Electoral and non-electoral mechanisms of professionals' recruitment for Russian local self-governance (on the example of the Tyumen regions)

One of the topical areas of the local government reform being implemented in most regions has to do with changing the procedure for replacing the posts of municipal leaders. In a recent decade, a lot of local communities abolished elections of mayors and heads of administrations; local legislatures started to appoint them as hired managers instead. This reform was sponsored by governors and United Russia's majority within regional parliaments. It is expected that this way of forming the administrative elite will improve its quality: candidates with considerable professional experience will be selected through competitive procedures, incompetent demagogues will be excluded, and accountability of mayors for performance will be increased by simplifying procedures for their dismissal and recruitment. “We need skilled professionals, not party demagogues” - was the motto of the reform. (“We need more loyal administrators able of providing even unpopular measures as well” - added the most sincere governors and deputies). In fact, the reform tasks were complicated: to secure political control over local elites by purely technocratic, not political means; to provide popular legitimacy of unpopular measures without a conventional mechanism of legitimizing, i.e., elections. It is also declared that such a reform will depoliticize the activities of the municipal mayor and ensure their independence from local political elites, which will have a positive impact on the efficiency of the local government system. The paper analyses the first results of the reform being implemented in the Tyumen Oblast. It has been noted that, contrary to expectations, the main result of the change in municipal executive positions has been a trend towards a closed group of specialists in municipal administration and management, as well as an increased dependence of mayors on members of local government structures and the institution of the governor. The author argue that neither the increase of loyalty of local elites nor the growth of professionalism of managers have been achieved during the decade of the reform.