Social Change and Modernization: Lessons from Eastern Europe [Reprint 2011 ed.] 9783110884470, 9783110144901

Citation preview

de Gruyter Studies in Organization 65 Social Change and Modernization

de Gruyter Studies in Organization I n t e r n a t i o n a l M a n a g e m e n t , O r g a n i z a t i o n a n d Policy Analysis

An international and interdisciplinary book series from de Gruyter presenting comprehensive research on aspects of international management, organization studies and comparative public policy. It covers cross-cultural and cross-national studies of topics such as: — management; organizations; public policy, and/or their inter-relation — industry and regulatory policies — business-government relations — international organizations — comparative institutional frameworks. While each book in the series ideally has a comparative empirical focus, specific national studies of a general theoretical, substantive or regional interest which relate to the development of cross-cultural and comparative theory are also encouraged. The series is designed to stimulate and encourage the exchange of ideas across linguistic, national and cultural traditions of analysis, between academic researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, and between disciplinary specialisms. The volumes present theoretical work, empirical studies, translations, and 'state-ofthe-art' surveys. These international aspects of the series are uppermost: there is a strong commitment to work which crosses and opens boundaries. Editor: Prof. Stewart R. Clegg, Faculty of Business and Technology, University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, Campbelltown, Australia Advisory Board: Prof. Nancy J. Adler, McGill University, Dept. of Management, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Prof. Richard Hall, State University of New York at Albany, Dept. of Sociology, Albany, New York, USA Prof. Gary Hamilton, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA Prof. Geert Hofstede, University of Limburg, Maastricht, The Netherlands Prof. Pradip N. Khandwalla, Indian Institute of Management, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad, India Prof. Surendra Munshi, Sociology Group, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India Prof. Gordon Redding, University of Hong Kong, Dept. of Management Studies, Hong Kong

Social Change and Modernization Lessons from Eastern Europe

Editor

Bruno Grancelli

W G DE

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1995

Bruno Grancelli, Lecturer, Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale, Universitä degli Studi di Trento, Italy

With 7 tables

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Social change and modernization : lessons from Eastern Europe / edited by Bruno Grancelli, p. cm. - (De Gruyter studies in organization ; 65) Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 3-11-014490-5 1. Management Europe, Eastern Congresses. 2. Post-communism - Europe, Eastern — Congresses. 3. Europe, Eastern — Economic conditions - 1989- Congresses. 4. Europe, Eastern - Social conditions 1989- - Congresses. I. Grancelli, Bruno, 1943II. Series. HD70.E7S63 1995 306.3'6'0947-dc20 95-16611 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Social change and modernization : lessons from Eastern Europe / ed. Bruno Grancelli. - Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1995 (De Gruyter studies in organization ; 65 : International management, organization and policy analysis) ISBN 3-11-014490-5 NE: Grancelli, Bruno [Hrsg.]; G T

© Copyright 1995 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing: WB-Druck GmbH, Rieden am Forggensee. - Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. Cover Design: Johannes Rother, Berlin. - Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgements

Most of the papers on which this book is based were delivered at a Workshop on social change in East European countries held at the University of Trento in December 1993. The participants were sociologists from Eastern and Western Europe, and from the USA who submitted each report to a thorough and lively discussion. The debate was animated further by the following scholars whom I wish to express my thanks: Antonio Schizzerotto, Raimondo Catanzaro, Bruno Dallago, Riccardo Scartezzini, Romano Bettini and Carlo Rossetti. I would also like to aknowledge the sponsorship of conference by the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio. Finally, I am grateful to Edith Kishmarjai, the conference secretary, to Adrian Belton and Paul Murphy for their excellent work in editing the papers and preparing the ready-camera text. Bruno Grancelli Trento, November 1994

Contents

Introduction

1

Who Should Learn What?

3

Bruno Grancelli

1 2 3 4 5

6 7

Introduction Homo Sovieticus Managers and Post-Socialist Enterprises Elites, Citizens, Working People, and Institutional Reconstruction .... Modernization: Projects and Processes 5.1 Homo Academicus 5.2 Globalization Social Change and Modernization: Lessons From and For Eastern Europe Neo-Modernization Analysis: New Theoretical Challenges 7.1 Is the Evolutionary Perspective Really Irretrievable? 7.2 Economic Reform and Social Reconstruction 7.3 From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity? References

3 4 6 8 11 14 17 19 24 26 31 36 39

Part One The Actors of Change

43

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy: The Problem of State-Dependent Workers

45

Victor Zaslavsky

1 2 3 4

Soviet Society and the State-Dependent Worker The Emergence of State Dependency as a Historical Process State-Dependent Worker and the Basic Social Groups State-dependent Workers and Social Mobilization in Soviet Society

45 47 49 55

VIII

5 6

Contents

Basic Modes of Crisis-Adaptation State Populism in the Russian Republic References

New Entrepreneurs: Continuity or Change in Russian Economy and Society? Cristiano Codagnone 1 2 3 4

Introduction Modernization, the Russian Transition, and Entrepreneurs Russian Entrepreneurs and their Contribution to Social Change Conclusion References

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership: The Role of Management in the Post-communist Enterprises Andrzej K. Kozminski 1 2 3 4 5

Introduction The Role of Management in the Communist Enterprises: The legacy of the past The Agents of Domestic Change Cultural change with Foreign Participation Local Managerial Skills References

57 58 60

63

63 65 69 77 81

83

83 86 91 97 102 104

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management: A Comparative View Bruno Grancelli

107

1 2 3 4

107 108 114 125 128

Introduction The Socialist Enterprise Post-Socialist Organizations Concluding Remarks References

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations: Elites as Institution-Builders Antoni Z. Kaminski and Joanna Kurczewska

131

1 2 3

131 132 133

Political Elites and Institutional Change Market and Democracy Communism and Civil Society

Contents

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Society, and Elites in Transition Elites as Institution Builders Functional and Stratificational Perspectives on Elites Design and Spontaneity Strategies of Institution Building Types of Political Elite Systemic Obstacles to Post-communist Transformation Types of Elites and the Quality of Transition References

IX

134 136 137 138 139 142 147 149 151

Part Two Globalization, Retraditionalisation and Societal Modernisation

153

Beyond Modernization: The Retraditionalisation of Ex- and Post-Yugoslavian Society

155

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

1 2

Introduction A Contradictory Coalition and its Inherent Dilemmas 2.1 'Real Self-Management' Re-bureaucratization and New/Old Liasons On the Fringes of the Global System Reperipherialization as Retraditionalisation 5.1 Marginalization of the Intelligentsia 5.2 Levelling Aspirations 5.3 The Rural-urban Symbiosis Memorandum for Modernity The New Nationalism Anathema of Reason? References

155 157 159 161 163 165 165 166 169 171 174 177

Participation at the Firm Level in the Transformation Process (Three blank slips of paper and a pigeon feather)

181

3 4 5

6 7

Csaba Mako and Agnes Simonyi

1 2 3 4 5 6

Introduction The Role of Participation in the Labour Relations System The Forms and Dimensions of Participation The Role and Importance of Participation in the Hungarian Labour Relations System Changes in the Role and Place of Participation within the Labour Relations System since 1989 A Managerial Initiative Rejected

181 182 183 184 186 188

X

7 8

Contents

Combining 'Voice' and 'Loyalty' Changes Towards a Three-dimensional System of Participation References

190 192 195

Polish Reforms: The Fine Art of Learning and Forgetting Piotr Ploszajski

197

1 2

197

3 4 5 6 7 8

How this Paper Began Beauty and the Beast: The rise and fall of what used to be everybody's favourite fairy tale The Discreet Charm of Simple Choices From Simple Choice to a Choice Matrix Learning to Forget The Crowded Boat From Newtonian to Einsteinian Sociology Hybrid Theories for Hybrid Systems References

Theory, Specificity, Change: Emulation, Selective Incorporation and Modernization Roland Robertson 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Basic Considerations Cross-Societal Emulation and Selective Incorporation Other Conceptual and Analytical Problems Modernization and Convergence Globalization, Not Convergence Comparative Dynamics and Modernization Conclusion References

Part Three Social Change and Modernisation: Lessons for and from Eastern Europe

198 200 202 204 207 207 208 211

213

213 216 218 223 224 226 229 230

233

Cultural and Civilizational Change: The Core of Post-communist Transition Piotr Sztompka

235

1 2

235 237

In Search of Theoretical Resources Cultural-civilizational Analysis

Contents

3 4

Three Heuristic Sources and their Tentative Applications Conclusion References

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade: Lessons for and from Eastern Europe

XI 239 246 246

249

Edward A. Tiryakian

1 2 3 4

Introduction Rethinking Modernization Lessons for East Europe Lessons from Eastern Europe References

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?Economy and Society in Eastern European Transformations

249 251 256 260 263

265

Klaus Müller

1 2

3

4

5

Introduction Changing Patterns of Modernization 2.1 The Classical Discourse on Modernization 2.2 The Neo-Parsonian Comeback of Modernization Theory 2.3 The 'Morning after': The Defects of the Neo-Parsonian Approach The Negative Sociology of Analysis of Economic Reform 3.1 Elements of the Economic Discourse on Transformation 3.2 The Politics of 'Pure Economy' Bringing Sociology Back In 4.1 Beyond the'Pure Market' 4.2 Reorganizing Property Relations 4.3 Toward a Political Sociology of Transformation 4.4 Beyond the State and the Market From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity? References

265 267 267 270 271 274 274 276 278 278 280 282 283 285 290

Notes on Contributors

295

Subject Index

299

Name Index

309

Introduction

Who Should Learn What? Bruno Grancelli

1 Introduction The collapse of communism provoked a good number of'sociological surprises' for scholars in the West. The essays collected in this book contain references to some of these surprises together with reflections on which problems to focus upon, and on how a more solid basis can be created for analysis of social change in industrial societies. Industrialization in Central-Eastern Europe has produced effects of both modernization and re-traditionalization. This raises a number of questions which were already being asked at the time of the first theories of modernization: What combination of tradition and modernity does each of the country concerned display? To what extent is the transfer of institutions to the new socio-cultural context successful? What are the expected and unexpected effects of East-West business cooperation? One may also ask whether it is appropriate to frame the question in terms of institutional transfer, and whether attention should not focus instead on the dilemmas of socio-economic transformation now under way. In order to understand what theoretical lessons can be drawn from the "atheoretical revolution" of 1989 (Sztompka 1992) and its aftermath, a conference was held at the University of Trento on December 15-16 1993. The aim was to see the insights into social change, tradition and modernity which could be put forward in a debate between sociologists from post-communist countries with a solid sociological tradition (like Poland) and from countries which, besides producing the best sociological research (USA, Germany, Sweden), are also those most involved in the transfer of democratic institutions. The aim was also to examine the possible contribution of commentators from a country like Italy whose modernity comprises entrenched enclaves of pre-modernity. In domestic political polemics, Italy has often been described as the Western country with the highest proportion of elements of real socialism. It is a country, therefore, that may constitute (even though scarcely aware of it) an important 'reference

4

Bruno Grancelli

society' for the European post-communist countries inasmuch as it illustrates how the state and market can collude against both tradition and modernity. The papers contained in Part One of the book examine the problem of social change with reference to three types of actor: workers, managers and institutional elites. The authors focus on different subjects, but they all start from the same premise: in each of the countries concerned, behaviour, attitudes and values have been influenced by a past in which elements of the national culture mixed with those of the monolithic culture of the Soviet bloc.

2 Homo Sovieticus On the basis of data obtained from surveys conducted in various socialist countries, Victor Zaslavsky describes the type of worker shaped by the Soviet institutions and lifestyle: the 'state-dependent worker', who more closely resembled his predecessors at the time of the Tsar than his counterparts in Western profitoriented companies. One must therefore begin by examining the historical process whereby state dependence came about. Zaslavsky cites a number of particularly important factors, the first of which is the reproduction of pre-capitalist models of social organization following the policies of collectivization and forced industrialization implemented since the late 1920s. These policies deprived peasants of their status as free producers and transformed them into an enormous mass of uprooted migrants. The urbanization of this new 'Soviet lumpenproletariat' was not accompanied by a corresponding development of social infrastructures in the urban centres because investments were directed towards the achievement of high rates of accumulation and the construction of heavy industry. Consequently, the civilizing effects of urban life failed to materialize. What emerged was not a type of culture centred on the value of individuality, but a 'barrack subculture' in which elements of the community culture of the village combined with the emerging values of urban civilization. Nor was the urban population able to experience market relations: both city-dwellers and urbanized peasants were subject to the same system of bureaucratic controls, indoctrination and propaganda. Moreover, not only were enterprises able to absorb the surplus agricultural population, they tied workers to themselves by a set of coercive and extra-economic means which had already been used in Tsarist Russia. After the suppression of market-oriented individuals, the creation of Homo Sovieticus continued with the systematic action of socializing institutions which reinforced traditional psychological traits like social passivity and obedience to authority. This process reached its maximum of self-reproduction in the post-

Who Should Learn What?

5

Stalinist period. The dominance of heavy industry continued. At the same time a system of consensus organization was created by diverting a part of the economic surplus to finance a social policy based on job security and low political prices for basic goods and housing. Today, in Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe, the economic and social conditions no longer exist for the reproduction o f ' state-dependent' workers and citizens. It is therefore important to understand adaptive reactions by social actors in this new context. Zaslavsky singles out three principal types of reaction. The first is adaptation through participation in more or less illegal activities; activities, however, stimulated more by a sort of market hucksterism than entrepreneurial innovativeness. The second reaction is to return to a subsistence economy consisting of exchanges in kind, mainly within kinship and friendship networks: a process which created conditions favourable for the retraditionalization of society. The third adaptive reaction, typical of state-dependent workers, is to cling to gigantic and obsolete factories which continue to provide wages and social benefits and some income for the state, albeit at the price of the squandering of human and material resources (Zaslavsky, in this volume). This first paper makes an important point for analysis of social change and modernization. The socialist state created a hierarchized social structure in which power and privileges derived from the individual's rank in the bureaucratic order, and it also defined the rules of social mobility. That is to say, the state, as the sole employer and dominant redistributive agency, applied the principle of the political-administrative ascription of social (and also geographical) positions. This was the essence of the state's contribution to the re-traditionalization of Soviet-type societies. What is important to bear in mind is that the creation and reproduction of the state-dependent worker took place within what can be called the 'sub-proletarianization of the entire population'. One of the many unforeseen effects of the administrative economy was that it destroyed the will to work productively on the one hand, and encouraged an alliance between unskilled workers and incompetent managers on the other. Today, although the exigencies of socio-economic transformation have not eliminated the basis on which this alliance rested for so long, they have at least reduced it (Zaslavsky, in this volume). Thus one of the main ways of adaptation include a sort of market hucksterism, that is something quite different from a real entrepreneurial behaviour. Admitedly, this seems to be the prevailing trend in the former Soviet Union. But why not try to pick up feeble signals as well? Indeed lumpenization, extensive though it may have been, cannot be seen as an global phenomenon. Hence, it may be worth asking, for instance, what happens to the scientific-technical intelligentsia. Some indications can be found in the paper by Cristiano Codagnone, who has focused his attention on a small sample of Russian entrepreneurs.

6

Bruno Grancelli

Are these economic agents to be considered as schumpeterian innovators? And if not, how can they be defined? On the basis of a hundred business histories, gathered in Moscow and St Petersburg, Codagnone claims that a reference to the classical definition of entrepreneur would be rather imprecise. Nonetheless, he adds, if one takes into account that innovation is socially embedded, then one may say that they are "courageous social innovators" able to conduct business in a chaotic and hostile environment. In this sense, 'alertness' (Kirzner 1980) is a more suitable definition to depict entrepreneurial behaviour in post-Soviet society. Indeed, being alert to opportunities for profit is the best that new entrepreneurs can do in a "limbo economy" where the legislation is "irrational and constantly changing". For a correct understanding of the alertness under those conditions, Codagnone proposes to distinguish between two stages in the process of socio-economic transformation. The first one (1986-1991) is that of Soviet perestroika, when the great majority of new entrepreneurs were engaged in appropriation and redistribution of state properties in a grey area between legality and illegality. Actually, one may say that various kinds of speculative activities spread in that period which were carried out by agents somewhat similar to the arbitrageurs of the pre-industrial era (Grancelli 1992; Codagnone, in this volume). The second stage begins with the end of Soviet Union and the implementation of the privatization programmes. From 1992 on, the economic scene is no longer dominated by ex-nomenklatura people insofar as many members of the scientific-technical intelligentsia turn into entrepreneurs. Codagnone concludes that the contribution of the second group to the transition to a market economy has been limited but significant: they have commodified the economy and contributed to modernization as much as was possible for them to do so. That is to say: as much as was possible for people 'embedded' in a social reality where until few years ago the status of individuals was determined by the premodern principles of 'political-administrative ascription' (Zaslavsky, in this volume).

3 Managers and Post-Socialist Enterprises Zaslavsky's paper described the principal strategies adopted by state-dependent workers in adjusting to the new situation. The paper by Andrzej Kozminski instead focuses on management strategies to cope with the restructuring requirements of post-socialist enterprises. Kozminski recalls that the Western perception of change in the post-socialist countries is usually macro-economic in perspective. Western observers are therefore largely unaware that the economies of these countries can only develop and

Who Should Learn What?

7

integrate with the market system if efficient and competitive enterprises emerge. Privatizations and business schools are necessary but very far from sufficient conditions for solution of this problem. Management training can only involve a small proportion of industrial managers, and its effective impact on the behaviour of the great privatized industries remains to be seen. It is therefore necessary to draw up an inventory of the problems faced by the various kinds of post-socialist enterprise. After surveying the principal features of management action in the socialist enterprise, Kozminski concentrates on managerial strategies in three types of enterprise: the 'dinosaurs' of the military-industrial complex; the 'pretenders', i.e. those enterprises which manage to export and whose technological level enables them to compete on world markets; and 'mixed' enterprises. Three types of manager emerge from the experiences of restructuring analysed. The first are the 'populist politicians', more numerous in the 'dinosaur' enterprises with their deeply-rooted traditions of productive 'activism' and the various institutions of 'populist industrial democracy'. The strategy of these directors was to involve the worker representatives in applying collective pressure on the state in order to accelerate a privatization process in which the company is sold to the highest bidder, the debt is liquidated and production starts up again in a restructured and down-sized enterprise (Kozminski, in this volume). A second type of manager is the 'new technocrat' who bases his restructuring strategies more on international consulting firms and resources than on the institutions of'populist industrial democracy'. In this case too, restructuring involves the division and down-sizing of enterprises, but it is accompanied by financial and productive integration with Western companies and by the elimination of self-management structures. Also involved in the restructuring of post-socialist enterprises are two further human types. As defined by Kozminski, the first of these are 'foreign mercenaries', i.e. consultants who sell standardized and simplified versions of Western management techniques. Unlike the 'mercenaries', who sell their wares without taking the minimal account of the local context or of cultural differences, the second human type, the 'foreign crusaders', have different motiviations and sensitivities. Most of them are, in fact, first and second-generation emigrants who produce organizational and cultural change because, apart from making a profit, they wish to do something useful for their countries of origin. The topic dealt with by Kozminski is also addressed by Bruno Grancelli in his paper on organizational changes (and continuities) in the post-Soviet context. A widely aknowledged fact is that privatization is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the marketization of post-socialist economies. And if marketization occurs, is not necessarily linked to the introduction of efficiency criteria in industrial management. In other words, organizational environment, especially in the Russian case, is changing in a sort of no-mans land between a

8

Bruno Grancelli

still largely Soviet-style Hierarchy and a Market often reminescent of that of earlier stages in the development of industrial societies. This paper is based on two main points. Firstly, an understanding of the working of post-socialist firms requires some preliminary knowledge of the visible and (above all) less visible aspects of Soviet industrial administration. Secondly, despite the institutional and organizational changes, there still exists a significant semantic mismatch between Eastern and Western definition of management principles. Hence, a comparative view of organizational change in postSoviet firms requires references to those concepts which may render familiar the unfamiliar for scholars on the two sides of an 'industrial divide' which is still far from being bridged. Bearing these two points in mind, the first part of this paper contains a description of management practices in two basic types of Soviet economic organizations: the high priority and low priority enterprise. In the second part, Grancelli outlines an East-West comparison of industrial management based on an extended version of the classic concept of 'organizational equilibrium' as proposed by Andrzej Kozminski (1991). Thus, the comparative view of postSoviet firms takes into account not only the equilibrium between the contribution individuals are willing to make and the moral/material incentives they expect from the organization. In fact, the relations between contributions and incentives are extended in two directions. Firstly, the transactions between managers and subordinates are investigated along with those between managers and the institutional environment. Secondly, the social aspects of internal and external transactions are taken into consideration along with the hard aspects such as technology and finance (Kozminski 1991). According to Grancelli, this framework seems to be of increasing heuristic validity in this new stage of economic transformation because it allows the taking into account of both the (many) obstacles and the (few) qualitative leaps in the modernization of post-Soviet management.

4 Elites, Citizens, Working People, and Institutional Reconstruction Both Zaslavasky's and Kozminski's papers place particular emphasis on the issue of populism. In the former case, the reference to Russia evidences the role of "state-dependent workers" in conservative and nationalist social movements which claim the primacy of state ownership and place their hopes in a strong and paternalist state. The reference to Poland, where economic transformation proceeds regardless of political contingencies, instead sheds light on the capac-

Who Should Learn What?

9

ity of 'populist industrial democracy' to adapt to enterprise restructuring. In short, these references seem to confirm Antoni Kaminski and Joanna Kurczewska's thesis of the systemic obstacles to post-communist transition: the more profoundly the communist system was imposed on society, the less does this society now possess the institutional and cultural skills necessary for transition to political democracy and to the market. And if this thesis is valid, it follows that the elites of the Central-Eastern European countries must be studied as 'institution builders'. Kaminski and Kurczewska examine the building of a new social order in particularly adverse conditions. They conduct comparative analysis of the factors that help or hinder this task. The strategies of institutional reconstruction are analysed with partial reference to the Weberian typology of legitimate authority, but pointing out that Weber (unlike Montesquieu or Tocqueville) thought it impossible to create the social order from the bottom up. Accordingly, Kaminski and Kurczewska include "interactionist-individualist" elites in their typology. These elites, which emerge in both the political and the market spheres, consist of entrepreneurs or citizens actively involved in public affairs. Hampering the growth of interactionist-individualist elites are the political forces which espouse the idea of a centralized and redistributive state. These cannot be viewed as 'rational-legal' elites because they represent particularist interests of various kinds, like those of state-subsidized enterprises and their employees. Populism and nationalism therefore play an important role in what used to be called the Soviet-type societies. But they have not produced effects only in terms of the re-traditional ization of society; they have also contributed to modernization. These two effects have combined to varying extents due to the differing history of each country and its place in the new world system. National-level case studies are therefore needed which reconstruct the forms taken by reciprocal adjustment between society and the official political system under socialism. This will reveal the contribution to modernization/re-traditionalization made by both institutional elites and social groups. Andrzey Richard (1993) makes several points of relevance to the present discussion. First, he cites the rejection of 'real socialism' by the masses, especially in Poland. Much analysis has been applied to this rebellion, but what happened between one rebellion and the next - i.e. reciprocal adaptation between the political system and society - has been largely ignored. These adaptation processes were very important insofar as they substituted for legitimation of a political system imposed from outside. A system without political legitimation is not necessarily also devoid of social entrenchment. The problem, therefore, is understanding how this entrenchment has taken shape. Rychard describes three informal mechanisms, which are also mentioned by the other authors in Part One: informal negotiations between socialist enterprises and higher au-

10

Bruno Grancelli

thorities; the patron-client relationships fostered by the administrative distribution of goods and services to working people; and the 'second economy', which stemmed largely from the transformation of informal aspects of management into more or less illegal transactions. These three mechanisms were not pathologies of the socialist economy but instruments which provided some efficiency to the system. Their impact was not solely 'redistributive'; they also affected the ways in which income was produced. Research on the second economy and its interweaving with the official economy has highlighted a phenomenon which warrants examination: the second economy was a social economy of sorts governed less by pure market rules than by relational networks. But it was also the only sphere in which elements of rational economic thought survived. Thus, at the macro level, the second economy and other adaptation mechanisms may have acted as stabilizers, but they also stimulated change and innovation (Rychard 1993: 99). In all the socialist countries, the mechanisms of reciprocal adaptation between system and society greatly helped to ameliorate the legitimation problem. In the long term, however, they provoked the collapse of the system, and today they obstruct change: in both cases because the operation of these mechanisms (informal organization, 'shadow economy', corruption) has helped to create, in all the socialist countries, an unofficial system (Alessandrini and Dallago 1987; Grancelli 1988; Shlapentokh 1989). In Poland there also existed a 'non-system' (the Church, private agriculture) and an 'anti-system' (opposition groups and movements). Rychard analyses the micro and macro factors which kept the social and institutional spheres in equilibrium under real socialism. He concludes that this equilibrium was made possible by the ability of individuals to off-set unequal exchanges in the official system with exchanges in the other systems. The upshot is that the sources of the system's constant disequilibrium may not become critical as long as compensatory exchanges remain scattered. But when they concentrate outside the official system, the latter deems its identity threatened and reacts accordingly (Rychard 1993: 111). In Poland, the strength of the Church and of the Solidarnosc movement meant that exchanges outside the official system were conducted mainly in the sphere of values. They were therefore a powerful force for social integration. In the other socialist countries, adjustment mechanisms operated within the unofficial system (rather than within the non-system and the anti-system) and concerned more the sphere of interests than that of values. In other words, exchanges in the underground economy were individualistic, and they failed to create their own culture because the population saw them as a necessary evil. The interests/values dichotomy should therefore be scrapped and the structural preconditions for the development of the 'group interest' category created. If not, the privatization of the nomenklatura is bound to prevail (Rychard 1993: 112).

Who Should Leam What?

11

At first blush, it is precisely this form of privatization that predominates in the economic reality of post-communism. But although events in the large-scale enterprises often give the impression of "privatization without marketization" (Stark 1994), also "small privatization" has a significant role to play in socioeconomic change. Concomitant with scant political participation is the growth of the small private firm. Not surprisingly, therefore, opinion polls report that "the economy is going better than politics and the micro better than the macro" (Rychard 1993: 149). Perhaps an independent dynamic of the economic system and a slackening of control over the economy are indeed beginning to material· ize. In Rychard's view, the emergence of these new micro-oriented strategies might be the signal that a first phase of transition, in which social orientation was principally towards the state, is now giving way to a phase of transformation in which vertical dependence on the state administration diminishes and the orientation of society becomes more active and more firmly grounded in horizontal relations.

5 Modernization: Projects and Processes The socio-economic transformation processes set in motion by "small privatization" are typical of countries like Poland or Hungary, i.e. of countries with a greater capacity to bend institutional transformation towards economic and political democracy. In these cases, a 'reference society' could well be socalled 'Third Italy' with its close-knit system of small firms whose development has been made possible by local artisan traditions, by the ability of local governments to provide the necessary infrastructures, and by the family's ability to perform an economic role and to ensure the social reproduction of the labour force (Bagnasco 1986, Trigllia 1986). However, there is also the other extreme: the countries of ex-Yugoslavia (except for Slovenia), which may provide a worrying referent for countries like the Ukraine or the other ex-Soviet republics. Carl-Ulrik Schierup analyses the Yugoslavian case and shows that the processes of re-traditionalization (and archaicization) of society - already evidenced by Zaslavsky with reference to Russia - may degenerate into a "pandemonium of losers fighting losers" and a "primitive grab for power in an anarchic war economy". The starting-point of this paper is the contradiction between a political elite with a conception of socialism borrowed from the Western workers' movement on the one hand, and a peripheral and largely traditionalist society on the other. For a certain period, extensive industrialization enabled a compromise to be reached between the two terms of the contradiction. It was apparently possible to reduce the economic and social differences among the various re-

12

Bruno Grancelli

publics and to promote equal opportunities in a full employment regime. A similar process had already occurred in the Soviet Union, but the distinctive feature of the Yugoslavian case was self-management - a model of society which consolidated at the micro level and then spread to the other levels of the production collective. The self-managed economy thus fragmented into a myriad of administrative organizations with a dual power structure deriving both from technocratic management principles and from the power of informal groups in production units. With time, the latter type of power gained the upper hand by turning into informal corporative coalitions between local bureaucracies and a working class of "quasi-proletarians" united around the values of redistribution and egalitarianism. In the 1960s and 1970s, the world-view of the Yugoslavian leadership was still modernizing in spirit, and this translated into economic reforms which resembled those attempted in the other socialist countries in the same period. However, the lack of an adequate institutional infrastructure meant that these reforms led, not to modernization but to anarchy and fragmentation. Schierup shows that the fragmentation of the technostructure paved the way for a rebureaucratization which also meant the re-traditionalization of society. In this situation of economic crisis, socio-political fragmentation and retraditionalization appeared the Memorandum written by a group of intellectuals at the Serbian Academy of Sciences, which Schierup subjects to detailed analysis. The document divides into three parts. The first conducts sophisticated sociological analysis of the causes of political fragmentation, of the bureaucratic misuse of power, of the decadence of the educational system, and of cultural regression towards forms of ethnic traditionalism. The second consists of a plea for modernization within a market economy framework, of social and political democracy, and of rationalist culture. The third part, instead, is decidedly nationalist-chauvinist in tone: the discourse of "nationalism for modernization" merges with anti-bureaucratic rebellion against the old regime, self-managed (and plebiscitary) democracy, the ethnic myth of the warrior spirit, and a promise to develop Serbia into a Switzerland of the Balkans (Schierup, in this volume). Events of recent years have nevertheless shown that nationalism has been transformed into an "anathema of reason". Accordingly, Schierup claims that the message of the Memorandum had much more to do with a return to neotraditionalism and economic policies geared to internecine war than with modernization. But this is not to imply - he adds - that the theory of modernization should be opposed by some sort of primordialism. Today, post-communist neotraditionalism can be viewed as one of the main poles of identity in the global system of modernity, together with the post-modern pole of the consumerist West and the modernism of a Confucian East. As in post-modernism, neo-traditionalist movements have become "seekers of solid identities", but they have

Who Should Learn What?

13

also become cultural accomplices in the construction of new shadow economies structured around survivalism and the pursuit of immediate gratification (Schierup, in this volume). Schierup concludes with the warning that a unilateral modernist perspective should not be accepted a-critically, and he points to the unforeseen consequences of the two antithetical political choices which initiated post-socialist transition. In Russia and Yugoslavia, liberist policies were rapidly devoured by their offspring of marginalization, unemployment and poverty. Yet recourse to populist legitimation - where economic space for compromise does not exist - generates the perverse effects of internecine war, ethnic cleansing, and an anarchic 'pillage economy', all accompanied by a mass exodus to an allegedly glorious past. In keeping with his world system theory approach, Schierup argues that this type of post-Yugoslavian configuration has been produced by a system of international relations which turned these parts of the world into the last link in a chain of complex interdependencies structured along the lines of political dominance and of disequilibrium in the international division of labour. However, although it is correct not to accept unilateral modernist perspectives a-critically, the same should apply to the world system perspective, a hobbyhorse for anticapitalist intellectuals throughout the world. Surely, Schierup does not take that theory at face value, and refers to the more sophisticated version proposed by Jonathan Friedman (1988). Nonetheless, his implcit assumptions deserve some critical remarks (see below). Schierup's paper points out the contribution given by self-management institutions to the process that led former Yugoslavia to disaster. Nobody believes, of course, that because of this one should think of employee participation, in its various forms, as a negative phenomenon. Even more so that participation in decision making is not something fixed once for all, but a set of different experiences evolving according to the socio-economic changes taking place in industrial societies. Csaba Mako and Agnes Simonyi highlight the evolution of the institutions of participation within the more general process of change undergone by the industrial relations system in Hungary. In the first part of their paper the two authors recall forms and dimensions of participation and illustrate continuities and change with respect to the socialist model. An important point in this paper is that the changes in the labour market brought about by transformation policies do not impinge very much on the bargaining position of employees in privatized enterprises. The second part of the paper illustrates this point by referring to two cases of joint ventures set up with Austrian and Italian partners. The authors vividly describe the unrealistic expectations of both the foreign owners and the Hungarian employees. They report, for instance, that the Austrian management, in its "autocratic" mindset, used to think that informing working people was enough

14

Bruno Grancelli

for the smooth running of the enterprise. Thus, when an attempt was made to to collect employees opinion in closed mail boxes, the result was "three blank slips of paper and a pigeon feather". As for the Italian management, it was charged by the worker assembly with "abusive behaviour" and "mistakes in the technological instructions". It goes without saying that these charges can only be assessed by getting direct information from all the parties involved. Anyway, he who has a certain knowledge of socialist management and labour relations cannot but help posing the following questions. Are we sure that what is seen by the worker as "abusive" is not just what is needed to render a hugely indebted firm competitve in a shrinking market? Here Mako and Simonyi seem to forget (or not to be aware of) the fact that labour relations in socialist enterprises were not that different from the "indulgence pattern" in force at the Gipsum Company half a century ago, which was described by Gouldner (1955) in his classic work. (Grancelli 1986; Beissinger 1988; Boisot and Child 1988). Some shop stewards may like it or not, but this pattern was dismantled at the time of Mr. Peele, and the same is going to happen today, in Hungary and elsewhere. And this is by no means an abuse. Of course, it is better to pursue change through dialogue and negotiation rather than through confrontation. But this may remain mere wishful thinking if the difficult process of "learning and forgetting" does not include, for instance, a change in the conception of what management should be in a market economy. Do we think that qualifying a market as "social" does not imply a break with the still dominant conception of technical efficiency? That is to say: do we think that technological innovation may still be addressed by decoupling the productivity of the new machinery from the market demand of the new production? In short, many members of the Hungarian Work Councils (and the authors too?) do not seem to be very aware that perestroika times are over even if the ex-communists won the election. What is needed is economic efficiency: this is the basic point (Desai 1989). The workers identity with their firm is to be reconstructed on this basis as well, otherwise their strikes and their work councils will bring them some more money, but nothing in terms of modern forms of participation in decision making.

5.1 Homo

Academicus

This brings us to the topic addressed by Piotr Ploszajski: how are transformation strategies pursued in the countries of Central-Eastern Europe viewed by social scientists. The issue divides into two components: the first Ploszajski calls "the discreet charm of simple choices" or "away from the Beast and to-

Who Should Learn What?

15

wards Beauty". That is, away from autocracy towards democracy, but without specifying which kind - American, German, Swedish? Away from central planning to the free market, but without specifying whether some centralized regulation should be preserved, or not, according to a logic in which everything 'free' is Beauty and everything 'central' is the Beast. Away, lastly, from the single party to the multi-party system, without asking whether, for example, the 120 parties represented in the Polish parliament are its best or worst example. If one refers to majority public opinion in the West, official government declarations, most newspapers, and a handful of famous economic advisers, the above criticism is justified. But matters change considerably when we turn to the numerous social scientists who have written about socialist and post-socialist reality in recent years. The argument requires further development in terms of what Ploszajski calls "the fine art of learning and forgetting". It is precisely the forgetting of old beliefs and stereotypes that requires greater professionalism and determination on both sides of what used to be called the Iron Curtain. East of the divide lies the problem of the "residual communism" that emerges from surveys. For example, numerous interviewees favour privatization in general but are against the privatization of their own enterprise in particular. Moreover, the great majority declare their opposition to the entry of foreign capital. Thus it seems that in Poland and in the other countries of Eastern Europe, the "allegedly rejected lectures in Marxism have apparently resulted in eager acceptance of fear of the Bad Capitalist" (Ploszajski, in this volume). But in speaking of "lectures", one should also mention the lecturers - that is, we must inspect the role of the intelligentsia in socialist societies. As Ploszajski rightly reminds us, certain intellectuals, aware of the "inhuman face" of socialism, fought against it, but many others took advantage of its "negative selection" mechanisms. And the majority revelled in the high social status and privileges that accrued to them from the system's ideological assumptions. In post-socialist societies, in which market laws are beginning to assert themselves, intellectuals have been stripped of their traditional privileges and their place at centre stage is being taken over by self-made men from the world of business. Those who declare that the socio-economic transformation of the countries of Central-Eastern Europe requires the emergence of a new middle class, tend to forget that this entails downwards mobility for other social strata, and among these are groups which "have learnt only too well the socialist lesson on the primacy of the working class and on the importance of being 'equal'" (Ploszajski, in this volume). This suggests comparison with the difficult "art of learning and forgetting" on the Western side of the ex-Iron Curtain. Here the lessons to be forgotten are quite numerous. Among them I would certainly include world system theory, to which Schierup refers and which has been rightly criticised by authors of various theoretical persuasions (Petras 1978; Warren 1980; Harrison 1988). Criti-

16

Bruno Grancelli

cism have centred on the fact that world system theory fails to give a thorough account of such important questions as the following: What is autonomy? When can one classify a country as dependent? What is dependence? Should not a distinction be drawn among the various types of foreign investment? What role does cultural diffusion perform in development? Indeed, by adopting this perspective, one risks taking a theoretical step backwards, because one starts from quite debatable assumptions. Schierup states that interpretation of nationalism as a factor in modernization can clear the field of a certain primordialism; but it may also obstruct understanding of modernization in all its complexity. World system theory should have taught us that the same great diachronic movement (the accumulation of capital) may favour the emergence of local situations with the opposite characteristics. The apparent diachronic relation between 'tradition' and 'modernity' also possesses features of a synchronically structured mutuality. Hence, '"failed modernization' cannot be discarded as purely and simply the waste-product of historically inadequate local intellectual-political projects" (Schierup, in this volume). It seems to me that this statement rests on two implicit assumption which should not be taken for granted. First that, since the political project of the Yugoslavian elite took the Western conception of socialism as its referent, the project was not inadequate per se. The second questionable assumption is that this conception was the point of reference for the modernizing action of the Yugoslavian leadership and the Bolshevik leadership that preceded it. There is no disputing that the socialist movement in its historical stand-off with other ideologies and social forces helped Western modernity to assert itself. However, it is worth recalling that, especially in various countries of southern Europe, the influence of 'real socialism' on the workers' movement was for many years stronger than that of social democracy. This is a topic, however, which cannot be discussed further here. What is worth recalling on this issue is that ideological rhetoric in the USSR first, and in Yugoslavia later, does in fact reveal the influence of Western socialism. But if one ignores ideology and concentrates instead on concrete policies, one detects the influence of principles of government already operating in presocialist history (Gerschenkron 1974; Kaser 1979; Crisp 1979; Raeff 1982). Suffice it to mention the continuity of the autocratic principle of government in Soviet Russia analysed by Reinhard Bendix in Work and Authority in Industry (1956), with particular reference to the similarities between the Leninist conception of the trade union and that of Colonel Zubatov, the organizer of the 'police trade union' under the last of the Tsars. Of course, these continuities were strengthened by the emergence of the Stalinist principle of "socialism in one single country" or of self-management in Yugoslavia. The consequences in terms of institutional and social re-traditionalization are clearly illustrated in

Who Should Learn What?

17

Schierup's paper as well. But the theoretical referents of his analysis of retraditionalization in ex-Yugoslavia mean that a lucid interpretation of processes is not matched by an assessment of the project itself whose modernity is being taken for granted. One discerns here a preoccupation widely shared by European intellectuals: namely that the failure of modernization processes in the socialist countries calls the modernity of socialism into question (Tsoukas 1994). This preoccupation is understandable, but one should be aware that it does not facilitate understanding of socio-economic change in Eastern Europe. Not coincidentally, Schierup views the failure of the socialist project to transform Yugoslavian society only as a problem involving the violation of certain established forms of consensus and legitimation necessary in a peripheral and largely traditionalist society. Consequently, he sees no need to discuss topics such as the social character or ideological horizon of socialist bureaucracy, or the system of centralized planning. The result is an excellent analysis of the re-traditionalization of first Yugoslavian and then Serbian society, but without reference to the analogous process in Croatia. And without reference to the combination of exogenous and endogenous factors in the modernization of Slovenia.

5.2

Globalization

Also Roland Robertson refers to the concepts of world system and globalization. He too addresses the problem of nationalism but maintains that this should not be the only standpoint adopted in discussion of social change and modernization. The concept of nationalism, in his opinion, should be used jointly with that of globalization, avoiding 'internationalist' arguments (typical of certain Western Marxists) which assert that it is globalization processes which encourage the proliferation of small competing entities. In rejecting this view, Robertson draws a first important distinction between projects and processes of globalization. An example of a (big) project occurred in the so-called 'socialist field', while globalization involves that long historical process which has brought the world to a high level of global interdependence (and awareness). Other concepts deployed by Robertson's analysis are "cross-societal emulation" and "selective incorporation". An example of the former is the transfer of Western institutional and organizational models to Japan in the 1880s. The concept of emulation highlights the specific features of an organizational revolution and of its social basis, but also the similarities between this revolution and those in other societies. This testifies to a certain unidirectionality in historical evolution. The concept of "selective incorporation" may be used jointly with that of emulation in analysis of how individual countries maintain a balance

18

Bruno Grancelli

between internal organizational patterns and those imported from outside. Emulation and incorporation have been crucial factors in the formation and transformation of national societies throughout the world. In the majority of cases, therefore, nationalisms have been formed on an international basis, in the sense that national identities have been shaped by the interweaving of these two processes (Robertson, in this volume). Robertson then addresses a number of analytical problems in terms of general sociological theory and, more specifically, of modernization and convergence. As regards the first level of sociological theory, he identifies the problem as not excessive generalization but the tendency to "generalize about the wrong things". Ethnic particularism, for example, has been viewed mainly as a contingent, regressive, substantially 'unexplainable' phenomenon. The consequence has been the predominance of theoretical analysis of very general social-cultural tendencies in Western societies based on the principle of "grand narrativity". This has led to the neglect of questions relative to how (and where) the grand narratives arose within and without the socio-cultural context of the West, and also to the neglect of inter-societal comparison (Robertson, in this volume). Studies of the nation-state have indeed been conducted, but they have yet to be incorporated into a general theory. An important step in this direction may be recognition that the nation-state is not solely an autochthonous product; it has been built by the twofold process of cross-societal emulation and selective incorporation. Consequently, a useful concept with which to address the complex question of the homogeneity-heterogeneity of the modern world is "glocalization", a term which emphasises the importance of joint examination of the features of localism and globalization present in every national context (Robertson, in this volume). This, however, means that points of convergence must be found between the approach which theorizes the world in its globality on the one hand, and the post-modern approach which claims the primacy of local and communal phenomena on the other. The choice is therefore between studying post-modernity from a globalizing perspective or, vice-versa, studying globalization from a post-modern perspective. Robertson opts for the former approach. Against the view of globalization as 'cultural imperialism', Robertson claims that the compression in space and time of recent history has involved both universalizing and particularizing tendencies. What is required is a much more comprehensive and flexible account of the complex interactions between local phenomena and their global construction. Hence derives Robertson's proposal to use the concept of glocalization. Which also amounts to the proposal to abandon the tendency to think globality/locality themes in terms of the traditional micro/ macro polarity. The category of locality is clearly a globally diffused category, just as is, for example, the notion of'home'. Demands for 'indigenization' are mostly demands for 'particularist' inclusion. Hence the warning that, "for all of

Who Should Learn What?

