Political Elite of Kaluga Region: Structure Analysis. . . . 136 Kopus T.L. Traditional and Mass Open Online Course “Business Communication”: Perspectives for Higher Education

The article analyzes the structure of the political elite of the Kaluga region. By means of biographical analysis, the composition of the political elite of the region in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government is considered. In practical terms, research interest is concentrated around 35 personalities who are part of the regional elite and included in the sample for analysis. Appealing to the network approach as the methodological basis of the research, the authors, based on the results of the analysis, identify four political networks, each of which has its degree of institutionalization in the region. The last contour of the research is the analysis of the posts of elite representatives in the Kaluga region. During the research it is revealed that the key distribution posts are occupied by politicians from the first two levels of political networks. The authors propose to consider the successful indicators of the Kaluga Region as a consequence of a well-structured configuration of elites, where key posts are occupied by politicians with political influence in the region, which contributes to the formation of conditions for effective management of the region.

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