The article discusses the features and possibilities of applying an integral-critical approach to the study of elite groups in general and the political elite in particular. The characteristic of reputational and decision-making (decision) methods, positional (institutional, formal) and value-based (meritocratic) methodological approaches often used in the past is given. It is noted that today, both positional and value (meritocratic) approaches are not quite suitable in their ideal version for the analysis of the elite, primarily due to their extreme one-sidedness of assessments. The thesis about the need for a special integral-critical approach, free from subjective value judgments, political-ideological and normative interpretations, is substantiated om the basis of the applied methods.