Recruitment Mechanisms and Effectiveness of the Federal Administrative Elite

In this article we explore the specifics of career and recruitment channels for the senior civil servants (SCS) in Russian federal ministries using methods of document analysis, content analysis of the websites, comparative biographical analysis, regression-correlation and factor analysis. We introduce the concept of the SCS in the Russian practice. We hypothese the recruitment methods and the relationship between the type of career of the SCS and the effectiveness of the ministries, based on a sample of 381 biographies of the active SCS. We show that career bureaucrats and technocrats prevail among the SCS, but the share of political appointees in the ministerial corps is high. The SCS can be refered to as elite of the society by their characteristics. The SCS layer is heterogeneous, and the predominance of the command principle of the SCS recruitment was not confirmed. The ministries, headed by career bureaucrats, successfully implement public programs; the dynamics of development in the sectors they lead are higher. We propose to create in Russia a Service of Senior Civil Servants with the functions of selecting and evaluating the SCS.