Tev D. Vysokopostavlennyye chinovniki federal’nykh ekonomicheskikh ministerstv Rossii: osnovnyye kanaly rekrutirovaniya i kar’yera [High-ranking officials of the federal economic ministries of Russia: the main recruitment channels and careers]. Vlast’ i elity [Power and Elites], 2022, 9 (1): 56–93. (in Russian)

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Abstract

The article analyzes the recruitment channels and careers of highranking officials of the economic ministries of the Russian government. The empirical basis of the study was a biographical database of 225 deputy ministers and department directors of eight ministries. The study showed that bureaucratic professionalization is the most pronounced characteristic of the their career. The main channel of recruitment is the federal administration, and the overwhelming majority have already worked in their ministry before entering current position. These trends are likely to indicate the importance of competency-based meritocratic selection. At the same time, classical bureaucrats with a purely administrative career, especially in one ministry, are a clear minority. Interdepartmental mobility is present, and the most common are mixed careers, when administrative experience is combined with non-bureaucratic employment. The most important, albeit mostly indirect, source of external recruitment of officials is commercial organizations, and the role of large state-owned companies from the sectors supervised by ministries is especially significant. Business experience is found more often, and direct intradepartmental recruitment is less common at the highest level of the administrative hierarchy. Differences between ministries are also noticeable. Ministries with the most bureaucratic careers and a particularly important role of intradepartmental experience and ministries with the most pronounced plutocratic recruitment are singled out. Finally, in a number of ministries, there is a noticeable overlap between ministers and their subordinates in a career preceding the current position, which may indicate the importance of patrimonial recruitment of officials based on personal loyalty, patron-client relationships.