Comparing Academic Capital of Political Elites in the Post-Soviet States

The study of political elites in post-soviet states omits an important factor – the role of university education (Lane, 2013). This presentation probes the politics-education correlations by examining and comparing 2010-2020 cabinets of ministers in 15 republics of the former Soviet Union. While many of these republics have chosen different political routes (e.g., democratic vs. authoritarian; market economy vs. oligarchy), the educational backgrounds of ministers suggest an intricate picture of path dependencies and mitigations. While some leaders nurture allegiances to local institutions, others explore the world and develop networks internationally. The influences of the soviet legacies (closed-mindedness, anti-westernization, and narrow disciplinarity and specialization), as noted by researchers of higher education in the post-soviet societies, showed to be deterring some countries’ reforms and economic growth (Connelly, 1996; Demin, Libman & Eras, 2019; Lewis and Lall, 2023; Oleksiyenko, 2014). Meanwhile, the exposure to global trends in innovation and interdisciplinarity was argued to create a more advanced knowledge economy and intricate interplays between the government, industry and academia. Looking into variables of internationalization in the talent development of these countries, this study tries to understand the extent to which international education and mobility, which the ministers had experienced, could be a proxy for understanding their cabinets’ ability to attract FDI, enhance trade and exchange, as well as nurture growth of international assets and human capital in the country. By drawing on theories of international networking and investment, this paper proposes a range of variables for education to be investigated in the context of elite studies. The previous research by Slaughter and Leslie (1997) encouraged to examine the ideas of capital as prestige maximization in transnational knowledge-making networks. With the growth of triple helixes creating synergies across governments, industries and academia the politics-education coupling and decoupling require more attention (Hladchenko & Pinheiro, 2019), and the focus on political and educational elites is particularly intriguing. References: Connelly, J. (1996). Foundations for Reconstructing Elites: Communist Higher Education Policies in the Czech Lands, East Germany, and Poland, 1945-1948. East European Politics and Societies, 10(03), 367-392. Demin, A., Libman, A., & Eras, L. (2019). Post-socialist transition, authoritarian consolidation and social origin of political elites: The case of Russian regional governors. Eurasian Geography and Economics, 60(3), 257-283. Hladchenko, M., & Pinheiro, R. (2019). Implementing the triple helix model: means-ends decoupling at the state level?. Minerva, 57(1), 1-22. Lane, D. (Ed.). (2013). Elites and identities in post-Soviet space. Routledge. Lewis, A., & Lall, M. (2023). From decolonisation to authoritarianism: the co-option of the decolonial agenda in higher education by right-wing nationalist elites in Russia and India. Higher Education, 1-18. Oleksiyenko, A. (2014). Socio-economic forces and the rise of the world-class research university in the post-Soviet higher education space: The case of Ukraine. European Journal of Higher Education, 4(3), 249-265. Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Johns Hopkins University Press.