19

the talk about difference, incommensurability and anti-totalism we should not take things at their face value in this respect" (Robertson, in this volume). Regarding the theories of modernization and of convergence, one of the reasons for their demise was the emergence in the early 1970s of world system theory (Harrison 1988). This is a theory, however, which fails to accomplish three things which globalization theory is instead able to do. First, It fails to render the world (the "global field") into a place of comparative interaction where societies are the principal, but not the only, agents of such interaction. Second, it neglects cultural considerations. Third, unlike the conception of globality, it does not conceive of the world as a global field in which other agents (individuals, national and international organizations) operate alongside societies. In Robertson's view, these are the main reasons why globalization theory may prove able to upgrade the old theories of modernization and convergence.

6 Social Change and Modernization: Lessons From and For Eastern Europe If market reforms entail transforming the identity itself of the social system, then the processes today unfolding in the post-socialist societies are in fact not completely new. "Something repeats itself in history", writes Piotr Sztompka in his paper. Hence, as we wait for new theories to emerge, we may draw on already-existing ones to shed light on current events. But which theory or theories should we choose? According to Sztompka, the answer depends on what we want to explain. And now that the "euphoric revolutionary period" is over, the main theoretical problem to be addressed is surely that of explaining events in the current "pragmatic period of systemic trasformations". Economic reforms falter and processes which seemed irreversible show worrying signs of reversal: as witness the renewed strength of former communists, the growing imperial ambitions of Russia, populist and xenophobic tendencies, or autocratic temptations by local rulers. Interpretation of these phenomena requires reference to the theory of social change. It should be borne in mind, however, that a theory of social change as such does not exist because there is nothing like social change as such. What exists is a a multiplicity of processes embracing specific aspects of reality. Processes such as social differentiation, pauperization, technological innovation, urbanization, secularization, as analysed by the classical sociologists, have captured various aspects of the overall transformation from pre-industrial to modern industrial society. And they are also relevant to analysis of the difficult pas-

20

Bruno Grancelli

sage from the 'fake modernity' of real socialism to the 'authentic modernity' of the democratic West (Stompka, in this volume). Something further is required, however. This Sztompka identifies in a perspective that has fallen into relative disuse: the "cultural-civilizational approach" as first developed by Alexis de Toqueville in his classic work Democracy in America. The lesson to be learnt from this approach is that one should not underestimate the "soft" factors of mentalities, symbols, rituals, routines. This applies not only to customs and mores, to "habits of the heart", but also to the set of notions and opinions which constitute the "character of mind". In short, the subject of study should be the moral and intellectual condition of a people. Sztompka's scheme thus unifies concepts which encompass the three levels of human experience: behaviour, mentality, and culture and civilization. This is an analysis of the "cultural precepts" which induce individuals to believe in certain values and to behave in certain ways. The reference here is to Durkheim's representations collectives, which Sztompka divides between culture and civilization. The former term denotes the deepest level of the social subconsciousness: it is here that socially ordered systems of meaning lie. The latter term refers to the shared universe of the objects, technologies, knowledge, norms and institutions with which individuals satisfy their needs or achieve their goals. The culture-civilization approach is important, for at issue is not solely the building of a capitalist economy and a democratic system. Nor is it merely a matter of returning to Europe, to the West, or to 'normality'. Rather, the problem is how to construct a new social order out of a mixture of components of various historical origins (Sztompka, in this volume). At stake here is transformation of the deepest-lying fabric of the culture and civilization of the peoples involved. Sztompka therefore claims that a "disciplined eclecticism" is needed in the study of post-communist reality. This eclecticism refers mainly to three analytical frameworks which seem especially useful for the purpose. The first is the study of "civilizing processes". In the historical sociology of Norbert Elias (1978, 1982) these are viewed as "crystallizations of collective history". The origins of these processes lie in shared life-experiences. And yet in this century there has been a culture-generating setting of vast range: the communist bloc, which imposed similar organizational and institutional models, lifestyles and ideologies on a number countries and over several generations. This "bloc culture" inflicted its cultural precepts on those of individual national cultures. Consequently, life under real socialism produced a peculiar cultural-civilizational syndrome, which, however, played a twofold historical role. On the one hand, it blocked the project of building socialism and in the end caused the system to collapse; on the other, by outliving the conditions that bred it, it is a major obstacle against democratic reforms. In short, diachronic analy-

Who Should Learn What?

21

sis shows that the bloc culture subverted real socialism and is now doing the same to democracy (Sztompka, in this volume). A second theoretical perspective which informs Sztompka's approach is that developed by Pierre Bourdieu, who focuses on the 'habitus': modes of thinking and acting which have become semi-automatic and which are internalized as second nature. The important point here is that, in the presence of radical social changes, these "structuring structures" produced by history tend to be maladaptive and dysfunctional (Bourdieu 1990). One must therefore examine both the processes which instilled the habitus in real socialism and the adaptive reactions of individuals. On the one hand there was indoctrination, "thought-control", the imposition of a fake "super-reality" on human thought; on the other, all the defensive mechanisms that people developed to cope with official controls. Postsocialist reality manifests very clearly that the "socialist habitus" have not disappeared; they have been petrified into cultural patterns which are still fully operational. The examples cited by Sztompka include: political passivity, participation in privatization with 'shadow economy' methods, or the use of egalitarian rhetoric to hide social envy. Sztompka's third theoretical referent is the discourse analysis which elaborates the Durkheimian dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, and LeviStrauss's notion of binary opposites organizing the symbolic-cultural sphere (Alexander 1989; Alexander and Smith 1993). Thus, a "discourse on real socialism" may be made by reconstructing cultural codes based on a set of oppositions between the 'sacred' pole (i.e. the private sphere, the pre-socialist past) and the 'profane' or 'polluted' pole (i.e the public sphere). These and other dichotomies yield numerous arguments for redressing the balance in studies of post-socialist societies; studies which today tend to emphasise economic and politico-institutional aspects at the expense of the less tangible but equally important sphere of culture and civilization. Yet we must not rely solely on grand theory and on formulations at a high level of abstraction. There is a set of middle-range theories which can provide useful coordinates for research on social change in the post-socialist countries. Robertson's paper provides an example as regards the theory of globalization. But Sztompka also points out the important contribution to be made by other, now neglected, approaches in supplementing globalization theory: most notably anthropological theories of cultural diffusion (or conflict), or certain elements of convergence theory. Also important are analyses explaining the mechanisms which select and transmit traditions across generations, and the reasons for the ethnicnationalist revival. Equally relevant is a reassessment of charisma theory - given the leading role performed by various leaders in transition - or the theory of social identity in explanation of the search for roots and loyalties lost in the post-communist political and ideological vacuum.

22

Bruno Grancelli

Also belonging to the area of middle-range theory is the paper by Edward Tiryakian, who seeks to recast the general reference framework used to analyse social change. Tiryakian begins by reviewing the main 'sociological surprises' which have discredited many of the interpretative models used by the social sciences over the last thirty years. One example among many was the obsession concern for the 'legitimation crisis' of the Western liberal-technocratic state while the much deeper crisis of the institutions of the command economy was ignored. According to Tiryakian, the changes now sweeping the contemporary world stem only in part from exogenous variables. Rather, they originate mainly from the interaction of various endogenous factors of an economic, political and cultural kind. For this reason, an upgraded version of modernization theory (MT), and its application to the features of social change in the countries of CentralEastern Europe, might prove useful. Tiryakian's neo-modernization analysis (NMA) (1985; 1991; 1994) has numerous points of contact with the theoretical movement known as 'social becoming' (Sztompka 1991, 1994) and which today seems to be the most promising approach to social change. It replaces the great historical schemes of evolutionism and materialism with analyses of spatio-temporally limited changes in contemporary society. Tiryakian's NMA and the 'social becoming' perspective are largely complementary, for they are both rooted in action theory and in historical sociology. For instance, while Sztompka stresses the role of "intangibles and imponderables" in socio-cultural change, Tiryakian also recognizes that societies and groups of actors seek new lines of development which match the values and goals defining their spatial-temporal horizon. But he points out that the success of modernization also depends on the harmonization of values and priorities with the resources available. A peculiar feature of NMA is its call for closer theoretical and empirical attention to be paid to the cyclical nature of modernization: "There are periods of increased activity to alter or upgrade social structures and institutional arrangements, not only within but across societies, and there are other periods where complacency or fatigue sets in with little collective effort at upgrading and renovation" (Tiryakian, in this volume). The second part of Tiryakian's paper examines a number of lessons from and for Central-Eastern Europe. It begins by pointing out the relevance of NMA to analysis of events in this region. Since 1989, the East-European countries have been free to choose whatever they wish to become. In this respect, they are structurally in the position of 'new nations': a position similar to that of the countries which emerged from the collapse of what remained of the Western empires in the 1960s. As in those countries, there is a danger that tribalism and forms of authoritarian government will arise. Nevertheless it should also be re-

Who Should Learn What?

23

membered that positive examples of modernization in multi-ethnic states are forthcoming, especially in the Far East. A further obstacle to modernization stressed by Tiryakian, and also by Sztompka, is the collective mentalities bred by decades of autocratic government, in the absence of a civil society able to encourage freedom of expression and individual responsibility. Another hurdle is the fact that international competition is forcing the advanced countries of the West to reorganize their productive structures. The necessary restructuring of the post-socialist enterprises will therefore inevitably provoke vast social traumas and unemployment; a situation which, as recent election results have shown, enhances the appeal of the social democrats (ex-communists). According to Tiryakian, this is not a regression to authoritarian communist government or a wave of "anti-modernity". Rather, it should be viewed as an aspect of modernization, one experienced by the Western countries in the last century and which generated welfare policies in the industrialized countries. However, the reaction against liberalization may recall to power elites with a mentality moulded in an authoritarian regime and which could restore the old system of power and privileges. Should this happen, it will stunt the growth of a new generation of managers receptive to economic and institutional innovation. Finally, as in many developing nations an issue to be addressed is the lack of socially responsible entrepreneurs. There are two essential aspects to this problem: first, the denigration for more than half a century of the entrepreneurial spirit, of profit-seeking, and of risk-taking; second, the almost equally long tradition of bureaucratic corruption and illegality which fuelled the underground economy (Tiryakian, in this volume). In conclusion to the part of his essay on the lessons for Eastern Europe, Tiryakian stresses that there are numerous routes to modernity. For which reason the new elites in these countries would do well to adopt the models that appear best suited to the modernization of particular institutions. They should also remember that the various routes to modernity are more likely to lead to success the closer they correspond to national traditions and aspirations, and the more they find consensus among the population. Regarding lessons from Eastern Europe, Tiryakian stresses that NMA, like the modernization theory of the past, must be able to handle social change without resorting to "grand designs" or to mere description. This approach, which is essentially comparative and intended to globalize sociological knowledge, may find that Central-Eastern Europe is a fertile testing-ground for theoretical analysis. Important topics of research regarding the period prior to 1989 might be, for example, the structuring and destructuring of socialist society, patterns of rule evasion in everyday life, the maintenance of cultural identity in the face of Sovietization. Today, the two faces of social change that warrant study are the cultural legacies of real socialism and the productive restructuring of an economic

24

Bruno Grancelli

area radically altered by the loss of traditional trading partners and by the difficulties of entering international markets.

7 Neo-Modernization Analysis: New Theoretical Challenges Among the noteworthy examples of reworked theories of modernization addressing the transformation of Central-Eastern Europe, Tiryakian cites an essay by Klaus Müller (1992) which, although it highlights the heuristic value of the Parsonian theory of modernity, warns against the revival of an evolutionary logic which takes the experience of the Western countries of fifty years ago as its referent. According to Tiryakian, it is correct to view (as Müller does) modernization theory as sensitizing us to the dilemmas of socio-economic transformation in Eastern Europe, rather than suggesting the importing of Western institutions in order to induce some kind of "catch-up modernization". Indeed, this is a very important point which deserves more detailed discussion. Analysis of modernization in the East-European countries must certainly be more comprehensive and less unilateral than that which, during the 1950s, examined the countries of the Third World. Nevertheless, I believe that precisely for this reason attention should be paid to both the dilemmas of transformation and the transfer of institutions. This consideration provides the basis for the following discussion of Klaus Müller's chapter, in which he gives further development to the topic addressed in the essay cited above. Müller starts from the premise that a re-reading of the interdisciplinary programme known as modernization theory (MT) can provide important reference points for the systematic construction of a new theory of social change. However, he warns, this should not mean a return to the evolutionary theory of modernity as developed in the 1980s by the German neo-Parsonians (with Habermas on the left, and Luhman on the right). The logic of functional differentiation should be challenged by approaches centred on factors such as historical contingencies, the scope of innovative action, the dynamics of inter-societal relations and the action of socio-political movements. In short, like Sztompka, Müller stresses the need for a change of paradigm which breaks with the various forms of historicism and evolutionary development theory. After the "victory of the West", in fact, Eastern Europe displays a set of empirical anomalies which require close consideration of the specificity of the historical constellation within which socio-economic transformation is taking place. What we observe in the region is not "adaptive upgrading" but economic collapse; not broader inclusion but ethnic-religious demarcations; at

Who Should Learn What?

25

the government level, not coherent goals but fragile political coalitions struggling to cope with ungovernable societies. Against this background, Müller proposes a critical re-examination of MT which centres on three points. The first is a rethinking of the main issues addressed by this perspective in the light of the historical demarcations of the last half-century. The second is a central problem that neo-Parsonian MT is unable to explain: the relationships between economic reform and social reconstruction. The third concerns certain aspects of the challenge raised by post-modernism against neo-modernization theory. On the first point, Müller makes a number of proposals for parallel assessment of the tradition of Soviet studies and of modernization theory. On Soviet studies he remarks, for instance, that the theory of totalitarianism encouraged the under-estimation of the complex dynamics of "Soviet-type societies": from the growing heterogeneity of their classes to the legitimizing functions of the "implicit social contract" between workers and the bureaucracy. These important aspects of social change could not be explained by a state-centred theory which ignored every interaction between culture, society, economy, party and state. As for the classical approach to modernization, he refers to its initial emphasis on motivational and cultural factors (Parsons and Smelser 1959). Subsequently, however, Parsons changed his action theory into an approach labelled by Müller as "evolutionist philosophy of history as steered, cybernetically, by increasingly generalized values". This change of perspective, however, did not impede Parsons from spreading the idea that social change is based on a difficult balance between economic growth, non-economic orientations and integrative norms (Müller, in this volume). The impact of MT extended well beyond the academic environment, for two essential reasons. Firstly, it generalized the Keynesian revolution of economic policy into a programme for the institutionalization of class conflict. Secondly, MT was based, and continues to be, on a wide variety of comparative studies carried out under the auspices of international institutions like the ILO, the IMF and the World Bank. This, therefore, is the principal reason for the ability of this perspective to survive the attacks of world system theory and dependency theory (Müller in this volume). Recent events in Central-Eastern Europe provide further support for MT and its normative thrust. Here Müller cites the spillover of Western values into Soviet-type societies during the 1980s and, subsequently, the inspiration of "radical reformers" by the above-mentioned international agencies. Finally, there is the tardiness of sociologists, who continue to address such perennial questions as the "third wave of democratization", "the transfer of institutions", or the prerequisites for transition. Müller's assessment of sociological research on the countries of Central-Eastern Europe and the classical approach raises a series of important questions. In

26

Bruno Grancelli

this concluding part of the Introduction, therefore, I shall make a number of comments on this assessment and the other two points central to his essay: the links between economic reform and social reconstruction, and the challenge raised by post-modern indifferentism to neo-modernization analysis. The following are just preliminary remarks which, hopefully, may lay some basis for successive rounds of discussion between Eastern and Western scholars.

7.1 Is the Evolutionary Perspective Really Irretrievable? Since the fall of communism, research on the countries of Central-Eastern Europe has prospered in all the social sciences. This is therefore a situation which should encourage the emergence of theories able to handle the problems raised by socio-economic transformation in the region. Modernization theory might be useful in this respect, but reconsideration of MT must not induce a return to the evolutionary theory of modernity which characterized the social sciences until the 1960s and "underwent an astonishing revival in the German neo-Parsonianism of the 1980s" (Müller, in this volume). Indeed, as Eisenstadt (1992) states, events in Eastern Europe can be compared to the "great revolutions" which upset the categories of Western macro-sociological analysis. And it is also true that we should counter an evolutionist philosophy of history with emphasis on historical contingencies, innovative actions, ecological restrictions, and inter-societal relations. I believe, however, two remarks are in order here: first, evolutionary development theory has changed since Parsons' time; second, contrasting approaches can be adopted to the historical contingencies of the last half-century. The phase of the great movements which led to the collapse of the communist regimes has now passed. The current "pragmatic period of systemic change" requires a redefinition of research programs. Indeed, we need to develop a clearer idea of the social system to be transformed, as well as of the direction and the instruments of change. But this can hardly be done if we set out the investigation without awareness of the wide gap that existed between a) the substance and appearance of the Soviet model of government, and, b) the historical roots of that gap. Hence, in rethinking the classical approach, we should not forget the works of authors such as Reinhard Bendix, who, though critical of Parsonian evolutionary theory, has shown that some sort of interrupted evolution took place in Russia under Soviet rule. In Nation Building and Citizenship (1964), Bendix seeks to systematize Tocqueville's comparative analysis of authority relationships. In essence, he claims that traditional paternalism in the advanced countries of the West has gradually given way to an individualistic conception of authority relations. Of course, Western societies have moved towards the universality of rights in anything but uniform manner, and often with major conflicts. Nevertheless, histori-

Who Should Leam What?

27

cal changes in the structure of authority acquired roughly comparable forms, because the imposition of public authority over an entire nation was accompanied by a process of bureaucratization which replaced the patrimonial administration of the past. Russia is structurally different in that its industrialization has occurred in a context which was first autocratic and then totalitarian. Thus the principle of government remained almost intact behind different ideological facades: all social groups were equally subordinate to a supreme authority, either the Tsar or the party. This is the basic point made by Bendix, and it maintains its importance even if the concept of 'totalitarianism' has been subsequently criticised (Nee and Stark 1989, Walder 1986). We may possibly refer to the more precise definition of'totalitarian project' (Berger 1986: 179) to define Stalinist rule, but the fact remains: this rule cannot be described as rational because the political authority stood above the law, and, as a result, the administrative implementation of public decrees did not allow social actors to form stable expectations. And yet the stability of expectations is an important aspect of economic rationality. A performance ethic developed in Western Europe because people learnt that there was a connection between hard work and expectations of the behaviour of their employer and the public powers. Under totalitarian government, instead, people may even increase their work commitment but be systematically forced to treat each other with suspicion, while remaining ignorant of what is involved in their relations with the authorities (Bendix 1964). Although many changes occurred in Soviet society after Stalin, one cannot say that both the autocratic principle of government and the 'institutionalization of suspicion' (Fainsod 1963) faded away. If change did take place, it was the gradual replacement of repression by revitalized paternalism which allowed lower participants to develop their 'strategies of independence' from official regulations and controls (Bendix 1956). The point is this: analysis which is not governed, like Bendix's, by evolutionist logic shows that there was in Russia some sort of interruption in the evolution of authority relationships, within both the enterprise and society as a whole. Consequently, I would not say that the understanding of post-socialist transformation requires a theoretical horizon that goes "beyond state and market". What is really on the agenda is a much more concrete task: that of "dismantling the patronage state" (Bauman 1993). It thus seems correct to say, following Parsons, that the modern type of society has arisen in only one evolutionary area, the West, and that Russia extended the system eastwards. But it is equally correct to point out, as Bendix does (1956, 1964), that the Soviet system was born of a fusion between Enlightenment ideas and autocratic political and cultural traditions. Many intellectuals emphasised only the former aspect, highlighting, for example, the influence of Western Marxism on Lenin's ideas (Sirianni 1982). Parsons himself believed that American and Soviet ideology, their differences

28

Bruno Grancelli

notwithstanding, had a value content that could be considered a specification of what he called "instrumental activism". And herein lies the reason for his erroneous assessment of Soviet industrialization, which allegedly eliminated many of the ascriptive components of the previous society, reduced particularism and local traditionalism, and greatly enhanced the social component of citizenship (Parsons 1973). Admittedly, in Parsons' evolutionary approach 'ideal' factors took precedence over 'real' ones, thus leaving the identification of underlying forces and conflicts up to the reader (Gallino 1973). But, in any case, it is worth recalling that the central position occupied in Parson's evolutionary development theory by tendencies towards the development of individualism, decentralization and associationism bears out the claim that Parsons' "grand theory" is of much greater predictive capacity than the works of his Marxist and Third-World critics of the 1970s (Mouzelis 1993). It is true that, in order to understand what 'individualism', 'decentralization' and 'associationism' mean today in concrete terms, one must go beyond Parsons. Yet this does not necessarily entail that the evolutionary and systemic approaches should be dismissed as devoid of any heuristic validity. One may also agree that the relations between political, economic and social subsystems do not necessarily correspond to functionalist notions (Müller, in this volume). Nevertheless, analyses like Rychard's for example, show that a reworking of the systemic perspective helps understanding of the stabilizing or evolutive effects of reciprocal adjustment between institutions and society. Also Tiryakian, in his neo-modernization analysis, proposes a re-reading of the Parsonian paradigm which views society as a complex whole wherein the political, institutional, economic and cultural subsystems interact. This analysis, Tiryakian writes, must obviously be accompanied by a renewal of the voluntaristic bases of Parsonian action theory, in that modernization signifies not only economic development but an improvement in the individual and collective lifespaces negatively affected by non-legitimated political orders. It should also be borne in mind, though, that societies are able to achieve improvement in each of the four sectors in a given period, and that the maximization of one sector inevitably leads to a deficit or shortfall in others (Tiryakian 1991). Richard's analysis is a further development of this aspect of NMA and shows that, in the final phase of Soviet-type socialism, exchanges among the subsystems tended to concentrate in the so-called "unofficial system". I think that it is precisely this phenomenon which demonstrates the substantial validity of the evolutionist assumption that greater social differentiation implies the system's greater adaptive capacity. Yet the evidence for this today is not as Parsons imagined. In Tsarist and Soviet Russia, the interrupted evolution of authority relationships resulted in a higher degree of institutional rigidity. Adaptive processes certainly did exist but, after the failure of'market socialism', they became mainly sponta-

Who Should Leam What?

29

neous and 'underground'. Hence, a systemic approach which takes account of the working of the "unofficial system" may yield useful insights into the mechanisms which underpinned the socialist regime: informality, deviation from the rules, institutional corruption. Müller resorts to a further argument to criticise the evolutionary perspective which inform classical MT: the persistence of "traditional elements", "ambivalences" and "regression phenomena" within the transformation process under examination. To some extent justified, this criticism has also been made by Alexander (1992), who declares that Parsonian theory is no great help in understanding the role of backwardness and structural fusion in the creation of modern history (1992: 192). In his view, Parsons' analysis does not explain how the changes leading to greater social differentiation actually take place. In brief, Parsons confuses the development of greater differentiation with greater adaptive success (Alexander 1992). However, the collapse of the "socialist field" has shown that Parsons made no such confusion: greater differentiation does signify greater adaptive capacity. In other words, a political system which claimed to have created the conditions for the disappearance of social conflicts prepared instead the conditions whereby most social exchanges had to take place at the 'sub-institutional' level. But history has demonstrated that a society in which individuals must interact mainly within an 'unofficial system' with its unwritten laws have lesser adaptive capacities than those in which interactions among individuals and confrontations among social forces occur mainly within a 'rational-legal framework'. It should be added that systems of the former kind are also those with more pronounced traditionalist residues at the socio-cultural and institutional levels (Jowit 1983; Walder 1986). Thus the contention that Parsons neglected the role of backwardness in modern history seems justified, provided we realize that the bulk of backwardness was concealed behind the modernist facade of Soviet socialism. Although Parsons was unaware of this, he was not alone. The dominant trend among social scientists has long been that of extending the logic of Western modernization to socio-economic development in socialist countries without much awareness of the process of re-traditionalization under way in those same countries (Johnson 1970; Skilling and Griffith 1971; Field 1976; Hough 1977; Conyngham 1982). What lesson should we learn from this? I think that we should be alerted to the risk of 'Throwing out the baby with the dirty water'. In other words, if the eastward extension of Western modernization was advocated in unilateral ways in the 1970s, this should not prevent us from rethinking the issue of institutional transfer on a more adequate theoretical basis. In any case, this transfer is under way, whether we like it or not. That is why Bendix's contribution to the 'problem of Dürkheim' is more important than Jeffrey Alexander (1992) seems to realize. Also relevant are re-

30

Bruno Grancelli

cent approaches to the problem, notably those by Rueschemeyer (1986) and Tiryakian (1992), as well as those, less recent, by Smelser (1959) and Parsons himself (1966, 1973). In fact these various authors have attempted to shift differentiation analysis to a lower level in order to examine the underlying causes of historical processes (Sztompka 1994). Indeed, we need a deeper understanding of the causes and the intended/unintended effects of the historical processes in Central-Eastern Europe if we are to construe the problems and perspectives of former 'Soviet-type societies'. To conclude, there is no reason why the shortcomings of Parsonian evolutionism should preclude consideration of neo-evolutionist approaches to the endogenous and exogenous mechanisms that engender social change (Smelser 1992), or approaches focused on the processes that produce differentiation and segmentation (Eisenstadt 1979; Bellah 1970; Luhman 1982), or those which examine change in terms of a morality based on the autonomy of the subject (Eder 1992). Also relevant is explanation of the reasons for backward development (Luhman 1992). There is no reason to dismiss the lessons to be learnt from a neo-evolutionism which focuses on social entities smaller than global human society, and on causal mechanisms rather than on evolutionary stages. Even more so when probabilistic instead of deterministic propositions are advanced. All this is possible, and indeed to be recommended, if there is a willingness to acknowledge that the complexity of socio-cultural change requires a certain degree of eclecticism, so that our conceptual apparatus can draw useful insights from both the "field model" and the systemic model. This entails, in brief, that societies, groups and organizations should be examined as complexes of hard structural dimensions but also as soft fields of relations among individuals (Sztompka 1994). The same views are expressed by Raimond Boudon (1981), who also makes a number of methodological suggestions for a truly "disciplined" eclecticism. According to Boudon, theories of social change are not all of the same kind; consequently, they cannot be used in the same way to account for social phenomena. In explanation of this point, Bourdon uses Simmel's distinction between the social sciences and history to recall that formal theories are frameworks which are filled with content when they are employed to explain social change. In other words, theories are "formal" because their propositions concern not reality but the principles that the researcher should follow in observing particular classes of phenomena (Boudon 1984). By way of example, Boudon cites the model of social differentiation developed by Parsons and Smelser in Economy and Society (1970), according to which organizational dysfunctions bring about increasing differentiation among authority positions within organizations. This is a conceptual framework from which several empirical conclusions can be drawn. For example, we may say (following Parsons) that processes of differentiation are typical without thereby imply-

Who Should Learn What?

31

ing any idea of frequency - which is in any case impossible to determine. Hence, a theory of social change of this kind can be transformed from a formal framework into a "realistic theory" if it is filled with complementary propositions and with adequate data (Boudon 1984). It is advisable, then, to bear in mind that the theories available are not all of the same kind: they may be "conjectural", "formal" and "theories strictu sensu". There is a logical distinction among these various types of theory. Hence we should not attribute empirical predictive capacity to theoretical frameworks which are in fact formal models of intelligibility. We should not take mere statements of possibility to be laws (Boudon 1984). We need a model of intelligibility of socialist reality in order to understand the post-socialist one. I believe that Müller's reasoning might provide a better contribution to this task if he paid more attention to the above distinction.

7.2 Economic Reform and Social Reconstruction Thus, on the one hand, there are formal theories with generalizing pretensions, which describe ideal cases and may be useful in defining the general features of social change, and on the other realistic theories which can be taken to be scientific only insofar as they are partial and local (medium-range) and which may use, or may not, a utilitarian axiomatic according to the process under examination (Boudon 1984). This reference to utilitarianism brings us to the second aspect of the discourse on the transformation of post-socialist societies. This is an issue which may be addressed in relation to the presumed dominant tendency to overestimate the organizational capacities of the market. We must go beyond "the pure market", writes Müller, for in his view the issue is not what is lacking in East European societies - namely a developed economic and political democracy - but how rudimentary markets and fragile democracies can work together in times of social disorientation. What we need - he adds - is a theory of social change based on comparative and interdisciplinary analysis of organizations and patterns of strategic action. With this one can agree, of course. But if these research programmes are framed without an adequate "model of intelligibility" they are likely to yield misleading interpretations of economic changes, accompanied by declarations of good intent regarding social justice. Let us begin with the point on which there is presumably general agreement: "bringing sociology back in", which also means shifting the focus back to the state and its institutions. This should serve to achieve a widely shared aim: rescuing sociology from its subservience to economics. However, I suspect that the way Müller brings sociology 'back in' is not best suited to this purpose.

32

Bruno Grancelli

In the 1980s, modernization became synonymous with a "market-induced process". Institutional mediation among diverse interests and redistribution via taxation (which is an indicator of the degree of social integration) have been forgotten. Thus, modernization in Eastern Europe is viewed as the "creative destruction" of the totalitarian system by agents motivated solely by rationally calculated self-interest. This accounts for the silence of grand theory: neo-Parsonian theorists (Habermas, Luhman) have accepted a division of labour with dominant economic dogma by proposing a sort of 'negative sociology' in which existing society is only 'appeased' and not employed as an agent of reform (Müller, in this volume). But, one may ask, who should be the agents of reform? The 50% of 'statedependent workers'? Industrial managers skilled as "populist politicians"? The constellations of'rent seekers' within local and central bureaucracies? Intellectuals who reason in terms of "residual communism"? Can we really say that these social actors may behave in ways that fulfil Parsons' definition of efficiency in terms of social norms and cultural values? These are people that certainly refer to social norms and cultural values; but are these norms and values capable of inducing "constructive change"? These social actors can hardly be included among the driving forces of modernization. If anything, they can expresses some constructive continuity with the old regime. Or, at best, there may be a component of this bloc of social interests which expresses a social-democratic political demand of the kind, as Tiryakian notes in his paper, that helped to modernize Western Europe in the first half of this century. If this is true, "negative sociology" may be seen as less negative than it appears in Müller's account. This sociology has been charged with having failed to distinguish clearly between introducing and maintaining a market economy, whence derives its inability to understand that the same type of theory cannot be applied to the two cases. This is a charge easily rebutted: it is one thing to talk of redistributive justice in a market economy which need only be reproduced; it is quite another to talk of redistribution after 40-70 years of a shortage economy in which - as the saying goes - "the acquarium has been turned into a fish soup". Consequently, the problem is not just over-estimation of the market's organizational capacities: the same may happen with state capacities - as not only those who live in Eastern Europe but also Italians, for example, well know. Müller acknowledges that the ideology of egalitarianism and of redistribution has encouraged rejection of the performance principle, but he stresses that social norms cannot be reduced to the individualistic ethic of achievement. 'Efficiency', 'welfare', 'performance' are features from which people can only benefit by organizational mediation. Indeed. But why not focus on the mediator's interest too? It is clear that "re-interpretation of solidarities and norms of justice rather than their elimination" is required. But who redefines them in the first

Who Should Learn What?

33

place, if not the mediators? Consider, for example, the normative complex which governs the internal labour markets of large-scale enterprises in the West, and the ways it has been shaped by the interests of personnel management and union officers (Stark 1989). Those who examine the organizational and institutional mediation of efficiency, welfare and performance must also ask themselves how this mediation actually occurs in different organizational and institutional contexts. Does it respect the rules of a state of law and budget constraints? Or does it take place in a structure of patron-client relations? And in what cultural framework: that of economic rationality, or that of rent-seeking? And then one must also ask whether the beneficiaries of the mediation are to be considered solely as policy-keepers, or also as participants in various forms of economic activity in a grey area between legality and illegality (Grancelli 1987). If this is done, one can decide how much validity should still be attached to the principal components of Parsonian modernization theory: differentiation processes, the development of formal rationality in social action, the ethical and motivational supports of capitalism. And one can also realize how important it is to transfer them to post-socialist organizational and institutional reality. And, of course, one can also gauge the importance of what Parsons overlooked: the role of the state bureaucracy as an independent agent of development. When institutions are imbued with pre-modern culture, what should be rethought is an issue which once concerned the Third World: which economic and social development policy can be devised by modernizing elites when the bulk of political and administrative personnel consists of rent-seekers? (Winiecki 1990). Situations such as these are common in socialist countries (Timofeev 1983; Jowitt 1983; Walder 1983; Grancelli 1988; Shlapentokh 1989). Should we, then, consider the logic of Western modernity as something 'untransferable'? Müller seems to think so, and he therefore pursues a different line of argument. He stresses that, since the neo-Parsonians cannot draw on preparatory work comparable to Parsons' critique of utilitarianism, they examine economic transformation while neglecting the aspects of political legitimation and social integration. Here too, in fact, analysis which draws on the knowledge provided by area studies bears out not Müller's contentions but those of the neo-Parsonians. Do we really need a critique of utilitarianism in order to understand socioeconomic transformation in the countries of Eastern Europe? I would argue that a critique of the critics of this concept is, instead, of greater usefulness. Müller writes that the transfer of institutions reproduces a weakness of the old institutionalism of the 1920s. The fact is, however, that the right question at the right time has been asked by a neo-institutionalist economist. Oliver Williamson, in replying to the criticisms of Granovetter (1985), recognizes the importance of the social structures in which economic action is embedded (Williamson 1987). But, he asks, do these structures favour, or do they not, the efficiency and the

34

Bruno Grancelli

'physiological' functioning of economic organizations? In our case, the question can be phrased more specifically: are the social exchanges typical of the organizational and institutional reality of socialism able, in their post-socialist evolution, to produce development and modernization? And does this not also mean achieving a 'physiological' functioning of organizations and institutions? Area studies reveal that these exchanges can also perform innovative functions, at least for a certain period (Kontorovich and Shlapentokh 1984; Grancelli 1988). But they also show that these exchanges are bound to raise obstacles in the path towards political and economic democracy (Rychard 1994). And the same applies to some extent to certain forms of adaptation typical of the "bloc culture" (Sztompka, in this volume). Here I wish to make some preliminary remarks on the matter, beginning with the critique of utilitarianism. In his much cited essay on embeddedness, Granovetter stated that in the utilitarian tradition and in New Institutional Economics, rational behaviour oriented towards the pursuit of self-interest is shaped only to a minimal extent by social relations. Consequently, one may speak of a hyposocialized conception of economic action. By contrast, the structural-functionalist approach views the behaviour of actors from a hypersocialized perspective, because role behaviours are internalized during the processes of socialization. From the standpoint of embeddedness, instead, behaviour and the economic institutions are closely constrained by social relation networks; networks which therefore perform a primary socializing function (Granoveter 1985). Despite their differences, the utilitarian and functionalist perspectives both view economic action as involving substantially atomized actors. Under the former perspective, this atomization results from the utilitarian pursuit of selfinterest; under the latter, it results from the fact that forms of behaviour are internalized by actors mainly through structures of normative prescription, so that current social relations affect them only marginally. Granovetter seeks to give a more realistic account of the relationships between economic action and social structure. In his assessment of Williamson's approach, he emphasises that relational networks - with the trust and social obligations inherent to them may help to reduce opportunism, relatively independently of institutional mechanisms (market or hierarchy). However, Granovetter adds, one risks lapsing into a new kind of functionalism by saying that networks (instead of "generalized morality" or institutional structures) provide the social order with its basic underpinning. The upshot is that we should adopt a median position between the hypo- and hypersocialized accounts by returning to concrete models of social relations (Granovetter 1985). This is a wise conclusion. However, it requires further development in relation to the topic under discussion here. And specifically as regards the importance of the "fine art of learning and forgetting", an issue which translates as follows: in this "period of pragmatic transformation", with respect to what should

Who Should Learn What?

35

economic action hypersocialize itself, and with respect to what should it instead hypo-socialize itself? In my view, it should hyposocialize itself with respect to the various 'neo-traditionalist' features typical of the underground economy in the socialist period, such as patron-client relations, administrative corruption, or collusion networks for the embezzlement of enterprise property. And it should instead hypersocialize itself with respect to those experiences which can be usefully drawn upon in transforming the command economy into a market economy (of which there exist numerous variants). In this historical period, therefore, rather than take up a median position one should place oneself closer to those who pursue the internalization of market models. The question of the transfer of institutions is therefore certainly not an "old" one. The simple fact is that it is not greatly liked by scholars who seem to be worried that the collapse of 'real socialism' may call the very idea of socialism into question. Klaus Offe, for example, criticises the building of capitalism "by design" and warns against copying institutions in the absence of the moral and cultural infrastructure of the original. He recognizes that socialism failed to achieve systemic integration because it did not work as an economic system. And it also failed to achieve social integration because it was unable to create socialist motivations. This is certainly correct. But he sees this twofold failure only in terms of widespread assumptions and expectations which are inimical to the development of capitalism. Thus in the ex-DDR, for instance, he notices only "complaints" against the institutional agents of the West and passive forms of individual adaptation like emigration. In short, according to Offe, whereas in 1945 people knew what they should and should not do, today they only know what they are prohibited from doing (Offe 1994 ). And yet people know what they must do. It is intellectuals, who tend to conceive the relations between social actors and institutions only in terms of opposition/dependence, who find it difficult to see this. Not coincidentally, Müller asserts that Central-Eastern Europe lacks a private sector able to propel the public sector towards efficiency and that, consequently, the range of action of the visible hand should be discussed in terms other than those which obtain in the West - that is, not solely in terms of opportunity costs. Some chapters in Part One of this book show that the potentialities of the private sector should not be viewed so pessimistically, even bearing in mind the complex combinations of public and private in property arrangements (Stark 1994). The reasons for a certain optimism are to be found in the fact that a good many new entrepreneurs do not come from the 'second economy' (Jones and Moskoff 1991; Codagnone, in this volume). Although, it is worth recalling that the second or "shadow economy" was not solely a pre-modern phenomenon. It was a sort of 'social economy', but also the only sphere in which elements of rational economic thought could survive (Rychard 1994). Something that was possible because the labour force was the only economic resource that the re-

36

Bruno Grancelli

gime was unable to nationalize, so that its use was in practice decided by individuals and families (Stark 1989). It is therefore the development of efficient management and entrepreneurship (which also includes a sense of social responsibility, as Trayakian points out in his paper) that may attenuate the risks of 'hyper-rationality' and 'cultural imperialism' in the transfer of institutions. This development may have been neglected but it is nevertheless a fact (Grancelli 1994). The 'new economic sociology' may actually become new if it realizes that history does not consist solely of mass movements to defend people against the market, as Polany (1974) claims. The history of the last two centuries also demonstrates the capacity of many working people to profit from market opportunities in the passage from one social system to another - as shown, for instance, by Le Play's research on the rise of bourgeois society in France during the first half of the last century (Bodard-Silver 1982). To put it bluntly, what we need are not ideal journeys 'beyond state and market' as middle-range theories able to highlight the processes of selective emulation in what Kozminsky calls "modernization through benchmarking" in his chapter. And in doing this we will also understand the dilemmas of socioeconomic transformation in Central-eastern Europe.

7.3 From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity? Central-Eastern Europe is caught up in a dynamic of change which is very different from the "orderly processes of empirical change" referred to by Parsons. Moreover, the so-called 'world order' is increasingly characterized by unpredictable events, fractionalism and structural discontinuities, rather than by integration, evolution and progress. All this, according to Müller, calls the very concept of social order into question and hence the normative horizon of modernization theory. Consequently, since grand theories will be inapplicable for some time to come, the problems referred to above should be addressed in a context in which modernization theory comes increasingly under competitive pressure. One of the stronger competitors is certainly post-modern sociology which opposes 'incommensurable discourses' to science, perspectives to explanations, and multicultural diversity to universality (Turner 1992). Besides, this challenge concerns methodological questions also in fields such as economic sociology and organization studies (Clegg 1990; Parker 1992). And, finally, it has wide-ranging political and normative implications (Müller, in this volume). It is still unclear, however, whether post-modern theories can shed sharper light on the problems of Eastern Europe, and also whether this is simply a "lightheaded game with paradoxes or a delayed existentialism" (Müller, in this vol-

Who Should Learn What?

