USA: Political Elites Fragmentation and Russian-American Dialogue Prospects

Abstract

Over the past 30–35 years, the United States has seen an increase in research into the role and transformation of American elites, including the political elite. In the second half of the 20th century, in the context of a bipolar world, the main focus was on the importance of social movements as a key factor determining the mechanism and specifics of the functioning of the political system. But as globalization processes increased, power groups began to play a major role, which de facto began to call themselves elites, i.e. a select part of society that significantly differs from other social strata and groups in terms of wealth, level of education, access to a wide range of privileges and other features. From a political and sociological perspective, studying elites, unlike studying mass movements, is more difficult due to the closed nature of most elite groups, as well as the vagueness and uncertainty of their social boundaries. In addition, the United States, as the richest country in the Western world, has begun to transform elite groups and turn them into oligarchs. In parallel, the liberal part of the American political elite came to the conclusion about the necessity of transforming the traditional white elite of American society, known as “white Anglo-Saxon Protestants”, into a “colored” elite of American society, consisting of a wide range of racial and ethnic groups and strata. As a consequence of the processes of “colorization” of the American political elite, its fragmentation began, which at present has taken the form of a fierce struggle between the old white elite and the multiracial and multiethnic elite that is replacing it. In the conditions of the competitive struggle for survival, the opportunities for Russian-American dialogue, which for most of the existence of our countries was in the mainstream of interstate relations, and not within the framework of inter-elite communications, have sharply narrowed.