.

4. Comparison of Russian and American Elite Recruitment Experience

Obviously, the quality of the elite largely depends on the principles of its recruitment. Political recruiting ¾ it is the involvement of people in an active political life. And the most important place in it is occupied by the process of recruiting the political elite, through which the legislative and executive bodies of the state, the government apparatus, and the leading cadres of state institutions are formed. To examine the process of this recruitment is to examine the political process in terms of how people get involved in politics, are promoted to senior political positions (including becoming political leaders), establish political contacts, how they make political careers.

In stable political systems, the recruitment of the elite is institutionalized, that is, carried out in accordance with carefully designed procedures (usually sanctified traditions), as a result of which the personal composition of the elite is updated more or less periodically, while the political structure itself remains largely unchanged. The situation is different in conditions of a sharp break in the political system, in periods of political instability. Then there is a transformation or change of elites; people who held key positions in public administration are deprived of their posts; there are many vacancies that are filled in violation of the usual routine norms. The society never experiences a lack of those wishing to occupy elite positions, which is stimulated by the high status of managerial activity, prestige, and the possibility of obtaining a number of privileges, including material ones. Another thing is how qualified recruits are in elite positions, what are their moral and business qualities.

The system of elite recruitment is of the utmost importance to the political system; it can either provide more or less equal access to power to all citizens, or limit these opportunities, or even completely deprive them of these opportunities. One of the characteristics of a truly democratic political system is the creation of opportunities for every citizen to achieve a position that entitles him to be considered a member of the political elite.

In the process of recruiting the political elite, the most important points ¾ the breadth of its social base, the circle of persons who select the elite (selectorate), and finally, the procedure, the mechanism of this selection. The experience of the ending millennium shows that the closed elite, which is formed from representatives of a narrow privileged stratum, is reproduced on its own limited base, inevitably degrades, rots, sooner or later giving way to a society with a more open elite, which leads to a change in the entire socio-political structures. And the more closed the elite is, the narrower its social base, the less chances it has to prolong its dominance, to survive in competition with other socio-political systems.

The quality of the elite depends on how it is recruited, on how transparent the elite is, open for the most active, educated, innovative people from all classes and strata of society, and also on whether there are barriers to vertical social mobility for people who are random, morally unscrupulous, i.e. whether the most morally and intellectually worthy people really get into the elite. The closed type of elite recruitment is historically the first. As a rule, he dominates in a traditional society. The open type prevails in modern society; it is the result of the development of the political system, because it requires a high level of political culture for its functioning. The first type is characterized, first of all, by the narrowness of the social base of this elite. This is the ruling class, stratum, estate, which monopolizes political power; all elite positions are occupied by his henchmen. Since this type of elite recruitment narrows the social base of the latter, prevents the most capable people from the lower strata of society from occupying elite positions, dissidents, etc., it dooms the political system to stagnation, the latter inevitably degenerates, loses the ability to effectively manage), essentially provokes the formation of a counter-elite that surpasses the ruling elite in its intellectual and passionate indicators, which uses the dissatisfaction of the masses with the existing social system to overthrow it, to change the elite. The ideal goal of elite recruitment is to promote the most competent and worthy to leadership positions (meritocratic principle).

Lecture 15
Elite education

1. The concept of elite education. Elite and elite education

2. History of elite education

3. Experience of elite education in Russia

4. Elite education and social justice

5. Sociology of elite education. Functional and conflict models of elite education
Comparative analysis of elite education in modern developed countries

6. World Experience of Elite Education and the MGIMO Model

In today's information society, where main value becomes information and, accordingly, the “information person”, the requirements for the educational system inevitably increase. Post-industrial structures will constantly be in dire need of the production of a highly skilled elite, a meritocracy, the need for which will increase with their overall development.

World philosophical and sociological thought is increasingly coming to a conclusion that a superficial glance may seem undemocratic: the scientific and cultural potential of a country in the modern information society is determined not so much by the average level of those participating in the socio-economic process as by the potential of its cultural elite. That is why a particularly important task of the education system is seen in the search and development of potential abilities and talents, especially of the younger generation.

Perhaps, this problem is most clearly realized in the most developed, advanced countries. There is a real hunt for talent in all important areas. human activity- in politics, business, science, art (including the search for them abroad, initiating a "brain drain" from less developed countries, further increasing their scientific and technical gap from them).

Will Russia enter the 21st century as a great power, or will it end up on the periphery of human civilization? Our future is being laid today, it will be determined to a decisive extent by the young generation, which begins to live and create in the new millennium. In the modern world, a state gets a chance to become a prosperous country that creates maximum scope for the realization of human creative potentials, for identifying the talents and abilities of people and will be able to put them at the service of society. Therefore, society must seek, identify the talents and abilities of its members and, preferably, as early as possible, from childhood, develop and nurture them. It is known that communication skills, for example, the qualities of a leader, are formed already at an early age.

In order to identify and develop these talents, certain prerequisites are needed, among them the creation of equal starting opportunities for the younger generation, the opportunity to compete for the highest level of education, which would be the key to upward social mobility. It is under this condition that the most talented, honest people who can ensure the optimal management of society will come to the highest, most prestigious positions in society.

Thus, any social system, and especially in the conditions of a post-industrial society, needs to organize the training of the elite, in the system of elite education, preferably as open as possible. In modern conditions, the system that closes the way to the top for talents (or at least puts obstacles in their way, not opening the doors of social mobility wide enough, no matter for what reasons - ideological, social-class, national or otherwise), is doomed.

The concept of elite education. The term "elite education" is used ambiguously in the literature, sometimes in different senses. First of all, high quality education is called elite (in English literature - high quality education). The term is used in addition to this and in a different sense. It is also understood as education aimed at training the elite - political, economic, cultural. In the second case, the main question is: who is being trained to occupy elite positions? Coming from elite families, from the rich and noble, preparing to replace parents with children in order to reproduce the elite in such a "natural" way? Or should one look for gifted children, talented youth in all social strata of society? The first approach - let's call it "elite education" - means a system of closed education, it dooms elite education, and even such an elite, to degradation. With regard to Russia, this would mean preparing for elite positions the children of senior government officials and the “new Russians”, who have the opportunity to hire expensive tutors, moreover, from teachers of elite educational institutions. And only the second approach meets the task of creating a high-quality elite.

Literature:

Afanasiev M.N. Ruling elites and statehood of post-totalitarian Russia, M. - Voronezh, 1996; Ashin G.K. Modern theories of the elite, M., 1985; his own: Elitology: formation, main directions, M., 1995; Elitology. Political elite, M., 1996; Fundamentals of elitology, Almaty, 1996; Elitology. Change and recruitment of elites, M., 1998; Course of the history of elitology, M., 2003; . Ashin G., Okhotsky E., Course of elitology, M., 1999; Ashin G., Ponedelkov A., Ignatiev V., Starostin S., Fundamentals of political elitology, M., 1999; Gaman-Golutvina O.V. Political elites of Russia, M., 1998; Ponedelkov A. Elite (political_administrative elite) Rostov-on-Don, 1995; Karabuschenko P., Plato's Elitology, Astrakhan, 1998.

summary.The term "elitology" is a Russian innovation of the end of the 20th century. It was introduced to meet the needs of a complex discipline dealing with the elite phenomenon which integrates the achievements and methods of philosophy, political science, sociology, history, psychology, cultural studies. In the Russian and world science elitological problems are being solved mainly by sociology and political science. The article shows the insufficiency of these approaches, the necessity of wider ways of approach which are characteristic for philosophy /including elitological ontology, elitilogical epistemology, elitological philosophical anthropology/. The article also emphasizes the role of philosophy as the theoretical basis for solving elitological problems. Thus, the distinguishing between the approaches of political philosophy and political sociology turns out to be euristic as far as the solution of such disputable problems of elitology as the definition of the elite notion, relations between elitism and democracy, typology of elite recruiting, etc. , are concerned.

Philosophical dimensions of elitology

Elitology has been formed on the basis of social and political philosophy. But it integrated the achievements and methods of other sciences, representing interdiscipline knowledge which lies at the joint of social philosophy, political science, sociology, history, psychology and cultural studies.

In a broad sense elitology is based on the teaching of differentiation of being, connected with its hierarchization /the key problem for understanding the elite phenomenon/, as well as on synergetics. But let's get narrow the subject of elitology to the social dimension. It should be mentioned that one of the first thinkers to view society as a system in the state of dynamic balance was V.Pareto, a well-known classic of elitology.In this connection I would also like to mention the contributions by A. Bogdanov and T. Kotarbinsky who developed the systems approach in their respective theories of tectology and praxiology with most fruitful applications especially in the understanding of the functioning of political/administrative elites.

By inquiring into the processes of social differentiation and stratification, elitology emerges as a science dealing with the highest stratum in any system of social stratification, of its special functions of controlling system as a whole or some of its subsystems, and working out the norms and values ​​that serve to self-preservation and development of the system.The elite includes the most respected persons who serve as the reference group and whose values ​​other members of the society pattern their behavior on. They are either upholders of traditions that help integrate and stabilize the society or, under different circumstances (usually situations of crises), the most active, ‘passionary’ members of the society – sources of innovations.Thus, elitology is a science dealing with elites, the foundations of the social differentiation, its criteria and legality. It goes without saying that this science requires the development of the corresponding category network, including the definition of eliticity.

Finally, often /and first of all in political science/ elite is used in the narrow sense of the term , i.e. as politico-administrative elite. It is this part of elitology that became /probably without sufficient reasons/ the most wide-spread one though it is only one of many elitological disciplines.In the narrow sense elitology (to be more specific, political elitology) studies the process of social-political management; its primary task is understood as identification of the highest social stratum which directly exercises this management (managers as opposed to the managed), in other words, the composition of the elite, its structure, the laws of its functioning, its coming to power and holding this power, its legality as a ruling stratum under condition of acknowledgment by mass followers its leading role in the social process, reasons for its decline, degradation (resulting mainly from its 'closedness'), its departure from the historical arena, transformation and change of elites.

The structure of elitology as a subject of study includes the history of elite studies, i.e. the history of elitology, studies of its laws – laws of its structure, links between its elements /political, economical, cultural elite and others/ that are usually subsystems of elite as an integral system, the laws of elite functioning, the interaction between elements of this system, the role of each of these elements as far as elite is concerned as an integrate phenomenon, laws of interdependence and subordination of the system elements and, finally, laws of the development of this system, its transition from one level to another , usually a higher one, to a new type of connections within it.