37

ume). One may therefore agree with Miiller's conclusion that many 'post-modern' phenomena do not signal the entry of Eastern Europe into the post-modern era, but rather highlight the unresolved contradictions of modernity. In effect, one may justifiably disagree with Bauman, given that it is somewhat incoherent to maintain at the same time that the dismantling of the patronage state has been accompanied by the onset of post-modernity in the region (Bauman 1993a, 1993b). A re-assessment of MT which takes account of post-modern phenomena must therefore not confuse democratic decentralization of power with a fundamentalist conception of local power; it must establish a balance between internal and international factors; and it must take account of the tensions internal to the Western model itself (Müller, in this volume). These general observations seem reasonable. Nevertheless current changes in Eastern Europe require further analysis of issues raised earlier in this Introduction, beginning with the concept of modernization. Today, perhaps the most useful conception of modernization is the 'relativist' one. This omits reference to Westernization and Americanization and permits attention to focus on the substance of processes as and where they occur (Sztompka 1994: 132). An example is provided by the "epicentres of modernity" which have arisen in the course of history to set the standards emulated by the elites or populations of other countries (Tiryakian 1985). Further clarification is instead required of modernization processes in individual countries and their substance. If a neo-evolutionist perspective is to be taken into account it needs further elaboration because it is based on an assumption which has proved to be empirically valid: namely that societies cannot be truly modernized if political elites ignore spontaneous processes from below. This is particularly the case of societies in which broad intervention by the state is matched by its inability to govern society effectively, as happened (and still does) in Eastern Europe, or in countries like Italy, which have always displayed a signal capacity to 'survive without government'. A phenomenon overlooked by many Western scholars is socialism's legacy of 'fake modernity'; that is, a modernity imposed on certain areas of social life combined with vestiges of pre-modern culture and numerous kinds of political window-dressing intended to demonstrate the existence of a Western-type modernity (Sztompka 1992). Now that windows are no longer dressed the failed modernity of Soviet-type socialism is starkly exposed (Zaslavsky, in this volume). In my opinion, a neo-evolutionist perspective which shifts its focus downwards in order to take account of of the evidence gathered by social historians can shed light on the specific constellations of factors which led to this outcome. The first task, therefore, is to understand the institutional and cultural legacy left by a regime in which two or three generations have been socialized (Lewin 1988; Shlapentokh 1989).

38

Bruno Grancelli

Here I would like to call attention to the fact that some of the contributors to this book refer to Alexis de Tocqueville. Bendix did so too, for example in his historical analysis of public and private authority relationships as an aspect of social stratification. One of the central findings of his analysis of the changing social order was that social attitudes persist long after the disappearance of the circumstances which produced them, and that they may have positive or negative effects on economic development. Consequently, the concept of development must comprise not only the products and by-products of industrialization but also the various combinations of tradition and modernity which render all development partial (Bendix 1969). This observation on the persistence of attitudes - which recalls a similar assertion by Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1954) - is developed in Sztompka's paper, which cites Tocqueville as the founder of the culture-civilization approach to study of the moral and intellectual condition of a people. Instead, the reference to Tocqueville in the paper by Kaminski and Kurczewska highlights the fact that the Weberian typology of legitimate authority precludes the possibility that the social order can be created from below, and therefore points out that Tocqueville's position is somewhat different from that of Weber. Parsons developed his evolutionist theory on the basis of the description of American society set out in Tocqueville's works (the diffusion of individualism, decentralization and associationism). He believed that this perspective could provide more reliable interpretation than that centred on bureaucratization and the concentration of power (Parsons 1973). Yet it is evident today that both these perspectives are important, and that they should be developed jointly if middle-range theories on economic transformation and social reconstruction are to be constructed. In conclusion, I believe that comparative research on social change and modernization in the countries of Eastern Europe should give further elaboration to some basic points raised by the chapters in this book. The first is the distinction between state and bureaucrats, for being a state official does not necessarly imply working in the interest of the state or pursuing formally declared goals: the state bureaucracy contains "constellations of rent-seekers". The second point is that tradition and modernity interweave in all countries: even the "epicentres of modernity" have their enclaves of pre-modernity. The third is that in interweaving with tradition, modernity does not only encounter obstacles: "traditions of modernization" may characterize a given country. The fourth is that phases of tension and conflict occur, but they are relatively brief intervals between "pragmatic periods of systemic transformation". If these points are developed further in future research, we will be able to acquire better understanding of the mechanisms of adaptation between institutions and society, which also means gaining a clearer idea of the unwritten rules

Who Should Learn What?

39

of the sort of "unofficial system" in which state and market may collude in favour of, but also against, modernity. By way of examples: give and take between organizational elites and political authorities (local and central); the largescale enterprise and the clash between the logic of efficiency and that of internal labour markets; the informal economy and the small firm. The result is a "social becoming" which might result in something to be studied by chaos theories or which, despite everything, might help to create new "centres of modernity" in a united Europe. Perhaps chaos theories derive mainly from the 'idelogical pessimism' of intellectuals of which Parsons was so rightly sceptical.

References Alessandrini, S. and B. Dallago (eds.) (1987): The Unofficial Economy. Aldershot: Gower. Alexander, J. (1992): "Durkheim's problem and differentiation theory today," in Haferkamp, Η., Smelser, Ν. J. (eds.): Social Change and Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Alexander, J. and Smith P. (1993): "The discourse of American civil society: A new proposal for cultural studies", Theory and Society, 151-207. Bagnasco, A. (1988): La costruzione sociale del mercato: studi sullo sviluppo della piccola impresa in Italia. Bologna: II Mulino. Bagnasco, A. (1984): Tre Italie: laproblematica territoriale dello sviluppo italiano. Bologna: II Mulino. Bauman, Z. (1993a): "Dismantling the patronage state," in J. Frentzel-Zagorska (ed.) From One-Party State to Democracy: Transition in Eastern Europe. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Bauman, Z. (1993a): "A post-modem revolution?", in Frentzel-Zagorska, J. (ed.), From a One-Party State to democracy: Transition in Eastern Europe. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Beissinger, M. (1988): Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline and Soviet Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bellah, R. N. (1970): Beyond Beliefs: Essays on religion in a Post-Traditional World. New York: Harper & Row. Bendix, R. (1964): Nation Building and Citizenship. New York: Wiley. Bendix, R. (1956): Work and Authority in Industry. New York: Wiley. Berger, P. (1986): The Capitalist Revolution. New York: Basic Books. Bodard-Silver, C. (1982): Frediric Le Play on family, work, and social change. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Boisot, M. and J. Child (1988): "The iron law of fiefs: Bureaucratic failure and the problem of governance in the Chinese economic reform, Administrative Science Quarterly, n. 33: 507-527. Boudon, R. (1984): La place du desordre: critiques des theories du changement social. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Bourdieu, P. (1990): The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Clegg, S. (1990): Modem Organizations. London: SAGE. Crisp, O. (1979): "Lavoro e industrializzazione in Russia," in V. Castronovo (ed.) (Postan, Μ. M. and P. Mathias, eds.), Storia Economica Cambridge, vol. 7: 383-523. Torino: Einaudi. Eder, K. (1992): "Contradictions and social evolution: A theory of the social evolution of modernity, in Haferkampf, Η., Smelser N.J. (eds), Social Change and Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Eisenstadt, S. (1966): "Breakdowns of modernization," in W.G. Goode (ed.) The Dynamics of Modern Society. New York: Basic Books. Eisenstadt, S. (1992a): "The breakdown of communist regimes and the vicissitudes of modernity," Daedalus, 2: 21-41.

40

Bruno Grancelli

Eisenstadt, S. (1992b): "Frameworks of the great revolutions: Culture, social structure, history and human agency," International Social Science Journal, 133: 385-40. Elias, Ν. (1978): What is Sociology?. London: Hutchinson. Elias, Ν. (1982): The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell. Field, M. (ed) (1976): Social Consequences of Modernization in Communist Societies. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Gallino, L. (1973): Introduction to: T. Parsons, Sistemi di Societä. Bologna: II Mulino. Gerschenkron, A. (1974): "Politicaagraria e industrializzazione in Russia, 1861-1917," in V. Castronovo (ed.) (Habakkuk, H.J. and M. Postan, eds.), Storia Economica Cambridge, vol 6: 766-863. Torino: Einaudi. Conyngham, W. (1982): The Modernization of Soviet Industrial Management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grancelli, B. (1995): "Organizational change: Toward a new East-West comparison," Organization Studies, 16/1:1-25. Grancelli, B. (1992): "Organizational innovation and entrepreneurial formation. Some comparative remarks," in Dallago, B., G. Ajani and B. Grancelli (eds.), Privatization and entrepreneurship in Post-Socialist Countries. London: Macmillan. Grancelli, B. (1988). Soviet Management and Labor Relations. Boston: Allen & Unwin. Grancelli, B. (1987): "Political trade-offs, collective bargaining, individual tradings: some remarks on industrial relations in Italy," in Alessandrini, S. and Dallago B. (eds.), The Unofficial Economy. Aldershot: Gower. Grancelli, B. (1986): Le relazioni industrial! di tipo sovietico. Milano: F. Angeli. Granovetter, M. (1985): "Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness, American Journal of Sociology, 3: 481 -510. Harrison, D. (1988): The Sociology of Modernization and Development. London: Unwin Hyman. Hough, J. (1977): The Soviet Union and the Social Science Theory. New York: Wiley. Johnson, C. (ed) (1970): Change in Communist Systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Jones, A. and Moskof, W. (1991): Ko-ops. The Rebirth of entrepreneurship in the Soviet Union. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jowitt, K. (1983): "Soviet neotraditionalism: The political corruption of a Leninist regime," Soviet Studies, 3: 275-297. Käser, M. (1979): "L'imprenditorialitä russa," in V. Castronovo (Postan, M.M. and P. Mathias eds.), Storia Economica Cambridge, vol. 7: 524-639. Torino: Einaudi. Kirzner, I. (1980): Prime Mover of Progress. The Entrepreneur in Capitalism and Socialism, I.E. A. Readings, n. 23. London: The Institute of Economic Affairs. Kontorovich, V. and Shlapentokh, V. (1984) "Organizational innovation. Hidden reserves in the Soviet economy, in The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and east european Studies, n. 507, University of Pittsburgh. Luhman, N. (1992): "The direction of evolution," in Haferkampf, Η., Smelser, N.J. (eds) Social Change and Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Luhman, N. (1982): The Differentiation of Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Mouzelis, N. (1993) "Evolutionary democracy: Talcott Parsons and the Collapse of Eastern European Regimes," Theory, Culture and Society, 1: 145-152. Müller, Κ. (1992): " 'Modernizing' Eastern Europe. Theoretical problems and political dilemmas, Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, 1: 109-150. Nee, V. and Stark, D. (1989): Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism. Stanford: S.U.P. Offe, K. ( 1995 ): "Progettare istituzioni per la transizione Est Europea, Stato e Mercato (forthcoming). Parker, M. (1992): "Post-modern organizations or postmodern organization theory," Organization Studies, 13/1: 1-17. Parsons, T. (1973): Sistemi di societa. Bologna: II Mulino. Parsons, T. (1966): Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Parsons, T. and Smelser, N. (1959): Economy and Society. London: Routledge.

Who Should Learn What?

41

Polany, K. (1974): Lagrande trasformazione. Torino: Einaudi. Raeff, M. (1982): Comprendre I'ancien regime russe. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Rueschemeyer, D. (1986): Power and the Division of Labour. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Rychard, A. (1993): Reforms, Adaptations, and Breakthrough. Warsaw: IFIS Publisher. Shlapentokh, V. (1989): Public and Private Life of Soviet People. Oxford: O.U.P. Skilling, H. G. and Griffiths, F. (1971): Interest Groups in Soviet Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Smelser, N. (1959): Social Change in the Industrial Revolution. London: Routledge. Smelser, N. (1992): "External and internal factors in the theory of social change," in Haferkampf, H., Smelser, N.J. (eds.), Social Change and Modernization. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stark, D. (1994): "Capitalismo su progetto? Nuove combinazioni tra pubblico e privato nell'Europa dell'Est". Stato e Mercato, 42: 301-321. Stark, D. (1989): "Bending the bars of the Iron Cage: Bureaucratization and informalization in capitalism and socialism," Sociological Forum, 4: 637-664. Sirianni, C. (1982): Workers Control and Socialist Democracy: The Soviet Experience. London: Verso. Sztompka, P. (1994): The Sociology of Social Change. Oxford: Blackwell. Sztompka, P. (1992): "Theoretical implications of a a-theoretical revolution," paper presented at the SCASS Seminar, University of Uppsala. Sztompka, P. (1991): Society in Action: The Theory of Social Becoming. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sztompka, P. (1989): "Social movements: structures in statu nascendi," Revue Internationale de Sociologie,2: 124-155. Timofeev, L. (1983): L 'arte del contadino difar la fame. Bologna: II Mulino. Tiryakian, E. (1994): Can Humpty-dumpty be put togheter again? (Rethinking modernity in a millenarian decade), paper prepared for the Daedalus Conference, Osundsbro, Sweden. Tiryakian, E. (1992) "Dialectics of modernity: reenchantment and de-differentiation as processes," in Haferkampf, Η., Smelser, Ν. Social Change and Modernity. Berkeley: U.C.P. Tiryakian, E. (1991): "Modernization: Exhumetur in peace (Rethinking macrosociology in the 1990s), International Sociology, 2 : 165-180. Tiryakian, E. (1985): "The changing centers of modernity," in Cohen, Ε., M. Lissak and U. Almagor (eds.), Comparative Social Dynamics: Essays in Honor ofShmuel Eisenstadt. Boulder: Westwiew Press. Trigilia, C. ( 1986 ): Grandipartiti epiccole imprese: comunisti e democristiani nelle regioni ad economia diffusa. Bologna: II Mulino. Tsoukas, H. (1994): "Socio-economic systems and organizational management: An institutional perspective on the socialist firm," Organization Studies, 1: 21-45. Turner, B. S. (ed) (1990): Theories of Modernity and postmodernity. London: SAGE. Walder, A. (1986): Communist Neotraditionalism. Work and Authority in Chinese Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Williamson, O. (1987, Le istituzioni economiche del capitalismo. Milano: F. Angeli. Winiecki, J. (1990): "Obstacles to economic reform of socialism: A property-right approach," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, vol. 507: 65-71.

Part One The Actors of Change

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy: The Problem of State-Dependent Workers Victor Zaslavsky

1 Soviet Society and the State-Dependent Worker The idea that Soviet society created its own, qualitatively different dominant type of personality has always belonged to the realm of Soviet propaganda. Written by top-ranking apparatchiks, books like Georgij Smirnov's The Soviet Man (Sovetskii chelovek, 1973) depicted a new Soviet man as an anthropological type endowed with all possible virtues. They were justly dismissed, or at best generated a number of satirical responses like Alexander Zinoviev's Homo Sovieticus (1985). Nevertheless, by the end of the 1970s, Soviet and East European social scientists had begun accepting the idea of Homo Sovieticus as worthy of scientific analysis. After all, it stood to reason that the specificity of Soviet society, which after the period of Stalinist system-building had moved to a new stage of system-maintenance with smoothly functioning and self-reproducing institutions, should have created a basic type of personality best adapted to this particular type of political organization and the economic reality of a centrally planned economy. Thus, having experimentally demonstrated fundamental differences in the evaluation of ethical compromise and confrontation by American and Soviet respondents, Vladimir Lefebvre has also suggested that Soviet society succeeded in creating its own normative type of personality. Tatyana Zaslavskaya and her collaborators on the famous Novosibirsk Report (1984: 105-106) came to the conclusion that the social type of worker fostered by the Soviet economic system "fails to correspond not only to the strategic aims of a developed socialist society, but also to the technological requirements of contemporary production". The most conspicuous defects of this social type were the lack of "conscientiousness, diligence, industriousness, responsibility, reliability, discipline, the ability to take independent decisions, including calculated risk". In the 1990s, the idea that Homo Sovieticus really exists and that this particular type of worker represents a major obstacle to the transition to a "normal" Western-type society has gained wide acceptance among Soviet intellectuals. As Mark KJiaritonov, a Moscow writer, has put it: "We have only begun

46

Victor Zaslavsky

to understand that the October revolution not only produced a new order with its own economic and political institutions, but also created a new, previously unknown civilization with its history and mythology, its own system of aesthetic and moral values, culture and literature. This society has not simply proclaimed its goal of creating a new man, but has actually achieved it" (Kharitonov 1990: 148). The thesis that Soviet society succeeded in forming and reproducing a new human archetype or a new anthropological type of Homo Sovieticus has found its empirical confirmation in a major study conducted by a leading Russian sociologist, Yuri Levada, (1992,1993) and his group from the Moscow Center for the Study of Public Opinion. In the past decade the idea that the populations of Soviet-type societies, after a long period of communist-style modernization, reveal certain deep-seated tendencies and attitudes has also been thoroughly analysed and confirmed in a number of sociological studies conducted in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Social Research 1-2, 1988; Marody 1991; Staniszkis 1991; Vishnevkij 1989). In this regard, the notion of society's economic culture as a "system of social values and norms which regulate economic behavior and function as social memory of economic development" (Ryvkina 1991: 110) - and a concomitant concept of a particular social type of worker with his "firmly adopted norms of behavior in the spheres of production, distribution, exchange and consumption" (Zaslavskaya 1984) - are especially helpful. The basic social type of worker forged by Soviet institutions and the Soviet way of life may be termed 'state-dependent', since the attitude towards work and the attitude towards state represent his/her two fundamental characteristics. On the one hand, the concept refers to specific work habits, an entire work ethic based on work avoidance rather than discipline and productivity, a general disdain for work in state-run sectors of the economy, the inability or unwillingness to take risks and exercise initiative. The state-dependent worker always values security over achievement, "the security being defined as absence of threats rather than presence of prospects of meeting one's needs" (Marody 1988: 101). On the other hand, the state-directed production and distribution of goods and rewards is intimately related to this state-dependent type of worker. The state is a benefactor and protector of state-dependent workers since it guarantees both job availability and job security and bestows privileges and benefits on some selected social groups according to a pre-conceived design. Using its position as the only employer and the dominant redistributive agency, the Soviet state created a hierarchical social structure in which power and privilege were determined exclusively by rank in the bureaucratic order. The state established administrative barriers between various social groups and introduced rules, quotas and limitations to control transfers from one group to another. In other words, it created and maintained political-administrative ascription to membership in major social groups and categories and supervised the penetra-

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy

47

bility of administrative barriers between different groups, thus regulating intergroup social mobility. In order to maximize the social surplus and fulfil politically determined priority tasks, the state treated certain social groups as strategically important by redistributing the social surplus in their favour. Policies creating high priority industrial plants (the so-called 'closed enterprises') or those creating privileged geographical locations (the so-called 'closed cities') may be cited as examples (Zaslavsky 1982: 139-147; Kordonskij 1989: 36-51). From the viewpoint of an individual forced to accept the rules of the game, this policy of the redistributive state destroyed incentives for productive work, since productivity and rewards became disconnected. State exploitation based on non-economic coercion was complemented with an arbitrary distribution of rewards. All this created a particular work ethic, wherein rewards did not depend on increased work effort and social advancement was unrelated to merit or productivity.

2 The Emergence of State Dependency as a Historical Process The Soviet command-administrative system succeeded in generating a corresponding type of state-dependent individual on a mass scale. The following historical processes have been especially important in this respect. • Certain social groups with strong ties to the market, comprising individuals largely responsive to market regulators of social activity - merchants, entrepreneurs, well-to-do peasants - have been eliminated, often physically destroyed. This process contributed to a greater socio-psychological homogeneity of Soviet society enhancing its "rural nexus" (Lewin 1991: 254-261) and the prevalence of the traditional type of personality generated by the conditions of the Russian peasant community. • Soviet modernization under Stalin was largely implemented by reactivating certain archaic, pre-capitalist patterns of social organization (Lewin 1985; Brzezinzki 1976). The twin policy of collectivization and forced industrialization deprived peasants of their status of free producers and resulted in the emergence of huge masses of uprooted migrants, the new Soviet lumpenproletariat (Khoros 1989: 100-101). But no mass unemployment followed, since at that stage of Soviet development the command economy was not only able to absorb the additional labour, but also to tie these workers to their productive units by coercive, non-economic means. Stalinist administration fought agrarian overpopulation by urbanizing and industrializing so-

48

Victor Zaslavsky

ciety and simultaneously transforming its population into state serfs or even state slaves (Klyamkin 1989: 226-228). • Peculiar effects of Soviet urbanization also contributed to the emergence of the state-dependent type of worker. In Stalin's time mass migration from the countryside to the city occurred very quickly, even explosively. Cities were flooded with rural migrants escaping from collective farms who were ready to work for subsistence wages provided by the mushrooming construction sites and industrial enterprises. This mass migration was not accompanied by a corresponding development of social infrastructure in the cities, since all investment was aimed to achieve high rates of accumulation and build heavy, particularly military, industry. Consequently, the civilizing and individualizing effects of urban life did not materialize. Instead, there emerged "a typically marginal, intermediary, 'barrack' subculture" (Starikov 1989:184) which combined partially preserved traditions of peasant community with the barely emerging values of urban civilization. Thus, the development of a Westernstyle urban type of personality, centred around individuality and self-awareness and subject to urban regulators of behaviour, has been effectively slowed if not entirely blocked. Moreover, notwithstanding the traditional link between cities and markets, Soviet urban dwellers have not been exposed to market relations. The urban population was subjected to the same state commands, propaganda, indoctrination, bureaucratic administration, and rigid external controls. • The Soviet state succeeded both in creating a huge network of powerful socializing institutions and in controlling the socialization process carried out by all other institutions. This provided the institutional base for moulding the basic type of personality inherited from pre-revolutionary Russia into a mass personality appropriate for the command industrial society. After the suppression of market-oriented individuals, the process of creating Homo Sovieticus continued with a selective reinforcement of such traits of the traditional personality as social passivity and obedience to the authorities. Certain characteristics and skills necessary for individuals operating in the conditions of industrial production were also encouraged. The years of Stalinism were the decisive period in the formation of the basic social type of worker of this new command-driven society. The same state-dependent personality whose main interests fell in the sphere of distribution and redistribution came to characterize the predominant types of the Soviet collective farmer, industrial worker, manager, administrator and member of the 'proletarian' technical and humanistic intelligentsia. • In the post-Stalin period, the Stalinist system demonstrated its resilience by further strengthening the predominance of heavy industry over consumer goods (Selyunin 1989: 153-178). The state-dependent type of worker was consolidated in the several generations that took part in the system of 'organized

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy

49

consensus', based on an implicit social contract between the political regime and the populace (Zaslavsky 1982; Haus loner 1987: 157-160). Unable and unwilling to rely on terror to maintain internal stability and continue extensive economic growth, the Soviet political leadership diverted a part of the economic surplus to establishing a social policy which guaranteed high levels of job security and low political prices for basic goods and housing, without compromising the priority position of the military-industrial complex. Moreover, the workers were granted the right to change their jobs at will. This resulted in the emergence of a peculiar semi-free labour market in which job turnover rather than higher productivity and better skills became the major bargaining resource of industrial workers. This system of organized consensus determined the fundamental norms, attitudes and expectations of the Soviet population, shaped its economic culture and contributed decisively to the creation and reproduction of the state-dependent personality. Granted, by Western standards the needs of Soviet workers were modest and their expectations remained low and malleable, but total job security and price stability as well as the guarantee of all basic benefits by the omnipotent state did become an inviolable norm of Soviet way of life and a principal precondition of the stable, consensual relations between the Soviet regime and the population. Egor Ligachev, Gorbachev's rival and the ex-leader of the conservative wing of the Communist party, was perfectly correct in asserting that "the most valuable aspect of our life has always been the Soviet people's confidence and security with regard to the future. This is what is called socialism or at least its essential characteristic" (quoted in Ogonek, 1990 16:6).

3 State-Dependent Worker and the Basic Social Groups Obviously the system of state dependence and bureaucratic redistribution that minimized the individual risk, guaranteed job availability, price stability and a largely egalitarian income policy, irrespective of productivity, worked against certain groups and individuals. It favoured blue-collar workers over white-collar professionals, workers employed in heavy industry over those in the service sector, mediocrity and obedience over exceptional skill, talent, education, enterpreneurial ability and motivation to innovate. It should not be understood, however, that the state-dependent type of worker was predominantly formed in the lower classes of Soviet society. One of the major unintended consequences of the 'command-administrative system' has been the destruction of the very will to work productively and the evolution of a peculiar alliance between low-

50

Victor Zaslavsky

skilled workers and incompetent managers administrators and scientists (Lisichkin 1987: 11). Soviet social scientists often refer to this process as the "lumpenization of the population" (Burlatski and Galkin 1985: 69) observable in all classes of Soviet society. Thus, according to Evgenij Starikov, the general lumpen-orientation directed at maintaining a stable or even increased level of consumption without additional work effort manifests itself in two major forms: the maximization of parasitic consumption characteristic of lumpennomenklatura and the egalitarian stabilization of consumption among subordinate social groups (Starikov 1989:169). As a result, having created this specific social type of state-dependent worker and having turned it into its major social base, the Soviet command-administrative system simultaneously created its 'gravediggers': huge masses of people who loathe competition and crave for stability, who are hostile to innovation and productive work and especially receptive to the ideology of egalitarianism, redistribution and 'social justice'. A resistance to change and the general lack of motivation to innovate characterize the patterns of group and individual behaviour at all levels of Soviet social structure. Obviously, Soviet society as an exceedingly complex form of organization generated a variety of social types of workers of which the state-dependent worker was only one, albeit the most representative. Russian sociologists often emphasise that the differentiation of popular attitudes towards a market economy is a function of age, education, creativity, readiness to take risk, and other ascribed or achieved individual characteristics. It is evident that people with opposite attitudes towards marketization may be found among members of the same social group (Zaslavskaya 1988: 25). It is also evident, however, that the proportion of state-dependent workers varies considerably according to the character of work, as well as the structural position and corresponding interests of different social groups and strata of Soviet society. Russian economists have already identified the strongest anti-market forces in "those workers and collective farmers who not only adapted to the conditions of social passivity, inertia and economic leveling, but also learned to profit from the prevailing labor shortages" (Maevsky 1990: 25). A better understanding of the popular resistance to marketization and privatization may be reached by analysing Soviet collective farmers, low-skilled manual workers and skilled workers of the military-industrial complex as those mass groups which still contain an unusually high proportion of this particular social type of worker. Soviet Collective Farmers. In the years from 1970 to 1985 the Soviet Union proved to be virtually the only country where no increase in agricultural production, in particular the grain harvest, was achieved (Chernichenko 1989: 4). Russian scholars are unanimous in explaining the collapse of Soviet agriculture as a result of the 'de-peasantization' of the country and the lumpenization of the collective farmers. The collective farm system totally destroyed the traditional

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy

51

peasant work ethic. Several generations of Soviet peasants lived under a virtual 'second serfdom'. Having tied them to collective farms by denying the right to geographical mobility, the Soviet state mercifully exploited them. Correspondingly, work on collective farms was, on the whole, extremely wasteful and unproductive, since work avoidance, foot dragging, indifference and apathy remained the only defence against the exploitative state. Certainly, the collective farm was not the only agent responsible for the Soviet peasant work ethic. After all, Soviet agriculture was a symbiosis of the socialized sector and the personal plot which peasants freely cultivated to produce for the marketplace (Wadekin 1973). The collective farm signified "de-articulazation of the socialist mode of production", as Jadwiga Staniszkis put it, insofar as the state sector had to rely on supplementary economic structures and to allow a limited amount of private enterprise (Staniszkis 1990:180-182). Under such conditions, one might expect the emergence of contradictory behavioural attitudes, whereby "the devaluation of work in the state-run sector of the economy is accompanied by emphatic appreciation of work done on one's own account and seen as a means of improving one's financial standing" (Marody 1988). Indeed, such mutually contradictory work habits and attitudes displayed by people in their public and private lives became very pronounced in Soviet-type societies of Eastern Europe (Wedel 1990), and among some groups of the Soviet population, especially those taking active part in the 'second economy'. This development, however, only marginally affected the majority of collective farmers. An almost complete lack of mechanization and the necessity of work overtime on the personal plots made this minimal form of private entrepreneurship quite unattractive for peasants. As Lev Timofeev pointed out, "the miniscule size of the personal plot and the attendant compulsory labour on a collective or state farm, strict control over foraging, lack of agricultural equipment, prohibitions on intensive use of the land, a strict prohibition on private partnerships and cooperatives - all this prevents the peasant from becoming an independent operator" (Timofeev 1985: 71). The predominance of the state-dependent type of worker among the collective farm population has been reinforced by a constant exodus of the most energetic and enterprising members of each generation from the countryside. This out-migration drained the collective farms of the best labour resources. Moreover, since all major avenues of escape, such as military service or the system of organized recruitment for work in remote parts of the country, favoured exclusively or predominantly young males, it created a strong imbalance between the sexes in the countryside. In the post-Stalin era, the formation of the state-dependent type of worker among the collective farmers was completed through the introduction of the guaranteed minimum wage and social benefits which were given by the state to all collective farmers, irrespective of their productivity. As a result, as Anatolij

52

Victor Zaslavsky

Strelyanyj (1989: 133-134) observes, after decades of'second serfdom', Soviet peasants reconciled themselves to the Stalinist collectivization. New generations raised on collective farms, unfamiliar with any other way of life, came to accept as a norm this minimal security in exchange for minimal work effort. As a noted Soviet agricultural expert concludes, "the social psychology of the collective farmer characterized by inertia, passivity and apathy has been formed by the decades-long suppression of peasant initiative" (Shmelev 1988: 25). Today, the Russian press is full of examples of members of collective farms returning to individual farming but failing, even in quite favourable conditions, to act as responsible farmers operating successful individual farms (Mindubaev 1991: 7). As Frederic Pryor, on the basis of his comparative analysis of collectivization in various Soviet-type regimes, has concluded, Soviet collective farms may prove to be one of Stalin's few lasting legacies, since it is difficult to reverse the system where it "has been in existence for several decades and where the level of agricultural technology used on the farms has become relatively high" (Pryor 1991:24). Voluntary decollectivization of agriculture will probably be achieved only after a generational change when state-dependent workers have left the historical scene by attrition. Low-skilled industrial workers. The most salient feature of Soviet arrested industrialization has been the permanent presence of a huge group of low-skilled workers engaged in heavy manual labour. In the last years of Soviet society's existence they numbered over 50 million, or about 40% of the labour force, the figure remaining unchanged since the late 1960s (Voprosy Ekonomiki 1989, 4: 18). Soviet low-skilled manual workers have been the major beneficiaries of the 'social compromise' between the regime and the working class. Under the conditions of full employment and considerable labour turnover they were able to extract concessions from factory administrations simply by exercising their right to change jobs at will. The bargaining power of low-skilled workers might be seen in the widespread practice of so-called 'vyvodilovka' when the enterprise administration was forced artificially to raise wage levels, regardless of the worker's contribution, to keep him or her in its employ (Berliner 1988: 285). This practice became one of the basic social norms within Soviet economic culture (Ryvkina 1991: 111). Low-skilled workers stuck to their obsolete jobs and relatively high rewards, seen as a fair compensation for heavy and unprestigious work. In many cases they were unable and unwilling to raise their skills or undergo painful retraining to become competitive in the marketplace. The conservative role of this stratum in Soviet history was already evident in the mid-60s, when the abandonment of the so-called 'Kosygin reform' was to a considerable degree caused by the combined resistance of both the Soviet bureaucracy and low-skilled workers. Russian economists justifiably pointed out that "a tremendous inertia of this huge group within the working class represents a major obstacle to a transition to a

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy

53

market economy" (Abalkin and Volin 1988: 10). According to Viktor Yaroshenko, "the political pressure of huge strata of workers tied to their jobs by habit, obedience, company housing or the place on the housing waiting list or, even firmer, by low skills or bad records" would be increasingly felt by Russian society (Yaroshenko 1990: 127). Skilled workers of the military-industrial complex. Low-skilled workers' hostility towards marketization has always been taken for granted. The experience of the 1990s has demonstrated that the most skilled segments of the population also have many reservations concerning economic innovation and reform. In principle, skilled and educated industrial workers are those to whom the programme of economic reforms offers the most, and they are expected to give it full support (Ruble 1987: 171). Industrial workers have become the predominant group in society and, despite the disproportionate high share of manual labourers in their ranks, the educational and skill levels of Soviet workers have noticeably increased (Lewin 1988: 43-55). Furthermore, "higher levels of education are accompanied by skills which are readily transferable to a variety of institutional environments" (Ruble 1987: 175). The correctness of this observation is confirmed by the fact that the education and skills of the members of cooperatives, a prototypical form of free enterprise in Russia, are noticeably higher than the country's average. Directors of state enterprises constantly complain that they lose their best workers to cooperatives. All the same, Russian social scientists are not confident about strong support for marketization among the majority of skilled workers. Thus, many sociologists insist that the present social structure of Russian society remains ' 'the main obstacle in the way of Perestroika" (Kordonski 1989: 40-41; Ryvkina 1989: 85-89) and specifically point to stratification by type of industry and enterprise as one of the main pillars of the state-controlled system of stratification. In particular, analysis of the activity of the so-called 'closed enterprises' as a specific form of organization of production in the Soviet military-industrial complex may help understanding of how the state-dependent worker is generated and maintained among the most skilled and best educated groups of industrial workers (Zaslavsky 1982, 1985). The glasnost period removed the veil of secrecy from this essential component of the Soviet economy, and much more has become known about the sheer size of the military-industrial complex, as well as the conditions of work and corporative interests of its workers. According to the estimates of prominent Russian economists, Soviet military spending may have accounted for 18% to 25% or even 30% of Soviet GNP (Gurevitch 1990: 6; Pear 1990: 6; Pervushin 1991: 9). Glasnost finally dispelled the popular myth that the military industry, as the only competitive sector of the Soviet economy, represented its major innovative impulse and an important source of hard currency earnings. Soviet mass media had already disseminated the knowledge that Soviet arms deliveries to the Third World had not been paid for and never would be. Scientists with

54

Victor Zaslavsky

first hand experience of the military-industrial complex have described how the top priority accorded to military industry by the Soviet system permitted it to monopolize the best material and labour resources of the country and then successfully suffocate technological progress, first within the civilian and eventually the same military sectors of the economy. As Evgenij Kuznetsov and Felix Shirokov wrote: "Total secrecy became state policy in the overwhelming majority of enterprises engaged in science-intensive production. Not only did the transfer of technology to the civilian sector become impossible, but the very realization of innovations by the defense sector became problematic. Ideas would be developed into a working prototype and then disappear in the bureaucratic maze of the military-industrial complex" (Kuznetsov and Shirokov 1989: 19). The workers in closed enterprises were always a sort of'labour aristocracy' of Soviet society. Higher wages and greater fringe benefits, better organization of labor and the most advanced technology employed at the military plants attracted the best labour force available (Holloway 1982). True, they obtained all these advantages at the price of submitting to especially tight surveillance by the secret police and abandoning their right to change jobs at will - the major bargaining resource of other categories of industrial workers in Soviet society. As a result, there emerged a group of skilled workers whose obedience and docility were amply compensated by various material and psychological benefits. These specific conditions of employment neutralized the reformist potential of workers in the military-industrial complex who otherwise should have been among the most convinced supporters of reforms by virtue of their superior education and skill level. The state dependency of these workers manifests itself in their vested interest in a strong state and central planning as necessary conditions for the continuation of the unassailable priority assigned to the military-industrial complex. Marketization threatens these workers with a deterioration in their standard of living and a considerable decline in social status. As Ovsej Shkaratan, a Russian sociologist, has put it, "workers of military industry, formerly an elite group with highest living standards, now become 'poor relations' of the incipient market economy, outsiders in social life" (Shkaratan 1990: 10). Consequently, skilled workers in military enterprises, together with their directors and managers, those "fat cats of Soviet industry", as reformist economist Pavel Bunich called them (Bunich 1990: 29), represent a strong and wellorganized anti-market force in Soviet society. Soviet reformers and the population at large are well aware of this fact. Characteristically, when the delegates at the First Congress of Independent Labour Movements, held in Siberia in May 1990, discussed the role of closed enterprises they specifically demanded that these enterprises be placed under the control of democratically elected legislators and become subject to market regulations. They also called for the return of

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy

55

the right to strike to workers in the military-industrial complex. {Russkaya Mysl 1990: 15).

4 State-dependent Workers and Social Mobilization in Soviet Society Since the very beginning of perestroika, the indifference and passive hostility of the part of this 'silent majority' of Soviet society has slowed the pace of reforms and impeded the radical measures required by the deepening crisis. The presence of a strong resistance to marketization was very pronounced during the Gorbachev era. This resistance was not confined to the former party-state apparatus and large strata of the Soviet bureaucracy; rather, the Soviet population at large expressed reservations and fears about the prospects of marketization. At that time Nikolai Petrakov, a leading Soviet economist and Gorbachev's council concluded that "no more than a third of the population is in favor of a market orientation" (Petrakov 1990:1). Characteristically, in the last years of his presidency Gorbachev himself repeatedly complained that the Soviet system had created a passive and apathetic working class which had lost any interest in productive work. State dependency continued to condition the attitudes and behaviour of the millions of workers, engineers, scientists and managers employed by the military-industrial complex. As Erik Whitlock in his study of defence conversion in St. Petersburg concludes, "defense industry managers have shown themselves incapable of dealing adequately with the new economic environment and the opportunities presented them. They have waited too long to move aggressively into the manufacturing of new product lines, in the expectation that the state would intervene and provide financial support" (Whitlock 1993: 22). If transition to a market economy could be accomplished gradually, over a lifespan of several generations, with the central government maintaining law, order, and territorial integrity of the country, Russian reformers would be tempted to rely on the exit of state-dependent workers by attrition. But time works against such a wait-and-see approach, since at this stage leaving the socialist economy with its huge military-industrial complex to its own ways would rapidly relegate the country to the Third World. Moreover, the deepening systemic crisis leaves Russian leaders no other choice but to follow the path of market reforms. When the conservative Russian parliament replaced Prime Minister Gaidar, the proponent of a 'shock therapy' policy, with a representative of the old Soviet apparatus, Chernomyrdin, the new head of government, whatever his personal preferences, was forced to follow a political and economic course similar to that of his

56

Victor Zaslavsky

predecessor. Analogously, the Polish neo-communists who skilfully exploited popular dissatisfaction with the hardships of market reforms and won the 1993 elections have rapidly discovered that any reversal of the marketization and privatization course would plunge the Polish economy into a severe crisis. It becomes increasingly clear that the systemic crisis that hit Soviet-type societies has a logic of its own and that the responsible government's options to cope with this crisis are very limited. In a recent study of the population's attitudes toward income differentiation and social stratification, Russian sociologists have singled out three main groups of respondents, corresponding to the following main types of workers (VTSIOM Report 1993: 5-11; 75). The first group, to which slightly more than 50% of the respondents belong and which includes the majority of state-dependent workers, is mainly interested in job security and "even low but guaranteed income". The second group, which includes about one-third of the respondents, is characterized by their predominant orientation toward high income, being much less concerned with job security. Finally, the third group - 10% to 15% of the respondents - is mainly interested in new forms of income from entrepreneurship and property ownership. This study, together with other surveys conducted by the Moscow Center for the Study of Public Opinion, illuminates a deep polarization of Russian society. The second and third types of worker represent the social base of the economic reform, while the first group, still numerically dominant in the Russian society, constitutes the base of diffuse resistance to reform. It is important to note, however, that one of the major trends in the evolution of post-Soviet Russia is the current shift from state-dependency to individual entrepreneurship with a corresponding change in popular attitudes toward work, income differentiation and social stratification. It is impossible to trace here all the numerous causes and complex consequences of this shift. The following social and demographic changes have to be briefly mentioned, however. First, state-dependent workers are for obvious reasons concentrated in the older age-cohorts, while the new generation has been formed in the period of the terminal decline of Soviet society that generated the types of personality quite different from the modal type of Homo Sovieticus. Second, the removal of rigid state controls over wages and the legitimation of new forms of income earning from property and individual entrepreneurship generate drastic changes in people's attitudes toward mobility, productivity and personal initiative. The present conditions of slow but steady privatization and marketization are beginning to favour those individuals who by virtue of their superior skills, industriousness, creativity, or entrepreneurial capabilities are eager to work in the competitive environment of a market economy. Most importantly, the Soviet systemic crisis has definitely disrupted the reproduction of the state-dependent type of worker, since the cost of social policies and arrangements designed to maintain internal stability by generating this social type can no longer be met. The

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy

57

state can no longer subsidize the unprofitable branches of industry and single enterprises. The fate of the military-industrial complex is emblematic. As Peter Almquist concluded, in mid-1993 "the defense industry of the former Soviet Union has collapsed. While individual factories and organizations continue to exist, the unifying leadership, special status, and priority access to resources that the defense sector formerly enjoyed have been partially or completely dismantled" (Almquist 1993: 40-41). As to the status of military research, "the system of guaranteed support that established military might and technological prowess during the cold war has virtually collapsed... Worst off are the scientific institutes that did a high proportion of defense work; according to one estimate, military research was cut by 80% between 1991 and 1992" (Beardsley 1993: 93-94). This collapse did not result from a consistent conversion policy; rather, it happened by default, for the Russian central government was no longer in a position to provide the necessary investments for the military industries. What is the reaction of state-dependent workers to these new conditions?

