Valerii Pylypenko, Yurii Pryvalov The Political Elite of Ukraine: Historical and Sociological Analysis UDC 321.015, 329.05 VALERII PYLYPENKO, Doctor of Sciences in Sociology, Principal Re - search Fellow of the Department of History and Theory of Sociology, Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine YURII PRYVALOV, Candidate of Sciences in Philosophy, Senior Re - search Fellow of the Social Expertise Depart - ment, Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine The Political Elite of Ukraine: Historical and Sociological Analysis Abstract The paper discusses the main problems of the national political elite and specific features of their functioning. Special attention is paid to the process of coming into being of Ukraine’s political elite, which is described in the context of formation of the Ukrainian statehood. Keywords: elite, politics, state, government, political parties, political activity, analysis Orig i nally in French, the word “elite” meant just a choice. But later this word was used to desig nate excep tional (top quality) products and also mil i tary or sec- ular elite that had been estab lished in a so ci ety. Their posi tions were so strong and mean ing ful that seemed unlikely to evoke any doubt. The pio neers of modern elite studies Italian so cial sci en tists Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto noted that in the period be tween the late 19th and early 20th cen turies in Europe class con fronta tions were replaced by steady remote ness of rul ing circles, or mer i toc racy as so ci ated with them (per sons and fam i lies pos sess- ing a high so cial sta tus due to ori gin, for tune, ad min is trative or eco nomic power and in fluence, in tel li gence, tal ents, spiri tual author ity, etc.) from the rest of the pop u la tion. The pop u la tion be comes poorly dif fer en ti ated mass, which only can Соціологія: теорія, мето ди, мар ке тинг, 2016, 3 171 Valerii Pylypenko, Yurii Pryvalov flock af ter the elite, support it or “unseat”, but in any case it will have to en coun - ter a new rule of the minor ity. Ideo log i cally, the con cept of elite has al ways been ul tra-con ser va tive and anti-rad i cal, which seems hardly to be compat i ble with dem o cratic ide als. Yet the exis tence of an elite stra tum selected in a par tic ular mo ment in a rel a tively stable so cial en viron ment is an in dis put able so ciolog i cal fact. Re search ers of the elite phenom e non in mod ern coun tries — both crit ics and apol o gists — are con cerned not so much about the exis tence of the “se lect” (who con trol every one ow ing to their posi tion) as about trends in their renewal, whether they closed or open to new com peten cies, tal ents, merits or cap i tal, which in their turn should be en - sured by dem o cratic mech a nisms. For ex am ple, the Span ish phi los o pher Jose Ortega y Gasset was worried about possi bil ity of “the revolt of the masses” and de struction of the very founda - tions of the elite’s exis tence in the 1930s, while the rad i cal Amer i can so ci ol o gist Charles Wright Mills high lighted the grow ing ri gid ity and clo sure of the US “gov ern ing elite” in the 1950s. V. Pareto no ticed the dif ference be tween govern ing and non-gov erning elite. The first one seems to easily change it self under dem o cratic con di tions. Iner tia of the sec ond one is higher; be sides, it is formed in other ways. Money and polit i cal mach i na tions are only some of the mecha nisms that sup port the elite’s domi - nance. The mer its are de ter mined by edu cational back ground, profes sional achieve - ments, loyalty to pub lic duty and voca tion, talents and spiri tual power, public opin ion and rec og ni tion. Atti tudes towards the elite also vary from culture to cul ture. The prob lem of for ma tion and trans for ma tion of the na tional po lit i cal elite of Ukraine in the 21st cen tury is consid ered to be one of the most “Euro - pean” and pressing problems of the present-day soci ol ogy and polit i cal sci ence, which has also been con firmed by both recent social prac tices and events un- folded in Ukraine’s po lit i cal spec trum. The process of forma tion of the national po lit i cal elite, which started in 1988–1989, has not finished yet. Therefore, the polit i cal elite have been un der go - ing con stant changes in recent de cades. These changes are rather grad ual than dra matic. They oc cur through the process of muta tion within some groups or their mixing with other ones, as well as through changes in polit i cal slo gans and lead er ship. Ba si cally, the pro cess of for ma tion of Ukraine’s po lit i cal (rul ing) elite can be di vided into the fol low ing stages [Shul’ha, 2011]. The first ma jor stage lasted from 1989 to 1994. It was char ac terised by si mul- taneous exis tence of both “old” so viet elite and “new” na tional one, which had just begun form ing. At that time, the old elite’s po lit i cal and ad min is trative cap i - tal was be ing con verted into eco nomic one. Fur thermore, fi nan cial cap i tal was be ing ac cu mulated in the hands of crime bosses. Pri vate me dia, which were get - ting es tablished in that pe riod, served as a ba sis for le git i mating big pri vate prop- erty. Try ing to jus tify the un just re distri bu tion of property, Ukrainian in tel lec tu - als (mainly socio-hu man is tic) high lighted the fact that there were no al terna - tives to reforms and Ukraine as an in de pend ent state needed re con struction; al - though their speeches were noth ing but rheto ric. During the second stage (1994–2000), the three main groups of Ukraine’s po lit i cal elite (the old rul ing, the new rul ing and the crim i nal) con tin ued to ac cu - 172 Соціологія: теорія, методи, маркетинг, 2016, 3 The Political Elite of Ukraine: Historical and Sociological Analysis mulate cap i tal in their hands. The shadow econ omy rapidly de vel oped, ma fia bosses joined the power elite, and the ma jor oli gar chic clans (from Dnipro - petrovs’k1, Donets’k and Kyiv) came into be ing. The rep re senta tives of polit i cal elite be gan both to confront each other and fight over con trol of the cen tral power. Dur ing the third stage (2000–2004), the above-mentioned groups (the old, the new and the crim i nal) were merged into one named pro-Kuchma group. The lat ter served as a basis for power ful oli gar chic clans, where power and prop erty fuse with each other. The rul ing elite are criminalised while the crim i nal elite are respectalised. The fourth stage (late 2004) meant that a part of the oligar chic elite and big business owners became ma ture enough to get rid of the patron age of se nior gov - ern ment of fi cials and thus of il le gal re dis tri bu tion of in come (be tween them and gov ern ment of fi cials) through the mech a nism of cor rup tion. Dur ing the 2004 presi den tial elec tion a cleav age be tween the two compet ing groups of power elite deep ened even further and even tually grew into con fronta tion. The period from 2005 to 2010 (known as the reign of Viktor Yushchenko) can ac tually be regarded as the fifth stage of de vel opment of the national ruling elite. The most impor tant event of that pe riod was the “Or ange Rev o lution”, which man aged to in spire hope in Ukrai ni ans. Un for tu nately, their ex pec ta tions ended up in dis appoint ment. Fi nally, the sixth stage (since 2010) began with the reign of Viktor Yanu- kovych, who was the chief repre sen ta tive of the “Donets’k clan”. It is a well- known fact that Yanukovych’s rule was inter rupted by the “Revo lution of Dig- nity” and ended up with his escape to Russia where he was taken under the wing of Vladimir Putin. A more de tailed anal ysis of forma tion of the national po lit i cal elite has re - vealed their con tinu ity as the most es sential fea ture. In 1996, for exam ple, 75% of the old com munist nomenklatura2 worked in the new power structures. There- fore, con tinu ity of Ukraine’s polit i cal elite is mostly ensured by their “no- menklatura” or i gin.