The term elitology is a Russian neologism. First introduced in the 1980s, it spread widely among Russian social scientists since late 1990s which saw publication of about a thousand new works on the subject resulting in the emergence of what may be called a Russian school of elitology.

Unfortunately, our foreign colleagues are not in a hurry /for the time being?/ to acknowledge the necessity and legality of this term or its equivalent which has not offered yet. One can assume that the term "elitology" grate on the ears of those for whom English is a native language. It is no mere chance that they use the term "political science" instead of "politology" and "cultural studies" instead of "culturology".We do not insist on the term though; as a Russian proverb goes: "Call me a pot, if you will, but don't put me into the stove." Indeed, it is not the sign but its meaning that is of importance, here, too, the accent is not on the term, but on its contents.

In recent years the author had a chance to discuss elite problems on a number of occasions, including international congresses and conferences and lectures at US and German universities. I was typically asked to deliver lectures and teach special courses under customary (in the USA and Western Europe) names of Sociology of Elite, if intended for departments of social sciences, and Political Elites, if intended for departments of political science. In fact, do such courses as Political Elites and Sociology of Elite, Theories of Elite as read at Western universities cover all elitological problems? They are rather parts of elitology dealing with different aspects of the elite phenomenon. This fragmentary approach makes it impossible to treat its object, the elite, as an integral whole, as a system with its own laws of functioning and development, to grasp the relations within the elite and between the elite and the society at large in all their varieties. It is this integral approach to the phenomenon of elite that elitology, especially the Russian school of elitology, insists on. As to the very term elitology, one should not exaggerate its importance: like any other piece of scientific vocabulary it is just an aspect of a concept, even if a key aspect. Elitology is the broadest term that encompasses all elite studies, regardless of the value preferences of this or that scholar, regardless of whether he/she is an apologist or a critic of elites. Elitology seeks to be a science, not an ideology.

It was argued (not without reason) by foreign colleagues that elitology is a clumsy term insofar as it combines roots of different origins – one, Latin, one, Greek. The author's answer was that he would gladly use the term aristology(free of this flaw) but for the fact that the term elite introduced by V. Pareto (deficient in aspects many) has by now become an established, indeed, term, and substitution of a new word would only bring greater terminological confusion. Another objection against introduction of the term elitology was that one should not increase the number of scholarly disciplines, following W. Ockham’s famous methodological principle of not multiplying the number of essences. In defense of my position, I had to point out that Ockham's maxim was not quoted in full: the English scholar objected to multiplying the number of essences ‘without reason’. Here we seem to have every reason for introduction of a new term: elites are salient in history in general and in Russia’s democratic transition in particular.

But let us come back to courses read at West European and US universities and dealing with particular elites and/or particular aspects of elite studies. Courses called Theories of Elite usually center on historical or political issues. An interesting course called Elitism and based on a monograph of the same name by I. Field and J. Higly promotes an 'elite paradigm', but this is just one of paradigms that, specifically, takes no notice of the egalitarian paradigm, and for this reason alone it may not claim to cover the entire field of elitology. Neither can we be satisfied with elitarist approaches in the spirit of F.Nietzsche and J.Ortega y Gasset, for both take the mass/elite dichotomy for granted, unquestionably accept it as a norm of civilized society, ignore or underestimate the possibility of analyzing and interpreting the phenomenon of elite from the egalitarian standpoint that sees the very existence of the elite as an outrage against democracy and objects to its perpetuation.

Courses like political elite may claim even less to encompass the entire field of elite-related problems. The overwhelming majority of contemporary scholars recognize the plurality of elites: political, economic, religious, cultural, etc. But if the word elite occurs in any context without a specifying adjective, one may be certain that it is a political elite that is in mind. This is a sure sign of the predominance of the political elite in public mind and indicates that non-political elites are forced into the background. This is a sad phenomenon, in my opinion, for it implies the priority or, stronger still, the superiority of political elites. For it seems more appropriate that the highest status in the hierarchy of elites (socially dominant groups) belong to the cultural elite – to creators of new cultural norms and values.

Perhaps the closest to the subject of elitology is the sociology of elites. However, the latter's field is far narrower than that of the former. Nor should one overestimate the importance and efficacy of sociological methods: elitology seeks to supplement them with methods practiced in philosophical, cultural and psychological studies. The sociological approach developed by V. Pareto is an important part, but still only a part of elitology. The Russian school of elitology, therefore, advocates the system approach as a more promising one.

The Russian school of elitology is the child of the last fifteen years. Its emergence is easily explained. The elitological problems were taboo in the Soviet Union. Studies of the Soviet elite were censured as ideologically unacceptable. The official ideology saw elite as an attribute of ‘antagonistic’ class societies, hence impossible in the classless socialist society, although the existence of the privileged stratum of Soviet bureaucracy (indeed, an elite) was an open secret. The subject-matter of elitology could thus enter Soviet social science only through the back door, by means of criticism of bourgeois sociology – a permitted genre, though the very term bourgeois sociology made no more sense than say bourgeois physics.

It is not surprising therefore that Russian elitology was born in the course of the nation's democratic transition. With censorship abolished, the studies of elites boomed. One may say that Russia has earned its right to elitology. It suffered so much from the unchallenged rule by incompetent, authoritarian (one may even say, totalitarian), often corrupted elite. It felt an acute need for a scholarly discipline that could optimize norms and requirements for elite education, recruitment and means of democratic control over the elites.

Russian elitology has had important local roots. It could draw on the powerful traditions of the Russian pre-revolutionary philosophy, politiology and sociology as represented by such outstanding figures as N. B erdyaev, M. Ostrogorsky, P. Sorokin, I. Ilyin, G. Fedotov, whose contribution to elitology can hardly be overestimated.

Elitology is a complicated discipline that includes philosophical elitology, sociology of elites, political elitology, elitology of history, as well as history of elitology, elitological psychology (studying motivations for power, psychological peculiarities of elite strata, etc.), cultural elitology (studying elites in their functional role as creators of cultural values ​​and the interdependence of the elite and mass cultures), comparative elitology (studying general laws and peculiar features of elites in various countries/cultures), elite education and elite pedagogy. This is naturally not a complete list.

Philosophical elitology is the highest level of generalization in elitology. It also has a complicated structure. One may distinguish between elitological ontology, elitological epistemology (studying, among other, sacral knowledge, esoteric gnotheology), elitological axiology, elitological philosophical anthropology.

Ontological elitology enquires into heterogeneity, differentiation and hierarchy of being. It is at this level that the problem of eliteness and eliticity is considered in its widest context. It should be noted here that heterogeneity and hierarchy of being was the focal point of ancient (Pythagoras, Heracleitus, Socrates, Plato) and medieval (St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas) philosophy, debated by modern and 20th-century philosophers (N. Berdyaev , J. Ortega y Gasset).

It is primarily elitological epistemology that allows us to draw the vital distinction between the elitarianism (as characterized by ‘closedness’) and elitism (as characterized by greater ‘openness’). The elitarian gnotheology sought to a theory of esoteric knowledge for the ‘chosen’ ones, those initiated into secret wisdom and practices and marked by special grace; it emphasized occult knowledge, intuition and inspiration. Disintegration of primitive cultures resulted in social hierarchies based not only on social class differences, but also on unequal access to sacred knowledge. This secret knowledge was the symbolic capital of these proto-elites and legitimized their claims to social privileges. Elitarian esoteric knowledge was sought for millennia by earliest Indian and Chinese philosophers, including Brahmans and Taoists, pre-Socratic Greek philosophers (like Pythagoreans) and conceptualized in Plato’s theory of eidetic knowledge. It was later developed by theosophists, such as Meister Eckhart, Swedenborg), H.Blavatsky. R. Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, devoted himself to the development of speculative mysticism in the traditions of theosophy. This mystic, occultist, esoteric theory of knowledge with its elitarian bias should be contrasted to classical epistemology as represented by Kant which can be properly called ‘elite’ (considering its profundity, its critical, as well as open to criticism, character).

Elitological philosophical anthropology and elitological personalism is a tradition that originates in Confucius and Plato and is upheld in the 20th century by N. Berdyaev and E. Mounier. It addresses the issue complex of personality and focuses on the process of self-perfection taking men/women to the level of elite. Personal ‘elitisation’ has been the focal point of religious philosophies, from Buddhism (with its notion of ‘enlightened’ person) to contemporary philosophical anthropology which aspires to transcend all pre-set limits.

We have started out exposition of elitology with the branch thereof which had been the core of elite studies once but was largely ignored in more recent times, viz. philosophical elitology, and concluded it with what is nowadays its most favored branch, political elitology. It is high time to correct this injustice and draw elitologists’ attention again to the philosophical basics of their own field required to develop a comprehensive and convincing general theory of elitology.

41. Analysis of official structures and formal decision-making rules

typicalfor…( 1 answer option)

a. system method; in. behavioral method;

b. institutional method; d. comparative method.

97. American political scientist. Eastondeveloped the theory of political

concept-based systems… …(1 answer option)

a. "legality - legitimacy" in. « input– exit»

b. "stability - instability" d. "decision - action"

a. absolute control of power over all spheres of society and citizens

b. strivingpower to control only the political process

in. government's desire to control the economy

120. Ancient democracy was…

a. straightb. representative

289. Anti-war peace movement, opposed to all

wars, regardless of their nature and goals, is called…

a. cosmopolitanism

b. pacifism

in. pauperism

d. expansionism

52. Behavioraltheories of power analyze…( 1 answer option)

a. systemic nature of power

b. unconscious motives that influence decision making

in. behavioral aspects of power relations

d. game aspect of power relations

104. Bolshevism– it's a variety…

a. right-wing totalitarianism

b. left totalitarianism

2. For the first time the department of political science arose in…( 1 answer option)

a. England in. USA

b. Germany, France

11. Is it true, that Plato considered democracy to be the best form of government?

a. Yes b. No

18. "The war of all against all» – this is, according to T. Hobbes

characteristic…( 1 answer option)

a. the state of the people

b. social status of people

in. naturalthe state of the people

19. First introduced the concept« state», distinguish between the state and

society…( 1 answer option)

a. T. Hobbes in. H. Machiavelli

b. J. Locke G. C. Montesquieu

37. The structure of political science does not include…( 1 answer option)

a. international relations theory

b. cratology

in. ontology

d. theory of the rule of law

55. Power, based on massive media exposure,

called…( 1 answer option)

a. gerontocracy in. mediacracy

b. Meritocracy d. Plutocracy

69. Leading political theoristselitology…( 2 answers)

a. AT. Paretoin. G. mosca

b. M. Weber G. R. Kjellen

73. Select Key Principles for an Elite Approach to Politics( 2

answer option)

a. politics is a struggle for power

b. most people should not be involved in politics

in. the population in the state is divided into rulers and ruled

d. Most people should have access to the most important political

tools and means.