5 Basic Modes of Crisis-Adaptation In the course of the last decade, the population of Russia developed several basic modes of adaptation to the crisis situation. The most promising mode, which might be termed entrepreneurial adaptation and is based on seizing new opportunities to create private or cooperative enterprises or to engage in productive economic activity individually, is not yet very pronounced. The 'second economy' mode of adaptation, when new enterprises and cooperatives exploit the weaknesses of the Soviet redistributive economy while remaining basically dependent on it, has been on the rise. Economists have different, sometimes contrasting opinions about the utility of the attitudes and skills acquired in the second economy for the development of a market economy. Robert Heilbronner justifiably warns against confusing "black market hucksterism with business acumen", since "hucksterism does not develop the attitudes of innovation and management that modern corporate life requires, much less the skills of accountancy or finance" (Heilbronner 1991). Another typical mode of crisis adaptation, well known from East European experience, is a reversion to the subsistence economy. This practice of naturalizing consumption, increasingly relying on kinship and friendship networks and trying to attain modern society aspirations by means characteristic of traditional societies has been aptly called "forced traditionalism" (Marody 1991:229). It simultaneously reduces state dependency and creates conditions for the further archaization of society. Finally, workers attempt to maintain their habitual standard of living and way of life simply by

58

Victor Zaslavsky

sticking to the old structures and institutions, to obsolete and often useless gigantic industrial plants which continue to pay wages, provide social security benefits, however inadequate, and generate revenues for the goverment, at the cost of an ever-increasing waste of natural and human resources. This is the most typical form of crisis adaptation on the part of the state-dependent labour force. Obviously, state-dependent workers with their distorted work ethic and reliance on the state for benefits and privileges feel increasingly threatened by these new conditions of general crisis and market transition. Now, as the reforms unfold in the conditions of a largely democratic polity that gives people the opportunity and the means to express their opinions, the voice of state-dependent workers is increasingly being heard. At this new stage, a variety of collective social actions and even full-fledged social movements have sprung up in Russian society. Some of these are promoting liberalization and democratization, while others take a profoundly conservative and anti-market position. The political reawakening of the Russian population is evident in today's mass consolidation and mobilization around liberaldemocratic, populist, and right-wing nationalist programmes. Analysing these forms of mass mobilization and the role of state-dependent workers within them, the populist response, and 'state populism' in particular, should be singled out as the most typical reaction on the part of state-dependent workers to the failure of the central state to protect their interests.

6 State Populism in the Russian Republic In the Russian case we are dealing with a political populism that can be simultaneously discussed as an ideology, a social movement, "a sort of recurring mentality appearing in different historical and geographical contexts as the result of a special social situation", and a specific political psychology (Canovan 1981; Ionescu and Gellner 1969).This political phenomenon has appeared in Soviet society with the emergence of the preconditions necessary for translating popular sentiments, stereotypes, and values into practical programs of political and economic action. Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner have pointed out that populism as such could be characterized "by a particular negativism - it was αηίΓ (Ionescu and Gellner 1969: 3) - and the common denominator of the modern Russian political populism is precisely its tremendous hatred of the Soviet bureaucracy, especially the party-state apparatus. Consequently, from 1989 onwards in almost all free elections, candidates supported by the party apparatus have been defeated, while those known for their rebellion against the apparatus - from Boris Yeltsin expelled from the Politburo, to the former KGB General

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy

59

Oleg Kalugin, stripped of his rank and decorations - have overwhelmingly won seats in the legislature. Apart from this universal "hatred for the old" (Popov 1990), populism initially had little or nothing in the way of a positive programme, pressing instead for a bunch of contradictory and confused demands. Anti-bureaucratic hatred and calls for social justice, understood as the abolition of bureaucratic privileges and the redistribution of wealth and property, often easily coexist with resolute resistance against free enterprise and market competition. Thus, populists demand rigid state controls overprices, but simultaneously crave an abundance of consumer goods, possible only in market conditions, and end up by supporting rationing and the bureaucracy needed to administer it. Similarly, demands for full employment and job security go hand in hand with strong anti-cooperative sentiments and calls for abolition of the very same cooperatives that might create necessary jobs. Contemporary Russian populism reflects "deep-seated tendencies in a society given its present shape by decades of communist-style modernization" (Bauman 1989). The practical non-viability of the socialist model realized in Soviet society does not negate the fact that the Soviet way of life that characterized the period of society's relative stability conformed with familiar practice, patterns of habitual behaviour and ideals of the state-dependent groups. Under the conditions of privatization and marketization "entire branches of industry, let alone single enterprises, feel threatened by the unfolding reforms" (Yaroshenko 1990: 127). The reaction of their personnel takes the form of a 'state populism' that easily aligns itself with right-wing nationalism. Significantly, the principal populist demands coincide with the basic conditions of the post-Stalin social compromise between the party-state and the workers, wherein workers' docility, low expectations and abdication from politics were compensated by price stability, complete job security and a modest growth in the standard of living (Bialer 1988: 264). State populists insist on preserving state ownership of the means of production as the predominant form of ownership in Soviet society and place their hopes in a strong paternalistic state responsible for job security and 'social justice'. Their attitudes are characterized by a considerable distrust for intellectuals and criticism of the authorities for corruption, rather than mismanagement of the economy. Their understanding of social justice is nothing but "a compliance with the established hierarchy of power and privilege" (Levada and Notkina 1989: 19) or an implicit justification of the existing state-engineered system of stratification which assigns high priority to heavy and especially military industry. They disapprove of all attempts at privatization, from the creation of cooperatives to the reintroduction of private property. They are acutely aware that the marketization of price and wage structures threatens both their employment security and benefit packages. The enterprises of the military-industrial complex are especially vulnerable to any structural change in the system of priorities arising from cost-benefit

60

Victor Zaslavsky

analyses or market considerations. Active participation by the closed enterprises' workers in the state populist movement is, therefore, to be expected. Thus, both leaders and rank-and-file members of the conservative United Workers' Front of Russia, whose programme is the purest expression of state populism, are to be found among the workers of the military-industrial complex. Correspondingly, sociological studies demonstrate that the popular base of state populism is located in cities, such as Sverdlovsk or St. Petersburg with an especially high concentration of'closed enterprises' (Gordon 1990; Domnysheva 1990: 57). As a result, state populism tends to prop up the traditional structures of the Soviet state, which have been desperately seeking to retain their positions in the period of reforms. Such an alliance between state populism and official trade unions has already sparked a number of local strikes, especially in the largest cities where municipal power passed to the reformers. As Gavriil Popov has noted, the same official trade unions that forbade their members to strike for the past seventy years "are now the leading fighters for the right to strike and the main organizers of the strikes that take place" (Popov 1990: 27). State populism has been strongly affected by the final disintegration of the Soviet central state. Moreover, the failure of the August 1991 coup and the armed suppression of the October 1993 Moscow riot delivered severe blows to all leading groups and structures of the old order, from the Communist Party and its functionaries, to the disbanded Soviets, to the upper echelons of the military and the KGB to the military-industrial complex and its leaders. The victory of the reformist forces which coalesced around Yeltsin also signified an obvious defeat for the state populists who placed their trust and hopes in official institutions. As the December 1993 elections have demonstrated, however, the state populists rapidly recovered from this defeat and successfully reorganized the state populist movement in the form of a united political opposition to reforms. The rise of the anti-democratic and anti-reformist 'red-brown' coalition of right-wing nationalists and communists testifies that, as the reformist policy of the Russian government unfolds amidst the conditions of continuing economic hardship, the voice of state populism will be increasingly heard.

References Abalkin, L. and Pavel Volin, (1988): "Lekarstva dlya ekonomiki". Literaturnava gazeta, 2 November. Almquist, P. (1993): "Arms Producers Struggle to Survive as Defense Orders Shrink". RFEJRL Research Report, 2: 25. Bauman, Z. (1989): "A World Unmade". Times Literary Supplement, 24-30 November. Beardsley, T. (1993): "Selling to Survive". Scientific American, February. Berliner, J. (1988): Soviet Industry From Stalin to Gorbachev. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bialer, S. (1988): "Gorbachev's Program of Change", in Seweryn Bialer and Michael Mandelbaum, (eds.), Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy. Boulder, Colorado: Westview.

Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy

61

Brzezinski, Z. (1976): "Soviet Politics: From the Future to the Past?", in P. Cocks, R. Daniels, N. W. Heer (eds.), The Dynamics of Soviet Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bunich, P. (1990): "Chto mozhet pravitelstvo? Chto khochet narod?" Ogonek, 18. Burlatski; F. and A. Galkin (1985): Sovremennyi Leviafan. Moscow: Politizdat. Chemichenko, Y. (1989): "Requiem po Murakhovskomu". Moskovskie Novosti, 39. Conovan, M. (1981): Populism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Domnysheva, E. (1990): "The Leading Role of Leningrad". Business in the USSR, 4. Ekonomicheskie i sotsialnye peremeny. Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniva (1993): VTSIOM Report 4. Gordon, L. A Presentation at the World Congress on Soviet and East European Studies, Harrogate (England), 23 July 1990. Gurevich, V. (1990): "Kakogo my rosta". Moskovskie novosti, 20. Hauslohner, P. (1987):"Gorbachev's Social Contract". Soviet Economy, 3: 1. Heilbronner, R. (1991): "Rough Roads to Capitalism". The New York Times, 15 September. Holloway, D. (1982): "Innovation in the Defence Sector", in Ronald Amman, Julian Cooper (eds.) Industrial Innovation in the Soviet Union. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ionescu, G., Ernest Gellner (1969): "Introduction", in Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner (eds.), Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Kharitonov, M. (1990): "Literature posle perestroiki". Strana i mir, 3. Khoros, V. G. (1989): "Istoricheskij perekrestok sotsializma", in V. P. Kiselev, I. M. Klyamkin (eds.), Sotsializm: protivorechiva sistemv, Moscow: IEMSS. Klyamkin, I. M. (1989): "Pochemu pobezhdayut utopii", in V. P. Kiselev, I. M. Klyamkin (eds.), Sotsializm: protivorechiva sistemv, Moscow: IEMSS. Kordonskij, S. G. (1989): "Sotsialnayastruktura i mekhanizm tormozheniya", in F. M. Borodkin, L. Ya. Kosais, R. V. Ryvkina (eds.), Postizhenie: Sotsiologiva, sotsialnava politika, ekonomicheskava reforma. Moscow: Progress. Kuznetsov, E. and Felix Shirokov, (1992): "Naukoemkie proizvodstva i konversiya oboronnoj promyshlennosti". Kommunist, 10. Lefebvre, V.(1982): Algebra of Conscience. A Comparative Analysis of Western and Soviet Ethical Systems. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company. Levada A. and T. A. Notkina, (1989): "Mera vsekh veshchej", in A. G.Vishnevslkij (ed.), (1989): V chelovecheskom izmerenii. Moscow: Progress Levada, J. (1992): Die Sowietmenschen 1989-1991. Soziogramm eines Zerfalls. Berlin: Argon. Levada, Y. (ed.) (1993): Sovetskiiprostoi chelovek. Opyt sotsialnogoportreta na rubezhe 90-kh godov. Moscow: VTSIOM. Lewin, Μ. (1985): The Making of the Soviet System: Essays in the Social Theory of Interwar Russia. New York: Pantheon Books. Lewin, Μ. (1988): The Gorbachev Phenomenon. A Historical Interpretation. Berkeley: University of California. Lewin, Μ. (1991): "Russia/USSR in Historical Motion: An Essay in Interpretation". The Russian Review, 50:3. Lisichkin, G. (1987): "Stoskoj ο ravenstve". Literaturnaya gazeta, 24 June. Maevsky, V. (1990): "Reguliruemyj rynok: perspektivy sotsialno-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya strany". Voprosv ekonomiki, 6. Marody, M. (1988): "Antinomies of Collective Subconsciousness". Social Research, 55: 1-2. Marody, M. (1991): "The Political Attitudes of Polish Society in the Period of Systematic Transitions" Praxis International, 11:2. Mindubaev, Z. (1991): "Khochu nazad ν Agrogulag". Literaturnava gazeta, 18 September, p. 7. Pear, R. (1990): "Soviet Experts Say Their Economy Is Worse Than U.S. Has Estimated". The New York Times. 24 April. Pervushin, S. (1991): "Ob odnoj iz glubinnykh prichin krizisnogo sostoyaniya sovetskoj ekonomiki". Voprosy ekonomiki, 8. Petrakov, N. (1990):"Choice and Will". Business in the USSR, 3.

62

Victor Zaslavsky

Popov, G. (1990): "Dangers of Democracy". The New York Review of Books, 16 August. Pryor, F. (1991): "When Is Collectivization Reversible?" Studies in Comparative Communism 24:1, 1991. Ruble, Β. (1987): "The Social Dimensions of Perestroika", Soviet Economy, 3: 2. Ryvkina, R. V (1991): "Ekonomicheskaya kultura", in T. Zaslavskaya and R. V. Ryvkina, Sotsiologiva ekonomicheskoi zhizni, Moscow: Nauka. Ryvkina, R.V. (1989): "Sotsialnaya struktura obshchestva kak regulyator razvitiya ekonomiki", in Τ. I. Zaslavskaya, R.V. Ryvkina, Ekonomicheskava sotsiologiva iperestroika. Moscow: Progress. Selyunin, V. (1989): "Chernye dyry ekonomiki". Novyl mir, 10. Shkaratan, O. (1990): "Perestroika and the Rise of Mass Nationalism in the USSR", paper presented at the International Conference "Nationalism and Perestroika" at the W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union, Columbia University, 16-17 October 1990. Shmelev, G. (1988): "Ne smet' komandovat". Oktiabr', 2. Smirnov, G. (1973): Sovetskii chelovek. Formirovanie sotsialistichesko tipa lichnosti. second ed., Moscow: Poiitizdat. Staniszkis, J. (1990): "Poland's Economic Dilemma: 'De-Articulation' or 'Ownership Reform'", in Stanislaw Gomulka, Anthony Polonsky (eds.), Polish Paradoxes. London-New York: Routledge. Staniszkis, J. (1991): The Dynamics of the Breakthrough in Eastern Europe: the Polish Experience. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press. Starikov, Ε. N. "Marginally", in A. G. Vishnevskij, (ed.) (1989): V chelovecheskom izmerenii. Moscow: Progress Strelyanyj, A. (1989): "Vokrug raskrestyanivaniya. Materialy kruglogo stola", in A. Vishnevskij, (ed.) (1989): Vchelovecheskom izmerenii. Moscow: Progress. Timofeev, L. (1985): Soviet Peasants. New York: Telos Press. Vishnevskij, A. G.(ed.) (1989): Vchelovecheskom izmerenii. Moscow: Progress. Wadekin, Κ. E. (1973): The Private Sector in Soviet Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wedel, J. (1990): "The Ties That Bind in Polish Society", in Stanislaw Gomulka, Anthony Polonsky (eds.), Polish Paradoxes. London-New York: Routledge. Whitlock, E. (1993): "Defense Conversion and Privatization in St. Petersburg". RFE/RL Research Report, 2:24. Yaroshenko, V. (1990): "Partii interesov". Nowi mir, 2. Zaslavskaya, T. (1984): "The Novosibirsk Report". Survey, 28: 1. Zaslavskaya, T. (1988): "O strategii sotsialnogo upravleniya perestroikoj", in Y. Afanasiev (ed.), Inogo ne dano. Moscow: Progress. Zaslavsky, V. (1982): II consenso organizzato. La societa sovietica negli anni di Breznev. Bologna: II Mulino. Zaslavsky, V. (1982): The Neo-Stalinist State. Class. Ethnicity, and Consensus in Soviet Society. Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe. Zaslavsky, V. (1985): "Le 'complexe militaro-industriel' en Union Sovietique". Commentaire,3\. Zaslavsky, V. op. cit., pp. 22-43; Zinoviev, A. (1985): Homo Sovieticus. London: Victor Gollancz.

New Entrepreneurs: Continuity or Change in Russian Economy and Society? Cristiano Codagnone

1 Introduction Until 1986, in the Soviet Union, the state monopolized economic activity, while an 'illegal' and more or less tolerated underground economy flourished. Today, after eight years of economic reforms, legal private economic institutions function in post-Soviet Russia: joint-stock companies, limited partnerships, individual enterprises, holdings, and various forms of private conglomerates. Under these new law-reforms all sorts of previously unknown types of businesses appeared: commodity and stock exchanges, real estate companies, private commercial banks, trading houses, financial brokers, show businesses, public relations agencies, tourism, consulting firms, law-firms, along with the production of software and new consumer goods. In practice, as suggested by Borocz and Rona-Tas (1994), all the functioning economic units in the Russian economy and other post-communist societies can be divided into three sectors: • The state sector: enterprises still owned by the state; • The privatized sector: companies that have passed into 'private' hands through state run privatization processes; • The private sector: enterprises originally created as private. The subject of this paper are the new entrepreneurs who founded enterprises in the latter sector. Relying on my own empirical research into large, medium and small Russian entrepreneurs, (Codagnone 1994 and 1993) as well as on the work of other researchers (Babayeva 1990; Bunin 1993; Grishenko 1992; Kryshtanovskaya 1991 and 1992; Radayev 1993), I will discuss to what extent these new entrepreneurs are agents of actual social and cultural change and modernization or continuity with the Soviet past. Before proceeding further, I must clarify the use of the term 'entrepreneur' to refer to individuals who have founded and operate private businesses in Russia.

64

Cristiano Codagnone

The word 'entrepreneur', being central in the social fiction of any society, is often used in a generic sense for a large number of individuals but carries some peculiar connotations that do not apply to all of them. Not everyone running a business may be called an entrepreneur, but only those who run it in a particular way. This lack of agreement about the meaning is not only typical of common usage, but characterizes scholars of the phenomenon as well. In the more theoretical literature on entrepreneurship we find several distinct ideal-typical definitions of the entrepreneur usually in terms of functions and behavior regardless of his or her institutional and social position. Furthermore, ideal-typical definitions are often difficult to use in empirical research where historically and institutionally concrete definitions usually switch to the generic 'businessman'. The ideal-typical definition par excellence is that of Schumpeter (1911,1934), for whom the entrepreneur is the individual who carries out "new combinations of means of production". This definition is at the same time broader and narrower than a more institutional one that would see the entrepreneur as the owner/ operator of an enterprise. For Schumpeter entrepreneurs can be employees, managers, or members of the board of directors as long as they fulfill innovative functions. On the other hand, it excludes heads of enterprises that simply operate established businesses. In my empirical research, on which this paper relies, I did not use the strict ideal-typical definition of the entrepreneur as the person who introduces totally new products or technologies into the economy. As I was interested in the study of entrepreneurs as a new social group I analyzed those who spear-head and formulate the most important decisions in the institutions of the new business sector. In general, can Russian entrepreneurs be considered Schumpeterian innovators? It could be argued that the concept of innovation is socially embedded and relative and that those individuals who left their secure state jobs in Soviet Russia between 1986 and 1988 - when the destiny of economic reforms was uncertain - to start a private business in a very hostile environment were courageous social innovators. On the other hand, I would argue that most new Russian entrepreneurs, especially at the early beginning between 1986 and 1988, are better described by the definition espoused by Izrael Kirzner (1979, 1985, 1989) rather than that of Schumpeter. For Kirzner the crucial characteristic of the entrepreneur is 'alertness', namely the ability to interpret and exploit opportunities for profit in a turbulent market. Russian private entrepreneurs may be seen as arbitrageurs who exploited the new opportunities opened up after 1986 in the interstices of the shortage economy, rather than Schumpeterian 'creative destructors'. This, however, does not mean that we are dealing with mere 'merchants' rather than entrepreneurs. Analyzing the modern contents of entrepreneurship Gerschenkron (1966) distinguished modern entrepreneurs from the merchants

New Entrepreneurs

65

of the pre-industrial era because: 1) They have a longer 'time horizon', and 2) their entrepreneurial activity is a stable occupation lasting all their lives. The activity of traditional merchants was more casual and it was not uncommon for them to leave their businesses and use the capital they accumulated to buy land and enter the ranks of the gentry. From my research I can conclude that private entrepreneurs in Russia consider their activity as a stable occupation to which they dedicate all their energies. On the other hand, because few of them have managed to enter industrial production and because of the current condition of high inflation, Russian entrepreneurs have a shorter time-horizon than the Western industrial entrepreneurs Gerschenkron had in mind. My point of view is that this aspect is the contingent result of existing external conditions of the Russian economy and that Russian private entrepreneurs cannot be equated to traditional merchants. After this conceptual clarification I can now move on to the discussion of the entrepreneur's contribution to the modernization of Russian economy and society.

2 Modernization, the Russian Transition, and Entrepreneurs Buroway, reviewing how former sovietologists are dealing with the present Russian transition, made the following remark: "Just when sociologists thought they had buried modernization theory, Sovietology resurrects its crudest form - development through stages held back by cultural lag" (1992, p.782).

In the transition from state socialism it is indeed a tempting occasion to revive the modernization paradigm in its more orthodox form. In particular, as outlined by Arnason (1993), if one moves from a Parsonian interpretation of the Soviet model as 'a historically conditioned strategy of modernization', it follows that the current transition becomes 'a rapprochement with the main pattern' thus fostering the well known thesis of evolutionary convergence. In this perspective it would be more than natural to analyze Russian entrepreneurs by resorting to those classical sociological and socio-psychological analyses of the entrepreneurial phenomenon (Cochran 1949; Cole 1959; Hägen 1962 and 1968; Lipset 1967; McLelland 1961) rooted in the modernization approach and deriving from the structural-functionalist paradigm. Following Parson's reading of Weber's opposition between tradition and modernity, developing and underdeveloped countries were portrayed as dualistic societies, with some capitalist elements but with many structural and cultural elements hindering eco-

Cristiano Codagnone

66

nomic development as well as cultural and social modernization. In such approaches, cultural values, role expectations, and social sanctions play a dominant role. The prevalence of an adequate system of norms and values in a particular society becomes crucial for the emergence of'modern' entrepreneurs. Lipset (1967), for instance, analyzing entrepreneurs in Latin American countries, applied Parsons's pattern variables to conclude that societies where universalism and achievement prevail over particularism and ascription comprise a more hospitable environment for entrepreneurs, and that in underdeveloped countries the prevalence of particularism and ascription prevent the emergence of modern entrepreneurship. A direct implication is that in a society where an adequate set of norms and values is not present modern and innovative entrepreneurs must come from marginal and culturally deviant social groups. Gerschenkron (1962) criticised such approaches to the study of entrepreneurship in developing countries arguing that they are static and problematic in explaining social changes and the occurrence of entrepreneurs in very unfavorable cultural settings such as, the Russia of the second half of the nineteenth century. Gerschenkron further criticizes such a standpoint on the grounds that it is only based on the analysis of behavior. How can deviance in entrepreneurial values be accurately measured? Their action breaks with a value-system to which they nonetheless might still adhere. More in general the criticisms that have been leveled at the modernization paradigm are well known and there is no point in reviewing them in detail here. It is sufficient here to report a synthesis of this criticism as formulated by a scholar of Latin America who wrote that the modernization approach: "considers socio-economic development as a road to carbon copies of Western democracy... In this way the sociology of development was turned into a plethora of studies on 'obstacles' and 'exceptions' to a prefigured march of history" (Corradi 1985: 37).

Lately not only Western sovietologists are resurrecting the modernization approach to study post-Soviet Russia, as suggested by Buroway, but Russian social scientists are doing so as well. A Parsonian interpretation of Weber's work seems to have gained popularity among several Russian scholars who partially explain the difficulties of the present transition in terms of the cultural backwardness of new Russian entrepreneurs. The interpretation of today's Russia as a dualistic society is particularly evident and crude in an article by Klimova and Dunaevsky (1993) tellingly titled "Novye predprinimateli i staraia kultura" (New entrepreneurs and Old Culture). The authors argue and try to show, using psychological tests to analyze entrepreneurs' answers, that new Russian entrepreneurs are the bearers of an old culture in a society that is struggling to modernize. This old culture is said to be patriarchal and characterized by a clan ethics where entrepreneurs supposedly prefer to deal with and hire only individuals

New Entrepreneurs

67

they personally know or that have been recommended to them by their acquaintances. In other words, they act according to the dichotomous logic of ours (svoi) versus theirs (chuzhoi). A similar line of argument can be found in a round-table organized by the academic journal Voprosy Filosofii (Problems of Philosophy) where several economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers met to discuss the question of work ethics as discussed in Weber's The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism in relation to the Russian situation. While the discussion was not focused specifically on new entrepreneurs, they were touched upon directly or indirectly. Almost every speaker agreed that there is not yet any modern work ethic in Russia and that what characterizes Russia now is, using Weber's terminology, predatory capitalism, implying that most businessmen are adventurers and swindlers. Another example is Kuzminov's analysis of the legacy of the Soviet economic culture(1992), where it is argued that the consequences of a long tradition of informal economic behavior are: poorly developed business ethics, a lack of legal backing for business deals, and a lack of boundaries between the income of the individual and that of the company. Speaking about the economic culture of new entrepreneurs he writes: ".... in the behavior of new entrepreneurs the negative traits of the national market tradition are very strong: low entrepreneurial ethics, poor information, orientation toward prestigious consumption, low thrust in state institutions and legislative norms..."(1992, p. 50)

I will address these claims later in the light of my empirical work, but first I must clarify the relationship of today's Russia and its Soviet past to the question of modernization. Even if we accept the claim that Russian entrepreneurs reproduce the traits of inherited Soviet mentality, can we simply equate this mentality to a traditional backward culture? This is a crucial question because the starting conditions in Russian transition certainly cannot be compared to those of Western Europe at the time of the transition to modern capitalism nor to those of underdeveloped countries studied by modernization theorists. The interpretation and conceptualization of Soviet-type societies has engaged scholars from several disciplines in long theoretical debates. From the early classical model of'totalitarianism' (Friedrich 1954; Friedrich and Brzezinski 1956) and critical marxist interpretations of the Soviet Union as 'state capitalism' (Trotsky 1945; Mandel 1979-80) or as an 'Asiatic mode of production' (Melotti 1973 and 1980; Ticktin 1973) many other interpretations have appeared since the late sixties, to mention just a few: 'institutional pluralism' (Hough 1969, 1977, 1982), 'welfare authoritarianism' ( Breslauer 1984), 'corporatism' (Bunce and Echols 1980 and Bunce 1983), 'neotraditionalism' (Jowitt 1983 and 1992; Walder 1986) and many others.

68

Cristiano Codagnone

Despite the sharp differentiation existing among different interpretations of the Soviet model, there is common pattern: almost all scholars recognise that modern and secular processes and attitudes were clearly present in Soviet-type societies. In some cases, like for instance in Hough's model of institutional pluralism, the observation of such elements led to the conclusion that the Soviet model was a variant of Western modernity. Such a position has been criticized by Jowitt (1983) who instead proposes the concept of neo-traditionalism. Jowitt talks about 'charismatic impersonalism' as Lenin's substitute for Western procedural impersonalism. The Leninist party as a charismatic organization and purposive agent of change, produced the ethos of the organizational hero encompassing both personal heroism and organizational impersonalism. According to Jowitt, modern elements are thereby included, but such an ethos unintentionally reinforces cultural and social dispositions of a traditional character. Jowitt's conclusion is that at the beginning of the eighties the Soviet Regime was a new institutional form of charismatic socio-political organization undergoing routinization in a neotraditional manner. My own position builds on Jowitt's contribution to put it in a slightly different way. Taking the lead from Farneti (1990), I extend the Weberian typology of authority legitimation to become a typology of political ethos: a) where psychological and ritualistic aspects prevail we have a charismatic ethos; b) where customs and uses dominate we have a traditionalistic ethos; and c) where rules and procedures triumph we have a rational-legal ethos. If we take Weber's typology of social action the three different ethos respectively correspond to: • effective action; • traditional action; • rational action with respect to a goal. Additionally Weber distinguished a fourth type of action: rational action with respect to a value rather than to a goal. These actions are inspired by what Weber defines 'substantive rationality' as opposed to 'formal rationality'. To this fourth type of action we then must match a fourth distinct ethos that I call 'ideological'. If the ideology is allegedly based on the intention of leading society towards a telos - a higher goal- then we may talk of a 'teleological' ethos. Such an ethos was created in the Soviet Union by a party that considered itself the charismatic agent of social development. It characterized the Soviet Union in its founding years and later remained increasingly formal, revived once in a while by general secretaries. A teleological ethos is not: a) traditionalistic, for it utilizes rational and scientific methods that must help to reach the 'telos'; b) charismatic, for personal characteristics are not dominant; c) rational-legal, for it is not necessarily

New Entrepreneurs

69

grounded in a manifest juridical order. The teleological rationality informing the system was bound to be contradictory and profoundly unstable over time. The conflictual interaction between telos and techne, respectively the achievement of real communism and the deployment of technical rationality, and the theodicy of a just and egalitarian society explain the ambivalent nature of the Soviet Union. A good example is the conflicting relationship that has existed between party officials and technical specialists (Farmer 1992, ch.5). Technology and science were necessary for the achievement of communism, but technical specialists and scientists were suspect from an ideological point of view due to their perceived natural bourgeois inclinations. Teleological rationality implemented by 'organizational heroes' does not assure the same stability of either tradition or of formal rationality based on institutionalized procedures. The lack of standardized institutional procedures and rules leaves a door open for traditional personalistic behavior. Once the ideological tension decreases and is not revived by a new charismatic leader, patrimonialistic neotraditional patterns of behaviors appear and coexist with rational and secular ones. It would be more accurate to say that neotraditionalistic patterns 'resurfaced', for they were the result of'elective affinities' between the ethos created by the communist party and the traditional pattern of arbitrariness that characterized Russian bureaucratic administration even before 1917. Neotraditionalism and personalism increased in the last years of the existence of the Soviet Union but still coexisted with more modern attitudes and practices. In conclusion Soviet Russia entered the present transition as a peculiar civilization characterized by a mixture of modern and traditional factors, where the latter were more evident in the concrete exercise of power. This is the framework within which one must interpret the attitudes and practices of new entrepreneurs to social and cultural change in post-Soviet Russia.

3 Russian Entrepreneurs and their Contribution to Social Change The first preliminary question to address is whether these individuals are 'new' social actors with regards the social position they occupied in the Soviet order. A stereotype widespread among ordinary Russians and often presented in both Russian and Western newspapers maintains that successful new businessmen are old actors converting their position of political power in Soviet society into economic power. This could be labeled the 'nomenklatura-entrepreneurship' hypothesis.

70

Cristiano Codagnone

At the opposite extreme from the literature on entrepreneurship briefly reviewed above, we could derive the hypothesis that those on the margins and outside Soviet society are the feeder group of new entrepreneurs. The results of my research on elite businessmen (Codagnone 1994) offer only very limited support for both hypotheses. Most big businessmen come from what could be called the Soviet middle and upper middle class: highly educated individuals who occupied junior and middle level position of managerial authority in scientific institutions, state enterprises, and state administrative structures. Rare are the cases of businessmen whose previous job could be included in high level nomenklatura lists. In the same way there are few who can be defined as real outsiders with respect to the mainstream of Soviet society. My findings regarding the social origins elite businessmen do not differ much from other research on small and middle level private entrepreneurs (see Bunin 1993; Codagnone 1993; Grishenko 1992; Radayev 1993). entrepreneurs in Russia did not come from the very top nor from the very bottom of society. They are former researchers, university professors and middle and junior level managers in administrative and industrial state structures. Therefore their social origins do not a priori support inequivocably that of total continuity or total discontinuity with with the past. Second, we must deal with their contribution to economic change and development. We have all seen that during these years of reforms, while many new entrepreneurs have accumulated fortunes, the Russian economy as a whole has experienced consecutive negative growth rates and a steady decline in capital investment. In light of this it is difficult to deny the view that private entrepreneurs have made a minor contribution to economic development. Russians like to say that while in the Soviet times they had production without a market, now they have a market without production. Hence the other stereotype that Russian entrepreneurs are mere swindlers only in search of speculative short term profit and not interested in production. This stereotype is partially true as it is true that private businesses developed and often still function as the lubricators of an economy still dominated by giant industrial monopolies, participating with the latter in a process of private appropriation of state resources. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to overlook the qualitative contributions private entrepreneurs have made to economic change. They have been the main agents of commodification of the economy as well as those who revived the service sectors and gave birth to new financial institutions. The reappearance of the first two commodity exchanges in 1990 in Moscow was the result of two separate groups of independent businessmen who studied Western legislation and practices and then opened these exchanges as private enterprises. Given the lack of any legislation, which did not come until 1992, these entrepreneurs created their own internal statutes and documents which were then adopted by all other exchanges that blossomed between the end of 1990 and 1991 through-

New Entrepreneurs

71

out the former Soviet Union. The business histories of the hundred Russian business leaders I studied show that institutional development in the new business sector sprung from the autonomous action of these individuals who studied Western institutional forms and introduced them to Russia while Russian legislators have constantly lagged behind these developments. Private entrepreneurs created stock exchanges, holding companies and other 'capitalist' amenities forcing the authorities to struggle, often with little success, to regulate these new institutions. Several of the elite businessmen I interviewed are constantly consulted for their expertise by parliamentary committees in charge of drafting new legislation concerning financial markets and corporate matters. Sometimes these innovations also have positive effects on productive structures as the following example shows. The private financial-commercial conglomerates Hermes, whose head-quarters are in the oil rich region of Tyumen in Western Siberia, is one of the biggest and most famous private new businesses in Russia with hundreds of thousands of share-holders. The president and founder, Valery Neverov, is one of the big businessmen I studied in my research. In 1992 Hermes became increasingly interested in investing directly in production; so Neverov and his collaborators, given the lack of control over industrial capital, decided to accomplish this through the pre-payment of money to state enterprises for future production. Consequently in 1992, in the exchanges controlled by Hermes, typical financial instruments appeared such as futures and option contracts to cover such productive projects. Given the conditions of high inflation, many productive structures encounter difficulties in borrowing money from the banks. Hermes' solution was an example of extreme business creativity and dynamism: Hermes anticipates money to state enterprises for the production of product χ for time y. Meanwhile, in the commodity exchange, its brokers sell product χ which the buyer will receive at time y on a future contract. So the buyer, in practice, finances the production of product χ and a trade margin for Hermes. This, in my opinion, is a clear example of how private businessmen creatively contribute to economic change in Russia. I conclude that large private businessmen, although still mostly confined to commercial and financial activities, have been contributing to the modernization of the Russian economy through the introduction of many institutional innovations besides being the primary agents of commodification and monetization. Finally, I discuss the mentality of entrepreneurs to assess the level of continuity or change with the Soviet past. From the analyses of the Russian social scientists mentioned in the previous paragraph, as well as from conversations with ordinary Russians, I summarized the following general views about entrepreneurs: a) They are the product of Soviet mentality, have no respect for laws and show a lack of business ethics, b)

72

Cristiano Codagnone

Their behavior is personalistic, based on clan mentality c) To be successful they must pay bribes to politicians and participate in political intrigues, e) They are oriented towards the ostentatious consumption of Western status symbols such as cars, clothes, and other amenities. My task here is not to give a mere empirical confirmation or refutation of these views. Existing empirical research, including my own, are at a preliminary stage and do not allow definitive answers to such questions. I will instead offer some of the evidence emerging from my research to compare it with such views and give a contextual interpretation of it. Let us start with the view that Russian entrepreneurs disrespect the law, pay bribes to get things done, and are personalistic and motivated by clan ethics in their business conduct. Regarding bribes and respect for the law, I report the results from my sample survey of small and medium entrepreneurs in St. Petersburg (Codagnone 1993) in which I asked the following question: "Are there entrepreneurs doing good business who remain within the laws?" Only 11% of the respondents answered yes, and only 24% affirmed that they do not pay bribes to bureaucrats and politicians. Kryshtanovskaya (1991), in one of the first researches on Moscow big businessmen, reported that 90% of businessmen considered it impossible to keep their businesses running without paying bribes to bureaucrats. For elite businessmen (Codagnone 1994) the question is slightly different. Most of them affirmed that they no longer need to pay bribes to petty bureaucrats, rather their task is to influence political decisions and new legislation affecting private businessmen. As limited as this empirical evidence is, it seemingly supports some of the stereotypes reported above. The crucial question is, however, whether these attitudes and practices are to be interpreted as the manifestation of Russian entrepreneurs' old mentality or, rather, as contingent adaptive responses to current conditions. Russia does not at the moment have a coherent system of laws that regulate economic activities. Most economic laws are ambiguous statutes that require interpretation by government agencies in charge of their implementation. This creates unpredictability and arbitrariness by always leaving the door open to exceptions and ad hoc decisions left to the discretion of the bureaucrats in charge. For two years, in 1990 and 1991, a jurisdiction battle between Soviet laws and Russian laws created total chaos regarding what norms should be applied. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, theoretically the situation should have been clear, but at the end of 1992 it was decided that until a new Russian civil code was drafted, Soviet laws would be applied unless they openly contradicted new Russian laws. That still left many cases with two laws indicating two proper modes of action. Moreover, in 1992 and 1993 a debilitating power struggle between the Presidency and the Parliament paralyzed the legislative process with Presidential decrees not confirmed by Parliament and parliamentary decisions disregarded by the President and the Government. In such a context, even if we

New Entrepreneurs

73

could prove that Russian businessmen constantly break the laws, it seems deterministic to interpret such behavior as part of their mental habitus and as a result of an enduring cultural heritage. Without exception all business leaders I interviewed repeated the same general refrain: 'our legislation is irrational and constantly changing', 'we must break the rules sometimes', 'we do not like it, we would rather live in a stable situation with clear laws, now we must spend a lot of time to keep up with and study our legislation'. Many of them told me that they hired an employee just to analyze all the new legislative acts published daily in Kommersant. I am not here to make an apology for Russian businessmen who find it impossible to be honest. Certainly these answers manifest self-justification for nonorthodox behaviour in everyday business practice. Yet before concluding that disrespect for laws is a trait of the Russian businessman's ethos, we should wait several years until a coherent system of laws regulate economic activities and see if widespread illegality persists among businessmen. At this point I think that breaking some rules is more a necessity imposed by the context in which entrepreneurs find themselves rather than a choice determined by their culture. I do not deny that the practical experience of these years matched by a latent cultural predisposition can contribute to creating a business ethos where a certain level of illegality will always be present and accepted. It is my view that in most cases businessmen are searching for predictability; this serves as their motivation to create their own solutions necessarily based on trust and loyalty. An interesting aspect of businessmen's attitudes towards laws concerns the resolution of business conflicts. In 1991, Russian legislators transformed the system of state arbitration (gosudarstvennyi arbitrazh), mainly an administrative structure, into the arbitration court (arbitrazhnyi sud'), a judicial organ, and adopted a procedural code for such courts. This new institution was presented as a support venue for entrepreneurs to solve their economic disputes with business partners or public institutions. I must point out that the courts began to work without any Civil Code or Commercial Code supporting their activity (these two codes are currently being drafted). Experience has shown that the arbitration court has not been very successful in performing the task of settling business conflicts. As Hendley has observed: "Although the law provides for broad equitable powers to judge the validity of contracts and acts of state organs, it appears to limit the arbiter's ability to impose monetary damages for breaches of contract...The arbitration court appears to be structurally inadequate to serve the needs of the business community and Russian businessmen interviewed by the author confirm that they no longer take legal action when contractual obligations are not fulfilled". (1992, p. 153)

74

Cristiano Codagnone

Hendley's observations are confirmed by my interviews. Again, the reasons for such behaviour cannot only be explained in terms of cultural attitudes or as exclusively due to flaws in legislation. First, because of the lack of state funds, the individual who initiates arbitration must pay 10% of the total sum he is trying to recover. Given the uncertainty of the results and the length of the arbitration itself, businessmen are not attracted in the first place. Second, one has to bear in mind in what economic conditions businessmen work: on the verge of hyper-inflation and in a market riddled with the scarcity of goods. Receiving a damages payment for an unfulfilled obligation several months after the fact will still not totally compensate a businessman. Moreover, the opportunity cost is greater than the actual cost. If an entrepreneur does not receive the goods he has already paid for, there is no assurance that he can easily buy them elsewhere. Not only must he suffer the loss of his money but also that of potential profit. Even if he were to recover his outlay, how could this opportunity cost can be assessed given existing market imperfections? It is quite reasonable then that businessmen want to insure that substantial contracts are not broken in the first place, and that their solution is to rely strongly on loyalty and trust in business relationships with their partners. When, despite all precautions, a contract is not fulfilled, they would rather solve the question informally than go through arbitration court. Many of the elite businessmen I talked to stated they are great experts on Russian legislation and for their expertise they are often consulted by parliamentary committees or by the functionaries of local arbitration courts. Yet they also stated that knowing the word of the law is not enough to do business in Russia. One St.Petersburg broker, for instance, explained how important personal contacts and the trust underlying them are. He has a wide network of personal contacts all over the territory of the former Soviet Union. If he has to buy sugar in Ukraine, he calls his contact there and requests a purchase on his behalf; since his word and credit are good, the contact will make the transaction. Utilizing his networks is much less complicated than relying on the imperfections of the banking system. Again, how strong are cultural attitudes, or rather structural necessities, in producing such behavior? This example brings me to address the claim that new Russian entrepreneurs are representatives of an old culture in their particular attitudes and in their 'clan' ethics. The interviews with business leaders confirm that today contacts (sviasi) are still almost more important than money. The above illustration of how personal contacts help overcome the imperfections of the banking system is just one side of the coin. The Russian market for credit is dominated by suppliers because of the scarcity of funds and the high level of inflation. Russian commercial banks do not look for customers, rather, they select from among them. The small entrepreneurs I interviewed in the preliminary stage of my research, those who are

New Entrepreneurs

75

struggling to survive everyday, explained that receiving bank credit requires a lengthy wait, and then only for short term credit (no more than three months) at very high interest rates and usually tied to import-export operations. But if one has a personal contact with a key official in the bank the scenario changes: the bank grants the credit in a shorter period of time, for a longer term and at a lower interest rate. Another businessman openly admitted that the influence of a businessman in today's Russia is better measured by his network of personal contacts than by the capital he controls. The logic is very clear: in the present situation money can be wiped out, while contacts remain. All these elements support the view that personalism and particularism are operative in Russian entrepreneurs' business conduct at this point in the transition from a planned economy to a still unclear new configuration, but they do not support the claim of Klimova and Dunaevsky (1993) who see the conduct of new entrepreneurs as the legacy of a culture formed by 'clan' ethics. In the dichotomous opposition of us/them, typical of a clan mentality, the boundaries with what is considered external to the clan are strictly defined and cannot easily be crossed. The attitudes of the business leaders revealed a preference and sense of necessity for conducting business with people they know and trust, but not firm barriers to the outside. When I asked them about their business partners they gave long lists of Russian and foreign partners and asserted that they are ready to do business with whomever it is convenient to do so. On the topic of how they hire their collaborators the general answer was: 'If I can find a person I know and he or she is competent for the job I hire him or her, otherwise I hire whoever fits the job'. In my view, the personalistic and particularistic elements present in Russian businessmen conduct do not result in those irrational market limitations Weber described (1923, 1961) as the enemies of his ideal type of'rational capitalism'. They do testify that the Russian economy is still far from actualizing this ideal type, and perhaps will only approximate it. The reliance on trust and loyalty are also the adaptive responses of Russian businessmen who, as most actors in other historical and cultural contexts, struggle to create conditions of predictability for their activity. Are Russian entrepreneurs individuals who use their 'speculative' profits for ostentatious consumption of luxury goods? Certainly one result of the reforms in Russia has been the rapid increase of consumption of certain goods that only a small section of the population can afford. In June of 1993, a monthly pattern of elite consumption was estimated at about 430,000 rubles ($330), when an average monthly salary was about $ 25 for the population at large . In the last quarter of 1992, almost as many Mercedes 500 SE-SEL and Mercedes 600 SESEL were sold in Russia as are usually sold in one year in all of Western Europe. Apparently, every month in Moscow from 2 to 8 thousand contracts are

76

Cristiano Codagnone

concluded for the passage of property on private apartments, and 90% of those who buy are businessmen and specialists working for them. It is more than natural to guess that new private entrepreneurs are among the affluent Russians who can spend more money. It is a totally different thing to draw the conclusion that entrepreneurs simply make easy money and waste it on consumption. This may be true for petty traders and representatives of the criminal business sector. It is not, however the case, for large legitimate entrepreneurs. In my interviews with them I got a different picture. Summarizing all answers regarding the pattern of consumption/investment I calculated that on average big businessmen reinvest 90% of their profits into their businesses. Thirty-three out of one hundred stated that they do not possess a private car and prefer to use the company's car. One businessman, for instance, admitted that he controls capital for the amount of two million dollars but stated that his monthly personal expenditures are only 0.01% of his income although he considered that 10% would be all right under normal conditions of stability which do not exist in today's Russia. They also appear to be very dedicated to their work: again, on the basis of their answers, I calculated that on average the typical big businessman works 14 hours a day six days a week. One told me that he rests only 1 or two days in a month, another that he sleeps 4 hours a night and works 18-19 hours a day. The above picture sharply contrasts with the views that businessmen are engaged in ostentatious consumption. Not only do they seem to be very interested in developing their businesses, but they also appear to be Western style workaddicts with a strong work ethic. Among their priorities, money seems to occupy a minor place, after family, friends, health, religion, and for the more patriotic ones Russia's grandeur. When discussing what they enjoy about their new career they first quote 'selfrealisation', second 'independence and autonomy', third 'possibility to contribute to the economic rebirth of Russia', and at the end 'more money'. Only one out of 100 clearly acknowledged that the initial reason that motivated him to open his business was the possibility of earning more money. All this information comes exclusively from what they themselves reported in the interviews and is not enough to support the hypothesis that new big businessmen are the bearers of a sort of'Protestant ethic' in the Russian context. Yet it raises doubt among widespread existing stereotypes. It is more than reasonable to think that involvement in big business and big projects, in the present Russian conditions of high instability and potentiality, renders conspicuous consumption as such to secondary importance to big businessmen.

