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Poslední úprava: JOSIFKO (09.01.2008)
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Poslední úprava: JOSIFKO (09.01.2008)
SOCIOLOGY OF TRANSITION Course syllabus Lecturers: Petr Matějů Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences, Prague (mateju@mbox.cesnet.cz) Jiří Večerník (vecernik@soc.cas.cz) Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences, Prague Classes: Every topic will be covered in one lecture, with an accompanying seminar. Lectures will be based on a presentation of the topic by the lecturer and answers to questions and issues raised by students. Seminars will be based on presentations of students on assigned readings of their particular interests, and their participation in the discussion. Midterm test, presentation, final paper: The most important elements of course grading will be: midterm test, student s presentation at the seminar, and a final paper. The midterm test will assess students familiarity with key concepts and their ability to interpret the most important social and political processes taking place in societies in transition. Some knowledge of elementary statistics (mean, variation, two-way tables, characteristics of income distribution, measures of inequality, indicators of social mobility) will be assumed. However, students will be informed about the requirements for passing the test and -- if needed - the required material will be explained in a class or seminar. All students will have to prepare one or two presentations for the discussion seminars. The actual number of presentations will be determined when the number of students in the class is known. Topics for students presentations will be discussed and assigned at least two weeks in advance. Topics for the final paper, as well as the criteria for its evaluation (grading), will be announced one week before the due date. Students will have seven days to prepare and write their final paper. Grading: Class participation 10%, midterm 25%, presentation 25%, final paper 40%. Outline of the course: The course is designed to provide a sociological evidence and interpretation of major changes which have occurred in Czech society - in comparison with other post-communist countries - after the collapse of the communist regime in 1989. Particular emphasis is placed on the processes and relationships which shaped the new social and class structure, attitudes, values and political system. The most important issues to be discussed include: privatization and the formation of the entrepreneurial class, formation of elites during the first stage of the transformation, development of the labor market, human resources development, inequality of earnings and incomes, changes in the educational structure and inequality in access to higher education, formation of socio-economic status and its consistency, main patterns of social mobility during the transformation period, perception of changes in life conditions of main social classes and groups, formation of the middle class, perception of inequality and changing norms of distributive justice, principal changes in social policy, the shaping of political attitudes and changes in voting behavior of social classes. In addition to standard texts, we will discuss most recent empirical evidence concerning various social processes. Students are therefore required to learn very elementary forms of presenting surveys and statistical evidence. 1. Introduction to the course Discussion on the concept of the post-communist transformation as a process of rebuilding vital relationships between economic, social and economic dimensions of society. Bourdieu s concept of social reproduction will be discussed, as well as the role of various forms of capital in social reproduction, Dahrendorf s concepts of life-chances , his concept of the three clocks of the transformation in formerly communist countries, etc. 2. Building capitalism without capitalists? The aim of this lecture will be to discuss various theories of transition. Particular emphasis will be put on the new theory of transition suggested by Ivan Szelenyi and his graduate students. According to this theory, creating capitalism without capitalists is a distinctive strategy of the transition adopted by technocratic-intellectual elites in societies where no class of private owners existed prior to the introduction of market mechanisms. Szelenyi s theory builds, among others, on Bourdieu s concept of various forms of capital and their conversions. Converting devalued forms of capital into new, more valued forms is the preferred way for individuals to cope with changes in social structure. Each individual has a portfolio of different forms of capital and people try to reshuffle this portfolio to get rid of forms of capital which are losing value and to convert them into forms that are more valuable. 3. Labor market, employment policies and earnings disparities The emerging labor markets are still vulnerable due to the processes of restructuring of the economy. More flexibility is needed to weaken the risks of long-term unemployment. However, human resources and return to human capital experienced significant improvement, but also a less favorable segmentation process occurred in the labor market and occupational structures. The main problem is the distorted motivational structure which well be presented in its institutional design (mismatch of unemployment benefits and poverty relief), and subjective perception (work-related values and expectations). The earnings function will be applied on survey data to show changes over the 1989-1999 period. The lecture will deal with the developments of the labor markets in the Czech Republic compared with other post-communist countries. The goals, tools, and results of labor market policies will be discussed as well. 4. Changes and challenges in education The Czech educational system has undergone several distinctive reforms. The lecture will present basic changes in education in the Czech Republic after 1989. Ideas and principles on which the changes were based, as well as some of their consequences will be discussed. To understand the current situation, three approaches will be offered. First, examples of statistical evidence of the development of the Czech educational system in comparison with other developed countries; second, a discussion of indicators of quality of education; and third, analyses of development of equal educational opportunities as one of the basic educational policy principles in all democratic societies. On the basis of this principle, we will evaluate the Czech current educational system in terms of equality, equity and social inclusion/exclusion. 