87. Politic system– this is…( 1 answer option)

a. set of public institutions

b. set of political organizations exercising power

in. set of state and public organizations, norms and

principles of the exercise of power

d. system of political and public organizations exercising power

95. The institutional subsystem of the political system includes…( 2

answer option)

a. ideology in. political culture

b. stateG. political parties

98. Is the statement true, that a democratic political system

is open?

a. Yes b. No

99. Is the statement true, that totalitarian political systems

belong to closed systems?

a. Yesb. No

121. In today's world, a form of democracy is common…

a. straight b. representative

132. AT to the competence of the executive bodies of state power

included… (3 answer options)

a. implementation of foreign policy

b. implementation of adopted laws

in. human rights monitoring

d. repeal of extralegal acts

d. development and execution of the state budget

134. High degree of state intervention in economic life

societies– this is…(1 answer option)

a. secession c. autarky

b. statismG. Liberalism

140. In a presidential republic, the government bears the political

responsibility to…(1 answer option)

a. parliament

b. president

in. parliament and president

142. ATsemi-presidentialrepublic, the government bears the political

responsibility to…( 1 answer option)

a. parliament

b. president

in. parliament and president

164. The upper house of the Russian parliament is called…

a. Federal Assembly

b. Council of the Federation

in. Legislative Assembly

State Duma

169. The highest body of executive power in the Russian Federation– this is

a. parliament in. presidential administration.

b. government Supreme Court

181. In those cases, when the President of the Russian Federation is unable to fulfill his

powers, they are temporarily performed…(1 answer option)

a. speaker of parliament

b. Chairman of the Federation Council

in. head of the presidential administration

G. Prime Minister

197. Depending on participation in the exercise of state power, all

political parties are divided into…( 1 answer option)

a. ruling and opposition

b. legal and illegal

in. opposition and legal

d. ruling and illegal

199. Is the statement true, that some political parties

limit their activities to participation in election campaigns?

a. Yes b. No

200. Choose the correct judgment:

a. all parties are divided by class

b. every political party has a program and charter

in. all political parties aim at state power

d. all parties have individual fixed membership

201. In a modern democratic party state…(1 answer option)

a. lobby for the interests of the oligarchy

b. reflect the political interests and goals of different sectors of society

in. are representative institutions

are engaged exclusively in propaganda activities

213. Possibilities of a one-party system…(1 Possible answer)

a. lack of real diversity in society's political leanings

b. unilateral advantages in media access

in. dominance of forceful methods of conflict regulation

G. all of the above

214. Highlight the correct sentence:

a. Russia has a proportional electoral system

b. The United States has a multi-party system

in. China has a two-party system

Russia has a two-party system

215 . Elections to the State Duma are carried out according to…(1 answer option)

a. majoritarian electoral system

b. proportional electoral system

in. mixed electoral system

223. The most important idea of ​​liberalism is…(1 answer option)

a. the existence of a universal moral order

b. desire for change

in. the need for active participation of the state in the economy

G. the absolute value of the human person

224. Select in statements, corresponding to the ideology of liberalism…(2

answer option)

a. « man himself knows better than any government, what does he want»

b. “Equality is not only a legal, but also a political concept, which

should be introduced into the public sphere”

in. “The state is that without which it is impossible to establish either order or

justice, nor inner solidarity"

G. « the supreme state body can not be compared with the head,

crowning society, and with a hat, which can be easily changed»

229. Choose a saying, relevantconservative

ideologies…(1 answer option)

a. « I would like to make repairs as close as possible to the style of that building, which

being repaired»

b. “man by nature is not able to live peacefully, he is obsessed with a thirst for power,

sinful, greedy"

justice

230. Choose a saying, corresponding to the ideologysocial-

democracy:

a. “I would like to make repairs as close as possible to the style of the building that

being repaired"

b. « man by nature is not able to live peacefully, he is obsessed with the lust for power,

sinful, greedy»

in. solidarity is the interaction of all people for the sake of achieving freedom and

justice

d. “Equality is one of the necessary elements of society, while

freedom is both a means and, in a sense, an end in itself.

241. Select the characteristics of Western political culture (3 options

a. ideals of individual freedom

b. deification of rulers and their administrative activities

in. dominance of corporatism values

d. recognition of the individual as the main subject and source of politics

e. competitive type of participation in power

e. gravitation towards simplified forms of power organization

In the process of formation of democratic statehood in the Republic of Belarus and the formation of a political elite that meets modern conditions, an important place belongs to the study of analysis and the use of historical experience. It is well known that without knowledge of the historical process of formation and development of the elitist theory, it is impossible to scientifically resolve the issues of the elite today, since the study historical facts will allow to take into account the lessons of the past in today's conditions.

The recognized founders of elitology and its “fathers” are the Italian sociologists G. Mosca, V. Pareto, R. Michels. They formulated the doctrine, and subsequent elitistists developed and rethought certain provisions, but the fundamental foundations remained unshakable. This elite structure of society is both a necessity and a norm. It was they who made the elite the subject of their research, tried to give it a definition, reveal its structure, the laws of its functioning, the role of elites in the social and political system, the mobility of representatives of other strata of society into the elite, and the patterns of change of elites.

The leading role in the formulation of the modern theory of elites belongs to G. Mosca and V. Pareto. Moreover, between these authors and their followers there was and continues a dispute about priority. A holistic concept of the ruling class, its role in the socio-political process was put forward by G. Mosca. This concept was formulated in the book "Elements of Political Science", published in 1896 and became widely known after the second revised and expanded edition in 1923.

The dominant position of Mosca's concept is the division of society into a dominant minority and a politically dependent majority. Here is how Mosca forms his position: “In all societies, from those barely approaching civilization to modern advanced and powerful societies, two classes of people always arise - the class that rules and the class that rules. The first class is always small, performs all political functions, monopolizes power, while the other, more numerous class, is governed and controlled by the first, and in such a way that ensures the functioning of the political organism ... .. In political life, we all recognize the existence of this ruling (or political) class. ”

This formulation is given by many theorists of elitism as a "classical" formula for the foundations of the political elite.

Since the management of public affairs and society itself is carried out by the smallest segment of the population, Mosca questions the very concept of “democracy”: “What Aristotle called democracy was simply “aristocracy for a fairly large number of members of society.” Mosca sees democracy as a camouflage for the same minority power, plutocratic democracy, acknowledging that it is precisely in the refutation of democratic theory that “the main task of this work of his lies.” Moreover, the power of the minority over the majority is, to one degree or another, legitimate, that is, it is exercised with the consent of the majority.

Mosca shows that this is because the minority that governs is an organized minority. Concluding that the minority is more organized than the rest of the mass, he comes to the conclusion that the formed minority and its individuals differ from the controlled mass in qualities that provide them with material, intellectual and even moral superiority.

Mosca also points out that, for the most part, it is not “moral superiority” and “military prowess” that distinguish this minority from the gray mass, but the connection with wealth. He cites as proof the fact that in peacetime, when it is not necessary to apply military power, the best posts are occupied by those who are better off in finance and wealth.

Mosca says that despite the historical process, the political power of the minority does not disappear anywhere, but is transformed, as the composition of members, its structure, the requirements for its members change, and moreover, it determines the historical process. Mosca distinguishes between autocratic and liberal principles of an organized minority, depending on the nature of the political situation, and criticizes the concepts of popular sovereignty and representative government.

For Moska, the influx of "fresh blood" into the elite is the key to the healthy development of society. Concluding the study of Mosca's views, it can be noted that for him the rule of the elite is exactly the way by which the ruling minority seeks to justify its power and tries to convince the majority of its legitimacy.

Another founder of elitology is the Italian scientist Vilfredo Pareto. He contributed to the political science of mathematical and statistical research methods. Pareto's work was influenced by both Mill's liberal attitudes and Nietzsche's individualistic attitudes. Pareto considered society as an integrity, and its parts as functional elements of the whole. The social system strives, according to Pareto, to strive for equilibrium, and this equilibrium is not static, but dynamic, and the dynamics of the social structure is initiated and even determined by the ruling minority elite.

The singling out of the elite is the starting point of Pareto's social analysis: "Leaving aside exceptions, few and short-lived, everywhere we have a small ruling class, holding power, partly by force, partly with the consent of the ruled class, the more numerous." To identify the elite, Pareto uses a statistical method, and Pareto says that the rich form the top of the social pyramid, and the poor, in turn, form its base. He also notes that society can be classified according to abilities in certain areas of activity. The Pareto approach helps to understand the social differentiation of society. The elites are those who are at the top in the real struggle for existence.

Pareto notes that the division according to different indicators in the areas of activity will be partially reflected in the distribution of wealth. The inevitability of dividing society into an elite and a mass of Pareto derived from the inequality of individual abilities of people, manifested in all spheres of social life. Individuals with great influence, wealth form the "highest stratum of society, the elite." To her, Pareto attributed primarily the commercial, military, religious elite. That part of society that plays a decisive role in politics is called by Pareto the ruling elite. As you can see, not all members of the elite are included in the concept of the ruling elite. Thus, outstanding scientists are included in the elite, but not included in the ruling elite.

To explain social dynamics, Pareto formulates his well-known theory of “circulation of elites”: the social system strives for equilibrium and, when it is out of balance, returns to it over time; the process of fluctuation of the system and its arrival to the “normal state” of equilibrium forms a social cycle; the course of the cycle depends on the nature of the circulation of the elites. The functioning of elites, their structure, forms of elite recruitment are set by the social system as an integrity, and therefore the behavior of elites is different in different social systems. Elites, especially closed ones, degrade over time. “... at the same time, some aristocracies, at first an essential part of the ruling elite, eventually turned into its most insignificant element, as happened in particular with the military aristocracy. Aristocracies are not eternal... after a while they disappear. History is a graveyard of aristocracies.” Pareto notes that over time, the ruling class is restored not only numerically, but also qualitatively thanks to families from the lower classes. Pareto seeks to represent the historical process in the form of an eternal circulation of the main types of elites. “Elites arise from the lower strata of society and in the course of struggle rise to the highest, flourish there and eventually degenerate, annihilate and disappear… This circulation of elites is the universal law of history.” History for Pareto is the history of a succession of privileged minorities who form, fight, rise to power, enjoy power, decline, and are replaced by another privileged minority.

