Comparative Analysis of Political Elites of Ukraine and Belarus

The research on political elites in the Republic of Belarus and Ukraine has a pure theoretical and empirical significance due to the comprehension of internal processes in the neighboring states and recognition of political elites as major subjects of the political process. It can be evolved by the identification and consideration of the patterns of political development in Belarus and Ukraine and by the assessment of prospects for further development of local elites. The relevance of the research corresponds to its goals and identifies them as the following: • to conceptualize and operationalize the concept of political elite; • to define criteria of comparison and to reveal a typology of elites; • to study the evolution of the contemporary political elites of Ukraine and Belarus; • to compare the political elites of Ukraine and Belarus on selected criteria in order to characterize them; • to explore the prospects for the transformation and development of the study of elites. The chronological framework of the research is defined from 1991 to 2016 which correlates with the modern historical phase.