5. Inequality in family incomes: readjustment to the market Income surveys of the Czech Statistical Office will be used to document changes in the distribution of earnings and household income and in their determinants in the period 1988-1996 and after. First, the substantive meaning of various income indicators and their relationship to the political regime and economic situation will be discussed. Second, growing disparities of income after 1989 and the shift from a need principle (and corresponding demographic factors) to the market principle (and corresponding socio-economic factors) will be presented. Third, an increasing redistribution of income through taxes and social benefits will be documented. And fourth, a comparison with Western countries will serve to assess the degree of adjustment of the Czech system to the market in various aspects of income distribution. 6. Rebuilding the consistency of socio-economic status The relationships between education, occupation and income - three constituent elements of socio-economic status in modern societies - eroded heavily during the communist regime. The post-communist transformation has brought about a significant increase in income inequality. The question of whether an increasing income inequality contributed to the restoration of the socio-economic status consistency in the Czech Republic will be raised. In other words, we will try to find an answer to the question whether higher education increases a person s chance for securing better occupation, and whether higher education and higher occupational status together determine a higher income better today than at the beginning of the transformation. An equally important question is which segments of the labor market show higher status inconsistency. Is it true that people with a highly inconsistent socio-economic status vote differently from those who show a more consistent socio-economic status, as one of the classical sociological theories suggests? These are the most important issues this lecture will cover. 7. Objective and subjective mobility, perceptions of life-chances The fall of the communist regime, the dismantling of political criteria of promotion and their gradual replacement by meritocratic criteria (education, competence), the emergence of an entrepreneurial class, and the restoration of the labor market were the most important factors assumed to open channels for massive upward and downward social mobility. At the same time, the old political, economic, and cultural elites were expected to be replaced by new ones. To what extent have these expectations been met as far as the first period of the transformation is concerned? How strong was the objective class mobility during the first years of the transformation compared to the last period of communism? To what extent the members of the old nomenklatura have succeeded in their effort to convert the old political capital of the past into economic assets, thus bringing them back to the top of the social hierarchy? Do people whose class and/or social status did not change during the first period of the transformation feel any change in their life-chances ? Which individuals felt an improvement of their socio-economic status, and who experienced a deterioration of their socio-economic status. These questions will be answered using empirical evidence from various surveys carried out after 1989 in the Czech Republic and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. 8. Formation of the middle class A large middle class is generally viewed as one of the preconditions of a stable democracy. The communist system built its ideology on the leading role of the working class. The socialist expropriation of private means of production, the suppression of the entrepreneurial class, and egalitarian wage and income policies, which especially deteriorated the socio-economic status of those with higher education, have brought a deep erosion of the middle class in the former communist countries. It is assumed that the post-communist transformation is creating conditions for middle class reconstitution. Does the available evidence support this assumption? Do people who, due to their higher education or occupational status, are assumed to identify themselves with the middle class actually do so? What factors contribute to the identification with the middle class? Other questions discussed during the lecture will deal with economic and political aspects of the middle class formation, with its social hegemony , and with the middle-class consensus changing over time. 9. Perception of inequality and distributive justice norms Social and economic inequalities are always subject to evaluation from a normative position which is based on certain norms of distributive justice. The spontaneous evaluation of social and economic inequality influences political attitudes and voting behavior. One of the bases of the legitimacy and stability of a political system, therefore, is a consensus that society is organized and structured on the basis of principles of social and distributive justice. However, what an individual considers to be just or unjust in the distribution of wanted goods (income, property, opportunity, etc.) depends on various factors. The inclination towards a certain ideology of distributive justice plays a decisive role. This lecture will deal both with the change in the perception of inequality in the Czech Republic and with various ideologies of social and distributive justice and their rooting in a class structure and stratification system. 10. Social policy in transition: social benefits and pension reform The socialist social security system was a universalistic one but the standards of provisions were poor and arrangements inefficient. The main goals of the transformation of the social security system in transition countries were defined as transparency, better targeting, and economic efficiency. At the same time, however, the system should be able to respond adequately to new social risks. The lecture will focus on the evaluation of the most important aspects of the change: the political doctrine behind social security transformation, the distinct periods (emergency measures, institutional building, adjustments within social sub-systems), and the essence of changes in organization, financing and entitlements. The economic and social effects of the change would be evaluated: legitimacy, targeting and protection efficiency as well as costs. The transformation of the Czech social security system transformation will be discussed and compared with recent developments of social security systems in other Central European countries and in the European Union. Special attention will be given to recent discussion of pension reform. 