Pareto, like Mosca, rightly believes that a high degree of closeness of the elites is a slowdown in the historical process and this is a sure way to its degradation. After a few generations, the aristocracy becomes pampered, loses vitality and determination in the use of force. According to Pareto, there are two main types of elites that successively replace each other. The first type - "lions", they are characterized by extreme conservatism, rough methods of management. The second type is “foxes”, masters of deceit, political combinations, intrigues. A stable political system is characterized by the predominance of the "lion" elite. The constant replacement of one elite by another is the result of the fact that each type of elite has certain advantages, which, however, cease to meet the needs of the leadership of society over time. A society dominated by an elite of "lions" is a society of retrogrades, it is motionless, stagnant. On the contrary, the fox elite is dynamic. Representatives of the first love peace, invest their capital in rent, representatives of the second profit from any fluctuations in market conditions. The cessation of circulation leads to the degeneration of the ruling elite, to a revolutionary breakdown of the system, to the emergence of a new elite with a predominance of elements with the qualities of “foxes” in it, which over time degenerate into “lions”, supporters of a tough reaction, and the corresponding cycle repeats.

At the same time, Pareto said that elites should not be confused with violence, which is often a companion of weakness. Revolutions are just a change and struggle of elites. At the same time, history is not only a cemetery of aristocracies, but also a succession of aristocracies. ” ruling class filled with families coming from the lower classes. “For Pareto, the social process is associated with the spread of competition as a way of selection into the elite in various fields of activity.

Pareto treated democratic theories with distrust and skepticism. Pareto called democratic regimes pluto-democratic, considering them to be the power of the “fox” elites, who prefer cunning and resourcefulness to naked violence and support their power with propaganda and political combinations and maneuvering.

Pareto notes that the class struggle is the most important phenomenon in world history, but argues that it is wrong to believe that the class struggle is generated by economic causes arising from the ownership of the means of production. He believes that the struggle for political power can be the root cause of both the clash between the elite and the masses, and the rivalry between the ruling and non-ruling elites.

Along with the similarity of the initial positions of Pareto and Mosca, their differences can also be noted. If Pareto emphasized the replacement of one type of elite by another, then Mosca emphasized the gradual penetration of the "best" representatives of the masses into the elite. If Mosca absolutizes the action of the political factor, then Pareto explains the dynamics of elites in many respects psychologically: the elite dominates the masses, planting political mythology, while it itself rises above ordinary consciousness. For Mosca, the elite is a political class; Pareto's understanding of the elite is broader, it is more anthropological.

The enumeration of the founders of elitology would be incomplete if we did not dwell on the works of R. Michels. The fame of Michels is associated primarily with the “iron law of oligarchic tendencies” formulated by him. The essence of this law is that “democracy, in order to maintain itself to achieve a certain stability”, is forced to create an organization, and this is connected with the selection of an elite - an active minority, which the masses have to trust due to the impossibility of its direct control over this minority, therefore democracy inevitably turns into the oligarchy. At first, Michels argued that true democracy is immediate, direct; representative democracy carries the germ of oligarchism. Then Michels comes to the conclusion that the oligarchy is an inevitable form of life of large social structures. Michels sympathetically quotes Rousseau's idea that the mass, delegating its sovereignty, ceases to be sovereign, for him to represent means to pass off an individual will as a mass one. “The mass is never ready for domination, but each individual entering into it is capable of this if he possesses the necessary positive or negative qualities for this in order to rise above it and advance to the leaders.” The impossibility of democracy to exist without an organization, a managerial apparatus and a professional elite inevitably leads to the consolidation of posts and privileges, to separation from the masses, and the actual irremovability of leaders.

The impossibility of direct democracy stems primarily from “numbers”. Giant rallies strive to adopt resolutions in their entirety, without delving into details, without counting votes and taking into account various opinions. Crowds replace and crowd out the individual. Moreover, charismatic leaders who raise the masses to vigorous activity are replaced by bureaucrats, and revolutionaries and enthusiasts are replaced by conservatives and opportunists. The leading group is becoming more and more isolated and closed, protecting, first of all, its privileges and, in the future, becoming an integral part of the ruling elite. Thus, the leaders of the masses, having become part of the elite, begin to protect its interests and thus their own privileged position. But the interests of the masses do not coincide with the interests of the bureaucratic leaders of the mass organizations. At the same time, Michels does not deny the ability of the elite structure to democratic mimicry. So, since the elite “organizes and consolidates by controlling the masses”, Michels considers the inevitable elite structure of any social organization. “Formal specialization, which is a necessary consequence of any organization”, gives rise to the need for professional leadership. Moreover, the ruling minority is by no means the best, highly moral people, and most often ambitious and demagogues.

Michels' main argument is that neo-oligarchic management of large organizations is technically impossible.

Once again, we note that the merit of the founders of elitology is that they singled out the object and subject of science, systematized the accumulated knowledge about the ruling minorities, and tried to formulate the laws of the structure, functioning, development and change of elites. At the same time, they could, carried away, which is quite natural with the subject of their study, exaggerate the role of elites in the historical process, underestimate the role of non-elites, primarily the role of the masses.

The beginning of the 21st century was marked by a large-scale and multifaceted crisis in the social and humanitarian sphere. One of its components is the problem of the development of science and the possibilities of cognition of man and society. In our country, after 1991, the theoretical and methodological vacuum that formed after the collapse of the monopoly of Marxism and formation theory as explanatory models for the history and modern development of our society is especially acute.

Over the past 20–25 years, different theories and approaches have been applied. Someone continues to use formation theory. Other researchers are developing a civilizational approach. The theory of modernization and a number of other approaches have been actively spread. But, despite all this, in our opinion, no theory has yet been found or proposed that could fully explain our history and modernity, moreover, using such concepts and disciplines that would be adequate specifically to Russian (as well as Soviet ) society, and were not an imitation of Western concepts and disciplines that have a limited field of application.

Naturally, within the framework of one article it is impossible to fully present such a theory, or rather a set of theories in the social and humanitarian sphere. We will touch on only one of the areas. We will talk about such an interdisciplinary science as elitology. Let us give its brief definition, which was given by the founder of Russian elitology, Professor G.K. Ashin: “This is the science of elites and the elite, the highest layer in the system socio-political stratification ... ".

Elitology combines such sciences as sociology, political science, philosophy, cultural studies, psychology and history. Usually, the study of elites takes place within the framework of sociology and, especially, political science, less often in other sciences. More than one hundred articles and monographs have been written in this vein. Professor G.K. Ashin considers elitology mainly from the positions of sociology and philosophy. At the same time, historical science and its place in the structure of elitology remain out of sight of many researchers.

In this regard, the work of P.L. Karabuschenko "Introduction to the elitology of history", in which the author reveals the points of contact between history and elitology, and also suggests the structure of the elitology of history. Speaking about the methodological combination of history and elitology, the author rightly notes that "both of these scientific disciplines will benefit in terms of expanding the field of application of their scientific potential and strengthening the means of studying the role of an outstanding personality in history" .

P.L. Karabuschenko identifies the following structure of the elitology of history: “The elitology of history is one of the most important sections of modern elitological science and is included in the structure of its analytical section. She is integral part historical science, which, in addition to the elitology of history, also includes the history of elitology (which, in turn, is divided into: a) the history of elitological ideas and theories and b) the history of elites - the history of the development of specific elite groups). These two "stories" are components of historical elitology and represent a single complex of historical and elitist knowledge.

The researcher also highlights the object, subject and methods of the elitology of history: “we could define elite historical thinking as its object; as a subject - the influence of the elite on historical processes and the very nature and content of historical science. Among the most popular methods are such as dialectical, personalistic (biographical), hermeneutic method, method of system analysis, statistical method.

It seems to us that P.L. Karabushchenko managed to determine the object, subject, methods and structure of the elitology of history. However, in the future, the author reduces the elitology of history to "historical neo-personalism". In addition, the article does not provide a clear definition of the elitology of history, its components are scattered throughout the text.

In our opinion, the concept of "elitology of history" can be applied, but we propose to use the concept of "historical elitology". Here is the structure of this section of historical science:

1) History of elitological teachings;

2) Historical elitology (studies the most general patterns of the emergence, development and collapse of elites in various societies);

3) The history of specific elites (for example, the history of Russian elites and elites in other countries in various historical periods; the history of supranational structures, for example, the history of various transnational corporations, banking structures that have had and continue to influence the course of history).

4) Comparative historical elitology (where criteria applicable for comparing elites in different societies should be developed).

It cannot be said that no research is being conducted in Russia within the framework of historical elitology. A significant contribution to its development is made by leading Russian historians S.V. Kulikov and F.A. Seleznev. S.V. Kulikov studied in detail the Russian bureaucratic elite during the First World War, offering his theory. F. Seleznev actively develops the problems of elites and counter-elites in Russia during the First World War, also considering the Old Believers from these positions. It should also be noted the doctoral dissertation of S.A. Kislitsyn, dedicated to the study of the Bolshevik political elite of 1920–1930. The results achieved show the prospects and relevance of the ongoing research, since a look at the elites from the standpoint of history allows us to understand how they were formed, developed and what they came to in the present. For example, it is historical elitology that could explain why it collapsed first Russian empire and then the USSR. This is important not only for studying the past, but also for understanding the present and future development.

The structure of historical elitology proposed by us can be applied not only in scientific research but also in the educational process. Historical elitology could become a compulsory discipline for students of all social and humanitarian specialties. It must be said that the creation of one historical elitology is not enough. Researchers are faced with the task of creating a new social science, which would overcome the narrow specialization within the framework of the social sciences and the humanities. In this regard, elitology in general and historical elitology in particular are elements of social and historical systemology. These sciences are yet to be created. As the historian and social scientist A.I. Fursov, “one of the tasks of the current stage in the development of rational knowledge about society is the development of a field of knowledge dedicated to closed structures as a special historical subject, the synthesis of an epistemological field ... the creation of a full-fledged multidimensional science without “white spots” and signs of cognitive disability” .

A good basis for such a field of knowledge will be systems approach, which is general scientific. Its application would make it possible to smooth out the contradictions between the so-called "techies" and "humanists", create a basis for understanding each other, on the one hand, and emphasize the remaining specifics of social, humanitarian and natural science research, on the other hand.