New Entrepreneurs

4

77

Conclusion

Finally, have new private businessmen brought some change to the Russian economy and society by contributing to their modernization? Should we interpret Russian businessmen's attitudes and practices only as the manifestation of old 'non-modern' and irrational cultural values, or rather as the response of rationally oriented actors to the environmental conditions surrounding them? First, the explanation of the partial failures of economic reforms in terms of the backward 'Soviet mentality' supposedly typical of new Russian entrepreneurs is the result of the uncritical application of an orthodox modernization approach. In particular, Klimova and Dunaevsky's (1993) interpretation of entrepreneurs' reliance on informal social networks as a sign of an irrational antimodern mentality sounds like a caricature of the early modernization studies of backward societies. The more so if one takes into account that Western economic sociologists, such as Granovetter (1985) have compellingly argued that economic activity is embedded in networks of informal personal contacts even in advanced market economies. Relying on personal contacts in business is not necessarily a characteristic exclusive to less modern and advanced societies. From my empirical work on big Russian businessmen, several characteristics emerged that could be ascribed to the ideal-type of the 'modern rational businessman'. They report to be totally dedicated to their work without a lot of time for leisure. They also report very low consumption patterns and a very high propensity to reinvest their profits in the business. In general, I also detected pragmatic-technocratic orientations towards political as well as social and economic problems which, although not devoid of negative implications, present rationalistic and modern aspects. Turning to examples of their business practices, I can confirm their rational and innovative use of Western instruments of private business. Those involved in financial operations have already mastered the technicalities of instruments such as futures and options. Some are employed as experts in legislative committees by virtue of their profound understanding of commercial law. They are constantly studying foreign economic legislation to introduce into Russian economy. Many others have probably done the same when they introduced holding companies before any legislation existed. Their companies are organized rationally with functional departments like any Western enterprise. These aspects should come as no surprise given the social background of most Russian entrepreneurs. One of the results of my research is that the overwhelming majority of big businessmen are very well educated and are, by educational training and professional background, either technical-scientific experts, state economic experts, or state industrial managers. Despite their different careers, they share a technocratic-pragmatic attitude that probably contributed in

78

Cristiano Codagnone

their transition to their new careers as entrepreneurs and formed their business behaviour. In this respect, as a broadly defined intelligentsia is the major source of entrepreneurship in Russia I cannot but subscribe to the conclusion reached by Hungarian researchers with similar empirical results: A higher level of schooling substituted and still substitutes the social conditions related to ' embourgeoisement' which the bourgeoisie "ensures" in more fortunate countries in entry to the economic elite and in becoming an entrepreneur. The educated provide the recruitment basis for those setting up their own business; a degree can be turned into capital; it encourages the shaping of an entrepreneurial attitude based on rational calculation in contrast with symbolical thinking guided by respect for authority (Lengyel et al. 1991: 146). The elements of'modern' mentality found among Russian businessmen make perfect sense with the conceptualization of the Soviet Union on the eve of perestroika as a society where patterns of neo-traditionalist behaviours coexisted with other more secular or modern ones. Consequently there are also businessmen practices that continue Soviet patterns of neo-traditionalism. Economic mentality, in fact, does not touch simply problem-solving ability, attitudes toward work and the like. Excessive informalism, the search for political patrons, manipulation of laws and rules, are undeniable signs of continuity with the past. But the analysis of present economic, political, and legislative conditions in Russia leads me to conclude that the one-sided culturalist interpretation of these practices only in terms of old mentality must be avoided. This consideration leads me to a more general assessment of Russian transition. Today the Russian economy does not yet approach the ideal-type of a modern market economy. The command economy has been dismantled but, as the 'old' is slowing dying, the 'new' has not yet taken shape. For how generic it might sound, Russia today has a 'limbo' economy where the direction that a 'modernization process' - here I use this expression in its neutral meaning not linked to any particular paradigm - will eventually take is yet unclear and uncertain. So far, the contribution private business has made to the creation of a modern rational version of a market economy has been significant but limited. Even given the creativity and dynamism of some private businessmen, their activities were not unrestricted. Between 1986 and 1991 they opportunistically exploited the spaces that reforms opened for them in the interstices of a persisting shortage economy. Therefore, they could not become an independent and productive entrepreneurial class, but due to necessity involved themselves in a symbiotic relationship with state structures by participating in the redistribution and appropriation of state property and resources initiated by such structures. Moreover, with some exceptions, the leaders of private business control either financial or commercial capital, and more often a combination of the two.

New Entrepreneurs

79

Why are so few of them successful industrial private entrepreneurs? A simple answer lies in a cultural stereotype: the naturally speculative mentality of Russian businessmen. Mine, however, is of a different kind: given the initial constraints, businessmen chose those activities that were more feasible and profitable. A corollary of the above discussion is that despite all their individual dynamism, the mere existence of private businessmen does not guarantee in itself that the current Russia transitions will inevitably produce a Western-style form of capitalism. Analyzing the transition from feudalism to capitalism Karl Marx affirmed that the transition of primitive scattered private property into capitalist property is a long process that is much more difficult to accomplish than the transformation of already concentrated capitalist property into socialized property. By an ironic twist of history in Russia the reverse process has been allegedly attempted with great difficulty. The general lesson that can be learned by my study as well as by other sociological contributions to the analysis of the Russian transition is that there are no market ways to a market economy, as aptly synthesized by Buroway: "... the irony is that a transition to a centralized command economy, based as it is on direct control, is probably easier to engineer than to a market economy, which requires a fine-tuned, indirect mechanism of control. As Karl Polanyi, as well as historical example, has taught us, only a strong state can establish market institutions - a strong state that must also abstain from undue interference" (1992: 784).

The transition to modern rational capitalism in Russia is far from complete; does this mean that not much has changed in these years of reforms? A lot has actually changed simply because new institutions exist in the economy and because despite all the troubles and uncertainties Russia is today a polity with elements of a representative democracy. It is an accepted reality that differentiated, and likely conflicting, interests exist and have the right to be represented. There is an increasingly autonomous but disarticulated and fragmented civil society facing a disorganized and weak, though extended, state. It is a situation of'anarchistic' and 'destructured' pluralism. Russia has today all the institutions of an industrial democracy, that however do not add up to a coherent political system. Parties, trade unions, employers associations often remain half empty 'symbolic' institutions, with a limited base and are not integrated with each other. The redistribution of economic and political capital under way is producing a situation where economic and political actors try to grab as much power and resources as possible before the state regains control. In this context, despite all the institutional changes, old practices are sometimes reproduced as social actors resort to pre-existing social skills and cultural

80

Cristiano Codagnone

repertoires in their adaptive responses. Therefore entrepreneurs' practices such as personalism and patronage must be interpreted as adaptive responses to existing cultural patterns. Whether these responses will become part of a new established mentality depends largely on how the transition proceeds. This transition is still openended and does not allow any interpretation based on an evolutionary convergency model. Although economic and cultural constraints on the present transition exist, much depends on the political level and specifically on how the emancipated economy and the state integrate. Because the transition was initiated from above at the same time as the party-state was disintegrating, today in Russia there is an active, though weak and disorganized state whose actions produce contradictory results which perpetuates institutional uncertainty in the economy to which social actors adapt. This interaction and integration will continue in a disorganized way as until the redistribution of economic and political power is completed. Nothing at the moment assures that the end of such a process will lead to true modernization of the economic and social system, and even less that it will occur in pre-designed pattern. The modernity of an economic system can take very diverse forms depending on the integration pattern between the state and the economy and the civilization heritage that characterises the system. It is probably superfluous to recall how different the North American and South Korean economies are, or those of Italy and Britain. In conclusion Russian entrepreneurs have contributed to economic change and modernization as far as it has been possible for them to do so. Being actors embedded in their social and cultural context and not living in a social vacuum have also so far reproduced some old practices. The peculiar way in which I conceptualized the Soviet Union and the analysis of Russian entrepreneurs pointed out once more the short-comings of approaches rooted in the dualistic opposition between 'traditional' and 'modern' in general and more so for post-communist societies. In the summer of 1994 the scandal involving the Moscow financial group MMM has made the front page of many Western newspapers probably fostering the view that private business in Russia is the land of speculation and dishonesty. Although I am in no way making an apology for the new Russian business class - which certainly comprises many unscrupulous individuals - 1 am nonetheless convinced that the stereotype of the dishonest Russian businessman is a simplistic way of explaining the difficulties that Russia faces in its economic transition. The idea conveyed by my analysis is that cases like that of MMM are not merely the result of speculative individual action, but father proof that there is

New Entrepreneurs

81

no market way to a market economy without coherent action from an organized state.

References Amason, J. (1993): The Future that Failed: Origins and Destinies ofthe Soviet Model. London: Routledge. Babayeva, L. (1990): "Kooperator- eto ..." in Dialog, 4:65-67 Borocz, J. and A. Rona-Tas: "Formation of the New Economic Elites", in Circulation of Elites, edited by I.Szelenyi, E. Wnuk-Lipinski and D. Treiman. Forthcoming. Bunce, V. and J. Echols (1980): "Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era: Pluralism or Corporatism?" pp. 126 Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era, edited by D. Kelly. New York: Praeger Bunce, V. (1983): "The Political Economy of the Brezhnev Era: The Rise and Fall of Corporatism", British Journal of Political Science, 13: 129-158 Bunin, I. (1993): "Sotsial'nyi portret melkogo i srednego predprinimatel'stva ν Rossii", Politicheskie Issledovaniia, 3: 149-154. Buroway, M. (1992): "The End of Sovietology and the Renaissance of Modernization Theory", Contemporary Sociology, 6: 774-785 Cochran, T. C. (1949): "Role and Sanction in American Entrepreneurial History", Harvard University Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, Change and the Entrepreneur. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Codagnone, C. (1993): "Small and Medium Size Businesses in St. Petersburg: The Social Sources of entrepreneurship in a Transitional Period". Working Papers, Istituto di Sociologia, University "Luigi Bocconi", Milan. Codagnone, C. (1994): Big Businessmen: Continuity and Change in Russian Economy and Society. New York University, Department of Sociology. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Cole, A. H. (1959): Business Enterprise in Its Social Setting. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Corradi, J. (1985): The Fitful Republic. Boulder (Col.): Westview Press Farmer, K. (1992): The Soviet Administrative Elite. New York: Praeger Farneti, P. (1990): Elementi di scienza politico. Milano: Franco Angeli. Friedrich C. J.(ed) (1954): Totalitarianism. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. Friedrich C. J. and Z. Brzezinski (eds) (1956): Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy. Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press. Gerschenkron, A. (1962): "Social Attitudes, entrepreneurship, and Economic Development", in Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. Gerschenkron, A. (1968): "The Modernization of entrepreneurship", pp. 128-139 in Continuity in History and Other Essays. Cambridge (Mass.): Beknap Press of Harvard University Press. Granovetter, M. (1985): "Economic Action and Social Structure: the Problem of Embeddedness", American Journal of Sociology, 91: 481 -510. Grishenko, Z. (1992): "Sotsial'nyi portret predprinimatel'stva". Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniia, 10: 53-61 Hägen, Ε. Ε. (1962): On the Theory of Social Change: how Economic Growth Begins. Homewood (111): Dorsey. Hägen, Ε. Ε. (1968): The Economics of Development. Homewood, (111.): Dorsey. Hendley, Κ. (1992): "Legal Development and Privatization in Russia: A Case Study", Soviet Economy, 2: 130-157. Hough, J. (1969): The Soviet Prefects: The Local party Organs in Industrial Decision-Making. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press Hough, J. (1977): The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory. Cambridge, (Mass.): Harvard University Press

82

Cristiano Codagnone

Hough, J. (1982): "Pluralism, Corporatism and the Soviet Union", pp. 37-60 in Pluralism in the Soviet Union, edited by S. Solomon. New York: St. Martin's Press. Jowitt, K. (1983): "Soviet Neotraditionalism: The Political Corruption of a Leninist Regime", Soviet Studies, 35: 275-97. Jowitt, K. (1992): New World Disorders: The Leninist Extinction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kirzner, I. (1979): Perception, Opportunity, and Profit: Studies in the Theory of entrepreneur ship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kirzner, I. (1985): Discovery and the Capitalist Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kirzner, I. (1989): Discovery, Capitalism, and Distributive Justice. Oxford and New York: B. Blackwell. Klimova, S. and L. Dunaevsky (1993): "Novye predprinimateli i staraia kultura". Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniia, 5: 64-68. Kiyshtanovskaya O. (1991): "Millioner sovetskogo soiuza". Moskovskie Novosti, 29: 8-9 Kryshtanovskaya O. (1992): "Millionery". Delovoi Mir, 27 February, p. 16 Kuzminov, la. (1992): "Sovetskaia ekonomicheskaia kultura: nasledie i puti modemizatsii". Voprosy Ekonomiki, 3: 44-57. Lipset, S. M. (1967): "Values, Education, and entrepreneurship", pp. 3-60 in Elites in Latin America, edited by S. M. Lipset e A. Solari. New York: Oxford University Press. Lyengl, G., T. Kuczi, B. Nagy, A. Vajda (1991): "entrepreneurs and Potential entrepreneurs: The Chances of Getting Independent", Society and Economy (Quartely Journal of Budapest University of Economic Sciences), 2: 134-49. Mandel, Ε. (1979-80): "Once again on the Trotskyist definition of the Social nature of the USSR", Critique, 12: 117-26. McClelland, D. (1961): The Achieving Society. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Co. Melotti U. (1977): Marx and the Third World. London: MacMillan. Melotti U. (1980): "Socialism and Bureaucratic Collectivism in the Third World", Telos, 43: 174-81. Radayev, V. (1993): "Rossiiskie predprinimateli - kto oni?" Vestnik statistiki, 9: 3-13 Schumpeter, J. A. ([1911] 1934): The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press. Ticktin, H. (1973): "Toward a Political Economy of the USSR", Critique, 1: 20-41 Trotsky, L. (1945): The Revolution Betrayed: The Soviet Union, What It Is and Where It Is Going. London: Pioneer. Weber, M. ([1904-5] 1930): The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Tr. T. Parsons. New York: Scribner. Weber, M. ([1904/6/17-19] 1949): The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Tr. E. A. Shils and H. A. Finch. New York: Free Press. Weber, M. ([1923] 1961): General Economic History. Tr. F. H. Knight. New York: Collier-Macmillan. Original from 1919-1920 lectures. Walder, A. (1986): Communist Neotraditionalism : Work and Authority in Chinese Industry. Berkeley (Ca.): Berkeley University Press.

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership: The Role of Management in the Post-communist Enterprises 1 Andrzej K. Kozminski

1 Introduction The dramatic changes now taking place in the former communist bloc are often perceived in the West from an exclusively macro-economic perspective. This perspective prevents understanding of the basic fact that post-communist economies can only become integrated into a global market system and can only begin to grow if viable and competitive enterprises emerge. When one considers the size of post-communist industry and its work force - with the inefficiency and technological backwardness that renders it unable to compete on the world market - it is clear that a radical transformation of the existing industrial base is the key to successful macroeconomic change. Enterprise managements are now making this transformation possible by pursuing the 'reasonable' macro-economic and industrial policies of the government. (Kozminski 1992) This article addresses the issue of the role of management and of management communication in the transformation process. It is based on analysis of over 35 case studies of post-communist enterprises in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Russia and other ex-Soviet republics. Some short descriptions of the cases will be presented in illustration of the argument.2 It is naive to expect that privatization and Western techniques of management training will automatically and immediately solve all the transition problems afflicting the enterprise. Nearly three years of experience by those countries to have pioneered privatization (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia) show that the sale of the larger state-owned enterprises to domestic and foreign investors is a lengthy and difficult process, and that it involves only a relatively small number of the most successful enterprises. It can usefully serve the purpose, however, of small-scale privatization. Accelerated privatization programmes, based on either the free or the considerably discounted distribution of shares, have apparently proved incapable of achieving any dramatic change in the behaviour of enterprises as economic agents (RFE/RL Research Report 1992).

84

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

Western management training can only involve a relatively small number of managers, and it remains to be seen how it will affect the behaviour of enterprises (Kwiatkowski and Kozminski 1992). An 'exotic' business environment, communication problems, cultural shock, and living conditions in thepost-communist countries, considerably restrict the inflow of foreign managers. The extremely difficult task of restructuring post-communist enterprises and turning them into viable economic entities will be largely the responsibility of their local managers. In 1992, the majority of CEOs in post-communist enterprises were middle managers or engineering personnel promoted in 1989 following the fall of communism. Table 1 - Types of Post-Communist Enterprises

Management

Workers

Key Success Brief Factors Description

New political appointees

Highly political skilled low mobility

Government State owned relations highly labour political relations

Downsizing Technocrats switching to western markets

Skilled

Marketing, networking

Privatizing innovating striving

Diversified

Diversified

Strategy managing diversity

Diversified disappointing

Self or illegally employed mobile

Strategy, capital

Mushrooming

Types of Enterprises

Product Technology

Size, Markets

Dinosaurs

Heavy, low Huge value added or serving exdefence comeon markets

Pretenders

Higher value added marketable

Jvs

Diversified

Small businesses

Low financial Small, local, Owners entry barriers isolated entrepreneurs

Sharks

Financial Medium to intermediaries large foreign trade serving domestic market

Diversified

Owners Mobile entrepreneurs

Strategy, Opportunistic capital, government relations

An inventory of the principal problems facing post-communist enterprises should distinguish between distinctive types of enterprise and the various clusters of constraints under which they operate. From the managerial point of view, the most interesting enterprises are 'dinosaurs', 'pretenders' and 'mixed marriages' - joint ventures with Western participation (entrepreneurial firms are specific cases which require separate discussion: see Kozminski 1993).

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

85

Table 2 - Constraints Facing Post-Communist Enterprises

Constraints Enterprises

Capital

Product

Market Access

Technology

Management Skills

Small Businesses * * ·

*

**

Jvs

·

Labour Unrest

Dinosaurs Pretenders

'

Sharks

The 'dinosaurs' resulted from the 'socialist industrialization drive' undertaken in the USSR by Stalin in the hope of replicating late nineteenth-century German or American industrialization based on huge heavy-industry complexes. This industrialization programme was obediently followed by the other countries in the communist bloc. 'Socialist industrialization' created large populations of enterprises in the 'smoke stack' industries concentrating on heavy and mechanical production. For these, the label of 'dinosaurs' is justified for two reasons: • their inordinate size resulting from excessive horizontal integration (a tendency to near 'autarchy' and self-sufficiency due to the difficulties of contracting-out in a non-market environment), extensive social services provided by the company (housing, medical care, recreation, etc.), numerous and inefficient administrative personnel; • their outdated, wasteful, polluting (often dangerous) technologies (resulting from extremely long investment cycles and an inability to modernize). Many of these 'dinosaurs' must be closed or phased out. Those that can be saved require modernization, restructuring and considerable down-sizing. Some of them should be split into several independent units, each requiring a different approach (including the closure of some). Those restructured 'dinosaurs' which survive will have to be adjusted to the requirements and regulations of the world market, especially when such sensitive products as steel and armaments are involved. The transformation of the 'dinosaurs' has major political implications because it requires government involvement and because many jobs are at stake. It requires managements to apply political strategies in their dealings both with the government and with the workers' organizations (trade unions, self-management).

86

Andrzej Κ. Kozmtnski

The 'pretenders' are those post-communist enterprises which have developed exportable products and whose technological level makes them potentially able to compete on world markets. This, however, does not mean that these enterprises are able to withstand Western competition immediately and without drastic restructuring. They must re-design and upgrade their products in order to adjust them to more demanding markets; they must introduce new technology and reduce over-employment in order to enhance cost-effectiveness; and they must develop international contacts and partnerships. Up-to-date management skills with which to build a viable plan, and the ability to communicate and to 'sell' this plan to the government, employees, domestic and foreign partners, are among the key factors conditioning the successful conversion of 'pretenders'. These enterprises are certainly the most likely candidates for joint ventures and partnerships with Western firms. Joint ventures are jointly-owned companies domiciled in the post-communist countries. These companies face severe difficulties in the critical area of corporate governance, and they are usually considered to be less practicable than other forms of cooperation with local partners, such as out-sourcing, joint marketing, the licensing of products or technology, or joint product development. In some cases, however, they are viable solutions - and especially when the local partner provides market access (lucrative government contracts or high brand-name recognition on the local market), a valuable plant location (hotels, airports, restaurants, retail outlets, service stations, etc.) or cheap engineering talents and worker skills. From the point of view of transition, however, jointly owned and jointly managed enterprises are especially advantageous. Will post-communist managers be able to accomplish the formidable task of such a dramatic restructuring of their enterprises? Under what conditions? In an attempt to answer these questions, the traditional role of management will be examined briefly and the main agents of change described.

2 The Role of Management in the Communist Enterprises: The legacy of the past In 1977, the Soviet Academy of Sciences drew up a special set of requirements to be fulfilled by communist managers. These requirements were supposed to serve as guidelines for the selection, assessment, promotion, training and development of'socialist managers'. (AkademiaNaukSSSR 1977). Six requirements were stipulated:

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

87

• total commitment to communist ideology and absolute loyalty to the communist party; • the ability to organize the work of others, authority and social responsibility; • practical technical knowledge in the fields of technology, management and administration; • the ability to educate people; • the ability to forecast the future development of science and technology and to develop new problem-solving techniques; • political, party, state, legal and moral responsibility for the manager's actions. Other communist authors formulated similar requirements. Kozminski (1977) studied the pragmatic content of the role of communist managers and identified its two major components: participation in plan formulation, and plan implementation. Participation in the plan formulation process required 'diplomatic' and 'gamesmanship' qualities which enabled the manager to persuade the higher levels that plan targets should not be fixed too high, and that the allocation of generous resources would lead to the further development of the enterprise. This outcome was highly desirable from the enterprise point of view but obviously damaging in terms of overall economic efficiency, plan implementation required such management action as: • the redistribution of planned tasks among different departments of the enterprise; • the setting of norms for the execution of plan targets; • strengthening the information network and monitoring information processes; • the distribution of material inputs and energy within the enterprise; • the selection of personnel for the execution of particular tasks and monitoring their performance; • the use of punishments and rewards (incentives) associated with different performance levels. Kozminski (1977) showed the existence of inter-role and intra-role conflicts associated with the positions of communist managers. Inter-role conflicts resulted from the extensive role-sets occupied by these managers. In order to protect themselves from multiple pressures, and in order to keep all options and communication channels open, they had to be active party members participating in the party organs, and they often became elected local officials, members of parliament, the officers of professional organizations (for engineers, accountants, economists, etc.). Although these extensive role-sets created conflicts, they at least enabled some sort of synergy effect to be achieved: the managers'

88

Andrzej Κ . Kozminski

role was enhanced, and they became more successful negotiators as a result of their high prestige and high visibility in other fields. Intra-role conflicts stemmed from the existence of multiple and influential groups of role-senders who articulate sanctioned expectations directly related to the manager's role performance. The most important of these groups were the administrative and political authorities which directly supervised the enterprise, workers and workers' organizations, suppliers, clients, banks, and local governments. The manipulation of the information output destined for the supervising bureaucracies, negotiated compromise, the second economy (which facilitated access to scarce goods) - these enabled managers to cope with conflicting external expectations and the role conflicts that resulted from them. Case studies of postcommunist enterprises in transition show, however, that this mind-set has not disappeared. Similar strategies are still being used by managers in order to cope with the conflicting pressures applied by the workers' organizations, political authorities (which still have a say in the management of state-owned or privatized industry), banks and financing agencies, clients, partners, and so on. Kozminski and Tropea (1982) demonstrated that the bureaucratic structuring of communist industry (hierarchical bureaucracies subject to political pressures) inevitably created informal parasitic networks and coalitions. These informal networks were able to subvert performance criteria and operationalized goals, which usually took the form of economic plans ostensibly imposed on enterprises from above but in fact subject to negotiation and bargaining. Managers used these networks to circumvent legal controls from above and to transform even engineering issues into bargaining phenomena. As a result, the bureaucratic structures lost their only apparent advantage: monolithic controls which enabled selectively determined objectives to be achieved 'at any price'. Because of negotiations, bargaining and reciprocation, and because of the ground rules which regulated relations between the managers of the state-owned enterprises and the administrators in the government agencies supervising those enterprises, party apparatchiks, trade unions, etc., the communist economic system proved consistently unable to achieve its objectives at the enterprise level. Informal structures, coalitions, and unwritten ground rules became a source of 'negative power' for enterprise managers which enabled them to win their contests with the upper levels of bureaucracy and to achieve their own personal goals as well as those of subordinate personnel, at the expense of economic rationality and efficiency. In the present transition period, enterprises are not free of political and ideologically motivated pressures, of which the exigency to privatize as quickly as possible and without proper consideration for the valuation of assets and purely economic efficiency is a salient example (Teague 1992). The old methods of dealing with these pressures encoded in organizational cultures are being resorted to again by the new generation of managers.

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

89

Empirical research on innovations in communist enterprises (Kozminski and Obloj 1984) shows that only initiatives supported by the winning coalitions of managers employing game strategies well suited to the environment were successful. The following strategies were identified: • The strategy of redundant promotion of the proposal through parallel vertical channels, such as the administrative channel (ministry), the political channel (party), the trade union channel (in communist systems loosely linked with the political channel), the professional association channel (engineers), the regional lobby channel, etc. • The strategy of promoting innovation as consistent with the political campaign currently being conducted by the party (for example 'anti-imports' production or the promotion of certain types of industries such as mechanical, chemical, electronic) and presenting such innovation as an 'exceptional' opportunity to achieve politically determined objectives. • The strategy of pushing a decision up to the highest level possible (the party leadership) in order to secure sufficient political clout for the initiative and its promoters. • The strategy of 'fuzzy' responsibility, which involved large numbers of unnecessary and unrelated actors, skilfully manipulated by a group or individual, in a decision-making process. This heterogeneous group served as a 'protective shield' for the promoters of innovation. • The strategy of avoiding open conflict which would be politically damaging for all the actors concerned, and benevolent submission to arbitration by the upper levels of the political (party) hierarchy. It is hard to imagine how such management strategies, which were highly succesful until very recently, can be erased from the organizational cultures of post-communist enterprises. Strong political pressures from 'dying dinosaurs' clearly confirm this awareness, and political games and coalitions based on reciprocity are still being practised by post-communist managers. In her recent analysis of human resources management in Hungarian stateowned or previously state-owned enterprises, Pearce indicates four management practices inherited from communism which still persist. She itemizes: weak performance pressures, substantial pay-at-risk compensation systems, promotion through connections, and ambiguous responsibilities. (Pearce 1991). A survey conducted in 1992 reported that Polish managers and entrepreneurs declared a strong preference for authoritarian management: 46% preferred individual decision-making, 49% admitted some participation by close collaborators, but only 5% would accept workers representatives (Aleksandrowicz 1992). This is a striking finding for a country in which worker self-management is

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

90

obligatory in all the state-owned enterprises, and in which militant trade unions constantly interfere with the management process. Abell (1992: 37) reports that "by Western standards, internal communications to lower levels of enterprise appear quite primitive. Priorities are not therefore shared, and top management intentions are therefore not well understood, or worse, are resisted". Empirical studies (Zvorykin and Geliuta 1977; Kohout 1970) show that in practice the role requirements of communist managers comprised three groups of elements: technical skills, managerial 'diplomatic' skills (mainly the ability to negotiate with the outside world and to protect the enterprise from excessive pressures) and interpersonal skills averting tensions and conflicts inside the enterprise. Among the managerial qualities viewed as positive by Soviet respondents the most important were the following (Zvorykin and Geliuta 1977: 527): • • • • • • • • •

fairness, does not patronize anyone; follows orders but regards them critically; consults with his subordinates in making decisions; combines persistence and toughness with tact; listens attentively to requests; informs his subordinates about higher management decisions; sincerity, states his opinion straightforwardly; always willing to lend a hand on the job; is not afraid to assume responsibility.

The communist manager's role did not comprise three elements considered to be key factors in the market economies: entrepreneurship, strategy and innovativeness. The essence of the communist manager's role was passivity and a defensive response to conflicting pressures. A study of Soviet managers conducted in the 1960s by Zvorykin and Geliuta (Zvorykin and Geliuta 1977: 516) indicated the following hierarchy of managerial objectives stimulated by special incentives (bonuses, promotions, etc.): • • • • • • • •

over-fulfilment of the plan; improved labour productivity; organization of work rhythms; economizing on supplies; reduced costs; improved product quality; introduction of new technology; modernization of equipment.

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

91

Only two items at the end of the list relate in some way to innovation and change. Elements of entrepreneurship and strategy are noticeably absent. As the latest studies available indicate, this basically passive behaviour remained unchanged throughout the communist bloc until the demise of communism, in spite of all the reforms attempted. For example, in 1988 an association was created in the Polish fruit and vegetable industry which was designed to serve the industry through strategic planning and the promotion of innovation. The managers, however, resisted the idea and used the association exclusively for short term problem-solving. An empirical study reveals that these managers believed that this was "the only correct way to operate; that this was how they perceived their role". (Obloj and Davis 1991). After six in-depth studies of the restructuring of post-communist enterprises (three in Poland, two in Slovenia, and one in Croatia), Abell comes to the conclusion that: "most of what has been done so far might be described as 'tactical' rather than strategic in nature". (Abell 1992: 37). "Only one manager appeared to have a clearly thought-through and clearly articulated vision of the future of his business." (Abell 1992: 36). Examples of non-market behaviour by post-communist managers psychologically unable to lead the process of rapid and aggressive adjustment to new market conditions clearly confirm that passivity and inertia cannot be eliminated overnight, and that privatization alone cannot change matters. Have managerial roles changed since the collapse of communism? In the case of'dinosaurs' this process is strongly influenced by the revival of the populist version of industrial democracy, and it requires principally political and negotiating skills from the managers. In the case of'pretenders', the technocratic content of the manager's role seems to predominate, combined with the ability to cooperate successfully with foreign partners and foreign advisors. A mastery of communication process is key factor in both cases. In short, cultural change seems to be the essence of the restructuring process and a key factor in the performance of enterprises.

3 The Agents of Domestic Change The three following types of managerial role in the transformation process can be identified: • the 'populist politician', who turns enterprises around with the support of the workers and such organizations as self-management organs and trade unions;

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

92

• the 'new technocrat', who restructures enterprises using 'traditional' technical and managerial knowledge as well as the traditional sources of organizational power deriving from top management positions in the state-owned or privatized companies; • the 'foreign crusader', who helps to restructure or to turn around post-communist enterprises as the manager of a joint venture company, as a hired management expert or as a volunteer. Table 3 - Impact of the Organizational Culture Change Desired Change Elements of the Organizational Culture

From

To

Impact on Performance

Behavioural Patterns

Ability to Formulate Ritual, Pretending, Pragmatic, Doing, Hierarchy Driven, Cooperation Driven, Objectives and to Rational Argument Cooperate to Achieve them Emotional Demagogy

Norms

Egalitarian - Low Pay, Security

Rewards Based on Contribution, Efficiency

Legitimisation of Rewards Based on Contributions

Values

Protection of the Weakest, Gigantomania, "Their Property"

Organization Survival, Promotion Smartest, Adequate Fit, "Our Property"

Ability to Formulate Objectives and Measure Performance

'Philosophy"

Inward Oriented, Resource Maximizing

Outward Oriented, Client Centered, Market Driven, Net Result Maximizing

Market and Client Driven Organization

Rules of the Game

Be like Everybody, Find your Niche, Information Information Seeking, Avoiding, Political Problem Solving Behaviour

"Climate and Feeling"

Mistrust, Closed, Defensive,

Specialization and Cooperation to Achieve Individual and Collective Goals

Positive Cooperation, Openness and Open, Assertiveness Assertive

'Populist politicians' are found mainly in 'dinosaurs', where the traditional behavioural patterns of workers' activism and the populist industrial democracy that developed during the last years of communism and the first stages of transition are being deployed to save the enterprise from extinction. Poland in 1992 provided plentiful examples of such managerial roles. The restrictive, anti-inflationary monetary policies of 1990 and 1991 triggered a dramatic drop in domestic demand aggravated by the loss of the Soviet and ex-COMECON markets. A deep recession (with a decrease of almost 40% in industrial production between 1989 and 1991) combined with the lack of industrial policy and the opening of the Polish market to foreign competition (low tariff barriers). This

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

93

recession, together with continuing restrictive monetary policies, resulted in a dramatic worsening of the financial situation (with bankruptcies and mass layoffs), especially among the large state-owned enterprises of many industries: automobiles, the machine industry, agricultural machines (rapidly growing agricultural surplus and sluggish demand), light industry and many linkage industries. (Gabrish et al. 1992: 42-55). Stomil in Sroda in Western Poland3 is one such enterprise. It is the only Polish manufacturer of valves for tire tubes, armoured hoses, piston gas rings and other accessories which combine rubber and metal elements for the automotive, tractor and machine industries. The company is relatively modern: it was built at the end of the 1970s as part of an ambitious programme for development of the tractor and automobile industries. Surprisingly enough, its financial situation is aggravated by a tax on fixed assets which state-owned enterprises are obliged to pay, but which is particularly onerous for Stomil due to the high value and low depreciation of its assets. Stanislav Szczot is the general manager of the company. He was selected for the post in October 1990 according to the competitive process stipulated by the Law on State-Owned Enterprises passed in 1981, which also gave the trade unions and workers' council representatives a consultative role. He describes the situation of the company as extremely difficult. During the first months of 1990 Stomil was working on three shifts and the market could still absorb further output. In the second quarter of 1990 the volume of orders started to drop, and in the second half of 1990 production stabilized at 50% of capacity. In the last months of 1990 matters improved for a while and orders increased slightly. Anticipating the upturn announced by the government, Stomil maintained its workforce at the usual level of over 500 employees. In 1990, the company's sales volume amounted to around $3.3 million, but $850,000 worth of its profits were eaten away by taxes (on fixed assets and income) so that nothing was left for development. The average wage was well below the industry average: $63 per month. The company management hoped that the situation would improve in 1991, but these hopes were dashed when orders reached a record low of the equivalent of $220,000 per month. The revaluation (inflation adjustment) of fixed assets in January 1991 considerably increased the tax on fixed assets (by the equivalent of $70,000) and already in January gross profits were not high enough to cover taxes. Debt started to accumulate and by the end of April reached the level of $280,000. The bank refused to extend further credit, and the company was no longer able to finance its current operations. It could not even afford lay-offs because Polish labour laws prescribe special compensation for economic redundancies (6 months' salary) paid by the company. In this situation, privatization through liquidation seemed to be the only solution since it enabled the sale of the company's existing production facilities to

94

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

the highest bidder (including foreign investors), the liquidation of its debt burden, and its continuing operation after down-sizing and restructuring. It was a complicated process, however, which required a considerable amount of time for legal procedures, the evaluation of assets, the identification of prospective buyers, negotiations, and so on. The workforce of Stomil could not wait: their wages were hardly at the subsistence level, and unemployment in their town was rising dramatically because the other state-owned enterprises were on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to pressurize the authorities into accelerating the process, manager Szczot and the trade unions, together with the workers' self-management organs, staged a series of strikes and demonstrations which demanded the rapid liquidation of Stomil and a solution to its problems. From the point of view of change management, this joint effort has two salient features: • the promotion of new solidarity between workers and management based on the assumption that only workers and management together can solve the company's problems; • a psychological adjustment to new market conditions, where nothing is free and companies are able to survive and prosper only if they adjust successfully to market conditions by restructuring and eliminating over-employment. Szczot's adroit manipulation of the company's internal politics is now preparing the ground for new rules of the game in the privatized Stomil that will eventually emerge from the liquidation and privatization process. He is also trying to save the existing industrial substance. Similar strategies are often resorted to by the managers of the state-owned dinosaurs. For example, in the Ursus Tractor Works and the Starachowice Truck Factory (Wrobel 1991) similar action by the workers, supported or even instigated by the management, has led to more radical restructuring programme enabling these enterprises to survive. It remains to be seen to what extent these pressures will lead to occasional patronizing of the ailing enterprises by the state, and to what extent they will induce an overall industrial policy conducted in accordance with market economy mechanisms. What counts is the cultural change promoted by such actions engineered or skilfully manipulated by managers who have mastered the political game of a populist industrial democracy, which will probably persist for some time in the post-communist dinosaurs. The 'new technocrats' are pursuing change strategies which Schein attributes to the "organizational mid-life" growth stage: planned change and organization development, technological seduction and incrementalism. (Schein 1990: 271272). They also and quite frequently use a change mechanism of "managed revolution through outsiders" which Schein links to the early growth stage of

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

95

the organizational life-cycle (Schein 1985: 272). It seems, however, that typologies of organizational life-cycle stages developed for relatively stable Western enterprises do not fit perfectly with the turbulent histories of the postcommunist enterprises, characterized as they are by marked discontinuities during transition from centrally-planned to market economies. The 'new technocrats' are the younger well-educated engineers who were promoted from middle to top management ranks after the demise of communism. Jozef Kowalczyk (36), since November 1989 the manager of Bumar Warynski in Warsaw4, a company manufacturing excavators and power hydraulic systems for earth moving equipment, is an example of a manager/change agent employing the strategy of 'revolution through outsiders' . Under communism Bumar Warynski was one of the leading Polish enterprises and had close links with the Soviet market (60% of its production was exported to the USSR). As a result of the collapse of the Soviet market, and of the deep recession in Poland, in 1990 sales were 76% lower than in 1989. Exports to the West also became less attractive because of a stable exchange rate maintained by the government in spite of high domestic inflation (the 'anchor' for the macroeconomic stabilization plan imposed by the IMF), an over-valued Polish zloty and under-valued hard currencies (mainly the US dollar). In this situation Warynski was faced by imminent bankruptcy. In order to counter this extreme and imminent threat, a restructuring plan was prepared by one of the leading American consultancy firms and approved by the World Bank Mission in Warsaw, which agreed to provide financing. The plan consisted of three stages: • Stage one: the transformation of the state-owned company into a joint stock company (and elimination of the workers' self-management council) was linked to settlement of the firm's debt, which amounted to the equivalent of $8 million. The government-sponsored financial institution, Agency of Industrial Development SA, offered credit to that amount in exchange for a debt-to-equity swap option when the company was privatized. • Stage two: the restructuring of the company, with its production profile changed to the manufacturing of parts and components for excavators and other earth-moving equipment, and to subcontracting for major Western manufacturers. At this stage, the necessary modernization expenses would be covered by the World Bank credit (for imported equipment). The restructuring programme envisaged radical decentralization and the division of the company into three independent but technologically linked companies specializing in distinctive product lines and together forming a holding structure. • Stage three: the privatization of these companies by the offering of shares to domestic and foreign investors (especially the foreign buyers of Warynski's products).

