TAMBOV GOVERNING ELITE IN THE CONDITIONS OF POST-REFORM TRANSFORMATION

The article examines the period (1861-1898) after the abolition of serfdom in the region of Central Russia. This period is characterized by a difficult situation for the further development of the country in the new realities. Despite the modernization message from the upper echelons of power, in the depths of the regional elite, serf attitudes and customs were preserved, which were supported by peasant’s patriarchal psychology. In this article the information on the adjustment of the nobility and landowners to the post-reform realities, on actions to realize their interests is supplemented. In carrying out the research, general scientific and special historical methods were used. The work is based on the archival sources of the State Archive of the Tambov Region. According to the results of the study, it can be noted that the local administrative elites were inclined to expand the boundaries of their own power. The modernization impulses directed from the capital, although caught by the Tambov leadership and the nobility, were implemented in a refined manner, drawing from the local interests. With the economic crisis, the "crisis of the management elite" also grew. Local authorities were increasingly distanced from the process of agricultural modernization in the Tambov province, not realizing that the agrotechnical backwardness of the region, which was aggravating over the years, was actually turning into a hotbed of great tension and threatened with serious conflict situations.

Administrative regulation of the regional electoral cycle in Russia: The main trends of regional heads elections in 2019–2020

This article elaborates the thesis the process and results of the regional heads elections in 2019 and 2020. An attempt is also made to frame the model of the manageable electoral procedure for the governors’ appointments implemented during the period of the regional election campaigns of 2019 and 2020. The methodological framework includes the design of the regional electoral cycle and the concept of the viability of public administration and administrative elites as an independent research category of political science. Based on the results of the analysis, a conclusion is drawn about the current situation of the state administration and administrative elites in the Russian political system and the degree of their participation in the political process.

Bureaucrats First.

In the 1980s, a fundamental shift took place in Dutch economic policy: Keynesian demand-management was exchanged for a neoliberal supply-side approach. The single most influential account of this transformation has focused on consensus among corporatist policymakers as key to the reforms. It is the origin story of the Dutch ‘polder model’. The problem however, is that there is surprisingly little evidence for corporatist consensus in the 1980s. Instead of consensus, we argue that there has been a conflict of ideas between Keynesians and supply-siders. And instead of corporatism, we point to bureaucratic elites as a crucial factor in the Dutch policy shift. From the mid-1970s onwards, an influential group of senior public officials emerged that successfully advocated for a supply-side policy, inspired by the industrialization policies developed in the 1950s. In so doing, we believe the Dutch case exemplifies the pathbreaking role of administrative elites as highlighted by Skocpol, Weir and Heclo, rather than corporatist consensus.

Administrative Elites and the ‘First Phase of Byzantine Humanism’

This study investigates the interconnection between the adoption of the minuscule script for the transcription of Greek literary texts (one of the most significant innovations in the history of Byzantine book culture) and the huge cultural revival of ninth-century Byzantium. The focus lies on the social changes that occurred among the Constantinopolitan elites at the end of the eighth century as a result of the political events following the death of Emperor Leo IV. The adoption of the minuscule in the copying of books will be described as a three-step process, whose phases will be discussed with particular attention to the social milieus in which they emerged and developed (especially the bureaucratic circles of the capital connected to the finance administration and some monastic networks). In conclusion, the study emphasizes the importance of some very specific technical skills in one of the most decisive changes in middle-byzantine cultural history.