Thus, historical elitology is a new section of historical science that studies the history of elitological teachings, the most general patterns of the emergence, development and collapse of elites in various societies, as well as the history of specific elites (national and supranational). Its definition reflects a structure into which a comparative historical aspect can be added. On the examples shown, we can see that historical elitology is a relevant and promising direction in science. It is historical science with the help of historical elitology that can give a powerful impetus not only to its own development, but also to enrich elitology as a whole.

ELITHOLOGY IN THE SYSTEM OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Ashin G.K.

The term "elitology" is a Russian innovation at the end of the 20th century. It was introduced into scientific circulation in response to the need to create a comprehensive scientific discipline that describes the phenomenon of the elite, integrating the achievements and methods of philosophy, political science, sociology, social psychology, sociology, historical science, cultural studies. This article emphasizes the role of philosophy as a theoretical foundation for solving elitist problems.

Keywords: elite, elitology, pseudo-elite, popular masses Keywords: elite, elitology, pseudoelite, people masses

G1 For teachers and students of the elite (L-B MGIMO (U), the interest in calitology is natural - the science of the elites and the elite.

The subject of elitology. The 20th century sharply accelerated the process of differentiation and integration of sciences, passing it like a baton, XXI century. Moreover, new scientific disciplines are increasingly being formed not just as specialized areas of already established scientific disciplines, but precisely as disciplines that integrate the achievements of different, mainly related sciences (and sometimes very far from each other)1, and often the methods and concepts of one science turn out to be heuristic in solving problems that arise before another scientific discipline. It is precisely such a complex scientific discipline, which is increasingly claiming an independent status, that is elitology2. It was formed in line with social and political philosophy, but integrated the achievements and methods of other related disciplines. Elitology has developed as a complex interdisciplinary knowledge lying at the intersection of political science, social philosophy, sociology, world history, social psychology, cultural studies.

Elitology is a relatively new socio-political discipline, although its roots go back to hoary antiquity. This is the science of elites and the elite, the highest stratum in the system of socio-political

stratification. Being a minority of society, this layer plays a huge, often decisive role in the social process. The special role of the elite is due to the special importance of managerial activity. The fate of millions of people directly depends on the decisions that this ruling minority makes. Is such a situation fair, is it a universal law of social development, or is it a historical phenomenon that occurs at a certain stage of the historical process and, therefore, transient, how elites are formed, how they come to power, and then degrade, leave the historical arena, how transformation and change of elites, whether it is possible to improve the quality of the elite, and if so, by what methods - these are the most important problems that this scientific discipline seeks to solve.

But in an extremely broad sense, elitology goes beyond the boundaries of the systemic nature of social sciences, it can be considered as a science of differentiation and hierarchization of being, its orderliness, structuralization and evolution, a non-gentropic process. It is known that the movement from chaos to orderliness - the content of the development process - includes the differentiation of being, with which its hierarchization is inextricably linked (a key problem for understanding the phenomenon of the elite and the elite). As is known, the feature

Ashin Gennady Konstantinovich - Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Department of Philosophy, MGIMO (U) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, e-mail: [email protected]

systems - their sustainable ability to self-regulation, prevention or minimization of disturbances, maintaining balance, homeostasis. General systems theory has an extremely wide scope. Any system can be represented as a certain integrity, consisting of elements that are in relationships, connections with each other, constituting a certain unity; moreover, it is possible to identify the hierarchy of these relations, their subordination (each element of the system can be considered as a subsystem, that is, a system of a lower order, as a component of a wider system). There is no doubt the connection between elitology and synergetics (which can be considered as prolegomena to elitology or, more precisely, as its metatheory). Synergetics, to the development of which I. R. Prigozhin made a huge contribution, can be called the science of the universal patterns of development of complex dynamic self-organizing systems, the latter undergoing sharp changes in states during periods of instability. In the synergetic paradigm, development is a change in the stable states of the system by short chaotic periods (bifurcations), which determine the transition to the next stable state, and the choice is probabilistic in nature and occurs at bifurcation points. It is during these periods that elitogenesis is most likely in social systems, as well as a change of elites.

In an extremely broad interpretation, elitology is a kind of metatheory in relation to social elitology, which, in fact, is the subject of its study. And the latter is not an extrapolation to society of the elitology of being, the laws of the cosmos, or at least biological elitology. It is not enough to say about social elitology that it is specific, it differs significantly from hierarchization in nature (macro- and microcosm), because it is subjective, its laws are implemented through the active activity of people; the laws of society are not merely extensions or special cases of the laws of nature. Society, on the one hand, is a part of the material world, but it is such a part that is not only different from nature, but in a certain sense also opposite to it, being a product of human activity.

But we will not endlessly expand the subject of elitology, if only because, as a result, it loses its specificity. Perhaps it would be much more accurate to say that elitology in a broad sense is based on the doctrine of the systemic nature of being (and, consequently, on the general theory of systems), its differentiation and hierarchization, on the laws

thermodynamics (entropy and negentropy), synergetics. Of course, these areas of knowledge in themselves do not reveal the specifics of elitology, they rather indicate the attitudes and principles from which elitology is based, on which it is based. At best, they can only be preliminary remarks about the methodological principles on which elitology relies.

Note that hierarchy is characteristic not only of the morphology of a certain system, but also of its functioning: individual levels of the system are responsible for certain aspects of its behavior, the functioning of the system as a whole is the result of the interaction of all its levels, and the system as a whole is controlled by its highest level. Thus, in complex dynamic systems, it is possible to single out the controlling and controlled subsystems, to fix the phenomenon of subordination - the most important point explaining the problem of elite and elite. Among the most complex dynamic systems, biological and, of course, social systems are of particular interest, and the latter, in fact, are a specific subject of consideration for elitologists. It should be noted that one of the founders of the approach to society as a system in a state of dynamic equilibrium was the recognized classic of elitology V. Pareto. In this regard, I would also like to note the development of a systematic approach in tectology by A. A. Bogdanov3 and praxeology by T. Kotarbinsky4, which are especially fruitful in relation to understanding the functioning of the political and administrative elite.

It is known that a feature of systems is their ability to self-regulate, prevent or minimize disturbances, maintain balance, homeostasis. Another feature of systems is their hierarchical structure, in which the quality of the whole is irreducible to the properties of its constituent elements. The system as a hierarchical structure, as an integrity, “sets” the program for the functioning of its elements (moreover, self-regulation of biological systems, in particular, a population, occurs not at the level of individuals that make up the population, but at the level of the population as an integrity, and in society - not at the level of individuals , but at the level of society, and the selection of the elite is an element of the evolution of social systems at a certain stage of their development, aimed at reducing entropy; the main quality of the elite is to keep the social system in a state of equilibrium, to give it an impetus to dynamic development).

Evolutionary change in a biological population begins with a shift in environmental conditions and leads to an increase in the frequency and variety of genetic and behavioral abnormalities. Individuals that realize the most viable deviations from the norm can be called elite. These elite individuals act, as it were, as scouts, and then as the vanguard in the development of the population, the most useful of them for the population are “selected” by this population through the consolidation of qualities that are optimal for the population in the offspring of these individuals. Moreover, natural (as well as artificial) selection turns the changes necessary for the population in elite individuals into mass (typical) changes for the population, into the norm. As noted by the prominent Russian paleontologist M.A. Shishkin, “in the process of selection, the structure and functions of an organism are involved in a coordinated change that spreads over generations up to the genome level and, as a result, turns aberration into a new stable norm”5.

Let us now narrow the subject of elitology to social elitology6, which is elitology in the proper sense of the word. Elitology can be viewed as the science of the foundations of social differentiation and stratification, more precisely, as the science of the highest stratum in any system of social stratification, of its special functions associated with managing the system as a whole or its various subsystems, with the development of norms and values ​​that serve the self-maintenance of the system and its development, orient it towards movement in a certain direction, as a rule, towards the improvement of the system, towards its progress. Therefore, the elites include the most dynamic, passionate elements of society (or, if this applies to closed societies, their upper classes or social strata). Thus, the elite is a part of society, consisting of the most authoritative, influential people, which occupies a leading position in the development of norms and values ​​that determine the functioning and development of the social system. The elite is the reference group whose values, which are considered exemplary, guide the society. These are either the bearers of traditions that hold together and stabilize society, or, in other social situations (usually crisis ones), they are the most active elements of the population, which are innovative groups. Thus, elitology is the science of elites and the elite, the science of the foundations of the differentiation of society, the criteria for this differentiation, the legitimacy of this differentiation, the science that studies the political behavior of the elite, the system of its value systems.

orientations, its social characteristics. Of course, it needs to develop an appropriate categorical apparatus, including definitions of the concepts "best", "chosen one".

Finally, often (primarily in political science) the elite is spoken of in the narrow sense of this term as a political-administrative, managerial elite. It is this component of elitology that has become (perhaps without sufficient grounds for this) the most important, widespread, “applied” part of elitology, although this is only one of many elitological disciplines. In this narrow sense, the subject of elitology (more precisely, political elitology) is the study of the process of socio-political management and, above all, the highest stratum of political actors, the identification and description of the social stratum that directly exercises this management, being its subject (or, in in any case, the most important structural element of this subject), in other words, the study of the elite, its composition, the laws of its functioning, the coming of the elite to power, its retention of this power, the legitimization of the elite as the ruling stratum, the condition for which is the recognition of its leading role by the mass of followers, the study its role in the social process, the reasons for its degradation (as a rule, due to its closeness) and the departure from the historical arena as not meeting the changed historical conditions, the study of the laws of transformation and change of elites.

The structure of the subject of elitology certainly includes the history of the development of knowledge about elites, that is, the history of elitology7. In the center of the subject of elitology is the study of its laws - the laws of structure (the structure of the elite, the connection between its elements, which are usually subsystems of the elite as an integral system - political, cultural, military elite, etc.), the laws of the functioning of elites, the interaction of elements of the system, the dependencies between its various components, the role in which each of these components acts in relation to the elite as an integral phenomenon, the laws of connection and subordination of the elements of this system, and finally, the laws of the development of this system, its transition from one level to another, usually higher, to a new one. type of connections within this system. More on this will be discussed later.

Russian school of elitology. The term "elitology" is a Russian innovation. It was introduced into scientific circulation in the 1980s and has become widespread in Russian social sciences since the second half of the 1990s, when a number of works on this issue were published8.

We can safely say that the Russian school of elitology has developed. One of its centers is MGIMO (U), where elitologists work - professors O. V. Gaman, E. V. Okhotsky, G. K. Ashin and others.