96

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

This restructuring programme entailed a dramatic change in the company's organizational culture: strict work discipline and high quality regimes, decentralization and the creation of an organizational climate conducive to the initiative, the assumption of responsibility by middle management, the streamlining of the company and a reduction of employment by at least 7%, new compensation systems linking pay to productivity and allowing for more differentiated pay scales. The most sensitive issue in the restructuring programme was elimination of the pillar of 'populist industrial democracy' : the workers' council empowered, amongst other things (according to the 1981 Law on State Owned Enterprises), to recall top management. Transformation into a joint stock company automatically eliminated the workers' council. Regardless of its real value for the enterprise and of the correctness of the strategy proposed, the restructuring programme was rather traditional and standard in form. It is hard to imagine that Mr Kowalczyk, a clever and well-travelled engineer, could not have come up with a similar programme using his own staff and Polish management consultants - especially in view of his inside knowledge of the company and of industry in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in the West. What was the American consultancy firm for? It played a key role in Mr Kowalczyk's change strategy in two ways: • The foreign consultants legitimized the programme vis-ä-vis external financing agencies: the Polish Agency of Industrial Development and the World Bank. Without them, the restructuring programme could not have been financed so easily. • The consulting company played the role of a presumably objective arbiter vis-ä-vis the company's workers, who were forced to accept the programme under the threat of mass lay-offs. The consultants certainly helped to start the process of transformation of the company. Such strategies are commonly resorted to by 'new technocrats' turning post-communist enterprises around, especially the more technologically advanced ones preparing themselves to export to the West. Technological and managerial expertise, 'rubber-stamped' by foreign consultants, gives the 'new technocrats' the leverage necessary to trigger the long process of restructuring. Without this support they might be suspected of promoting their own interests, especially when eliminating the influence of self-management. The factors facilitating and impeding cultural change can be summarized as follows:

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

97

Table 4 - Factors Facilitating and Impeding Cultural Change Facilitating

Impeding

Management education, training, development

Resistance of administrative personnel and middle management

Political stability

Political instability, recession, trade unions militancy

Clearly formulated, winning strategy

Drifting, fighting for survival

Visible modernization drive

Outdated stagnant technology

Production management improvement quality orientation

Petrified production management system

Good, rapid feedback from younger work force

Lack of market feedback from older work force

Better educated work force

Uneducated work force

Open information channels

Blocked information channels

4 Cultural change with Foreign Participation There are two types of'mixed marriage' operating in the post-communist countries: opportunistic and strategic. From the standpoint of cultural change, only strategic partnerships can be perceived as achieving the desired cultural change. Joint ventures often encounter serious problems, the sources of which can be traced to both the Western and the Eastern partner. Table 5 - Types of Mixed Marriages Opportunistic

Strategic

Often initiated under communism adjusted to early transition conditions (eg. non-convertible currency)

Resulting from the dominating western partners' clear global strategy

Unclear goals, mistrust between partners

Management control by western partner

Complicated structures involving several local soes and the western partner lacking global strategy

One strong western partner and local pretender

Unclear property rights

Clear property rights

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

98

Table 6 - Sources of Problems in Managing an East-West JV

Western Partner

Eastern Partner

Lack of knowledge and understanding of the environment, market and specific company

Lack of understanding of Western business practices

Too high profit expectations

Too high pay expectations

Superiority complex Stereotyping Lack of communication

Inferiority complex Stereotyping Lack of communication

Lack of intercultural management

Lack of basic management skills

"Plantation syndrome"

Militant, politicized trade unions

Poor negotiations skills

Poor negotiation skills

The 'foreign crusaders' restructuring post-communist enterprises are usually emotionally motivated to involve themselves in Eastern Europe, and they should be distinguished from the 'foreign mercenaries' who come to Central and Eastern Europe in search of a 'quick buck' and who profiteer from the aid funds offered to local governments and other institutions by various Western organizations. Most 'mercenaries' are highly-paid management consultants and educators, usually of low rank in their own countries. They are in the business of selling standardized Western management techniques to Eastern and Central Europe, but in simplified versions which fail to take the local context, cultural differences, and so on, into account on the assumption that "we know better". Precisely because of this assumption, the 'mercenaries' usually have a negative impact. Their activities can be exemplified by the standard distance-learning packages translated (poorly) into Polish, Hungarian or Czech and offered to local students without explanations; or the 'sectoral studies', costing $300,000 apiece, prepared for a small fraction of the fee by some 'whiz kid' assistant professor from the local university supplemented by data published in the West and sold under a more or less prestigious Western name as 'technical aid' to Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia. In Poland, 'mercenaries' are known by the nickname of the 'Mariott brigade'; in other countries they have similar labels which ironically reflect the predatory nature of their activities. 'Crusaders' have different motivations and are sensitive to different issues. Says David Chase, the Jewish American millionaire and Holocaust survivor who is investing $20 million in a cable television network in Poland: "I have got some flak from my own people, especially the survivors, who say: 'Why do you want to go back to Poland ? Is money that important to you ?' It's not a question

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

99

of money. I guess deep down I always wanted to go back. Deep down part of me will always be in Poland and never left Poland" (Wandycz 1991: 170). George F. Varga, who returned to Hungary after thirty years of exile to head GE-Tungsram JV, puts it as follows: "Sometimes I am amazed. I left here as a kid. Now I am whisked around town by a chauffeur and call the ministers by their first names. This isn't a job, it's a crusade" (Tully 1990: 142). He admits that it takes "a bit of a missionary zeal to do this right" to mesh two cultures and to make the culture-clash pay off.5 Mr. Joseph W. Karoly, a retired RCA executive, served three months in Poland as an IESC (International Executive Service Corps) volunteer helping to restructure Polkolor, the colour television tube manufacturer. He describes his motives as follows: "Since leaving RCA I had spent most of my days improving my golf handicap. But the offer from IESC - in effect, to be part of the economic revolution sweeping Eastern Europe was a challenge I could not resist. My wife Ruth was also a part of the package. Her project was to put together a manual about Poland to help familiarize future IESC volunteers and their spouses with the culture. (The fact that Ruth happens to be of Polish descent made her enthusiastic, but was of little practical value, she did not know a word of the language)".(Karoly 1990: 31). 'Crusaders' promote cultural change in the three ways exemplified by the three people presented above: • they offer new types of products and services and create new types of organizations, • they manage culture-clash, • they provide and implement new tools and new management techniques. David Chase has launched in Poland a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chase International run by his son-in-law and based in Warsaw. Chase International operates a cable TV network in the Gdansk region which it plans to expand into a fibre optic telephone system. A commercial and investment bank, Solidarity Chase Bank, has been opened in Gdansk. Solidarity has given Chase a 99-year lease on its famous logo in return for 51 % of the equity. Chase has put up capital and expertise and retains 49%. An insurance company is in the making. Chase believes in starting his companies in Poland from scratch in order to avoid the consequences of the cultural heritage of communism. Says Chase: "If I were to make a deal with one of the privatizing banks I would have to take over the practices of the last 45 years. Rather than take a person and change his or her habits we would rather train a person from the ground up" (Wandycz 1991: 170). It is worth noting that all the businesses begun by Chase are offering new products in Poland (including commercial and investment banks which offer home mortgages - unknown under communism - and competitive commercial

100

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

insurance). Chase's businesses in Poland are all linked: cable television is regarded as a vehicle with which to promote telephone network as well as banking and insurance services. This innovative business concept is being translated into a new type of organizational culture in newly-created organizations. Varga's mission is to turn around Tungsram, the Hungarian state-owned lightbulb factory. The distinctive feature of his strategy is the use of seasoned American executives as change agents, required to show cultural sensitivity instead of GE's usual cockiness and the arrogance of the 'young wolves'. Modern office equipment and flexible routines are supposed to eliminate bureaucrats and to introduce a new management style by gradually eliminating the barrier between workers and management inherited from communism. Says Varga: "The most difficult part is the human software. New ideas were discouraged and there was very little initiative and zero sense of ownership. Attitudes will be the most difficult to change. It's not a problem you just throw money at." (Greenhouse 1990). Varga believes that people should feel that Hungarian ways are still appreciated even when modified and changed according to Western standards. The respect shown to local culture should neutralize people's worries that Americans are trying to colonize. In short, Varga cushions cultural shock and manages it consciously: he tries to avoid too much change too quickly in order to make it easier to absorb. It is worth noting that ABB, for example, in turning around the electrical turbines manufacturer Zamech in Poland is employing a completely different strategy of accelerated change. ABB uses only Polish managers assisted by experts from foreign subsidiaries and from company headquarters in Zurich. Special attention is paid to training and communication. The Polish managers are supposed to meet the same performance standards as ABB managers all over the world. Comments Barbara Kux supervising Polish operation from the Zurich headquarters: "You can change these companies. You can make them more competitive and profitable. I can't believe the quality of the reports and presentations these people do today, how at ease they are discussing their strategy and targets. I have worked with many corporate restructurings but never have I seen so much change so quickly. The energy is incredible. These people really want to learn, they are very ambitious. Basically ABB Zamech is their business now." (Taylor 1991: 107). The differences between the restructuring of GE Hungary and that of ABB Poland can be summarized as follows:

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

101

Table 7 - Restructuring Of Post-Communist Enterprises Commonalties:

Differences:

Improvement of Production Management - New Accounting Procedures Flattening of Management Structure - Negotiated Lay-offs - Strengthening of Marketing - Modernization Drive Ge - Hungary

Abb - Poland

JV managed by large number of foreigners

JV managed by locals coached and monitored by foreigners

Priority given to lay-offs of workers

Priority given to lay-offs of managers and administrative personnel

"Special" approach to restructuring of Tungsram

Application of standard company practices

Gradual change of organizational structure

Radical change of organizational structure

"Import" of experts

Big investment in management development and education and workers training

Modernization financed by parent company

Modernization financed by JV itself

Mr Karoly was not a manager at Polkolor; nevertheless he is a change-agent in the purest sense of the word because he was invited by the local management and his work was organized by the management. He responded to the problems raised by the management, and management provided him with all the means to carry out his task. He worked on two projects at Polkolor: restructuring the organization in order to improve productivity and quality control systems, and designing a standard cost accounting system whereby costs could be calculated at different stages of the production process. The organization was broken down into distinctive cost centers, a 14-page cost accounting manual was prepared, and personnel were trained. Karoly made specific recommendations for quality and productivity improvement, including the establishment of a preventive maintenance system and the creation of a programme of bonuses for workers meeting production quotas, improving quality, etc. Recommendations were also made which targeted the elimination of the 20% over-employment inherited from the communist system. On both reading Karoly's article in the New York Times Magazine and interviewing the people concerned at Polkolor, I was amazed at how much could be accomplished in terms of cultural change in such a short time by one person. New behavioural patterns were set because Karoly enjoyed a special type of credibility as a volunteer, and because he made the effort to find out at the shopfloor level what could be improved. This form of consultation, combined with

102

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

in-house training, seems an especially effective way to promote change in postcommunist enterprises.

5 Local Managerial Skills In 1992 and 1993 changes in the understanding of management roles were already visible, at least in the most advanced countries such as Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. These changes seem to have been 'privatization-driven'. A survey of over 500 Polish managers and entrepreneurs (151 sole owners, 158 minority shareholders, and the rest hired managers) showed that over 20% of them regarded "knowledge of the market" to be the key factor in success, and 20% a "quick reaction to changing situation"; 18% considered the "ability to organize work and to manage people" to be most important, while 15% stressed professionalism in management. 53% described their strategy as "future growth oriented" and only 15% wanted to keep their enterprises "at the present level". 11% declared short-term profit to be their goal. Only 24% of the surveyed population preferred "old, proven solutions and products" over innovations (Aleksandrowicz 1992). Small private enterprises were the most strongly innovation-driven and exhibited the strongest preference for accelerated growth. Kolvereid and Obloj (1992) compared 76 Polish small entrepreneurs with 250 from Norway and 137 from New Zealand. Polish entrepreneurs, as compared with the entrepreneurs from the other two countries, wanted to grow faster. The future of their businesses, however, were at risk, for three reasons: First, they operated in an environment which is less favourable in terms of support services and external capital resources. The quality of inputs and workforce in Poland is the lowest among the countries surveyed. Second, the most common strategic choice among Polish entrepreneurs was "bargain strategy" (low price, low quality, the focus on only a few products while expanding the market reach). This strategy enables the sales volume to grow but, because of low margins, does not yield sufficient accumulated profits to finance the future growth of production capacity and to upgrade the technological level. Third, since external sources of capital were prohibitively expensive (because interest rates are kept high to fight inflation) and the self-financing capacity limited (because of the "bargain strategy"), Polish entrepreneurs quite often fell into the trap of over-extension and liquidity crisis by growing faster than the MIFROG (Maximum Internally Financiable Rate of Growth).

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

103

Only 36% of the managers and entrepreneurs surveyed by Rzeczpospolita (Aleksandrowicz 1992) declared a tendency to avoid risky investments and a preference for "smaller and secure profits". The top executives of larger stateowned enterprises often declared an "alliance with competition" as their preferred strategy; 31% of those surveyed indicated an "escape to new products and new markets" as a competition strategy; 48% preferred to confront the competition. It is evident that professional, trained managers capable of developing and implementing viable strategies in the emerging market environment are the most scarce resource in the post-communist economies. Of the 500 managers and entrepreneurs in the Rzeczpospolita survey, slightly over two-thirds had university diplomas. 84% had not participated in any management education or development programme. 15%, however, were offered internships in Western enterprises. Only 19% could speak English and 17% German. In this respect, the situation in the state-owned enterprises is even worse. Only slightly over 10% declared some knowledge of English. The population was split nearly equally between people older than 40 and those younger than 40. Seventy-eight women were included in the 500 surveyed. As far as previous experience was concerned, 40% of the top managers and entrepreneurs surveyed were previously employed in state-owned enterprises, 19% in private enterprises, 16% in cooperatives, and 7% abroad (Aleksandrowicz 1992). Western-type management education, training and development can certainly play an important role. Hundreds of initiatives in this field have emerged in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Ukraine and other ex-USSR republics5. Some of them are assisted by Western aid funds and by respectable Western educational institutions.6 It is too early for surveys, comparisons and general conclusions regarding management education in the post-communist countries. One comment, however, is necessary: nearly all the management education and development programmes in Central and Eastern Europe under the influence of the West, and often assisted and financed by Western sources, focus on 'hard' aspects of management: accounting, finance, marketing, banking. Transformational leadership, negotiations and communication are in the most cases not included among the skills deemed most necessary by both locals and Western advisers.7 This approach may create some problems in the promotion and acceleration of change at the enterprise level, in view of the nature of the problems faced by these enterprises and the importance of the 'soft' aspects of management: with communication as the 'common denominator' of all of them.

104

Andrzej Κ. Kozminski

Notes 1 The author would like to extend his thanks to the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA for supporting this project. 2 Cases and much more detailed analysis are presented in Catching Up ? Organizational and Management Change in The Ex-Socialist Block (Kozminski 1993) 3 Based on an interview with Stanislav Szczot, general manager of Stomil, published in the Polish economic weekly Zycie Gospodarcze (Fronczak 1991). 4 Based on an interview with Jozef Kowalczyk, general manager of Bumar Warynski, published in Zycie Gospodarcze (Wieczorkowska 1991), and on the author's own research. 5 "GE Carves out a Road East", Business Week, 30 July 1990, p. 33. 6 This is evidenced by the initiatives of Group 247 created after President Bush's visits to Central and Eastern Europe (1989-1990) and to the EEC headquarters in Brussels. The British, Dutch, Danish, American, French and German governments have all stated that management education is a priority area, and that each of them will support it in the post-communist countries. As early as 1989, British Prime Minister Thatcher created a 'know-how fund' for Poland which targeted management education in particular. Similar initiatives have been undertaken by supra-national organizations like the Economic Development Institute (EDI) of the World Bank and the EEC, which includes Central and Eastern Europe in its educational programmes (e.g. ERASMUS or PHARE). 7 The author has studied the programmes of nearly fifty business schools operating in Central and Eastern Europe.

References Abell, D. (1992): Turnaround in Eastern Europe: in Depth Studies. New York: United Nations Development Programme. Management Development Programme. Akademiia Nauk SSSR (1977): Trud Rukovoditelia: Uchebnoe Posobie dlia Rukovodiashchikh Upravlencheskich Kadrov. (Work of the Manager: Manual for Managerial Personnel) Moscow: Akademia Nauk SSSR. Aleksandrowicz, P. (1992): "Polscy Menedzerowie Najwyzszych Szczebli" (Polish Top Executives) Rzeczpospolita Nr. 171, 172, 173. Fronczak, K. (1991): "Z Przezyc Lezacego" (Impressions of the Laying Down) Zycie Gospodarcze 24, 16 June: 3. Gabrisch, H. et. al. (1992): Depression and Inflation: Threats to Political and Social Stability - The Current Economic Situation of Former CMEA Countries and Yugoslavia. Vienna: The Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic Studies. Greenhouse, S. (1990): "General Electric Running on Fast Forward in Budapest." The New York Times, 16 December: 7-8. Karoly, J. W. (1990): "Assignment: 90 Days on the Polish Front." The New York Times Magazine, 23 September: 28-31. Kohout, J. (1970): "What Kind of Managers Do We Have" Management Sciences in Czechoslovakia 1: 17-70. Kolvereid, L. and Obloj, K. (1992): Small Business Environment, Strategies and Aspirations: Cross National Comparison. Paper presented at the International Small Business Congress, Warsaw October 1992. Kozminski, A. K. (1993): Catching Up? Organizational and Management Change in the Ex - Socialist Block. Albany N.Y.: SUNY Press. Kozminski, A. K. (1992): "The Main Issues of Industrial Policy for Poland" Communist Economies and Economic Transformation Vol. 4. Nr. 2: 237-47.

From the Communist Nomenklatura to Transformational Leadership

105

Kozminski, A. K. and Kwiatkowski, K. (1992): "Paradoxical Country: Management Education in Poland." Journal of Management Development Nr. 5. Kozminski, A. K. and Obloj, K. (1984): "Collaboration de la Recherche Scientifique et de l'Industrie pour L'Innovation." Revue d"Etudes Comparatives Est - Ouest Vol. 15 Nr. 2.: 48-59. Kozminski, A. K. and Tropea, J. L. (1982): "Negotiation and Command: Managing in the Public Domain." Human Systems Management Vol. 1. Nr. 3:21-31. Kozminski, A. K. (1977): "The Role of Manager in the Socialist Economy." in: Boddewyn J. (ed.) European Industrial Managers: West and East. White Plains N.Y.: International Arts and Sciences Publishers Inc.: 393-415. Obloj, K. and Davis, A. S. (1991): "Innovation Without Change: Contradiction Between Theories Espoused and Theories in Use." Journal of Management Studies Vol. 28. Nr. 4. July: 323-37. Pearce, J. L. (1991): "From Socialism to Capitalism: The Effects of Hungarian Human Resources Practices." Academy of Management Executive. Vol. 5. Nr. 4: 75-88. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Research Report. 1992. Vol. 1 Nr. 17, 24 April. Schein, Ε. Η. (1990): Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, Oxford: Jossey Bass. Taylor, W. (1991): "The Logic of Global Business" an interview with ABB's Percy Barnevik. Harvard Business Review, March - April: 91-105. Teague, E. (ed.) (1992): "Roundtable: Is Equity Compatible with Efficiency" in: Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Research Report 1992. Vol. 1. Nr. 17. 24 April: 9-14. Tully, S. (1990): "GE in Hungary: Let There Be Light." Fortune 22 October: 137-42. Wandycz, K. (1991): "Solidarity's Partner." Forbes, May 27: 168-70. Wieczorkowska, A. (1991): "Ucieczka Przed Upadkiem." (Escape from Bankruptcy) Zycie Gospodarcze 27. 7 July: 7. Wrobel, E. (1991), "Strajk w Sprawie Przyszlosci." (Strike for the Future) Zycie Gospodarcze 34, 25 August: 5. Zvorykin, A. A. and Geliuta, Μ. M. (1977): "Engineering and Technical Personnel in the Social Structure of Soviet Economy." in: Boddewyn J. (ed.) European Industrial Managers: East - West. White Plain N.Y.: International Arts and Sciences Press Inc.: 491-540.

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management:1 A Comparative View Bruno Grancelli

1 Introduction Privatization is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the marketization of post-socialist economies. This seems especially true if one refers to the privatization of big state enterprises. This is not to say that privatization is entirely extraneous to the introduction of market incentives into the behaviour of economic agents. It means that these incentives still play only a limited role, given that they are present mainly in mixed enterprises or ones created ex novo by foreign and local entrepreneurs. It also means that market logic is much stronger in buying and selling than in production. In short, the pursuit of profit still proceeds largely independently of an organization of production based on criteria of efficiency and productivity. Hence it follows that the post-socialist economic landscape is often reminiscent of countries of the Third World (Winiecki 1989; Misztal 1992), of mercantile capitalism (Burawoy and Krotov 1992), or at any rate of earlier stages in the industrial development of the Western countries (Child 1993; Grancelli 1993). Those who visit this landscape must come to terms with various paradoxes and a considerable semantic mismatch between Eastern and Western definitions of management. They may find, for example, that the term 'privatization' denotes processes not greatly different from those which led to the creation of the state-controlled enterprises in Italy (Grancelli 1994). And this semantic mismach should be borne in mind when discussing post-socialist organizations. This paper starts from the premise that in order to understand the nature and working of the post-socialist enterprise, it is necessary to know the visible and (above all) invisible aspects of management in the socialist enterprise. This latter, in fact, has been called an organization of exogenous type (Ickes 1990); a definition which is accurate in at least two respects. Firstly, structures were defined by the central authorities irrespective of technological and product characteristics; secondly, the fundamental criteria of organizational design had been imported from a 'leader country'. The description of the ideal-type of the social-

108

Bruno Grancelli

ist enterprise contained in the first part of this paper therefore takes the Soviet enterprise as its principal empirical referent. Bearing these points in mind, analysis of organizational change in the postsocialist enterprise must rely on concepts familiar to Western analysts. Accordingly, the second part of this paper refers to an extended version of the theory of organizational equilibrium in order to give an idea of the obstacles against the introduction of market incentives in the behaviour of managers and subordinates in the various kinds of privatized enterprise.

2 The Socialist Enterprise Under Soviet-type socialism, economic organizations operated according to certain principles which, despite periodic attempts at economic reform, remained substantially unchanged until the collapse of the system. These principles can be illustrated by means of a brief description of the base model of the enterprise in the command economy (Granick 1961; Nove 1977; Jeffries 1981). The typical firm operated on the basis of the individual responsibility of a director appointed by the party-state. At the centre, the State Commission for planning issued production directives for enterprises, which they received through their respective ministries and the other intermediate levels of the industrial hierarchy. These directives were drawn up by the Commission on the basis of two types of input: instructions from the political leadership on the one hand, information and requests from firms on the other. The ratios between demand and supply were calculated by the planning bodies in the form of the so-called 'material budgets', which were used to devise a series of control indices checking a firm's activity. Of course, these material budgets were a somewhat rudimentary allocative instrument. To become in some way operational they had to be supplemented by bargaining between the enterprise management and the planning organs over production targets and over the resources needed to achieve them. Moreover, the plan could be altered even in the implementation phase. From a legal-formal point of view, the chief function of the enterprise was to fulfil, and even to exceed, the plan assigned to it, which was divided into the three classic deadlines: annual, three-monthly and monthly. The enterprise plan comprised a series of 'success indicators', one of the most important of which was the quantitaty of output. Other indicators concerned the use of the workforce (wages, productivity, number of workers, average wages, qualifications) and other inputs, the reductions of costs, innovation. There was also an indicator called 'profit', but, as we shall see, this had a very special meaning.

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

109

The socialist enterprise had its own budget. But wholesale prices were fixed by the state and revised at lengthy intervals on the basis of the average production costs of the various sectors, to which was added a fixed profit quota of 3-5%. Thus, if the centre allocated resources and fixed prices, the enterprise management had no need to worry about either demand or marginal costs. As well as fixing internal prices independently of those in international markets, the state also fixed exchange rates, for which reason losses were incurred by the organizations for foreign trade, but not by the enterprises. In short, what mattered for socialist economic organizations was not selling but producing. And this fundamental datum did not change, despite recurrent efforts from the 1960s onwards to introduce an element of market logic into a planning rendered less imperative. These attempts provoked much discussion of the various aspects of so-called 'market socialism' but achieved veiy few results, which can be summarized as follows (Jeffries 1981). Irrespective of differences among countries, increasing recourse was made to 'economic levers' such as prices, interest rates, credit and fiscal policies designed to steer production indirectly. However, changes in the price system were not particularly significant, since they mostly involved some increases in wholesale prices in order to reduce state subsidies and to enable enterprises to meet their production costs, and increasing funds for employee incentives, social services and production development. Prices, though, were fixed as before: only the mark-up changed, rising from 3-5% to around 15%. In some countries the category of 'free prices' began to appear, and attempts were also made to link wholesale prices to those of the international markets, even though foreign trade was still centrally controlled. The same applied to the allocation of investments, at least to a large extent. Finally, the role of subsidies was reduced and greater use was made of long-term credit, although rates remained very low. An idea of how restricted the use of 'market levers' was, even after the reforms, can be gained by considering, for example, the calculation and distribution of profits in the Soviet enterprise. The subtraction from earnings of the costs of inputs and depreciation funds gave gross profit. Subtracted from this were payments to the state, which consisted of an approximately 6% share of the value of fixed and circulating value plus interest on credit received and a possible extra payment if the enterprise had been authorized to purchase advanced technology. This therefore gave the net profit, out of which three types of enterprise fund had to be financed: for production development, for material incentives, and for social services and employee housing. What remained ('residual profit') went into the state budget or the Construction Bank, which granted long-term credit for investments authorized by the plan authorities. At this points the enterprise might receive a residue of the residue, but it was obliged to use this share of the profit for purposes fixed by the higher authorities (Jeffries 1981:7).

110

Bruno Grancelli

During the Seventies and Eighties, increasingly widespread use was made of 'economic levers', although the underlying logic never changed: the purpose of the market was to make the plan work. The basic principle on which socialist industrialization was built remained the same: politics held sway over the economy. This latter was always considered, by the political elites and by enterprise managements, to be a means for the achievement of political-state goals. It should also be added, however, that this principle did not take root solely in seventy years of Soviet socialism; it had been the rationale which shaped the process of industrialization and modernization of Tsarist Russia as well. Given that the model of the command economy was born in Soviet Russia, brief description of the historical-cultural reality of that country is required if we are to understand the organizational structures and management practices of the socialist enterprise. In 1917 a revolution inspired by Marxist doctrine took place in Russia. But as has been rightly pointed out, Russia's past was much more important for understanding of the country's political and economic structures than Marxism (Nove 1979). At least four principal lines of continuity can be singled out. The first is the attitude of workers and employers towards production, which they saw as a service rendered to the state, and in exchange for which the state was obliged to help them in case of difficulty (Tugan-Baranowsky 1970; Crisp 1979; Blackwell 1982). The second was the attitude of employees and managers to enterprise ownership, considered to be res nullius and therefore the legitimate target of misappropriation and pilfering for personal gain (Gerschenkron 1974). The third line of continuity relates to the widespread tendency towards negligence and indiscipline, the cultural heritage of a 'semi-rustic' labour force not long out of serfdom. It is also worth pointing out that, in the proto-industrial phase, the workforce was usually organized into work groups (collectives), and group responsibility was used as a form of reciprocal coercion among subordinates. But these latter, in their turn, sought to turn this reciprocal coercion into reciprocal cover-up in order to defend themselves in some way against the impositions and controls applied by their superiors (Gerschenkron 1974; Esper 1978; Blackwell 1982). Finally, one should remember that the tradition of bureaucratic interference also had enduring effects on the behaviour of employers and enterprise managers, who were usually reluctant to assume risk and tended to resort to well-tried management practices. Technological and organizational innovation thus resulted either from government orders or from the initiative of foreign entrepreneurs (Kaser 1979). An idea of the autocratic-paternalistic principle of government and of its ability to survive changes in the politico-institutional context is therefore crucial to understanding of the peculiarities of organizational structures and behaviours in the command economy, reformed or otherwise. The conception of hierarchy in enterprises operating in a market economy can be summarized as follows. Each manager receives orders from his superiors

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

111

and he is accountable to them for their execution. But each position in the hierarchy has its owm sphere of authority, which is not included in the sphere of authority pertaining to the position above. And a superior, as a rule, cannot bypass lower hierarchical levels to assign tasks directly to subordinates of subordinates. The weakness of this system is that the higher hierarchical levels often have an unclear idea of what is happening at the base of the pyramid because they are not in direct contact with it. The system's strength lies in the fact that managers at every level have a certain amount of independence and can discuss problems and decisions vertically as well as horizontally. The authority structure of the socialist enterprise was completely different. Here organizational thought began and ended with the collective - an organizational concept with deep cultural roots in the country that had created and exported the institutions of the command economy. The collective has been called an institution which was neither modern (like a voluntary association) nor traditional (like the family). In other words, the collective can be considered a logically contradictory and institutionally 'defective' way to stimulate individualistic behaviour (aim at benefits for the 'activists) and then subordinate it to the dictates of the party (Jowitt 1983). As regards the more specifically hierarchical aspect, the collective can be conceived as a 'structural task unit'; that is, a group, of whatever size, charged with performing a certain number of tasks. The socialist enterprise itself was a collective containing a certain number of production, administration and service collectives (Vlachoutsicos and Lawrence 1990). In the smaller collectives there was a high degree of solidarity and cohesion among the members and a marked sense of loyalty towards the group leader (chosen by the members). Each collective was therefore able to create mutual complicity networks which constituted a sturdy defence against controls from above and, in general, intrusions from outside. This was also true of the enterprise as a whole, although at this level the network that mattered was formed by the director, some managers (production and accounting), the party representative and, in a subordinate position, the chairman of the trade-union committee (Grancelli 1986,1988). In short, the hierarchy of the socialist enterprise can be compared to a matrioshka, in which the largest doll contains a smaller one, this smaller one contains an even smaller one, and so on until the smallest doll of all. This fundamental feature of the system had major implications for managerial practices. Its advantage was that it enabled the organizational leadership to gain a clear idea of what was happening on the shop-floor and it enhanced integration among the various levels of the hierarchy; the disadvantage was that it tended to overload vertical channels of communication and to block horizontal ones (Vlachoutsicos and Lawrence 1990). The great authority wielded by the leaders of the collectives had historical and cultural roots, but it also derived from the fact that these leaders enjoyed

112

Bruno Grancelli

twofold legitimacy: they had been elected by the members of the collective (which is not the case of the managers of staff units), and they had then been legitimated by the higher authorities. Decision-making in the socialist enterprise was a process which combined the principle of individual leadership with that of collectivism: two principles which were deeply rooted in Russia's socialist and pre-socialist history (Pipes 1974; McDaniel 1988) and which in Leninist doctrine and practice, fused to form the fundamental tenets of the concept of 'democratic centralism': election of party leaders at all levels, close conformity by everyone with majority decisions, the binding nature of political directives issued by the centre. In practice, in the socialist enterprise, power from above and power from below combined in alternating phases of centralization and decentralization of decision processes. If one of the two phases was overemphasised, or vice-versa ignored, there was the risk that the decision would encounter major obstacles when it came to be implemented (Valchoutsicos and Lawrence 1990). These, in outline, were the organizational characteristics of the socialist enterprise. But managerial practices were not the same in all enterprises. The primacy of politics over the economy and of production over sales exclude the possibility that this difference can be explained in terms of variables such as, for example, size or technology. The discriminating variable was instead whether the enterprise belonged to a high or low priority sector; a variable which acted in synergy with the enterprise manager's ability to secure political protection (Grancelli 1988; Winiecki 1990, 1991). In other words, the primacy of politics also entailed the structural datum of the priority of production goods over consumption goods, and the subjective datum of the diverse capacity to assume, not entrepreneurial risk but political risk in what Bendix (1973) called "the system of external bureaucratization of the enterprise". In the more or less reformed command economy, therefore, existed two very distinct types of enterprise, whose organizational structure rested on the same principles but whose practices differed because one found itself at the centre and the other at the periphery of the system. The two firms can be described in the following terms (Grancelli 1987, 1988). High priority enterprise. This is a large enterprise with tens of thousands of employees and whose production is of strategic importance for the militaryindustrial complex. The director is well integrated into a network of personal relations with high-level representatives of the party-state. These two factors ensure a low level of uncertainty over material and financial inputs. Should some difficulty arise, the director's network of relations gives him easy access to supplies - also because the enterprise's importance equips the director with substantial bargaining power in his dealings with the plan authorities. The relative abundance of material and financial resources gives the enterprise an excellent chance of achieving (or exceeding) its plan directives. And this is one of the

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

113

preconditions for the successful career of the enterprise manager; the official precondition. The other is that he must use his enterprise's resources and products to furnish a wide range of semi-gratuitous services to members of the upper echelons of the nomenklatura with decisional power over the assignation of managerial appointments. Nor do major problems arise in relationships with the workforce, because the abundance of 'social consumption funds' allows the enterprise succesfully to perform its function as a proxy for the market as regards the acquisition of goods and services by the employees. These funds, together with various kinds of bonuses, help to stimulate productivity, or at at any rate production, especially if new technologies are acquired. The enterprise director also enjoys strong bargaining power vis-ä-vis the employees because the enterprise, although characterized by more rigid discipline, offers good opportunities for professional development. It is probable, moreover, that the enterprise will be located in a 'closed city' or in an important industrial district - places which are best served by the centralized system of commercial distribution. And this too facilitates the management of labour relations. As far as relationships with customers are concerned, since these are military customers, the enterprise has to cope with a certain amount of uncertainty on the outputs side. But even if part of production does not meet the standards required, the enterprise can always try again. In fact, there is no lack of resources and budget constraints are anything but rigid. Low priority enterprise. This is a medium-small enterprise producing consumption goods and which depends not on some powerful industrial ministry but on the local authorities. The director's personal characteristics differ in that he is older than the previous one and may have risen from the rank-and-file. The director may be a woman. In any case, his or her chances of a career in the nomenklatura system are much lower than those of the director of a high priority enterprise. This means that the members of his relational network are less important than those mentioned in the previous case. Or it may happen that the network includes even important party bosses, but in this case the relations are those usually established with a boss. The resources obtainable from ministries and banks are distinctly inadequate, without this necessarily meaning that the enterprise receives less stringent plan directives. The director therefore has no other choice but to resort, to a greater or lesser extent, to unofficial channels of supply or to bartering with other enterprises. The high level of uncertainty on the inputs side creates the structural premises for tensions to arise with the workforce and for the growth of absenteeism, turnover and various forms of indiscipline (including theft of the enterprise's materials and products). Under these conditions, given the difficulty of fulfilling the plan, the director may manipulate the production accounts. For him to take this risk he must create a network of mutual complicity among

114

Bruno Grancelli

certain key members of the enterprise management. It thus becomes much easier to make the qualitative leap from illegalities for the purpose of fulfilling the plan, at least on paper, to illegalities for the purpose of realizing a profit using the enterprise as an interface between the official economy and the more or less illegal second economy. In conclusion, in order to analyse the problems involved in the privatization of post-socialist enterprises one must bear in mind the fact that it was preceded by the "crypto-privatization" (Grossman 1979) of many of the low priority sectors of the socialist economy.

3 Post-Socialist Organizations Today in the post-socialist countries there is practically no political or social force which opposes the privatization of the economy. The chief problem is therefore not privatization in itself but the way in which it ought to proceed. In other words, now that the vouchers for the purchase of shares have been distributed to workers and citizens, the introduction of market incentives in the behaviour of managers and subordinates emerges as the principal means to overcome the legacy of real socialism. Increasingly evident in this phase is the mismatch between the speed of government privatization programmes and the slowness and difficulty of reorganizing enterprises. To give an idea of the meanings and possible outcomes of this mismatch, I now propose an analysis which takes account of three crucial factors which may substantially alter the environment in which an enterprise operates: the action of the central government and of local governments, market position, and the possible presence of foreign partners. Now that most of the great state enterprises have become joint stock companies, what changes are taking place in structures, in strategies and in organizational culture? The answer to this question must inevitably begin from the point at which socialist organizational thought began and ended: the collective. Empirical evidence gathered in each of the Central-Eastern European countries shows that a crucial difference is now emerging between enterprises in which the collective is still a unitary actor (although it may have fragmented to some extent) and enterprises in which it has split into parts each independently pursuing its own interests. Now that privatization from above has reached its critical mass, two distinct paths of organizational change are appearing. The first, in which the enterprise collective is the majority shareholder, is more common among what used to be high priority enterprises and which today encounter market difficulties. The second is more widespread among enterprises producing con-

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

115

sumer goods and which now are in a position to attract the interest of national or foreign investors as well as being the object of local government development policies. Added to these two types of transformation is the creation of new firms, within a joint venture framework, by entrepreneurs from one of the two abovementioned organizational contexts. In order to understand the management of the socialist enterprise it was necessary to give an idea of the historico-cultural origins of its peculiar organizational principles. It is now necessary to analyse the infractions among the various types of post-socialist organization and of the environments in which they operate in order to grasp the direction of change. The questions underlying this analysis are the following: are the management practices of the post-socialist enterprise moving closer to those of the enterprise operating in a market economy? If so, what are the reference economies and societies? Some answers to these questions can be gleaned from an East/West comparison in which the relatively unknown reality of the (post)socialist enterprise is set against its capitalist counterpart using a concept familiar to Western scholars: that of'organizational equilibrium'. This concept, developed in the classic analyses of Barnard (1970), March and Simon (1966), was originally used to define the equilibrium between the contribution that the individual is willing to make and the moral and material incentives that s/he expects to receive from the organization. Andrzej Kozminski (1991) employs the concept of organizational equilibrium to address the still unresolved problem of the lack of a common terminology with which to describe the dfference of economic and managerial content between the two types of enterprise. He uses it, however, in a broad sense which extends that analysis of the relationship between contribution and incentives in two directions. The first consists in considering not only the relationships between managers and subordinates in the enterprise, but also those between the managers and external authorities (and the environment in general). The second extension makes joint consideration of both the economic and material aspects of the exchange, and of its social aspects. Thus, in this extended version of the theory, the concept of organizational equilibrium can be split into four interrelated components which enable comparison to be made between the three ideal types of post-socialist enterprise and a model (also idealtypical) of the capitalist enterprise. In the market economy the prime component of the organizational equilibrium of the enterprise, in Kozminski's scheme, is the 'material-external' one, which is determined by the indicators showing balance-sheet soundness and the ability of the management to acquire investment capital. The second ('internalmaterial') component comprises the technological and financial aspects of production, with a central role attributed to the calculation of production costs, to product quality and to technological innovation. The third component is 'external-social' and consists mainly of the political influence that the large enterprise

116

Bruno Grancelli

is able to exercise and the set of its public relations in the institutional system of parliamentary democracy. The last component is the 'internal-social' one comprising the set of indicators signalling the willingness of the workforce to maintain or improve their work contribution in return for incentives provided by the enterprise management: rates of absenteeism and of turnover, strikes, and so on. On the basis of this comparative schema, let us now examine certain aspects of the difficult passage towards new levels of organizational equilibrium in the three types of enterprise operating in the post-socialist context. 'Material-external equilibrium'. In the privatized enterprise, generally speaking, this equilibrium has not significantly changed, in the sense that there is still a long way to go before the previous conditions in which the budget constraint was exceptionally soft have been superseded. In most cases, this applies to a medium-large enterprise whose share ownership is in the hands of the company collective which has elected its director. With reference to this indicator, continuities and changes in management can be described by saying that only the conditions obstructing the passage to profit-making financial management have altered. If before this type of enterprise obtained credit facilities and subsidies from the government on account of its strategic importance, today it still receives them (although to a lesser extent) because both the central and the local government are reluctant to accept lay-offs or enterprise closures. As has been observed, "you can privatize a factory even a hundred times, but if the director knows that the state will never let it go bankrupt he will certainly not be interested in increasing its efficiency or making it competitive" (Montaigne 1993). Moreover, one should also bear in mind that many enterprises in strategic sectors may be excluded from privatization if the govermment decides so. And this opens up broad margins for negotiation between the enterprise management and the government bureaucracy (The Economist, March 12 1994). Of course, investment companies are being created in the post-socialist context which are bound to play an increasingly greater role in economic transformation. The difficulties, however, are considerable, at both the top and the bottom. As regards the former level, it should be remembered that if the hierarchy of the socialist enterprise resembled a matrioshka, the same applies (to a large extent) to infant financial capitalism. In effect, it is almost impossible to establish who is the real owner of a company. But it would come as no surprise if he proved to be an ex-government minister from theperestroika period. The problem is that in high finance, as in high politics, it is not so much market incentives that govern behaviour as corruption incentives. This means that the individuals operating at these levels are usually more efficient at plundering public resources, with the necessary bureaucratic complicity (Brooks 1993). Although the state wants to avoid the bankruptcy of the large privatized enterprises, it is no longer able to distribute resources as it did under the previous regime. The way out of the dilemma therefore takes the form of a high level of

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

117

taxation on economic activities, part of which is used to provide social shock absorbers but a larger part of which "goes into the pockets of the functionaries" (Masensky 1993). This is a difficult dilemma to solve, at least in the shortmedium period, because when employees are the majority shareholders their prime concern is to keep their jobs and a wage, even a minimum one (Steele 1993). Added to these difficulties are the shortcomings of antimonopolistic policies, the aim of which is to ensure that provatization is accompanied by the growth of market competition. In reality, there are not infrequent cases in which firms of this type have 'inherited' specific monopoly rights from the socialist state. In these cases, it may be very difficult to eliminate barriers to entry, for two principal reasons. The first is that the legal basis for the reallocation, utilization or abolition of these rights has not been clearly defined. The second, closely connected with the first, is that the enterprises concerned have become expert at exploiting these legislative inconsistencies to their advantage and at applying pressure on the government to delay the entry of new competitors into their markets (Brooks 1993; Petrov 1993; Aslund 1993). As regards international competition, there is a growing demand for the government to improve the competitive edge of firms by creating new monopolies called 'financial-industrial integrated complexes' {The Economist 1994). Generally speaking, all the enterprises privatized to date have tended to resort to various forms of institutional support. A difference exists among them, however, according to the condition of the market (or of bartering). For example, rather than demand barriers to entry, enterprises operating in regions where economic transformation is proceeding most successfully, seek to profit from the development policies of local governments (RFE/RL SBEA, 22 April 1993). Or else they may rely on the protection provided by new economic bodies such as, for example, the regional consortia (Burawoy and Krotov 1992). There is then the problem of the conversion of the enterprises connected to the military-industrial complex. The problem is an extremely complex one, for various reasons. Conversion plans are, in fact, poorly planned and coordinated, so that the allocation of civil production targets to a given enterprise rarely takes account of comparative production advantages. Moreover, investments in civil production are not aimed at the modernization of the production system in order to make these enterprises competitive on international markets: a shortcoming in part off-set by arms exports, especially to the Third World. Finally, there is no guarantee that this new civil production will meet consumer tastes in terms of quality and range. The impression one gains from observation of the relationships between these enterprises and the political authorities is therefore one of strong elements of continuity with the situation under the past regime (Whitlock 1993).

