Wpływ elit na procesy etnopolityczne

Abstract

The author focuses her attention on the activity of ruling elites in polyethnic North Caucasus . She examines the impact of the polyethnic specificity of the region mechanisms of recruitment and circulation of political elites. She reveals the influence of these elites on the same ethnopolitical processes in the national republics. A periodization of the political transformation of the North Caucasus, in which each of the stages is distinguished by its specificity, emerges from the research. The author discusses the various stages of transformation states, that during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin these elites had a wide degree of autonomy in its activity. The situation changed in the first decade of the twenty-first century, with Vladimir Putin’s rise to power. Then the process of gradual reduction of the autonomy of the region and weakening of the position of political leaders has started. This process is connected with the reconfiguration of elite systems and re-evalutation of influence of ethnopolitical and clan groups. This process continues and its final effects are still to come. New groups and alliances slowly emerge. One can notice intense infiltration of business and power elite. Elite recruitment is limited by channels such as social organizations, science, culture and educational institutions, media and confessions. The control over system of processes taking place in the political elite expands. The structures responsible for order and security are clearly favored within the system of power. Practice proves that solutions and methods used by the federal center are ineffective. As a result, civil society is underdeveloped, democratic process are locked, which does not give a chance to make use of social capital, middle class almost does not exist, the political parties are weak. As a result, the North Caucasus remains a zone of political turmoil.