Unfortunately, foreign colleagues are in no hurry (yet?) to recognize the necessity and legitimacy of this term (is it because it is a Russian innovation?), however, they themselves do not offer its equivalent. It can be fully assumed that the term "elitology" hurts the ears of people for whom English is their native language. It is no coincidence that they prefer the term "political science" to political science and "cultural studies" to cultural studies. However, we do not cling to the term9. As the Russian proverb says: “Though you call it a pot, just don’t put it in the oven.”

In recent years, the author of this article has visited more than 20 universities in the USA, Great Britain, Germany, in many of them he has lectured on elitist issues, as well as made presentations at world philosophical, political science, sociological congresses and conferences. And in foreign universities As a rule, I was offered to give lectures and special courses under the traditional names for Americans and Western Europeans: "Sociology of the Elite" in sociological departments and "Political Elites" in political science departments. I had to explain that the sociology of the elite and the problems of political elites are only parts of elitology, albeit very important ones. Indeed, do the courses "Political Elites", "Sociology of the Elite", "Theories of the Elite" taught in Western universities exhaust all the elitistological problems? They can rather be considered as separate sections of elitology, which describe certain aspects of the phenomenon of the elite as a holistic, systemic object. With such a fragmented approach, it is impossible to cover the subject of research - the elite - as a certain integrity, as a certain system, to reveal the laws of functioning and development of this phenomenon, to exhaust all the richness of relations within the elite and relations between the elite and society as a whole. It is on such a holistic, systematic approach to the phenomenon of the elite and the elite that elitology insists, in particular, the Russian school of elitology. As for the term "elitology" itself, its meaning cannot be exaggerated, it, like any scientific concept, is just a moment, even a key moment, of a certain concept. Elitology is the broadest concept that includes all the sciences about elites, regardless of the value orientation of a particular scientist who develops this problem, regardless

on whether he is an apologist, a singer of the elite, or a critic of a society that needs an elite to govern and puts the elite in a privileged position. Elitology strives to be scientific, not ideological.

At many congresses and conferences, one had to listen to the criticism of the approach to elitology as a relatively independent scientific discipline. The objections of Western colleagues against the very term “elitology” and against separating it into an independent science are characteristic and interesting. Here is the opinion of one of them: "The term itself is rather clumsy, clumsy, moreover, it consists of two roots - Latin (elite) and Greek (logos), which already speaks of its eclecticism." I replied that this argument could be accepted, that I would be very happy to introduce the term "aristology", where both roots would be Greek, that the Greek "aristos" seemed to me preferable to the Latin root "elite". But the whole point is that the term "elite", introduced into scientific circulation by V. Pareto, is well-established, firmly established in science, and the term "aristology" would introduce even more confusion into an already difficult problem.

Another objection to elitology. One of the participants in the discussion of this problem said: “It is bad when the number of scientific disciplines increases” and called for relying on the words of the famous medieval scholastic Wu Ockham that “entities should not be multiplied.” Answering a colleague, I had to refer to the fact that the quote from Ockham was not given by him in full: the philosopher said that “entities should not be multiplied without special need.” And here is the case when there is a "special need". The role of elites in the historical process in general is too great, and Russia has suffered too much from unskilled, cruel, sometimes dishonest elites.

But let us return to the courses taught in a number of Western European and American universities that have as their subject this or that elite, this or that aspect of the study of elites. The course "Theory of Elites" usually has only a historical and political science character. A very interesting course taught by L. Field and J. Higley "Elitism" (and a book with the same name10) analyzes an important paradigm that is directly related to our problem, but this is only one of the paradigms that does not take into account the egalitarian paradigm (and for that reason it cannot claim to be a holistic analysis of elitology). Nor can we be satisfied with elitist concepts

in the spirit of F. Nietzsche and Kh. Ortega y Gasset, if only because they all unconditionally accept the elite-mass dichotomy as an axiom, as a norm of a civilized society, ignoring the possibility of studying and interpreting the phenomenon of the elite by researchers based on the egalitarian paradigm and considering the existence of an elite as a challenge to democracy, leaving aside objections against perpetuating this division as an ahistorical approach to the very fact of the existence of an elite.

Even less can claim to cover the entire elitistological issues of the course "Political Elite". It should be noted that the vast majority of modern researchers recognize the pluralism of elites (political, economic, religious, cultural, etc.). But if in any context the term "elite" is used without an adjective specifying which particular elite is meant, one can be sure that it is a political elite. This circumstance itself indicates that it is the political elite that comes to the fore in the public consciousness, which wipes other, non-political elites into the background (which, in our opinion, is more bad than good, because by default it assumes the primacy of the political elite). It seems to us more fair that in the hierarchy of elites, socially dominant groups, the leading place should rightfully belong to the cultural elite, the creators of new cultural and civilizational norms. The highest place in the hierarchy of elites and leaders of mankind should be given not to Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Lenin or Churchill, but to Buddha, Socrates, Christ, Kant, A. Einstein, A. D. Sakharov, A. I. Solzhenitsyn.

If we ignore the narrow, one-sided, one might say, somewhat philistine, interpretation of the elite as a group of political leaders, then it can be interpreted as the vanguard of any social community, whether it be humanity, a country, a nation (up to small group), its most active part is the creators of cultural norms, the initiators of social transformations, those who play the role of scouts of society. By the way, what has been said applies not only to the elite of mankind, but also to a certain extent to the elites of biological populations. One of the largest Russian psychophysiologists P.V. Simonov, while studying the population of rats (which he considered one of the most intelligent representatives of the animal world), found out that different groups can be distinguished in this population - one that makes up the absolute majority (let's call it a conservative group) , as well as a small, most

an active group of innovators, the most inquisitive individuals. The experiment consisted in the fact that in a certain limited space (although it had an exit to the outside), rats received a sufficient amount of food and other "rat benefits", and the simplest and safest way for their life activity was not to go outside - to an open field, where it was impossible to hide from enemies (and among them were birds of prey); most did so. But there was also a certain percentage of individuals in the population who were curious enough, overwhelmed by a thirst for knowledge, to “take a chance”, explore a new space and try to master it. These were the elite individuals that acted objectively for the population.

Perhaps the closest thing to the subject of elitology is the subject of the sociology of the elite. However, the subject of the sociology of the elite is essentially narrower than the subject of elitology. The sociology of the elite does not exhaust all the richness of the content of elitology. At a meeting of the Academic Council of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of its members, criticizing the term "elitology", said on this occasion that there are a large number of terms in sociology, and if you wish, you can add the word "logy" to each of them and in this way create many new sciences . It seems that in such a formulation of the question one can discern a kind of "sociological expansionism", the belief that everything social problems can be resolved within sociology. Isn't such an approach a manifestation of a kind of "childhood disease" of a relatively young science, striving to "reclaim" as much space as possible for itself? But after all, elitistological problems have been solved for more than one millennium by the best minds of mankind, starting with Confucius and Plato, while sociology has existed for only about two centuries. Sociological research methods should not be absolutized either; in elitology they are complemented by philosophical, political science, culturological, and psychological ones. A sociological approach to identifying the elite was proposed by one of the founders and classics of elitology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. V. Pareto. In various spheres of human activity, he singled out people who carry out this activity most successfully (he gave them an index of 10, and then descending to zero). Suppose, according to the criterion of wealth, one should put ten billionaires, one - to someone who barely keeps on the surface, reserving o for the beggar, the homeless (although, strictly speaking, according to Pareto, there is always hierarchization, and, consequently, the elite of the poor, the homeless, etc.). d.). But is it possible to use

specified criterion in determining, for example, the cultural elite? What index will we assign to Van Gogh or Vermeer - the geniuses of painting, not appreciated by contemporaries, or J. S. Bach, whose genius was fully appreciated only by his grateful descendants? Obviously, specific cultural criteria will be needed. The sociology of the elite is the most important part of elitology, but it is still only a part of it. Therefore, the systematic approach proposed by Russian elitology seems to us more promising.

The Russian school of elitology developed in the last two decades of the 20th century. And this is quite understandable. It is known that in Soviet times, elitist issues were tabooed. Studies of the Soviet elite were impossible for ideological (and, therefore, censorship) reasons. In accordance with the official Soviet ideology, the elite is an attribute of an antagonistic society, and it cannot exist in a socialist society (although the presence of an elite - a privileged layer in the form, first of all, of the top of the party-Soviet bureaucracy, was an open secret). Historically, elitist problems entered Soviet science from the "back door" - through the permitted genre of "criticism of bourgeois sociology" (of course, this term itself is the same nonsense as "bourgeois physics" or "bourgeois biology").

And it is no coincidence that Russian elitology was formed during the years of Russia's democratic transition. When the censorship barriers were removed, elitist studies in Russia began to be carried out on a broad front. Paraphrasing the words of the now unpopular classic, Russia "suffered" elitology. It suffered greatly from the rule of an unskilled, authoritarian (and even more so, totalitarian), often corrupt political elite, which resulted in an urgent need for a scientific discipline that would reveal optimal approaches to improving the quality of the elite, the principles of its recruitment, democratic control over the elite, elite education.

In addition, there were other important prerequisites for the formation of the school of modern Russian elitology. She could rely on the powerful traditions of Russian pre-revolutionary and émigré philosophy, political science, jurisprudence, sociology, represented by such prominent figures of science and culture as N. A. Berdyaev, M. Ya. Ostrogorsky, P. A. Sorokin, I. A. Ilyin , G. P. Fedotov, who made an invaluable contribution to the development of elitology. And in the second half of the twentieth century

The Russian school of elitology has been rapidly developing in the last two decades; its representatives published about a hundred monographs, thousands of articles on the most important aspects of elitology11. The school of Russian elitology has rightfully taken a leading place not only in the study of Russian elites (a couple of decades ago, Russian elites could only be learned from the works of foreign Sovietologists and Russian political emigrants), but also in the history of elitology, elitological regional studies (where we came to one of the first place in the world, if not the first), on a number of general theoretical problems of elitology.

Elitological thesaurus. Like any emerging science, elitology needs to comprehend and clarify its conceptual apparatus, develop a general theory and methodology, transfer theoretical concepts to an operational level, develop empirical studies of elites, and comparative elitological studies. Let's start by distinguishing between such concepts (which are still mixed) as elitology, elitism, elitism. The confusion of these terms is, first of all, the result of the fact that elitology was born as elitism, because its theorists were the spokesmen for the interests of those sections of the population from which members of the elite were recruited, and who acted as ideologists (and thus apologists) of these sections.