118

Bruno Grancelli

Joint ventures face different problems. Investments by foreign companies in the post-socialist countries are not some sort of complement to a capitalism expanding under the action of endogenous forces. In effect, joint ventures constitute the main basis for the development of a competitive capitalism - whether they consist of mixed enterprises created ex-novo or by shareholdings in privatized enterprises. In other words, they help to create new investment banks, distributive systems, communications networks; that is, the new infrastructures that can create a market economy, which otherwise cannot spring from the old socialist enterprise "magically transformed by laissez-faire principles" (Hertzfeld 1991: 84). The first legislation on mixed enterprises dates back to 1987: since then there have been many changes for the better. Initially, for example, the foreign partner was entitled to a maximum 49% of profits; today even wholly foreign-owned enterprises can exist. There are, moreover, bilateral agreements for investment protection with numerous countries whereby capital and profits can be repatriated should the mixed enterprise fail. Fiscal policies, however, are a problem. There may be unexpected changes in this area, but the principal difficulty to overcome is that of devising a coherent system of taxation tied to the accounting principles of commercial companies. Although there is by now a wide range of measures designed to reduce this difficulty, the accountancy practices of the command economy still make their presence felt (Hertzfeld 1991; Razvigorova and Wolf-Laudin 1991). Material-internal equilibrium. Privatization by itself does not introduce rigid budget constraints into the management of enterprises. A considerable amount of time is required before managers begin to treat bookkeeping as a managerial tool and not as a means whereby external authorities can maintain control over them. And in the meantime production management will continue, at least in part, to display features similar to those already seen in previous phases of the industrial history of the West. Some examples taken from case studies may provide an idea of the predominant forms of organizational behaviour. The fact that budget constraints are still soft does not mean that privatized enterprises are not beginning to come to terms with the market. But the way in which they are doing so depends closely on their sectoral position. Generally speaking, those which were previously low priority enterprises find themselves at a greater advantage and have greater economic success. But it should also be added that this does not necessarily mean that their management is today the one most distant from the previous socialist model. First of all, achieveing good sales on the internal market is not a sufficient condition for the elimination of uncertainty on the inputs side. For example, there may not be sufficient funds for the purchase of technology from abroad. And personal relations are still important for the acquisition of material and financial resources, even though the centralized distribution system no longer

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

119

exists. The economy, although no longer one of'command', is still an economy of shortage. The party no longer exists, or better, it does not perform the same role as before. But its members still occupy important positions and still maintain their networks of relations. Hence a typical situation of today is the following: the government's monetary policies must be tight; this means credit restrictions for enterprises, who will tend to delay payments. The end result will be generalized indebtedness (Cook 1990). In this situation, when an enterprise finally has the funds available, who will it pay first? Those who have personal relations with its director, irrespective of contractual obligations (Pearce 1991). In short, the relative economic success of this type of enterprise still does not depend on its ability to achieve a new equilibrium in combining the production factors, but on its ability to bargain with external counterparts, even though the institutional framework differs from what it used to be. Some examples may clarify how external material equilibrium is still more important than the internal material equilibrium for the economic success of the enterprise. A first advantage is the accessibility of raw materials and a not too complex inputs structure. Equally important is the degree of barterability of its products (Yasin 1992). Finally, important factors are good relationships with local powers and the protection afforded by the economic associations to which the enterprise belongs, especially when natural resources which have passed under the control of local government are used as inputs (Burawoy and Krotov 1992). This type of company has a type of management trained in institutional negotiation; accustomed, that is, not to market competition but to competition (with licit and illicit means) for the acquisition of resources. This, therefore, is a management largely unaware, for example, that technological development is a global phenomenon and that it has assumed a central role in international competition. Its management practices are therefore characterized by marked continuities as far as technological and organizational change are concerned. There seem to be many who believe that, if the money is available to purchase new technology, the problems of productive innovation can be resolved in a manner not very dissimilar from the substantially autarkic one of the past (Dyker 1993). There is a second variant of the privatized enterprise: the one with greater market difficulties. In general, this is an enterprises in what used to be a high priority sector. In the case of enterprises directly incorporated in the militaryindustrial complex, the crucial problem is still a drastic fall in state orders combined with the government's difficulty to devise conversion plans backed by adequate financial and organizational commitments. These enterprises have therefore had to finance conversion out of their own resources, or at least very substantially. But the know-how is usually inadequate. Managers have shown themselves entirely unable to seize the opportunities available in the new economic environment. Apart from some exceptions, they have failed to organize new product lines because of their conviction that sooner or later the state will inter-

120

Bruno Grancelli

vene with financial support (Van Metre 1990; Stein 1993; Whitlock 1993; Bratniki and Krys 1991). A rather common survival strategy in these enterprises is internal sub-contracting: a system given the official stamp of approval in the mid-1980s but which had already existed in clandestine form previously (Rupp 1983: Grancelli 1988). This inside contracting system consists in the creation of internal cooperatives and, more recently, of private companies linked to the parent company (Stark 1986, Burawoy 1992, Whitlock 1993). There are usually two important factors responsible for the formation of these new enterprises: first, the presence in a given department of one or more employees with a good network of relations who can mediate between the new enterprise and the parent-company; second, a sufficient degree of profitability of production by the department which wishes to transform itself into a firm. This, however, can only happen if pressure is applied by the workers' collective, in the belief that in this way they can increase their wages (Burawoy and Hendley 1992). Obviously, if only for reasons of survival, these enterprises too are undergoing organizational change and creating new forms of entrepreneurship. But we are still a long way from a Schumpeterian conception of innovation, although this is gaining ground in other areas: mixed enterprises and enterprises run by foreign and local entrepreneurs. The problems of joint ventures in the post-socialist countries are numerous and not amenable to easy solution. Beyond national differences, the most common problems continue to be: inadequate legislation, still largely monopolistic internal markets, outmoded processes and products, difficulties with imports/ exports, lack of investment capital, accounting difficulties (Razvigorovka and Wolf-Laudon 1991; Hertzfeld 1991; Vlachoutsicos and Lawrence 1993). It is no accident, therefore, that most of them still only exist on paper (Vlachoutsicos and Lawrence 1993: 48). In short, the obstacles to the development of mixed enterprises are to be found at all four levels of organizational equilibrium. But in the minority of cases in which a joint venture manages to take off, the factors that make the difference lie precisely at the level originally studied by Barnard and then by March and Simon: the relationships between individual and organization. In these cases, the difficult task of constructing the market is accomplished because the personnel able to do it have been found on the spot. Finding the right people is a difficult task, and it is also risky, for various reasons: it is difficult to check references; management know-how may be limited, idiosyncratic and distorted by communist education. The risk is therefore that someone will be hired who is adept at navigating through the labyrinth of the external bureaucracy but devoid of the imagination and the spirit of enterprise without which his network of relations is useless. In this case, it may easily happen that the person in question has not shaken off the behavioural legacy of

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

121

the command economy: the tendency to exercise authority by blaming others for failures to achieve success (Vlachoutsicos and Lawrence 1993: 46). Should the joint venture find the right manager it must take a further step if it is to construct truly new levels (technological and organizational) of internal equilibrium: reduce the number of foreign managers, whose presence dilutes the local managers' sense of responsibility. In this way the best use can be made of already available managerial skills - which take concrete form in an ability to handle face-to-face decision making processes in which phases of discussion and consultation alternate with the 'strong' exercise of authority. On this basis, Western management techniques can be graudally and selectively introduced in order to enhance what is lacking: the ability to handle horizontal relations among diverse organizational units (Lawrence and Vlachoutsicos 1993: 45). If in addition to the capacity to motivate local management (also by granting ownership) there is the capacity to produce quality products and services, the conditions are created for the rapid economic success of the mixed enterprise, which is now able to grow by adapting to problems raised by economic and social turmoil and by the infrastructural backwardness inherited from real socialism. In concrete terms, this means that once the right business idea has been identified, the mixed enterprise must cope with the lack of local sources of the inputs and services it needs. In this case, the enterprise assumes organization of the productions required and thus creates new centres of profit (Hertsfeld 1991; Lawrence and Vlachoutsicos 1993). By so doing, the mixed enterprise comes to resemble the old socialist enterprise, with its tendency to manage all productions and auxiliary services by itself. This similarity, however, is only apparent, since the actual dynamics operate in reverse directions. In the past, the enterprise had to adapt to a hierarchical system founded on vertical relations which excluded it from horizontal relations with other enterprises. Its autarky therefore resembled that of a fief (Boisot and Child 1988; Grancelli 1990; Lawrence and Vlachoutsicos 1993). The vertical integration of successful joint ventures is instead creating what was previously lacking - a horizontal market structure - and starting from precisely the problems raised by its absence. Certainly, the socialist enterprise too (especially in low priority sectors) triggered processes of'crypto-privatization' (Grossman 1979) which created a 'shadow economy' based on market relationships. But this economy, which enjoyed de facto tolerance, had to operate at the sub-institutional level and was therefore rather primitive. The successful mixed enterprises are instead reversing a fundamental principle of the old system in the sense that they are helping to transform an economy which was previously a 'command' economy, and therefore top-down, into a bottom-up one. In these cases, in fact, the technical-organizational conditions of the internal equilibrium transform those of the equilibrium between the enterprise and the external envi-

122

Bruno Grancelli

ronment. But the game has only just begun and it is played on terrain which resists transformation; the socio-cultural terrain. Socio-cultural equilibrium with the outside. At this level, the comparison between East and West has been summarized by Kozminski (1981) as follows. What matters to the Western firm is its public image and the political influence of its management; crucial to the socialist enterprise was its relations with the party, and its image ensued therefrom. In post-socialist reality, as has been said, the old communist parties no longer exist, but many of their leading cadres have managed to 'parachute' into various economic organizations and into local governments. Therefore, although the economic institutions of socialism have been rejected, this is not to say that the type of culture which shaped relations between economic and political agents in the institutional context of the old regime has been superseded. The basic question is this: why did the socialist bureaucracy want to control enterprises? A first crucial breakthrough in understanding this problem was made by Janos Kornai (1980) and his concept of 'soft budget constraints'. Constant intervention by the external bureaucracy in enterprise management in order to alleviate its difficulties (but also creating them) gradually bred the conviction that this behaviour was the norm and that the (paternalist state) was some sort of enormous insurance agency for enterprises. In a context of this kind, the preoccupations of managers centred, certainly not on their budgets but on procuring as many inputs as possible in order to fulfil their plan directives. As Winiecki (1989) has rightly pointed out, analysis in terms of soft budget constraints illustrates the mechanisms of the phenomenon in question very well, but it is rather vague as regards its logical basis. In other words, paternalism towards enterprises stemmed from the fact that the external bureaucracy closely insisted on its role as an agent of political control over the economy. However, although this explanation accounts for the socialist allocative system as a whole, it cannot explain the preferential access to resources granted to high priority enterprises (Winiecki 1989: 374). Winiecki's explanation is instead based on a variable discriminating between high and low priority enterprises: political clout, or the closeness of relations between management and the high levels of political power. Hence, the preferential treatment given to high priority enterprises came about, not according to criteria of allocative efficiency but according to those of the rent-seeking by the two crucial actors operating in the socialist structure of property rights: enterprise directors and the cadres of the external bureaucracy. The former obtained their posts (and the privileges that went with them) by means of the nomenklatura mechanism managed by the latter, which in return received semi-free goods and services from the enterprises (Winiecki 1989: 375). In post-socialist reality the industrial ministers and the other organs of the party-state no longer count: the new centres of power are the central govern-

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

123

ment and the local governments. Nonetheless, the use of institutional office as 'positional capital' (Podgorecki 1991) to be converted into financial capital has not ceased, in neither the industrial nor the commercial sectors. It should be added, however, that a class of individuals is growing which views "somewhat more normal" business and politics. There exist, in short, situations in which local governments are seeking to create the infrastructures necessary for economic transformation, and entrepreneurs are doing business without having to worry unduly about bureaucratic interference (Brooks 1993). Overall, however, the tendency to rent-seeking finds fertile ground in the building of capitalism by political means: ground on which this practice reproduces itself and, so to speak, democratizes itself (Grancelli 1994). Internal social equilibrium. It is when we move to the new equilibria internal to the enterprise collective that we see most clearly what is meant by the democratization of rent-seeking. The first point to make in this regard is that the large firms are still very far from introducing market incentives into the organizational behaviour of managers and subordinates. In the great majority of cases, in fact, these are enterprises which have no competitors and need not worry themselves unduly about consumer tastes. And this also applies to the shareholders, given that their level of organization is practically nil. Employee shareholding, however, is a different matter. In this case, the tacit agreement between enterprise management and workers is that everyone (from the top to the bottom) will keep their jobs. And this creates the vital premise for substantial continuity in management and in industrial relations. It is therefore no accident that opinion polls show a high degree of public indifference and ambivalence towards privatization (Rose 1993). Obviously, there exist laws and decrees designed to facilitate access to enterprise shares by foreign investors. However, it is probable that foreign investors are not particularly interested in enterprises which are generally known as 'economic dinosaurs'. Moreover, one must bear in mind the persistent contradictions among diverse laws, accompanied by the great difficulties of a legal system most of whose members do not have the expertise necessary to handle controversies over new property rights. And thus also the post-socialist enterprise remains a substantially closed system in which the collective seeks to defend itself as much as possible against outside interference. At the level of internal social equilibrium, therefore, many of the ills of the old order are still very much present (or may even have been exacerbated). One of them is certainly worker control over production, as a necessary complement to trasition processes in which predominate: interorganizational relations based on barter, the reconstruction of old political power bases around 'semi-state' economic units, the establishing of regional monopolies and, in general, profitseeking through trafficking, speculation and extortion (Burawoy and Krotov 1992: 21).

124

Bruno Grancelli

In a setting in which part of the old nomenklatura is rebuilding its power base, in which speculation predominates over entrepreneurship, production management assumes features in some way similar to those of earlier stages of industrial development. In the case of inside contracting, for example, the organization of work resembles that typical of the 'foreman empire' of American companies at the end of the 1980s (Grancelli 1990). Or there are persistent similarities with the 'indulgence pattern' of the 1940s at the Gypsum Company and analysed by Gouldner (1970) in Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (Boisot and Child 1988; Grancelli 1994). In any case, even in less backward situations, the strategic management of the large privatized enterprises confines itself to the goal of keeping the collective intact. Everyday practice, instead, seeks to ensure that wages keep pace with inflation, holding everything that can reap some profit on the market inside the enterprise and expelling everything that cannot do so in current organizational conditions (Wawrzyniak 1991; Yasin 1992). The consequences of this behaviour manifest themselves in strong continuities in the management of human resources. The first of these elements of continuity is the scant interest in motivating personnel to high performance levels, given that the enterprise's economic trend does not depend on managerial efficiency and on labour productivity. The second is that this lack of incentives for efficient management does not necessarily imply a shortage of financial incentives for managers and employers. In fact, supplementary financial benefits can be obtained without too much difficulty by bargaining over any request made by hierarchical superiors, especially if it is a request which conflicts with traditional organizational principles, as might happen for example with the creation of an interdepartmental task force. And it is worth remembering that it is still possible to misappropriate enterprise resources for personal gain (Pearce 1991). Hence, in order to understand the resistance of personnel promotion policies to change, one must bear in mind that the reforms (of the second half of the 1980s) created an apparent paradox: the phenomenon of rent-seeking became even more marked. As we have seen, access to management of the great socialist enterprises depended on political loyalty and good connections. The attempt to curtail the role of the external bureaucracy has induced many apparatciki to use their relations to transfer into enterprise managements. This fact, in a setting of strong organizational continuities, has hampered the introduction of new policies of personnel assessment and promotion (Pearce 1991). In conclusion, although the organizational behaviour of managers and subordinates was shaped in a political and institutional setting which no longer exists, its tendency to self-perpetuation makes it extremely difficult to exploit new economic opportunities. This reveals the negative side of personalized management criteria, which could instead perform an innovative role within successful

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

125

mixed enterprises. In an organizational context in which 'privatization' is effectively synonymous with 'collective ownership', it is highly likely that personalized management criteria are only apparently more flexible and more respectful of the individual. In actual fact, promotion by virtue of personal connections and the constant recourse to informal/illegal transactions in order to obtain anything at all continue to fuel suspicion, resentment and a sense of insecurity; and these in turn impede the circulation of information and the assumption of responsibility (Pearce 1991). But the experience of some joint ventures and of the new enterprises created by foreign entrepreneurs show that, if the 'signals are clear', the self-reproduction of old forms of organizational behaviour is a process which may be halted. Furthermore, part of this behaviour can be made functional to managerial innovation in a turbulent environment.

4 Concluding Remarks The essence of the systemic change in progress in the post-socialist countries consists in the passage from the rationality of the plan to that of the market. As regards these two types of rationality, for my purposes here the following comments will suffice. On an ideal level, market rationality comprises the 'rules of the game' (norms and procedures) which safeguard the functioning of market mechanisms, plan rationality addresses the substance of political competition and, consequently, refers to 'substantial norms' which compensate for the inequalities created by the formal rules of the game. In sociological analysis, a question frequently asked has been: which of the two principles is the most efficient? Today the answer is clear: plan rationality did not foster the development of productive forces, even at the price of political freedom; it only generated inefficiency and economic decay, to the point that 'command economy' became synonymous with 'economy of shortage'. Empirical inquiry must therefore begin with another question: why is it so difficult to convert to market rationality? Why is the self-reproductive capacity of plan rationality so strong? Any attempt at an answer must obviously start from the premise that a pure form of market or plan rationality has never existed. Various combinations of the two principles are possible in social reality. Moreover, because of the action of social forces, the substantial rules may challenge the effectiveness of the rules of the game, and this may transform the latter into substantial rules in the course of social change (Dahrendorf 1972: 417-8). In short, there are always forces at work which interfere with the pure realization of market rationality.

126

Bruno Grancelli

And these forces may be identified as power and its consequences in terms of participation in the social game by the various social forces. Power always implies non-power, and therefore resistance and conflicts among antagonistic interests (Dahrendorf 1972: 421). Dahrendorf uses the same scheme to explain the mediation between plan rationality and the societies in which attempts have been made to apply it. Given that, historically, this type of rationality has been embodied by a totalitarian political model, one has witnessed a precarious combination of political repression and the institutionalization of market factors in order to enable the system to react to unforeseen social changes and the restrict individual freedom of action (Dahrendorf 1972: 423). The methodological approach which envisages power as a force interfering with the pure realization of the two types of rationality is certainly a valid one. But the social consequences go beyond those pointed out by Dahrendorf. The exercise of power does not provoke conflict alone, in the sense that conflict may be an intermittent phenomenon which erupts in a reality made up of bargaining, collusion and dependence relationships and in which the parties concerned come to mutually convenient terms. This holds in contexts in which market rationality is institutionalized, and a fortiori in ones in which it must replace plan rationality. In fact, after the period of mass repression and after the substantial failure to institutionalize market factors, the socialist system preserved its two essential political features - which Dahrendorf identifies as the 'dogmatization of error' (planning certainties) and a refusal to allow different social forces to organize in the defence of collective interests. But in order to understand subsequent interferences in plan rationality, one must concentrate on two other phenomena: increased freedom of individual (non-political) action and the (sub-institutional) control of such action by the party-state bureaucracy. This provides the basis for understanding of current obstacles to the growth of market rationality; obstacles which frequently induce such growth to display features reminiscent of those typical of previous stages of the development of industrial society. In the past, the power of the socialist state was frequently compared metaphorically to Leviathan (Urban 1986). On the other hand, those who knew something about 'Soviet-type' societies stressed the 'omnipotent impotence' of socialist bureaucracy; a bureacracy able to control but not to govern (Lewin 1988). It is therefore clear that in order to understand what actually constituted plan rationality, greater precision must be given to the concept of power and this dualism resolved. For which purpose, reference to the theory of exchange may prove useful (Homans 1961; Blau 1964; Emerson 1972). In the (pure) scenario of market rationality and of private property, it is the market, with its impersonal action, that fixes the terms of the exchange. It determines the values, and therefore governs the behaviour, of the parties to an exchange relationship. Accordingly, one may say that the market is a 'strong struc-

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

127

ture' which disciplines individual and collective behaviour. By contrast, in the (pure) scenario of plan rationality, it is the central organs which fix all prices and therefore the terms of the exchange. In reality, the administrative determination of prices translates into an entirely unsatisfactory allocative outcome, except for a minority of economic agents operating in priority sectors. Thus, in the absence of the market, the great majority of actors must resort to particularist exchanges in which value is established ad hoc by the parties to the exchange (which may often take the form of barter). In this sense one may say that the economic institutions of state socialism constituted a 'weak structure' which was unable to govern the behaviour of economic agents (Urban 1985: 211-4). In this setting of weak structures, the only way in which the central authorities can influence the behaviour of the lower levels of the hierarchy (the matrioshkä) is to impose a double bind consisting of incompatible directives. By so doing, there will always be some unimplemented directive which places the subordinates at fault, to be sanctioned or otherwise at the discretion of the higher authority. The reaction of the subordinates who find themselves in this impossible position is bonding - that is, the creation of relational networks founded on reciprocal trust, the sharing of secrets, the exchange of favours, and reciprocal cover-up for extra-legal activities (Urban 1985: 221). It is, in short, that of using the collective (an organizational principle with deep cultural roots) as an instrument to counter the dominant principle of rationality. In the past it was plan rationality which had to cope with this type of interference from below; today it is market rationality, which for most of those involved is more costly than advantageous, at least in the short period. Although the double bind no longer exists, the power/dependence relationships that used to exist in the socialist enterprise (bonding) are able to exploit the new institutional opportunities in order to forestall the onset of new organizational equilibria based on market incentives. These observations obviously do not apply equally to the various organizational settings which coexist in all the countries under examination. Future research on organizational change in the post-socialist context will have to account for these differences; and it will be obliged to do so by addressing the complex problem of the differing institutional-cultural gaps between each postsocialist country and the advanced industrial societies. The decisive issue thus becomes the following: what use can be made of Western organizational studies in comparative analysis of organizational change in these national contexts? As we have seen, situations in which there develops a Schumpeterian type of entrepreneurship coexist with others of 'mercantile capitalism' (Burawoy and Krotov 1992) or at any rate similar to early twentieth-century capitalism. And yet, if this is the empirical frame of reference, of undoubted usefulness will be theoretical reference to accounts developed in the last thirty years, such as the theory of contingencies, the theory of strategic choices or institutionalist theory

Bruno Grancelli

128

(Child 1993). However, although this is a necessary condition it is not a sufficient one. For at least two decades, in fact, organizational studies have neglected first the industrial question and then the bureaucratic one (Bonazzi 1989). Initially, there was broad-ranging debate on the best ways to 'escape from Taylorism'; subsequently, the concept of organization was given a wider meaning than that of bureaucracy by being applied, not just to a set of relationships regulated by a hierarchy, but to any stable system of transactions among individuals. On the other hand, the concept of bureaucracy had already been deprived of its specificity by a systemic approach which sought universal features on the basis of which the various types of organization can be distinguished. Hence, the incorporation of the concept of bureaucracy into the broader one of organization calls into question the contention that analysis must concentrate on "what happens in organizations as traditionally defined" (Bonazzi 1989: 19). However, the organizational and institutional reality described above is to be understood as exactly that: 'traditional' - because it is largely a pre-Taylorist and pre-Weberian one (Grancelli 1994). In short, if there is a lesson to be learnt from the study of post-socialist organizations, it is this: we would do well to reach back into the organizational thought of the last century and reflect once again on the ideas and issues that the various 'post-something' accounts have been too hasty to dismiss as outmoded. Notes 1

This is an extended and revised version of a paper published in, R. Nacamulli, G. Costa (a cura di), (1995), Manuale di organizzazione

aziendale. Torino: UTET.

References Barnard, C. (1970): Lefunzioni del dirigente. Torino: UTET. Bendix, R. (1973): Lavoro e autoritä nell'industria. Milano: Etas Kompass. Beissinger, M. (1988): Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline, and Soviet Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Blackwell, W. L. (1982): The Industrialization of Russia: An historical Perspective. Arlington Heights: Harlan Davidson. Blau, P. M. (1964): Exchange and Power in Social Life. New York: Wiley. Boisot, M. and Child, J. (1988): "The iron law of fiefs: Bureaucratic failure and the problem of governance in the Chinese economic reform, Administrative Science Quarterly, 33: 507-527. Bonazzi, G. (1989): Storia delpensiero organizzativo. Milano: F. Angeli Branicki, M. and Krys, R. (1992): "The propensity for strategic change in Polish companies. A Comparative study". Scandinavian Journal of Management, 3: 193-200. Brooks, D. (1993): "You have been privatized: Now what?" The Wall Street Journal, 22 April, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Slavic, Baltic & Eurasian Archives (RFE/RL, SBEA), Munich. Burawoy, M. and Krotov, P. (1992): "The Soviet transition from socialism to capitalism: Worker control and economic bargaining in the wood industry". American Sociological Review, vol. 57:16-38.

Modernizing Post-Soviet Management

129

Child, J. (1993): "Society and enterprise between hierarchy and market", in Child, J., M. Crozier and R. Mayntz (eds.), Societal Change Between Market and Organization, 203-225. Aldershot: Avebury. Crisp, O. (1979): "Lavoro e industrializzazione in Russia", in Storia Economica Cambridge, vol. 7: 383-523. Torino: Einaudi. Cook, L. (1990): "The politics of Soviet enterprise insolvency", Soviet Union/Union Sovietique, 3:235258. Dahrendorf, R. (1972): "Razionalitä di mercato e razionalitä di piano", in Addario, N., Cavalli A.(a cura di), Economia, politico e societä. Bologna: II Mulino. Desai, P. (1989): Perestroika in Perspective. The Design and Dilemmas of Soviet Reform. Princeton: P.U.P. Dyker, D. (1993):" Privatization and innovation. A key nexus in the transformation process", RFL/RL Research Report, 24 May: 1-7. Economist (The), (1994): "Russian privatization. Not the real thing yet", 12-18 March. Friedman, J. (1988): "Cultural logic of the global system: A sketch", Theory, Culture, and Society, vol. 5: 447-460. Gerschenkron, A. (1974): "Politica agraria e industrializzazione in Russia, 1861-1917", in Storia Economica Cambridge, vol 6: 766-863. Torino: Einaudi. Grancelli, B. (1986): Le relazioni industriali di tipo sovietico. Milano: F. Angeli. Grancelli, B. (1987): "II management sovietico e la perestrojka, "Sviluppo e Organizzazione, 102: 9 22. Grancelli, B. (1988): Soviet Management and Labor Relations. Boston: Allen & Unwin. Grancelli, B. (1990): "Le dita invisibili della mano visibile. Mercati, gerarchie e clan nella crisi dell'economia di comando", Quaderni del dipartimento di Politica Sociale. Universitä degli Studi diTrento, 16. Grancelli, B. (1995): "Organizational Change: Toward a new East-West comparison", Organization Studies 16/1: 1-25. Granick, D. (1975): Enterprise Guidance in Eastern Europe, Princeton: P.U.P. Grossman, G. (1979): "Notes on the illegal private economy and corruption, in Soviet Economy in a Time of Change. Washington: U.S. GPO. Gouldner, A. (1970): Modelli di burocrazia industriale. Milano: F. Angeli. Hertzfeld, Η. Μ. (1991): "Joint ventures: Saving the Soviet from perestroika", Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb.: 80-91. Homans, G. (1961): Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. New York: Harcourt. Ickes, B.W. (1990): "Obstacles to economic reform of socialism: An institutional choice approach", The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, (AAAPSS), vol 507: 53-64. Jeffries, I. (1981): The Industrial Enterprise in Eastern Europe. New York: Praeger. Jowitt, K. (1983): "Soviet neotraditionalism: The political corruption of a Leninist regime, Soviet Studies, 3: 275-297. Käser, M. (1979): "L'imprenditorialitärussa", in Storia economica Cambridge, vol. 7:524-640. Torino: Einaudi. Kozminski, A. (1991): "Framework for comparative studies of management in post-socialist economies", Studies in Comparative Communism, 4: 413-424. Kornai, J. (1980): Economics of Shortage. Amsterdam: North Holland. Lawrence, P. and Vlachoutsicos, C. (1993), "Joint ventures in Russia: Put the locals in charge", Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb.: 44-54. Lewin, Μ. (1988), La Russia in una nuova era. Una interpretazione storica. Torino: Bollati-Boringhieri. Masarsky, M. (1993): "Creer une classe de propriitaires en Russie", Liberation, mars 3, (RFE/RL, SBEA), Munich. March, J. and Simon, H. A. (1966): Teoria dell'organizzazione. Milano: Comunitä. McDaniel, T. (1988): Autocracy, Capitalism and Revolution in Russia. Berkeley: U.C.P. Misztal, B. (1992): "Must Eastern Europe follow the Latin American way?, Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, XXXIII, 151-179.

130

Bruno Grancelli

Montaigne, F. (1993): "Russia races ahead with privatization", Philadelphia Inquirer, March 8th, (RFE/RL, SBEA), Munich. Nove, A. (1977): The Soviet Economic System. London: Allen & Unwin. Nove, A. (1979): Political Economy and Soviet Socialism. London: Allen & Unwin. Pearce, J. L. (1991): "Socialism to capitalism: Organizational behavior in the period of Hungarian economic reform", mimeo, International Management Center, Budapest. Pipes, R. (1974): Russia Under the Old Regime. New York: Scribner's Sons. Petrov, A. (1993): " Privatization and antimonopoly policy", RFL/RL Research Report, n. 30: 19-22. Razvigorovka, E., and Wolf-Laudon, W. (1991), East-West Joint Ventures: The New Business Evironment. Cambridge MA Blackwell. Rose, R. (1993): "How are Russians responding to privatization", RFE/RL Draft Research Papers, Oct. 26.

Steele, J. (1993): "Small shareholders show who's boss", The Guardian, June 26 (RFE/RL, SBEA), Munich. Stein, G. (1993): "Tales of military conversion and privatization", RFE/RL, SBEA, May 13. Tugan-Baranowsky, Μ. I. (1970): The Russian Factory in the 19th Century. Homewood: Irwin (San Pietroburgo, 1898). Urban, M.E. (1985): "Conceptualizing political power in the USSR: Patterns of binding and bonding, Studies in Comparative Communism, 4: 207-225. Van Metre, L. (1990):" Defence conversion in the Soviet Union: Will it succeed?" Soviet Union/Union Sovietique, 3: 259-280. Vlachoutsicos, C., and Lawrence, P. (1990): "What we don't know about Soviet management", Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec.: 50-59. Wawrzyniak, B. (1991): "Work methods of managers during the Polish crisis of the 1980s", International Studies of Management & Organization, 2: 27-38. Whitlock, E. (1993): "Defence conversion and privatization in St. Petersburg", RFE/RL Research Report, 24: 21-25. Winiecki, J. (1989): "Large industrial enterprises in Soviet-type economies: The ruling stratum's main rent seeking area", Communist Economies, 4: 363-383. Winiecki, J. (1990): "Obstacles to economic reform of socialism: A property-rights approach", AA APSS, vol. 507: 65-71. Yasin, Y. (1992): "Management strategies for copying with crisis", The Current Digest of Post-Soviet Press, 26: 12-14.

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations: Elites as Institution-Builders Antoni Z. Kaminski and Joanna Kurczewska

1 Political Elites and Institutional Change Post-communist Europe is in the middle of an unprecedented experiment in institution-building. The transitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes in Southern Europe and Latin America were simple in comparison to the task faced in this part of the world. The imposition of communism upon Eastern and EastCentral Europe societies constituted a definite break with continuity; it brought to power alien political elites which were able to ensure their rule either by outright terror or by a combination of terror and corruption. The mentors first saw their role as that of moral and intellectual guides for humanity. Once they had won, they turned into despots rebuilding the political order in ways that maximized their powers of control. Current institutional transformation is taking place under the circumstances of a deep crisis of civilization. Social institutions are able to operate when human actors who run them possess adequate technical skills, are socialized into a specific culture, and respect prescribed norms. No bureaucracy functions efficiently when its officials either do not know or ignore formal procedures, and when mechanisms for rule enforcement are lacking. As dishonesty becomes rampant, there is no place for a complex system of market exchanges. When political elites are unwilling to accept public responsibilities and can get away with it, no democracy will function. The problem of building new economic and political institutions is not restricted to the acquisition of specific technical knowledge of how, for instance, a modern banking system operates; it requires the transplanting of cultural patterns which, if they ever existed, have vanished from the region during the post-war period.

132

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

2 Market and Democracy These tasks - that of constructing a democratic regime and that of creating an efficient market economy - are interrelated. A democratic regime must be based on the rule of law, and the rule of law is a necessary condition for a viable market economy. Democracy means the ability to influence the process of government through political participation; the market is a form of individual participation in economic decision-making. A secure institution of private property is a precondition for both democracy and market economy. In the first instance, effective private property rights assure individuals material independence from the state, which in authoritarian regimes can always be questioned (Wittfogel, 1957); in the second, no regular economic exchanges can take place without the recognized rights of those who enter the exchange to possess and dispose of objects. Both institutional areas perform the function, amongst others, of enforcing the responsibility and accountability of political and economic leaders to society. Both are mechanisms for error-detection and error-correction. Finally, implementation of innovative political and economic changes requires citizens and entrepreneurs. The two roles relate to different functional areas in social life, but they share many of the same traits. They entail self-reliant, self-confident individuals endowed with a sense of self-respect. The communist regime did everything in its power to destroy these qualities in society. As Montesquieu once remarked, it is necessary to destroy a citizen to make a good slave. Satisfactory rates of economic growth stabilize political structures, while economic stagnation exacerbates social conflicts and makes political institutions vulnerable. But it is also obvious that the interests of democracy and those created by the market economy often collide and oppose each other. In this paper we shall concentrate upon conditions and strategies in the making of the new political orders in the region. We focus on the political aspect of the social order, since more than anything else the ability to solve political problems will determine the ability of these countries to solve their economic troubles. Without solving problems of the political order first, they will not be able to surmount their economic difficulties. But if they fail to achieve visible economic progress within a fairly short time, they will be unable to preserve political stability.

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

133

3 Communism and Civil Society The changes occurring in East Central Europe have their source in a generallyshared desire to move away from the communist regime to the liberal democratic one that communism did more than merely oppose: indeed, communist ideology and its institutional design were a logical negation of the liberal democratic creed (Ionescu, 1967). The logic on which the regime was built under Stalin represented an effort to construct an entirely arbitrary system of power. After Stalin's death, the evolution of the institutional structures constrained arbitrariness of the centre with the informal dispersion of power. From the perspective of society, however, the system remained arbitrary. By forcefully imposing their institutional project upon the societies of the region, communists created conditions favourable to the stability of their rule. Their most immediate objective was to destroy all the cultural and associational patterns subsumed under the notion of civil society. Only by destroying civil society, by rendering people incapable of self-organization, could communists hope to make their rule permanent. Here lies the main difference between present changes in the ECE, and the much-studied transitions from the authoritarian regimes to democracies. Authoritarian dictatorships have never penetrated society to the extent that communist regimes did. They have never interfered with religious beliefs and family life. Those who did not actively oppose the government could lead a quiet life in the privacy of their homes. The state did not interfere with clubs, professional associations and other civil bodies as long as they refrained from political contestation. Although under communism the degree of penetration varied - some societies were able to defend their identity more effectively than others - such efforts were undertaken everywhere with damaging effects on the social fabric. We may thus formulate an initial proposition: the more effectively the communist system imposed itself upon a society, the less that society is now able to achieve smooth cultural and institutional transition to political democracy and market organization. The effectiveness of this imposition can be measured by its success in socializing agriculture and doing away with the private sector in production and services, by its proficiency in suppressing institutionalized religions and in destroying all independent associations. The effective imposition of communism destroys people's ability to attend to their own affairs, and abolishes the autonomy of society in relation to the state. In terms of such combined measures, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Slovenia represent cases of the ineffective imposition of communist rule, Slovakia, Bulgaria and most notably Romania stand in the middle, while the states that emerged on the territory of the USSR are cases of impressive, albeit varying, success.

134

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

4 Society, and Elites in Transition Society as such is not an actor; it becomes an actor in the process of building institutional structures and developing new forms of organized activity. Social elites perform a crucial role as the providers of leadership for the polity (Jones, 1989). The smoothness of the transition from the communist to a liberal-democratic regime will depend to a large extent on the intellectual and moral integrity of political elites, both national and local, on their awareness and understanding of strategic objectives, and on their readiness to assume responsibility and be accountable to the public. In creating constitutional political regimes, the ability of actors to go beyond their own interests, to take a universalistic perspective, determines the outcome of the undertaking. The presence of such elites is an essential asset in accomplishing smooth transition. Finally, situational dynamics and universal problems with the way in which people think and act are of key importance. There are circumstances under which the public-spirited and well-meaning intentions of particular actors must lead to wretched results. As Aaron Wildavsky has elegantly put it: Intentions are sometimes realized, but room is ample for unintended consequences. Values sometimes exist prior to behavior, but often ascribed values are post facto rationalizations of current behavior. Values, like goals, are mixed, intentions are not always aligned. The direction of causality is not necessarily clear. Do we design programs with a clear scale of values in mind or do we design programs and then modify our values once we see what we have? Once programs are devised, they become part of the experience that may modify our behavior (1979: 92).

Social processes are counter-intuitive. The fact that the present political elites in Eastern and East-Central Europe proclaim in good faith that they intend to lead their countries and the region to political democracy and a market economy does not guarantee per se the attainment of these objectives. When the communist state disintegrates, a power vacuum appears which must be filled. The post-communist elites have inherited the remnants of the Communist Party and the still powerful bureaucratic machine of the communist state. When society is relatively strong, it may enter into competition with the state to fill the vacuum. It can do so either through protests, strikes and demonstrations, or through the highly consequential development of institutions of self-government, political parties, interest groups, and so on. The important factor here is whether the new power elites will try actively to organize society, employing their newly acquired power positions for the purpose, or whether they will voluntarily impose self-restrictions upon themselves. Thus, the role of the state in post-communist society will depend upon the relative strength of the state vis-avis society and upon the political orientations of the new ruling classes.

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

135

The overthrowal of communist regimes in the Soviet-bloc countries means that social groups which never previously had either political influence or public visibility have emerged as important actors. Societies have begun to have a say in selecting their own leadership. These new leaders are no longer dependent on Moscow: at least to some extent they owe their positions to their fellow citizens. The satellite states have turned into nation-states. Under the communist system, national elements were viewed as a social pathology which disrupted the internationalist character of the communist 'community of nations'. Now these same elements in many ways express values that are most creative and valuable in these countries, as well as those that are the basest and most destructive. In their struggles for participation these nations exert pressure on the new states to become institutionalized expressions of their aspirations. They frequently claim rights that go beyond the organizational possibilities of the states that they establish. Thus, it is no accident that all the post-communist states which adopted the federal structure in response to multi-ethnicity have disintegrated. This is true of the USSR, of Yugoslavia, and even of Czechoslovakia. The re-emergence of nation-states in Eastern and East-Central Europe once again poses the problem of the use made by these nations of their recovered sovereignty. Will they be able to create stable democratic regimes, and successfully enter the path of a rapid economic growth, or will they fail again? There are prospects for both outcomes. A lot will depend on these nations' success in developing active patterns of public life. Peaceful transition in post-communist societies has led to the emergence of new political elites. These consist of ex-members of the communist apparatus and administration, former revisionists later turned dissidents, people with links with the Church, specialists and professionals whose attachment to the regime was instrumental, and a few survivors of the anti-communist post-war parties. The proportion of any particular category within the elite depends upon conditions in individual countries: specifically, upon the ability of the communist apparatus to defend its positions in controlling the state and the degree of monopolization of administrative skills attained by the communist establishment. The general orientation of these elites is statist. This is expressed not only in the conviction that state institutions must play a crucial role in the transition from the totalitarian regime to democracy, and from the centrally planned economy to competitive markets - which is self-evident - but they often go further by trying to maintain direct control over the whole range of social activities. After forty-five years of an artificial world in which old conflicts were suppressed, authentic forms of cultural expression blocked, tradition and history reinterpreted to suit the interests of the communist rulers, these nations have again become responsible for their own fate. To face this challenge, they have to re-define their identity, their cultural inheritance, their relationship with their

136

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

neighbours and the world around them. They have to reconstruct the natural pluralism of their cultures. Thus, interest in national problems is a normal reaction under these circumstances, and becomes an aberration only under extreme ones.

