Vlast i Elity (Power and Elites)

Leaders vs. institutions: paradoxes and practices

Liubov A. Fadeeva — 2025-12-30

This article clarifies the concepts of institutional and non-institutional leadership and characterizes the interaction between political leaders and institutions in crisis situations. The author examines three case studies — American, Indian, and Chinese — to determine how and by what methods leaders transform political institutions to achieve their programmatic goals. The article devotes significant attention to political identity, which leaders use as a non-institutional resource for their influence. Make America great again, use Hindutva as a uni fying religion and ideology for Indian society, and ensure the achievement of the Chinese dream — such appeals should create an emotional foundation to support leaders in their efforts to transform political institutions. The author points to other noninstitutional components of political leadership — charisma, emotional impact, and psychological characteristics — that leaders employ to enhance their power. According to the author, these components are particularly important in a context of permanent crisis, a key characteristic of which is emotional burnout, which occurs in people due to the constant experience of ever-increasing risks, threats, and dangers. Consequently, the psychological aspects of political leadership, a kind of psychotherapeutic effect that a leader must create to maintain public confidence in the validity of their proposed programs and the methods of their implementation, are increasingly important. In the cases examined in the article, the key issue is the promotion and consolidation of the country as a center of power in the 21st century, in a world that has not yet become, but is certainly striving for, multipolarity.

The juridical elite in Bulgaria and Romania: resistance to reforms and challenges of European integration

Elena V. Maslovskaya — 2025-12-30

The article considers the mechanisms of resistance of the juridical elite to judicial reforms in Bulgaria and Romania since the beginning of the 1990s. The study presents an analysis of the historical context and the development of judicial systems of both countries during the transition period and after their accession to the European Union. The key groups of the juridical elite and their influence on the process of reforming are singled out. An emphasis is made on a systemic study of the national level in the context of strategies and tactics of representatives of the elite groups within and outside the judicial system in the process of sectoral reforms accompanying the European integration. Special attention is devoted to the role of chairpersons of the courts and judges of the higher courts who resisted to implementation of reforms through institutional resources, control over recruitment policy and formation of the professional culture. The article analyzes the main strategies of resistance including bureaucratic and institutional barriers as well as preservation of clientelist practices caused by historical legacies of the socialist period. It is emphasized that the dominance of political patronage and networks of mutual obligations hindered the formation of meritocratic principles of recruitment, evaluation and promotion of judges decreasing the efficiency of innovations and aggravating the crisis of legitimacy of the judicial power. A conclusion has been made that the strategies of resistance of the juridical elite included a complex of institutional, cultural and political practices that caused the inertia of the judicial systems and complicated the process of implementation of European standards. The results of the study demonstrate that the effectiveness of reforms depends not only on external pressure but also on transformation of internal recruitment policy and corporate norms within the judicial system. Judicial reforms in Bulgaria and Romania illustrate the existence of multiple modernizing trajectories which depend on historical-cultural context, interaction of local and global actors as well as the balance of forces within the juridical field. The article contributes to the development of theoretical ideas on the processes of judicial reforms in postcommunist states.

The invention and resuscitation of “ethnic groups”: The role of ethnic entrepreneurs

Valeriy A. Achkasov — 2025-12-30

This article illustrates the thesis that in contemporary Russia, ethnopolitics at the regional level is perceived in its most simplified, vulgar form — that is, as a demonstration of a region’s ethnocultural diversity through various folklore festivals and support for ethnic organizations whose leaders’ primary concern is not only preserving the group’s cultural distinctiveness but also constructing / reconstructing ethnic communities. Moreover, with this understanding of ethnopolitics, it is ethnic entrepreneurs and ethnically oriented researchers who become the leading experts in the field of state national policy, although their interests are not related to solving the problems of cultural and political integration of Russian society and strengthening a pan-Russian civic identity, but rather to the preservation and reconstruction of local ethnic identities and the demonstration of cultural distances between ethnic groups. The article demonstrates that it is identity politics that opens a broad arena for the activities of ethnic entrepreneurs who exploit the primordialist ideas of the masses about the universality and ascrip tivity of ethnicity, and the deep roots of ethnic differences in the past to achieve their goals.

Garbage riots in Russia: reproduction of protest practices, politicization and institutionalization of protests

Olga D. Tsepilova — 2025-12-30

Within the framework of the mobilization and institutional approaches, the analysis of four cases of protest actions on the construction and expansion of garbage facilities in the Arkhangelsk region, the Moscow oblast, the Republic of atarstan and the Krasnodar Krai is carried out. The study of protest actions by the author in a wide range of social movements leads to the conclusion that “garbage riots” in Russia are becoming the main form of collective protest actions in Russia. In the progressive development, the process of reproduction of protest practices, institutionalization and politicization of anti-garbage protests is observed. An important mobilization resource of the protest movement under study is the obvious severity of the problem, which is becoming increasingly relevant for all Russian regions. In addition, one of the key resources of the protest movement is the high level of networking (through social media) among protest participants, environmental and human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As protest activity around the “garbage” issue grows, the official authorities are increasingly moving from confrontation to dialogue, involving public representatives and independent experts in the decision-making process.

Multiplication of elites in the context of competition of institutional orders

Valeriia D. Dmitrieva — 2025-12-30

This article presents an analytical overview of the presentations and key discussions at the Twenty-fourth All-Russian Seminar “Sociological problems of Power Institutions in the Context of Russian Transformation”. The materials are structured based on conceptual coherence rather than chronological sequence. This approach allows us to reconstruct the authors’ positions and identify the fundamental theoretical contradictions that defined the vector of the seminar’s discussions. Drawing on K. Mannheim’s theses on the multiplication and autonomization of elites in the context of social transformation, the authors identify several themes that outline the 2025 seminar’s focus. First, there is the issue of elite autonomization, which is accompanied by the diversification of power groups. Second, the centralization of power and the subjectivity of local elites. Third, the generational dynamics of elites; and finally, the diffusion of moral order, which is contrasted with “confidential management”.