Elitarism is a concept based on the fact that the division of society into the elite and the masses is the standard of the social structure, an attribute of civilization (the absence of such a division is a sign of savagery, underdevelopment of society). The more aristocratic a society is, the higher it is as a society (F. Nietzsche). The elite in this sense is a stratum that is more or less closed, whose members do not accept or despise the nouveau riche. Thus, elitism is an aristocratic and deeply conservative worldview. Accordingly, the writings of its supporters are a reflection on the very highest social stratum to which they belong or whose values ​​they are guided by.

Elitism is a phenomenon close to elitism, but not the same concept. Taking the same dichotomy between the elite and the masses as the initial postulate, its supporters, however, do not treat the masses with contempt, they are more liberal, respect the masses, recognizing their rights to a place "under the sun". In any case, in their understanding, the elite should not be a closed stratum of society, but, on the contrary, open to the most

capable people from non-elite strata, including from the social lower classes. A high level of social mobility is recognized as legitimate and even desirable. Any society is subject to social stratification, which is caused by an unequal distribution of abilities; in the competition for elite positions, those more prepared for managerial activity win. The elitist is characterized by a meritocratic approach to the elite (however, this approach is by no means a monopoly of the elitist, it is inherent in both a number of moderate elitistists and moderate egalitarians).

Elitology is the broadest concept that unites all researchers of the elite, regardless of their methodological attitudes and value preferences, including supporters of the egalitarian paradigm, for which the presence of an elite is a challenge to the fundamental value of society - equality. Among the egalitarians there are supporters of rough equalization, up to complete property equality, egalitarians, for whom it is unbearable that among the “equals” there are such people who, in the words of J. Orwell, are “more equal than others” (radical egalitarians). But a much larger number of egalitarians justify the admissibility of a certain degree of inequality in accordance with the abilities and, most importantly, the merits of people, their contribution to the development of society, that is, they demonstrate elements of a meritocratic approach (moderate egalitarians).

Most researchers of the elite proceed from the fact that the elite is the determining force of the historical (including political) process, its subject. Such an approach is fraught with a rather arbitrary postulation. To avoid confusion of different interpretations of the elite and its role in the development of society, we introduce a distinction between such concepts as elitology, elitism, elitism. The first is a broader concept than the second and third. Of course, all elitarists and elitist are elitistologists, but not all elitistologists are either elitistists or elitistists. Such a distinction helps us, in particular, to avoid a common mistake, especially characteristic of American political scientists, who classify the outstanding American sociologist R. Mills as an elitist on the formal basis that he used the elite-mass dichotomy to analyze the US political system. Mills did not consider the existence of a ruling elite to be either an ideal or a norm of the political system, rightly believing that the concentration of power in the hands of this elite is evidence

the undemocratic nature of this political system. Thus, being, undoubtedly, an elitologist, and an outstanding elitologist, Mills was neither an elitist, much less an elitistist. The elitist paradigm, (combining elitistists and elitarists), includes those sociologists and political scientists who, like L. Field and J. Higley, consider the selection of the elite as a subject social management and its privileged position as the law of the social process, its standard. But after all, an elitologist who studies a really existing elite can be critical of the very fact of the existence of this social stratum, considering it a threat to democracy (even an alternative to democracy); its ideal of social organization may be a self-governing society, a society without an elite, or (which is essentially the same thing) a society in which all members rise to the level of the elite, will be the real subject, the creators of the historical process. As for the elitistists and elitistists, they consider such views to be a kind of social utopia, and the presence of an elite for them is an immanent element of civilized societies.

In recent years, interest in the elitist paradigm has increased - primarily in political science (moreover, this paradigm is usually considered in relation to the egalitarian, pluralistic and other paradigms). It is this problem - the confrontation and change of various paradigms in political science with an emphasis on the elitist paradigm - that Field and Higley mentioned above are exploring. Here is the diagram they draw. In the first quarter of the 20th century, an elitist paradigm emerges (they use this term to combine elitism and elitism) and displaces the egalitarian paradigm, challenging the liberal and Marxist paradigms. At the same time, it is recognized that the founders of elitism were not completely hostile to the liberal system of Western values ​​and saw the main enemy in the Marxist paradigm. In the second and third quarters of the 20th century, a decline and stagnation of the elitist paradigm12 sets in, and interest in it again increases in the fourth quarter of the century. It seems that this scheme is not entirely correct: it does not fully take into account, in particular, the explosion of interest in the elitist paradigm in the 1950s, which was caused by the books of R. Mills "The Power Elite" and F. Hunter "Supreme Leadership in the USA" , which caused a sharp controversy in American and Western European political science, aimed generally at discrediting the radical leftist concept of Mills and his followers and protecting the pluralistic paradigm. This scheme also does not take into account

conservative and aristocratic paradigm that came in the 20th century from the 19th century. In short, this scheme greatly simplifies the situation that developed in the twentieth century. The position of Field and Higley about the increasing role and importance of the elitist paradigm in the third quarter of the 20th century and further at the beginning of the 21st century is also disputed by many political scientists and sociologists. However, they do not have a smaller number of supporters. K. Lash writes about the "revolt of the elites" in America13, J. Devlin - about the revolution of the elites in post-Soviet Russia; a close position is taken by D. Lane, K. Ross, W. Zimmerman14. In favor of Field and Higley's scheme, in particular, the growing influence of "neo-elitistists" T. Day, H. Zeigler and others (including J. Higley himself), in American political science.

The growth of elitist concepts in modern political science reflects, first of all, the growing role of elites in the modern political process. The well-known Russian elitologist O. V. Gaman rightly notes a significant increase in the influence of the power of national and transnational elites in relation to mass groups. She considers the period after the Second World War and, in particular, the period of the reign of George W. Bush Sr.15 to be the peak of elitism.

Is Field and Higley's scheme confirmed by the example of Russian political science? To a certain extent, yes. A number of Russian political scientists write about a radical turn in Russian political science and sociology from the egalitarian, anti-elitist paradigm, which undoubtedly prevailed in Soviet period to the elitist paradigm. But in Russia at the end of the twentieth century there was a special, unique political situation. And it is hardly possible to illustrate the global trend of growing influence of the elite paradigm using the example of the Russian social sciences. In Russia, the undoubted growth of the influence of the elitist paradigm, in our opinion, is not the result of natural evolution. scientific views, it is rather the result of political causes, it is a reaction to censorship, ideological persecution of elitism, carried out in Soviet years and decades. It is known that a spring, which is compressed by external forces, tends to straighten, tends to oscillatory motion in the opposite direction.

And in Russia there really was a turn away from Soviet-type egalitarianism, largely pharisaic egalitarianism, which denied the existence in the USSR of a totalitarian elite endowed with institutional privileges and concealed the real inequality of the ruling elite and the masses, in other words, pseudo-egalitarianism propagated by apologists

one-party system, to an elitist paradigm. This turn is often interpreted as part of a general turn from totalitarianism to democracy.

It seems, however, that there are too many moments here that reflect the specifics of the Russian situation at the end of the 20th century in order to consider the Russian turn to the elitist paradigm of this period as confirmation of the correctness of the hypothesis of Field and Higley about a worldwide paradigm shift in political science. In science, the transition from one paradigm to another (see: T. Kuhn, Structure of scientific revolutions, M., 1975) is the result of a consistent accumulation of facts and data that do not fit into the paradigm generally accepted by the scientific community, and as a result, the accumulation of quantitative changes leads to a change paradigms (which is identical to revolutions in science). In the Russian situation at the end of the 20th century, everything happened differently. Firstly, the fact of the simultaneous nature and almost complete unanimity of Russian political scientists in the transition from one paradigm to another is alarming. This transition resembles rather than the natural process of the development of science, but the result of some command from above (rather, the preemption of this command, the readiness to guess and fulfill the will of the "new bosses"). This is reminiscent of the command that exists in the navy, when the squadron of ships, walking in the wake, the admiral commands: “Right (left) rudder!”, And adds: “All of a sudden!”. When such a turn takes place in science, it does not at all testify to the atmosphere of freedom and democracy in it. It is too similar to the totalitarian times, when "the whole of Soviet biology" began to fight in unison against Mendelism-Morganism, or all the sciences in the countries - from mathematics to philosophy - fought against cybernetics. Or when physicists loyal to Nazi Germany "refuted" the theory of relativity created by the "non-Aryan" Einstein. So, perhaps, taking into account historical experience, it would be appropriate to assume that the judgment about the change of paradigms is a certain simplification of the process of development of modern Russian consciousness, perhaps such a turn is another shying from one extreme to another, which is so characteristic, unfortunately, for Russian life in last century; perhaps such a sharp movement is not safe, being a movement between the Scylla of egalitarianism and the Charybdis of elitism. So, perhaps, the real movement of political thought takes place between these two extremes, in their struggle and, at the same time, their interpenetration, with mutual consideration of these opposites. Humanity is not one century

painfully looking for a balance between federalism and unitarism, between administrative-legal and civil-legal spaces, between elitism and egalitarianism, looking for ways to create a stable non-violent civil power, building a civil society.

Elitology has a complex structure. It includes philosophical elitology, elite sociology, political elitology, history of elitology, elitological psychology (including the motivation of power, psychological features elite layer), cultural elitology (the elite as a creative part of society that creates cultural values, analysis of elite and mass culture), comparative elitology, which studies the general patterns and features of the functioning of elites in different civilizations, different countries, different regions of the world, elite education and elite pedagogy. Of course, this list of elitist disciplines is far from complete. Philosophical elitology16 represents the highest level of generalization in elitology. It, in turn, has a complex structure. In it, one can single out elitological ontology, elitological epistemology (including ancient occult science, esoteric epistemology), elitological philosophical anthropology, and elitological personalism.