11. Crystallization of political spectrum and voting behavior This lecture will raise the question of whether political space defined by political orientations, values, and attitudes of potential voters is arranged along the two main axes: left-right and libertarianism-authoritarianism, as assumed by scholars dealing with political space in formerly communist countries (e.g. Kitschelt). We will discuss the results of recent analyses which show that both axes do exist in the Czech Republic and that they organize the political behavior of voters. The question of which of the axes is dominant will be raised. We will also deal with the difference between declared and value-based political orientations. Another relevant issue will be the role of a social class in the voting behavior, whether the role of social class in voting for the left or right political parties has been declining or increasing. The evidence on this issue, based on analyses of data from exit-polls carried out during 1992, 1996 and 1998 Czech parliamentary elections, is available and will be discussed as well. Main readings: Bourdieu, Pierre.: The Forms of Capital. Pp. 241 - 258 in G. Richardson: Handbook of Theory and Research for Sociology of Education, New York, Greenwood Press, 1986. Eyal, Gil, Ivan Szelenyi and Eleanor Townsley: Making Capitalism Without Capitalists. The New Ruling Elites in Eastern Europe. Verso, London, New York 1998. Hanley, Eric, Petr Matějů, Klára Vlachová and Jindřich Krejčí: The Making of Post-Communist Elites in Eastern Europe. Institute of Sociology AS, Working Papers 3/1996. Lenski, Gerhard: Status Crystallization: A Non-vertical Dimension of Social Status. American Sociological Review, 1954, pp. 405-413. Matějů, P. and B. Řeháková. 1993. Revolution for Whom? Analysis of selected patterns of intragenerational mobility in the Czech Republic 1989-1992. Czech Sociological Review (English edition), Vol. I (Spring 1993): 73-90 Matějů, P., B. Řeháková and G. Evans: The Politics of Interests and Class Realignment in the Czech Republic 1992 - 1996. Pp. 231 - 253 in G. Evans (ed.): The End of Class Politics? Class Voting in Comparative Perspective. London, Oxford University Press, 1999. Matějů, Petr and Martin Kreidl: Rebuilding Status Consistency in a Post-Communist Society. The Czech Republic, 1991 - 97. Innovation, Vol. 14 (2001), No. 1, p. 17-34. Matějů, Petr. and Nelson. Lim: Who has gotten ahead after the fall of Communism? The case of the Czech Republic. Czech Sociological Review 3, 1995, p. 117-136. Matějů, Petr: Who votes left after the fall of Communism? The Czech Republic in comparative perspective. International Journal of Comparative Sociology. Vol. 40. (1999), No. 1, p. 13-40 Nee, Victor: A Theory of Market Transition: From Redistribution to Markets in State Socialism American Sociological Review, Vol. 54 (October 1989): 663-681. Offe, Claus: Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe. , Social Research, Vol. 58 (1991), No. 4 (Winter): 865-892. Szelényi, Iván: An Auto-Critique of An Auto-Critique: An Outline of the Social History of Socialism. Forthcoming in Reseach on Social Stratification Sztompka, Piotr: Dilemmas of the Great Transition Sisyphus, 1992, 2(VIII): 9-27. Večerník, Jiří and Matějů, Petr (eds.) Ten Years of Rebuilding Capitalism. Czech Society after 1989. Praha, Academia 1999 Večerník, Jiří: Earnings Distribution in Czechoslovakia: Intertemporal change and international comparison European Sociological Review, 1991, No. 3. Večerník, Jiří: Changing earnings distribution in the Czech Republic. Survey evidence from 1988-1994. Economics of Transition 1995, No. 3. Večerník, Jiří: Incomes in Central Europe: Distributions, patterns and perceptions. Journal of European Social Policy 1996:101-122. Večerník, Jiří: The middle classes in the Czech reforms: The interplay between policies and social stratification. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 1999:397-416. Večerník, Jiří: Earnings Disparities in the Czech Republic: Evidence of the Past Decade and Cross-National Comparison The William Davidson Institute, The University of Michigan Business School, Working Paper No. 373, May 2001. Available at: http://eres.bus.umich.edu/web/dvdsn.html Večerník, Jiří: From Needs to the Market: Changing Inequality of Household Income in the Czech Transition The William Davidson Institute, The University of Michigan Business School, Working Paper No. 370, April 2001. Available at: http://eres.bus.umich.edu/web/dvdsn.html Večerník, Jiří: Escaping from socialist paternalism: social policy reform in the Czech Republic. Czech Sociological Review 1993:149-172. |
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Poslední úprava: JOSIFKO (09.01.2008)
Kurzy programu UPCES mají zkrácenou dobu registrace. Registrace končí 20. 2. . Podrobné informace o programu jsou k dispozici na fakultních webových stránkách Studium>UPCES. Kurzy mají více kontaktních hodin a je třeba, aby si student zapsal najednou přednášku, seminář i cvičení (každé označeno vlastním kódem). Kurzy z nabídky programu UPCES mají strukturu přednáška (1x90 min) a seminář (1x90 min) za týden a tzv. cvičení. Cvičení je chápáno jako účast na konzultacích a soustavná domácí příprava, kterou tyto kurzy díky své intenzitě vyžadují. Přednáška a seminář mají vlastní rozvrh, probíhají v Jinonicích a v učebně Cerge-EI (Politických vězňů 7, P1). Studenti mají povinnost opatřit si k jednotlivým kurzům předepsané READING MATERIALS, s nimiž se pravidelně pracuje při výuce, a které jsou nezbytné pro soustavnou domácí přípravu. Tyto materiály budou budou od 1. týdne semestru k dispozici on-line http://www.cerge-ei.cz/upces_data/ a v tištěné podobě v knihovnách v Jinonicích (studovna přes ulici) a Cerge-EI. Součástí programu jsou také jednodenní nebo vícedenní exkurze a doprovodné akce.Informace o exkurzích a doprovodných akcích budou zapsaným studentům rozesílány prostřednictvím e-mailu. |