Business as a source of the recruitment of high-ranking officials of Russian federal economic ministries

Abstract

The article analyzes the role of business as a source of the recruitment of high-ranking officials of the economic ministries of the Russian government. The empirical basis of the study is a biographical database of 225 deputy ministers and directors of departments in eight ministries. The study demonstrated that although administrative professionalization is the most pronounced characteristic of officials’ careers, economic ministries are quite dependent on business as a channel for recruitment of their top executives, which, in this sense, has the features of a “new public management” bureaucracy. Business serves as the main supplier of senior staff for economic ministries outside the administrative realm, while large state-owned companies belonging to sectors supervised by ministries play a particularly significant role. Business experience is found more often at the highest level of the administrative hierarchy, particularly among deputy ministers. Interdepartmental differences are also significant: there are ministries with a pronounced presence of people from business, for example, the Ministry of Agriculture. In some ministries, the presence of intersections between ministers and their subordinates in the course of a business career preceding the current position is noticeable, which may indicate the importance of patrimonial recruitment based on personal loyalty or patron-client relations. The plutocratic recruitment of executives, especially noticeable in a number of ministries, probably puts overrepresented companies and industries in a privileged position in the policy-making and implementation process, thereby forming a kind of administrative bias in their favor.