Elitological philosophical anthropology and elitist personalism is a tradition that goes from Confucius, Pythagoras, Plato to N. A. Berdyaev, M. Scheler and E. Munier, referring to a comprehensive study of human problems, paying special attention to the issue of self-improvement of the individual, ascending the steps of perfection to the level of an elite individual. The mode of human existence is possibility; a person is a project (M. Heidegger), a person is what he creates (A. Camus). Hence, his path to self-improvement, the ability to go beyond his limits, rise above them (elitization of the personality). Philosophical anthropology can be viewed as the identification of the limiting values ​​in which human nature can be described (in the same way, the question of the absence of this fixed nature, that is, understanding it as plasticity), the possibility of going beyond these limits (which can be understood as a phenomenon elitization of the individual). Personalism comes from close premises: personality is the highest meaning of civilization. N. Berdyaev's personalism is called "eschatological", but it can rightly be called elitist

personalism: a person is the likeness of God, it acquires the features of godlikeness in the process of creativity, thereby realizing its vocation. Berdyaev argued that the most important characteristic of a person is that he is not satisfied with himself, strives to overcome his limitations, to superhumanity, to the ideal. Personalism seeks to create pedagogy, the purpose of which is the awakening and development of personal principles in a person, stimulating the self-exaltation of the personality, its elitization, i.e., elitist pedagogy. The focus of her attention is not just a personality, but a bright personality, a subject of creative activity, an innovative personality.

Socio-philosophical elitology is aimed at finding a normative approach to the elite, which, perhaps, is most consistent with the etymology of the term "elite", which requires that the most creative people, outstanding in their moral and intellectual qualities, belong to the elite. This approach is close to the meritocratic concept, based on the fact that the true elite is not just those who, by birth or chance, ended up “at the top”, but the elite of merit, the elite of the mind, education, intellectual and moral superiority, erudition, and creativity. .

There is no doubt that an important, one might even say central place in elitology belongs to the sociology of the elite (at the same time, we recall once again that the subject of elitology is wider than the subject of elite sociology, they are related as a whole and a part). In contrast to the philosophical-sociological approach, which is mainly focused on normativity, the sociology of the elite focuses on the study of real elites. It is known how important sociology is given to the analysis of social structure and social mobility (group and individual), with particular interest in upward mobility (primarily to the elite), the study of the mechanisms of elite recruitment. Sociology is characterized by a view of the elite as a reference group, on the values ​​of which society is guided. Distracting as far as possible from moralizing assessments, it identifies the elite in society and in various social groups according to such criteria as property status, status, and place in power relations. The emphasis is usually on the traditions of M. Weber on the status approach associated with claims to prestige and privileges, with the distribution of symbolic honor. Of particular interest to elitology in this regard is the problem of prescribed status associated with inherited factors, with social

origin, race and nationality and status based on personal achievement. The first plays a decisive role in societies with a closed elite, the second - with an open one. Among the sociological methods of studying elites, the method of empirical research occupies the most important place. In sociology, the statistical method of identifying the elite, proposed by V. Pareto, is widely used.

Recognizing important role sociology of the elite in the structure of elitology, at the same time we would like to object to a number of sociologists who believe that elitology as an independent discipline is not needed, since, in their opinion, the sociology of the elite covers elitistological problems. Claiming to solve all the problems of elitology within the framework of sociology, they thus demonstrate a kind of "sociological expansionism". Being a relatively young science (compared to philosophy, history), sociology was forced, identifying its object and subject of research, to “reconquer” its territory from other, already established disciplines. This "expansionism" of sociology can be seen as the "childhood disease" of an emerging discipline. The fact that the sociology of the elite exists and is fruitfully developing does not at all mean that elitology is not needed, just as the presence of a sociology of culture does not negate and does not replace cultural studies17, just as the presence of a sociology of politics does not cancel or replace political science.

As scientific statistics show, of all sections of elitology, the largest number of researchers is attracted by political elitology. Attention to this issue is a response to the broad public interest in it, to the social order, to the need to understand who is the main subject of politics - the masses or a narrow elite group, to understand who is behind the most important strategic decisions that affect the fate of millions of people, to the questions of war and peace, who these people are, whether they rightfully take their positions, how qualified they are in solving political problems. Using the data of political sociology, they investigate the social affiliation and origin of members of the political elite, age, level of education and professional training, value orientations, and the main types of the political elite.

(caste, class, class, nomenklatura, meritocratic), groupings, clans within the elite, questions of the formation and change of elites, analyze oppositional paradigms: elitism and egalitarianism, elitism and pluralism, elitism and democracy. Of particular interest are comparative studies of various types of elites, an analysis of the relationship between political elites and the masses, the possibilities of optimizing these relations, and the problems of political leadership. A significant and growing branch of political elitology is the study of regional political and administrative elites in various countries of the world (we note in this regard that more than a hundred studies have been conducted on this issue in post-Soviet Russia alone).

Certain sections of elitology - the study of economic, cultural, religious, military elites. Since almost every sphere of human activity has its own elite, if we even try to list the various elites, we will not succeed, we will go to infinity. In each of the sections of elitology, along with their specifics, it is possible to isolate certain general patterns, create a general theory, a methodology of elitology that “works” in all these specific areas, being refracted in a peculiar way.

We began the review of the structural elements of elitology with those that have attracted little attention of researchers in recent decades (from philosophical elitology), and ended with the one that is being studied especially intensively (political elitology). I would like to somewhat correct this imbalance by drawing the attention of elitist-logs to the poorly covered in the literature, moreover, the fundamental problems of philosophical elitology, which is the basis on which the general theory of elitistology, its metatheory, is built.

Gennady K. Ashin. Elitology in the System of Social Sciences.

The term "elitology" is a Russian innovation of the end of the 20th century. It was introduced to meet the needs of a complex discipline dealing with the elite phenomenon which integrates the achievements and methods of philosophy, political science, sociology, history, psychology, cultural studies. The article emphasizes the role of philosophy as the theoretical basis for solving elitological problems.

1. “Disciplinarily organized sciences,” writes Academician V. S. Stepin, “... pose the problem of synthesizing the ideas about the world developed in them... The difference between interdisciplinary and disciplinary studies lies in the scale of generalization... Interdisciplinary studies are interconnected seemingly separate subject areas” (Self-Developing

systems and post-nonclassical rationality) // Questions of Philosophy. 2003. No. 8. P. 13).

2. However, any science is elitist in a certain sense, and its development is the selection of the best possible option; the history of science in its most general form is the identification and preservation of the best (and the rejection of the worst, which has not justified itself). This best becomes the level of development of science reached at a certain moment, at which the best, new, progressive is again revealed, selected, that is, the development of science is the choice of the elite and, in a certain sense, it -practical use laws of elitology.

3. See: Bogdanov A. Tectology. General organizational science. In 2 vols. M., 1989.

4. See: T. Kotarbinsky. Treatise on good work. M., 1975; He is. Development of praxeology // Bulletin of the international institute A. Bogdanova. 2000. No. 2.

5. Shishkin M. A. Biological evolution and the nature of morality // Shishkin A. F. MGIMO. 2003. P. 143. Considerations of MGIMO (U) professor M. V. Ilyin are interesting: “A biological analogy for the human community is natural “communities” in the form of ecosystems of biosociogenesis ... it is possible and necessary to distinguish not only biological and social evolution, but also evolution of (in) species and oikos of any variety from the simplest biocenoses to the world system of states” // Polis. 2009. No. 2. S. 188.

6. Elitology can perform methodological functions in relation to particular sciences, act as a metatheory (for example, in relation to such an important section of political economy as the theory of competition).

7. Ashin G.K. A course in the history of elitology. M, 2003.

8. Let's note the following works: Afanasyev MN Ruling elites and statehood of post-totalitarian Russia. M.-Voronezh, 1996; Ashin G.K. Modern theories of the elite. M., 1985; (The term "elitology" is used for the first time in this book). We also note: Ashin G. Elitology: formation, main directions. M., 1995; Fundamentals of elitology. Almaty, 1996; Ashin G., Berezhnaya L. N., Karabuschenko P., Rezakov R. Theoretical foundations of the elitology of education. Astrakhan, 1998; Ashin G., Okhotsky E., Course of elitology, M., 1999; Ashin G., Ponedelkov A., Ignatiev V., Starostin A. Fundamentals of political elitology. M., 1999; Ashin G. Elitology. Textbook for humanitarian universities. M., 2005; Ashin G. World elite education. M., 2008; Gaman-Golutvina O. B. Russian political elites. M., 1998 (2nd ed., 2006); Ponedelkov A.V. Political and administrative elites of Russia. Rostov-on-Don, 2005; Karabuschenko P. Elitology of Plato. Astrakhan, 1998; Kryshtanovskaya O. Anatomy of the Russian elite. M., 2003; MokhovV. P. Elitism and history. Problems of studying the Soviet regional elites. Perm, 2000; Regional Elites of the North-West of Russia: Political and Economic Orientations. St. Petersburg, 2001; Power elites and the nomenklatura. Annotated Bibliography of Russian Editions 1990-2000, ed. Duki A. V. (The book contains an annotated list of 460 publications on this issue); Power elites of modern Russia. Rostov-on-Don, 2004. The book is provided with a bibliography of publications on the problems of elitology (716 titles). A modern bibliography may contain more than 2,000 titles.

10. FitldL. andHigleyJ. Elitism. L., Boston, 1980.

11. Moscow elitologists M.N. Afanasyev, G.K. Ashin, O.V. Gaman, O.V. Kryshtanovskaya, E.V. Okhotsky, A.E. Chirikova, N.V. Lapina and others, Rostov elitologists A. V. Ponedelkov, V. G. Ignatov, S. E. Kislitsin, A. M. Starostin, Petersburgers A. V. Duka, V. Ya. Gelman, Astrakhan P. L. Karabushchenko, N. B. Karabushchenko, Permian V. P. Mokhov, M. Kh. It was in Russia that, for the first time in the world, elitological journals began to appear - "Elitological Research" (a theoretical journal, now published in electronic form), "Russian Elite" (illustrated popular edition), "Elite Education". At present, Russian elitology is one of the leading in the world. This is not just a set of some separate theories or concepts, but a single science with a common methodological basis. Over the past 20 years, the number of elitologists in Russia has increased by two orders of magnitude.

12. FieldL. and HigleyJ, Elitism, L., 1980, Pp. 4,117-130.

13. Book C. Lash (C. Lash, "The Revolt of Elites."), NY-L, 1995.

14 DevlineJ. The Rise of the Russian Democracy. The Causes and Consequences of the Elite Revolution, 1995; LaneD. and Ross C., The Transition from Communism to Capitalism. Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin, N.Y., 1999; Zimmerman W., Russian People and Foreign Policy: Russian Elite and Mass Perspectives 1993-2000. N.Y., 2002.

15. See: Gaman-Golutvina O. V. Processes of modern elitogenesis: world and domestic experience//Polis. 2008. No. 6. S. 68-69.

16. Ashin GK Philosophical component of elitology // Questions of Philosophy. 2004. No. 7.

17. See: KempleT. Culture and Society, L., Los Ang., 2007.