«Политология»,

Политическое лидерство

Dubina A.Y.

Student of group IE-06B

Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade named after

M. Tugan-Baranovsky

THE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF ELITE’S RECRUITMENT

There is considered the notions and different aspects of recruitment processes, described this semantic categories on the examples of many countries, enumerated general recruitment types of elite. It is also mentioned about the evolution of the process of elite’s recruitment in Ukraine.

At the modern stage it is rational to define the political elite as the united social group, which forms the minority, and with the help of its means becomes the subject of introduction and exception of the main strategical decisions. The opportunity of every person to achieve such social position, that determines him as the member of political elite is one of the characteristic features of democratic society. The notion “elite” can be differentiated thanks to the different approaches to the principles of its recruitment, where the elite is observed from the point of view of its origins, richness, different deserts and achievements. The main aim of this work is to define the ways of elite’s quality increase through the principles of its recruitment.

The quality of elite directly depends on ways of its recruitment and the level of openness and “transparence” for the most talented, active and gifted people. Open type of recruitment is the chance for everyone to achieve the elite position. It means that it includes the most respectable and the worthiest representatives both in intellectual and moral respect. Closed type is formed from the narrow privileged group, it has a law mobility, so it leads towards the degradation. There is no unique dependence among the type of the society and the type of elite rotation, thus the pre-soviet period is characterized as the limited and close from the external world society while the process of elite recruitment remains open. As an outstanding sociologist Sorokin P.A. says there is no absolute open or closed type. In Ukraine the political elite is closed even though there is a democratic character of elections and freedom of mass-media. It is a result of its nomenclature past. Such negative features as protectionism, nepotism, clan structure of society, ideology still present in our country.

In stable political systems the process of elite’s recruitment is institutionalized, it is carried out according the strict procedures, where the elite’s staff is renewal, while the political structure is constant. In the conditions of political instability most representatives lose their posts, and they are replaced by the least experienced workers.

The ways of movement towards the political hierarchy is called the channels of recruitment, whose influence is conditioned by the historical factor or by the form of the political regime (political parties, army, bureaucratic machine, church, education, economic institutes). Bureaucratic machine acts as an important channel in the case when the representatives of the elite owe the government service their present position (Japan, Sweden, and Germany). Serve in the army is the guarantee of successful political future in such countries as Israel, Brazil, and Argentina. The role of political parties is considerable in the west-European countries, where the pretender to the elite access has to come through all stages of party’s hierarchy.

The other category of elite’s recruitment is the system of recruitment, which is divided into guild and entrepreneurial systems. Guild system has the following features: closed and noncompetitive way of elite’s representatives selection, slow advancement and renewal, but at the same time there is a balanced type of decisions, lower level of risks’ and internal conflicts’ probability, it is more predictable. Entrepreneurial system is characterized by open, competitive way of selection, which is realized by different groups of people and rested upon human’s personal abilities, simultaneously there is a risk of populism, internal discrepancy, and changeability in the political curse.

At the modern stage in Ukraine there is a process of reorganization of recruitment principles because of the denial of the soviet ones. The main peculiarities of the evolution and of the processes of recruitment of the elite in Ukraine are the following: its rejuvenation, overcoming of the gender discrimination, growth of the level of scholarship. If to look through all possible for Ukraine channels of recruitment, we can conclude that achievement of high authoritative positions nowadays mostly is the result of participation in the “command” of the influential leader, and in the least degree is the result of graduate moving over the hierarchical ladder.

Conclusions: while recruitment analysis, we examined the processes of elite’s formation, main negative and positive features of recruitment principles and their influence on the quality of elite.

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