5 Elites as Institution Builders "We have said time and again, that human beings are institution-builders and institution maintainers. They create institutions and support them by creating and enforcing rules of behaviour. We [...] understand the structures and processes of government, or other aspects of human social reality, only as institutional facts. Institutional facts exist because rules are constitutive of human social relationships. We understand the games of life by the way that they are constituted according to rules and standards of propriety and fairness. Rules assign both capabilities and limitations for the actions that can be taken. We understand rules and the meaning of rule-ordered relationship with reference to what was intended to be and in light of conjectures about what may occur" (Ostrom, 1986: 222-3).

Institution-building is a social process: a multitude of people participate in it, and all have to bear its consequences. But, though, in Hobbes' terms, a human being is both "the Matter thereof, and the Artificer" of commonwealths (Hobbes, 1962: 9), some are more the Matter while others are more the Artificers. Institution-building involves leadership provided in turn by political elites (Sartori, 73: 96-101). Thus we define political elites as individuals and groups who create and control social institutions. These institutions may or may not be political; being political they may be partisan or they may not. Even institutions which are evidently non-political, like clubs or cultural associations, are politically relevant (Lederer, 1940; Lipset, Trow, Coleman, 1956; Jowitt, 1983). Non-political institutions, due to their autonomy, can provide the foundations for democratic political processes, and support particular political parties. We therefore use a very broad definition of a political elite following the inspiration of Mosca (1939) whose understanding of the ruling class had very broad implications. Our view of elites does not distinguish a priori between local elites and the national elites. They can operate at different levels of societal organization but the complexity of tasks involved in building institutions characteristic of these levels may not be different. A local elite can become a national elite, as in the case of Gdansk politicians in Poland, while national elites can be localized. Nor do we postulate a radical distinction between elites and masses as in the tradition inspired by Ortega y Gasset (1951). We take a gradualist stance in assuming that processes of institution-creation in a fairly open society can take place at different points in the social structure and can be initiated by individuals

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

137

differently located within society. The borderline between the elite and the nonelite is blurred and usually transitory.

6 Functional and Stratificational Perspectives on Elites The notion of political elite can be examined from two theoretical perspectives: stratificational and functional. Under the first view, a political elite is a group of people occupying positions of authority; under the second, it is a group fulfilling the function of leadership within, for and/or over society. From the stratificational perspective an elite is a category of individuals occupying certain types of position which give them control and/or influence over the hierarchical structures strategic to a given social order. An established ruling class, in this sense, can provide leadership for society, but this is not usually a necessary condition for the maintenance of its authority. In the functional sense, it may happen that groups alienated from the formal authority structures of a given political order provide leadership for society or for important segments within it. All successful social reformers - and revolutionaries too - belong to this category. But it is also possible that groups occupying positions of power may provide the leadership. We have adopted the above approach for an obvious reason. We analyse a society undergoing fundamental change, that is, involved in the creation of a new social order. When all the major institutions are in place, elites can be defined by their control over the existing institutional structures. Important as it is, the appearance of new institutions bringing with them new functional elites occurs at the margin of established social structures. Hence, we suggest, during transitional periods the functional approach to political elites is theoretically and methodologically more appropriate than the stratificational one. Institution-building elites are "Artificers". The meaning of an elite changes from one particular political regime to another. In regimes constructed from the top - a category which embrace all forms of despotism - elites dominate society. In regimes formed by processes of bottom-up structuring - which embraces all forms of republican polities - elites operate within society. They may enjoy some social privileges, but they are always accountable to society. Elites sometimes consist of leaders of social movements obsessed with a sense of a mission - when a process of a profound social transformation is involved. The mission always consists in imposing a preconceived order on society. The elite may also be a small group monopolizing the instruments of control in society. Here we may mention two types of situation. In the first case, an elite possesses the monopoly of control over the instruments of power in society and has

138

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

thus perpetuated its position of privilege for generations. On the other hand, there are those elites peculiar to despotic regimes which consist of individuals fully dependent on a ruler recruited from outside the realm of traditional elites. Communist states with a system of rule based on uprooted marginals - that is, individuals who owe everything to the new regime - are a contemporary subspecies of this genus. In studying the processes involved in post-communist transformation, our concern should be, first, with the way in which a ruling class - defined according to stratificational principles and acting in the functional sense - fails to perform its leadership functions. Second, we should consider the historical conditions that accompany the emergence and acquisition of a sense of identity by a new functional elite, which in a stratificational sense was a counter-elite, and its eventual transformation into a regular stratificational elite (Kaminski, Kurczewska: 1994). Third, we should be interested in the ways that elites which are not sensu stricto political perform, or fail to perform, strategic political functions; by which we mean activities oriented to the design and implementation of the new political order. Having adopted this theoretical orientation, we propose that the impact of cultural background and of recruitment mechanisms upon the elite's political activities should receive particular attention. Accordingly, we perceive the political elites in a broader social context than is the case of most studies on post-communist transformations.

7 Design and Spontaneity We assume that a process of institutional change consists of an interplay among the states of disorder and deep imbalances in social relations which combine with human efforts to restore order by creating new institutional arrangements. These arrangements may be - and usually are in part - a product of a conscious design. The role of accidental factors and of spontaneous developments must not, however, be underrated: solutions in response to transient stimuli become institutionalized, creating interests vested in their preservation which thus become of enduring character. States of disorder are created by interactions among the strategies pursued by different actors striving to attain their ideal and material interests in new ways when old behavioural patterns are no longer effectively enforced by the old regime. When these strategies do not lead to desired states of affairs, then actors both at the micro and macro levels attempt to devise new strategies and new structures: they destroy the old forms of social order and build new ones.

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

139

Institution-building is thus a process of intentional and spontaneous change arising in institutional structures and resulting in a modified or even entirely new political order; the political order being a major component of the social order. Political regimes cannot be entirely planned. Their emergence is always characterized by spontaneity. The proportions between the spontaneous and the intentional components vary, and because of the ever-present tendency to rationalize, they are also often difficult to assess. Intentional changes are initiated by groups aspiring to political leadership. Such groups may have their power entrenched within the political order; or they may stand outside this order and owe their influence to a privileged economic situation; or they may consist of revolutionaries alienated from the order and contesting it. They may possess a clear-cut political programme or only a vague vision of a 'morally superior society'. These elites may exist in a local community or at the national level. Thus our understanding of the political elite is inclusive: it is the political class in the Tocquevillian sense ([1856] 1955, ch.X) or the political stratum in the sense proposed by Giddens (1989).

8 Strategies of Institution Building We have distinguished between two polar cases of institution-building: • A political regime is conceived and implemented by a small elite at the power centre whose security of position and preservation of monopoly of initiative requires the suppression of all autonomous initiatives arising from below. • A political regime emerges during the process of negotiation and compromise among many local, national and/or functional groups at all levels of the social hierarchy. In the first case, a unified, national elite constructs a regime which protects it against interferences from below and monopolistically operationalizes the meaning of the public interest or of the raison d'etat. We thus obtain an authoritarian regime at best, or a totalitarian regime at worst. We should add, however, that these are two very different types of regime. Moreover, in our view, they are not transitive; that is, a totalitarian regime under contemporary conditions cannot transform into an authoritarian one. In the second instance, the groups that participate in the constitutional contract create institutional devices which protect their political rights and social autonomy against arbitrary interference from the power centre (Oakerson, 1988). This requires, as a conditio sine qua non, a constitutional system and the rule of

140

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

law based on a universalist, rationalist conception of human nature. In such an order, a complex network of political elites evolves at all levels of social structure. This is in fact what we refer to as civil society and political society (Tocqueville, 1945). In the first instance, elites are only grounded within the structures of the state; in the second, they act as part of both the state and society. In authoritarian regimes there always persist important elements of the bottom-up organization. There always exist alternative elites. An authoritarian regime may postulate the superiority of the state over society and justify this with some paternalistic ideology, but it does not deny society sui generis. Society possesses legitimate autonomy outside the political domain proper. In totalitarian regimes the legitimate existence of the society is reduced to the limits of the partisan state; that is, totalitarian regimes deny society as such. The political order resulting from the bottom-up strategy of institution-building establishes a form of dynamic equilibrium between society and the state: the state becomes an instrument of society indispensable for the preservation and governance of its order. The mutual relationship between the two is regulated by constitutional norms. To be robust, an arrangement of this kind requires that these norms should meet the criterion of fairness (Vanberg and Buchanan, 1989: 56). There is a direct relationship between the nature of the constitutional order and the ability of a society to modify, ameliorate and create institutional arrangements. The constitutional order influences institutional innovations in four ways. First, it may be conducive to free inquiry and social experimentation, or it may be fundamentally repressive. Second, the constitutional order directly influences the cost of entry into the political system and the ease with which the legal foundations of new institutions can be established. Third, the constitutional order affects the pattern of use of public authority, and therefore the types of distortion introduced by public policy into the economy. Finally, a stable and vital constitutional order introduces into the political economy a sense of civil order - an agreement on basic values and processes for conflict resolution - that considerably reduces the cost risk of innovation (Nicholson, 1988: 15-16). It is difficult to think of a more important set of political decisions than those which concern the constitution of social order. The politics of constitution-construction, as in the case of other societies transforming their political regimes, will determine the future of Central and Eastern European countries. The top-down and bottom-up strategies of institution-building are ideal types suitable for analysis rather than for direct empirical investigation. We find only their approximations in the real world. When we consider political regimes in their totality, they always represent mixed cases. Moreover, one of best known instances of the Rechtsstaat is provided by nineteenth-century Prussia, in whose political order the top-down elements predominated.

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

141

When regimes constructed top-down are considered, the Bolshevik rule in Russia represents an extreme instance. It was a case of an internal conquest or, to quote Preobrazhensky's words out of their proper context, of an "internal colonization." The conquest began with the October Revolution and continued through collectivization, the first five-year plans, and the purges of the second half of the 1930s. In the late 1930s Stalin constructed a fully arbitrary system of governance. This historical example shows that Hobbes' Leviathan is "... the result of a constructivistic hypostasation, a fiction made necessary by the false factual assumptions..." (Hayek, 1979: 34), to quote another author out of context. The example of Stalinism shows that a system in which the sovereign has maximum power is one in which no moral bonds exist: there were no ties of trust outside the Gulag Archipelago. This is monopoly with no rules. In moderate cases, the problem of monopoly and competition corresponds to the distinction between the hierarchy and the lateral mechanisms of coordination (Williamson, 1975). In modern society the hierarchy is symbolized by bureaucracy. The term "lateral mechanisms of coordination" may refer to both market and democracy. We merge both of these together because, as mentioned above, they share certain properties in common; indeed, in many respects they function as reversed hierarchies. The function of hierarchies is to cope with uncertainty. They "...divide problems up, apply specialized skills to each subproblem, and routinize decisions to apply standard solutions to categories of problems." (Lindblom, 1977: 66) The classical hierarchy takes the form of a triangle composed of many small triangles. At the top of each stands a boss who supervises his subordinates and decides, within the limits allowed by regulations, their fate. This fact creates competition, whose nature depends on the general characteristics of the organization. In order to supervise effectively, the superior must encourage competition among his subordinates, thereby preventing them from colluding against the hierarchy. Here, the many compete for the favour of one. In the market and in the electoral process, the relatively few compete for the favours of the many. The number of producers in the market, and of candidates for elective offices, is always smaller than that of consumers or voters. A market is a form of popular control. Here too, there are leaders and large inequalities, but it works. In terms of control over the leadership, the market system is more effective than democracy. Charles Lindblom nicely formulated this Weberian idea: It ought to be clear... that a money-pursuing leadership might be more precisely controllable than a public-interest leadership if the populace can systematically vary leadership's opportunities to satisfy its appetite for money. A market system is a mechanism for doing just that, for harnessing a strong incentive in a precise system of social control that manipulates money-making in order to steer businessmen in just those directions called for by consumer spending. And, on the other hand,

142

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

it is a characteristic of polyarchal control that, although leaders may be devoted to the public interest, that in itself contains no promise of popular control. For the public interest may be undefined, or defined only by leadership itself in ways not responsive to popular volitions (Lindblom, 1977: 146).

Yet although the market and electoral controls differ in their efficiency and in their levels of ambiguity, they are both devices designed to render popular control effective. Moreover, the market and the democratic orders share certain isomorphisms. They both rely on the model of the rational human being who is able to understand his/her interests correctly, to grasp the nature of problems related to these interests, and to make rational choices. Second, they share the underlying assumption that important knowledge in society is dispersed, and particularly knowledge of the conditions of time and place (Hayek, 1945). Thus both market and public life allow for an efficient distribution of information (as well as of other resources) and its application in the decision-making process. A hierarchy relies on the assumption that the superiors have a better grasp of reality than do their subordinates. That those below may have more information about particular problems; nevertheless, deprived of general knowledge, they depend on their superiors for guidance and comprehensive understanding. Conversely, the superiors depend on their subordinates for knowledge of particulars. Applied to situations that can be easily routinized, a hierarchy is an efficient system for organizing action.

9 Types of Political Elite Our examination of the role of elites in processes of institution-building requires some rather detailed typological distinctions. These are needed in order to characterize the groups aspiring to political leadership in the post-communist societies, and to assess the impact of their activities upon the newly emerging political and social order. We focus in particular on the following aspects: recruitment mechanisms, openness versus closeness of access, the relationship between elites and non-elites, internal diversity and formality versus the informality of the bonds integrating the elite, types of beliefs and ideology, the tactics and strategies used in the struggle for power. In developing our theoretical perspective, we shall start with a loose variation on Weber's types of legitimate authority (1960). Weber's typology had a twofold purpose. First, it served as a tool in his historical-comparative investigations into the rise of capitalism in Europe. Second, it served to explain the pro-

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

143

cesses of social change. According to Weber, traditional society was stable because it was governed entirely by norms inherited from the past. Charismatic individuals and movements disrupted this traditional order. They were social innovators which instigated changes in the traditional order when, through processes of institutionalization, their visions and prophecies became part of traditional routines. With the rise of patrimonial regimes, the first patterns of bureaucratic hierarchies emerged. They co-existed in an unstable equilibrium with traditional structures. The modernistic surge came when markets and hierarchies colluded against tradition. From our point of view, the problem with Weber's typology of legitimate authority is that it excludes the possibility of a viable social order created 'bottom upwards'. In this sense, Weber is closer to Mancur Olson (1964) than to authors continuing the Montesquieu/Burke/Tocqueville tradition (E. Ostrom, 1990). In our discussion we distinguish among traditional, charismatic, bureaucratic and interactionist elites. The last two types belong to the rational-legal category. This typology of elites relates types of elite to types of political order in two ways. First of all, certain of the political and ideological orientations espoused by major political actors lead to certain institutional outcomes; that is to say, certain types of elite manifest a propensity to create some institutional forms rather than others. Second, once a given order has been established, it shapes the character of both the dominant political elites and the counter-elites. Traditional elites are inherently conservative. They base themselves upon continuity, respect for organic social bonds and community, the perception of the world as a natural hierarchy of things and beings. They tend to treat moral norms as a sacred. Norms are naturally given and transmitted through the cultural and religious tradition. Traditional elites are ritualistic, and they legitimate their position by a paternalistic belief in superiority based on the tradition and birth from which moral obligation to the community ensues. There is a sharp distinction between the elite and the non-elite. Also, there is a clear-cut division between the in-group and the out-group drawn along kinship, ethnic, national and/or religious lines. Charismatic elites, on the other hand, have a sense of mission personified in a prophet or a hero; a belief in his extraordinary virtues and qualities. It may also happen that these properties are collectively ascribed to a group struggling to monopolize leadership positions as a whole (Jowitt, 1978, 1983). Charismatic elites reject, however, all traditional or formal hierarchy and traditional obligations. They are basically egalitarian, since the only hierarchy that they are able to accept lies in the relationship between the leader and the led. All relations are personalized. In terms of their attitude toward morality, these elites have an active disposition towards moral values. They represent what Weber called the ethics of con-

144

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

viction. Only motives and intentions count; results are secondary. They are obsessed with creativity (by which is meant a revolt against the existing order); they live for the future; they create 'a new human being', 'a new society', a 'new history', and so on. They initiate and participate in the 'great transformation'. Their superiority derives from their claim to be the sole possessors of 'truth'. The division between the in-group and the out-group is grounded in acceptance or rejection of a set of beliefs. The elite perceives its role in society as acting as its moral Judge and enlightening Educator. The elite is always above society: it works for it but not with it. The traditional elite is oriented to an extended past, a charismatic elite looks into an extended future. The third and fourth types of elites are both rational-legal and of collectivist and individualist type. Crucial here is the fact that the terms 'rational' and 'legal' have different meanings in each case. In the former, the term 'rationality' is reduced to its formal and technical aspects, and 'law' is interpreted in the manner typical of legal positivism; that is, it is a holistic system, another form of reality, irreducible to the social processes that it is supposed to regulate. It is established from above by the state. The form of the state, the institutional meaning of the term 'legislator', is irrelevant. The legislator is the interpreter of the law for society. Law is enforced by the legitimate use of negative sanctions, while the state is defined by its monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion. This, therefore, is a state-centered interpretation of the rational and legal. The bureaucratic-collectivist elite orients itself toward the practical and technical problems of ruling society within the confines of the state. The most important relationship is that between the state and the citizens. In this relationship, the political elite represents the state. It imposes "...order centrally through a division of labor" (Wildavsky, 1982). The hierarchy is based on formal competence. The institutional settings that give rise to it are the courts ofjustice and bureaucracies. The legal-rational collectivist elites emphasize formal rights and the rule of law. The distinction between the elite and the non-elite is well defined by their places in the hierarchy of the state. The elite is above society, it is legally responsible to society, but in every other respect it is superior to it. The citizens are reduced to the role of obedient recipients and executors of the laws of the realm. Laws are founded on the morality of duties (Fuller, 1978: 33-67); in Fuller's view, they are a manifestation of the exercise of social power. The elite rationalizes its actions in terms of the raison d'etat, which is conceived in nationalist-imperial terms: the state is the highest expression of national glory. It creates and maintains social order through formally established bureaucratic hierarchies built from the top down. In economic policies it relies on a close relationship between the administration and the business sector, and on protectionism. Participation in political decision-making at the local level is replaced by governmental paternalism.

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

145

In the interactionist-individualist type of elite, the meaning of'rational' is broader than in the collectivist one. It encompasses the idea of a social rationality which concerns both the formal and the teleological. This rationality is an attribute of free agents, of acting individuals, that is, of citizens (Taylor, 1987; Hollis, Lukes, 1985). "Citizenship is the institutional counterpart of rationality, not merely an idea, but a reality, the crystallization of reality into a social role" (Dahrendorf, 1974: 677). This approach concurs with Fuller's idea that every effort to subject human behaviour to a set of principles belongs to the domain of law (1978: 9). Thus, besides formal, procedural law, there is implicit law of informal character. In this sense, every citizen is a law-creator. If, in the case of the bureaucratic type, legislative initiative belonged to the elite, here it is appropriated by the citizenry (Ostrom, 1992). In the former case, the relationship between elites and non-elites is reduced to subjection, in the latter it consists in cooperation. The bureaucratic-collectivist type finds its main expression in repressive law, the interactionist-individualist in contractual law. Law in the latter instance is based upon the morality of aspirations (Fuller, 1978: 40-66). Society is conceived as a moral community. Elites of the interactionist type emerge outside the state in the domain encompassed by the notion of civil society: the market and the public sphere. The two social roles representative of the individualist ethos are those of the entrepreneur and of the citizen. But the citizen here is not only a 'law-abiding' individual; s/he becomes an active participant in public life: duties and rights are balanced. In this case, the relationship between the elite and the non-elite takes the form of a relationship between formally equal citizens (Nisbet, 1974). There are important similarities between an entrepreneur and a citizen. Both notions imply autonomy, self-confidence, and an active attitude towards reality. The citizen participates in and creates political life through associations, interest groups, and electoral choices. An entrepreneur creates and maintains a firm in order to take advantage of market opportunities. There may be a difference of motivation between an entrepreneur who starts a firm and a citizens who starts an association to defend the interests of a community, but both make innovative use of the opportunities offered by the institutional environment. The rationallegal interactionist elites create, in comparison to the bureaucratic ones, a more open, richer and diversified form of social coexistence. The two legal-rational elites represent the ethic of responsibility; but again these are differently conceived responsibilities. In the first case, this is responsibility for the state. In the second, self-interested individuals are oriented towards a system of interactions which impose contractual obligations on them for which they are held responsible. From the individualist perspective, morality is external to the actor and is created and re-created through permanently performed choices.

146

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

It is obvious, however, that traditional elites stabilize the social order rather than change it. The same is true of bureaucratic elites. These may sometimes be carriers of change, but they mostly have a stabilizing impact. As Max Weber noted, under rational-legal conditions, institutional changes are initiated by elected political leaders of the charismatic kind. Weber saw, in fact, the main function of parliamentary elections in the fact that they were the only mechanism under rational-legal authority conditions for the recruitment and promotion of charismatic leaders. (Mommsen, 1974: 20) We thus have institution-building leaders who by definition must possess charisma, and four types of elite: traditional, charismatic, bureaucratic and interactionist. These elites may or may not have a leader or a group of leaders. When they do have a true leader, s/he personifies the values and attitudes of the elite and expresses them in a universalist form. Several conclusions are pertinent here. First, the basic features of an institutional system depend upon the dominant type of elite involved in its creation. Second, the character of the elite which initiates change depends upon the institutional-historical context of the period that preceded its emergence: institutionbuilding elites are historically grounded. In the real world we are faced by groups which usually combine, to varying degrees and in diverse ways, the features of all four types. Moreover, whatever the nature of an elite, it is externally constrained by situational variables: of which the global political and economic situation is one of the most important. Finally, the charismatic and the bureaucratic elites build institutional systems top-down, while interactionist elites usually use bottom-up strategies for institution-building. In reality, the situation is much more complex than that suggested by our typology. In modern democratic societies, traditional groups and classes, like religious denominations, aristocracies, patrician milieux, or peasant communities coexist with charismatic reformers who, in order to win broad popular support, have to evoke trust in their abilities to carry the mission forward. Bureaucratic elites coexist with entrepreneurial, academic, and other elitist groups. A pluralist social order requires a variety of organizational forms, and this entails a diversity of cultural elitist types ranging from the traditional and charismatic to the rational-legal. The relations among these elites are by no means simple. The charismatic type may sometimes play a constructive role, but it may also be highly subversive. Traditionalism may subvert the interactionist order; bureaucracy may destroy any other form of organization. The welfare state is a product of traditional patrimonialism with bureaucratic trust in formal, expert knowledge. Finally, charismatic do-gooders find that bureaucracies are the perfect instruments for making others happy.

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

147

10 Systemic Obstacles to Post-communist Transformation We stated at the outset that the more effectively the communist system imposed itself on a society, the less is that society now culturally and institutionally able to embark on the path of transition toward political democracy and the market organization. It is possible to distinguish four circles in the post- communist area of Europe according to the ability of a given country to implement institutional transformations: • • • •

Belarus, Ukraine; Russia; The three Baltic states, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania; The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland.

Note that particular categories in this typology were differently located in relation to the Soviet Union. The first and the second groups of states were part of the USSR proper from the very beginning. Any opposition to communism resulted in severe repression. The elite of Ukraine was either Russified or exterminated during repeated waves of terror. The third and the fourth groups comprise states incorporated into the communist system as a result of the Second World War. The fourth group consists of the countries in which a major revolt against the communist regime took place; the countries, that is, in which the process of destalinization affected not only the political class itself but the whole of society. The countries of the first group were bureaucratically relegated to the role of peripheries. Moreover, while central planning in the USSR endeavoured to turn Russia into a self-sufficient economic system, the remaining republics were rendered unilaterally dependent on Russian supplies of energy, raw materials and component parts. This created the situation of continuing economic dependency on Russia. Both countries were also subjected to a systematic policy of Russification, and a methodical brain-drain by Moscow. The lack of elites able to lead these countries in the direction of market economy and Western democracy is one of the effects of these policies. Nonetheless, the composition of the political elites in Belarus and Ukraine differs. In the first case, the turnover of people occupying high positions in the political system has been insignificant, and limited only to few most compromised individuals. In the case of the Ukraine, the change in the elite composition has been markedly greater. Probably the most important factor underlying this difference is the national awareness of the population, and the will of the ruling circles to build a nation-state fully independent of Moscow.

148

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

The advantage that Russia enjoys over the former cases consists of its centurieslong tradition of imperial statehood, a factor which in the long run will seriously hinder its transition towards a nation-state. Russia has inherited the central administration of the state from communism. It possesses a class of internationally experienced intellectuals, and it has been part of the' international political club' since the seventeenth century. Furthermore, it is still a considerable military power possessing a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. Thus, among the postSoviet states, Russia has become the main object of international political support and the main recipient of material assistance. We may propose, therefore, that although in all three countries the new political classes have been recruited mainly - but to a varying degree in each particular case - from different groups within the communist establishment (the army and industrial management), their professional quality differs: it is higher in Russia than in the other two countries. Moreover, practical awareness of national objectives and priorities, at least in foreign policy, is higher in the core of the former empire than in its peripheries. The third circle consists of states that have achieved significant advances in the task of transforming the political and economic order, and some of them may even be close to the decisive breakthrough: although, in our view, they have not yet passed the point of no return. The Baltic states are the only remnants of the former USSR which belong to this category. Their definitive inclusion in the Soviet Union came in 1944, and despite mass deportations and the extermination of the native political classes, the spirit of independence persisted. The new ruling elites of these countries are a mixture of local ex-communist politicians and leaders of the nationalist opposition recruited mostly from the intelligentsia. In this respect, they resemble the other three states in this category: Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia. There are, finally, the three countries that have made the greatest advances in realization of the liberal-democratic transition: Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Here, the critical mass of reform has been reached, and the probability of a relapse to an authoritarian regime is slim. These were the only countries in which opposition to the communist regime developed. That is to say, destalinization involved not only the very top of the party hierarchy and small circles of dissidents, but whole societies. And they were also the only countries in which, albeit to different extents, something approximating civil society emerged.

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

149

11 Types of Elites and the Quality of Transition On considering our typology of elites, one notes that elites in societies in transition are of mixed character. Most traditional elites were eliminated under communist rule, except for the Church and Catholic layman in Poland, and the Hungarian intelligentsia. Matters were apparently worse in Czechoslovakia. Thus elements of the traditional elites could only survive in the countries of the fourth circle - which suggests some sort of relationship between civil society and traditional elites and institutions. The elements of charisma in political culture were most visible among dissident groups (Kaminski, Kurczewska, 1994). These consisted mostly of intellectuals, scientists and artists whose opposition to communism was founded on moral standards, that is, a critical discourse with very little positive reference. Their writings revealed no serious reflection on the political and economic order that should replace the communist regime, and they tended to implicitly assume that moral authorities build efficient and effective institutions. The dissidents were strong under conditions of moderate oppression. When state terror escalated, the life expectancy of a dissident was short indeed. Under moderate oppression, dissidents could physically survive, but they were kept socially alienated. The dissident movement existed in Russia as an expression of cultural liberalism and anti-communist opposition. In the other European republics of the USSR it was an expression of strong national aspirations; in Czechoslovakia an expression of political protest against the Soviet invasion of the country. Finally, the Hungarian dissidents were similar to the Russian ones. In Poland, after 1976, the dissident movement turned into a social counter-elite, thereby becoming an altogether different phenomenon which must be analysed as a complex social movement. The rational-legal type appears in the post-communist world in a peculiar form. In our opinion, it is represented mostly by the former members of the state apparatus. It is peculiar because it formed under conditions of the communist regime with by and large very little in common with the Rechtsstaat. Yet, the former nomenklatura is the group with the outlook that comes closest to this type. This is characteristic of all circles of the post-communist world. The role played by these elites in the process of liberal-democratic transformation depends on their strength of commitment to Western values and patterns of civilization. This commitment is, in our opinion, strongest in the countries of the first circle and weakest in those of the fourth. Interactionist-individualist elites are rare in the whole post-communist area. First of all, they are scattered in small enclaves. Even in Russia, where they are exceptionally weak because of the absence of a tradition of self-government and

150

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

self-help activities, we find instances of such activities, as in the case of Nizhnyi Novgorod. The phenomenon of interest, however, is the impact of Russia on political culture in Belarus and the Ukraine. This impact has been, from the point of view of the emergence of civil society, retrograde. If we compare the regions of Belarus which before 1939 were part of the Polish state with those that had been incorporated into Soviet Russia from its inception or Ukrainian Galicia with Eastern and South-Eastern Ukraine, which have the strongest ties to Russian culture, we note significant differences in the institution-building and self-government capacities of these areas. Similarly, when we contrast the areas of the former partitions of Poland, we see that the local self-government movement is very strong in the former Prussian and Austrian parts but considerably weaker in the former Russian part. We find more of the interactionist-individualist type of elites in the Baltic states, where such traditions have survived from the inter-war period, than in Bulgaria and Romania. This suggests that the first three societies will probably make faster progress in developing their democratic and market institutions than will the latter. This particular brand of political elite is strongest in the fourth circle of countries, and it is evident in the dynamics of the private business sector, in the expansion of associations and public bodies at the local level, and in the strong movement in support of local autonomy and self-government. This can be explained by the fairly old tradition of autonomous local governments in these countries. The second factor - which relates to the pro-Western orientation of the legal-rational elites in these countries - consists in radical change in the legal systems regulating the economy and reform of the state administration. Because of its particularly strong and effective opposition to communism, and because of the bonds of trust which necessarily developed in order to oppose a police state, this type of elite may be more visible in Poland than in the remaining two cases. And this is despite the fact that the peasant parties (which are an important component of the Polish government), together with the elements in the Social-Democratic Party representing the trade-unionist faction, work against such developments. These forces support the idea of a strong centralized state heavily committed to the redistribution of national wealth. Nor, moreover, can this be considered a case of legal rational-elites, since the focus of these two tendencies is on the representation of highly particularized interests: of the backward peasantry, and of workers of subsidized industries. In this sense, these two groups are retrogressive. It is obvious that local self-government, the establishment of constraints from below on the powers of the state, goes hand in hand with private entrepreneurship and economic growth. These two developments create pressures on the legal system seeking to adjust it to the needs of local communities and the public's

Strategies of Post-communist Transformations

151

sense of fairness. Thus democratization of the post-communist world and its economic advance will depend directly on the growth in importance and on the activities of the last type of elites.

References Bell, Daniel (1975): The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York: Basic Books. Coleman, James S. (1990): Foundation of Social Theory. Cambridge Mass. Harvard University Press. Dahrendorf, Ralf (1974): "The Citizenship and Beyond: The Social Dynamics of An Idea." Social Research, vol. 41 no. 4, 673-701 Dahrendorf, Ralf (1990): "Roads to Freedom: Democratization and Its Problems in East Central Europe." In: Peter Volten (ed.) Uncertain Futures. Institute for East West Security Studies. Dahrendorf, Ralf (1990): Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. London: Chatto & Windus. Diamond, Larry and Juan Linz (1989): "Introduction." In L. Diamond, J. J. Linz and S. M. Lipset (eds.) Democracy in Developing Countries. Latin America. London: Adamantine Press Ltd. Douglas, Mary (1986): Risk Acceptability According to the Social Sciences. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Giddens, Anthony (1984): The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press. Elkin, Stephen L. (1985): "Pluralism in its Place: State and Regime in Liberal Democracy," in Roger Benjamin and Stephen L. Elkin (eds.), The Democratic State. University Press of Kansas. Fuller, Lon L. (1964): The Morality of Law. New Haven: Yale University Press. Griffith, William E. (1989): "The German Democratic Republic." In: Central and Eastern Europe: The Opening Curtain. Boulder: Westview Press. Hayek, Friedrich A. (1979): Law, Legislation and Liberty. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Hayek, Friedrich A. (1945): "The Use of Knowledge in Society." American Economic Review 35 (Sept.): 519-530. Highley, John and Richard Gunther, (ed.) (1992): Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hobbes, Thomas (1962): Leviathan. Oxford: Clarendon Press Hollis, Martin and Stephen Lukes, (ed.) (1982) Rationality and Relativism. Oxford: Blackwell. Ionescu, Ghita (1967): L'Avenir Politique de I'Europe Orientale. Paris: Futuribles. Jones, Brian D. (1989): Leadership and Politics. New Perspectives in Political Science. Lawrence, Kansas: Kansas University Press. Jowitt, Ken (1983): "Soviet Neotraditionalization: The Political Corruption of a Leninist Regime." Soviet Studies. Vol.35 (July): 275-297. Kaminski, Antoni Z. (1989) "Coercion, Corruption, and Reform: State and Society in the Soviet-type Socialist Regimes." Journal of Theoretical Politics. Vol. 1, No. 1. 77-102. Kaminski, Antoni Z. (1992): An Institutional Theory of Communist Regimes. Design, Function, and Breakdown. San Francisco: ICS Press. Kaminski, Antoni Z. and Joanna Kurczewska (1994): "Main Actors of Transformation: The Nomadic Elites". The General Outlines of Transformation. Eric AUardt and W. Wesolowski (eds.) Warszawa: IFiS PAN Publishing. Kaufman, Robert R. (1988): "Liberalization and Democratization in South America: Perspectives from the 1970s." in G. O'Donnell, Ph. C. Schmitter, and L. Whitehead, (eds.), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London. Lederer, Emil (1940): The State and the Masses. New York: W. W. Norton and Company Inc. Lindblom, Charles E. (1977): Politics and Markets. The World's Political-Economic Systems. New York: Basic Books, Inc. Publishers.

152

Antoni Ζ. Kaminski & Joanna Kurczewska

Linz, Juan J. (1978): The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes. Crisis, Breakdown, and Re-equilibration. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Lipset, Trow, and Coleman (1956): Union Democracy. The Free Press. Mommsen, Wolfgang J. (1974): The Age of Bureaucracy: Perspectives on the Political Sociology of Max Weber. New York: Harper and Row. Mosca, Gaetano (1939): The Ruling Class. New York: McGrow-Hill. Montesquieu, Charles Luis de Secondat (1965): The Spirit of the Laws. New York: Hafner. First Published in 1748. Nicholson, Norman (1988): "The State of the Art," in V. Ostrom, D. Feeny, H. Picht (eds.) Rethinking Institutional Analysis. Nisbet, Robert (1974): "Citizenship: Two Traditions." Social Research, vol. 41 no. 4, 623-631. Oakerson, Ronald J. (1988): "Reciprocity: A Bottom-Up View of Political Development", in V. Ostrom, D. Feeny, H. Picht (eds.) Rethinking Institutional Analysis. O'Donnell, Guillermo and Ph. C. Schmitter (1986): Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Olson, Mancur (1965): The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press. Ortega y Gasset, Jose (1951): The Revolt of the Masses. London: London University Press. Ostrom, Elinor (1990): Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions For Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, Vincent, D. Feeny and H. Picht, (eds.) (1988): Rethinking Institutional Analysis, and Development. San Francisco: ICS Press. Ostrom, Vincent (1987) The Political Theory of a Compound Republic. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. Ostrom, Vincent (1991): The Meaning of American Federalism. San Francisco: ICS Press. Putnam, Robert (1993): Making Democracy Work. Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton N. J.: Princeton University Press. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1913): The Social Contract and Discourses. New York: E. P. Dutton. Sartori, Giovanni (1973): Theorie de la Democratic. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. Schmitter, Philippe C. (1986): "An Introduction to Southern European Transitions from Authoritarian Rule." In O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead (eds.) Transitions From Authoriatarian Rule: Southern Europe. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Soltan, Karol (1990): "Post-communist Constitutionalism," Philosophy and Public Policy, vol. 10, no. 1. Published by School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland. Tocqueville, Alexis de (1955): The Old Regime and the French Revolution. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Tocqueville, Alexis de (1971): Recollections. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Comp., Inc. Anchor Books. Tylor, Charles (1990): "Modes of Civil Society," Public Culture, vol. 3 no. 1 (Fall), pp. 95-118. Vanberg, Viktor and J. M.Buchanan (1989) "Interests and Theories in Constitutional Choice." Journal of Theoretical Politics, vol. 1 no. 1. Weber, Max (1960) Economy and Society. Berkeley: California University Press. Wildavsky, Aaron (1982) "The Three Cultures: Explaining Anomalies in the American Welfare State." The Public Interest, no. 69, Fall. Wildavsky, Aaron (1979): Speaking Truth to Power. Boston: Little, Brown and Company Wildavsky, Aaron (1984): "From Political Economy to Political Culture or Rational People Defend Their Way of Life." Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of The American Political Science Association, 30 August - 2 September. Wittfogel, Karl A. (1957): Oriental Despotism. A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Part Two Globalization, Retraditionalisation and Societal Modernisation

Beyond Modernization: The Retraditionalisation of Ex- and PostYugoslavian Society Carl-Ulrik Schierup

1 Introduction In the West as well as in the East, Europe is marked by an ethnic revival and the yearning of new nations and old regions for self-determination. The enigmas of a fragmenting ethnic revivalism have - with the fall of the Berlin Wall as the conspicuous turning point - become particularly acute in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and in the Balkans. Here forceful nationalist movements have rebelled against the central authorities of ethnically mixed states while they turn towards the past in a seemingly conservative cultivation of exclusive ethnic identities and discriminatory myths of cultural origin. It all appears to have happened before. The so-called "rebirth of East Europe" (Roskin 1991) is often depicted as the surfacing, in more or less unchanged form, of primordial cultural identities and culturally based conflicts and of national self-awareness, all of which were suppressed (but preserved) during the period of authoritarian and centralized communist rule. The natural result of the suspension of an unnatural state - when the heavy 'lid' is removed from an overheated communist 'pressure cooker' - is an ethnic-nationalist explosion. This is the much travelled cognitive-ideological terrain that the current popular publicpolitical imagery shares with the conventional 'primordialist' view in academic studies of nationalism and ethnicity. But history is replete with ironic paradoxes. More often than not, a seemingly 'irrational' and overwhelmingly emotional and particularist preoccupation with the past has in fact served to legitimize the instalment of a social order propelled by all the basic motives of belonging to what, in the conventional western image of self, represents the essential features of a universally valid modernity: a benevolent institutionally-embedded market economy, effective bureaucratically monitored state institutions (in the Weberian sense), political pluralism and a democratic polity resting on broad popular movements of so-called 'civil society'; all of which framed in the cultural matrix of modern scientific reason (in the Kantian sense).

156

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

Analysis of contemporary nationalism in the East on the basis of historical analogy could, therefore, even support the case of an alternative 'modernist' or 'constructivist' approach to problems of ethnic fragmentation and of nation building in Eastern Europe. In line with the kind of 'modernist' or 'constructivist' approach to nationalism and nation-building most forcefully argued by Ernest Gellner (1983), we may suspect that the specific ways in which ethnicity and nationalism are being, once again, constructed socially in modern settings by the elite manipulation of historically derived symbolism and signs is in fact coterminous with particular contemporary instances of a 'cultural homogenization' contingent on the demands of industrial modernity. This is the general perspective explicitly adopted by Gellner (1992a) in his post-1989 reflections on nationalism in the East. Under the specific conditions associated with this "stagnant, cynical, corrupt, and inefficient order" (ibid., 248), and left behind by its break-up, a radical back-to-the-roots 'ethnic nationalism' becomes the dominant post-communist political response. In the form of a number of competing and not easily reconcilable national projects, this raises, in the context of multiethnic-multinational states, problems equivalent to the distressing experience of opening a 'Pandora's box'. Gellner nevertheless concludes that, although the language of the new ethnic-nationalists belongs to the romanticist rhetoric of a past "potato age", the messages and the moment's hidden logic and latent function may instead respond to the demands of the modern industrial age for shared 'high cultures' of the "kind that can only be instilled by a disciplined, abstract-norm-observing, formal, literate, and sophistication-instilling educational system" (ibid., 251). The success of radical ethnic-nationalism, as representative of the dominant form of post-communist political mobilization, is due to the fact that decades of 'resolute centralism' have destroyed most of the potential bases for modern independent associations. But this failed modernization project (communism) and post-communist society already represent, Gellner argues, a "structureless mass anonymous society", where the mobilization of shared cultures can rapidly create its own functionally fit structures. In a post-communist environment where there is by now no serious rival ideology, nor any serious rival institution, "ethnic nationalism... has few if any rivals when it comes to the reestablishment of civil society" (ibid., 249-50). What we encounter here - in the shape of one of the currently most powerful and influential interpretations of nationalism - is nothing but modernization theory's familiar model of contemporary history as a grand movement from 'tradition' to 'modernity'; a movement bound to proceed by trial and error, on an erratic course, and littered wrecked projects. Nevertheless, in the long run, it is the one path that everybody must travel in order to gain access to the material and social prosperity of the age. The perspective is profoundly diachronic. Tradition belongs to the past and modernity to the present and the future.

Beyond Modernization

157

The merits of the approach is that it enables us to deal with conventional primordialism's mostly superficial and exegetic reproduction of native ethnicnationalist political self-understanding. However, at the same time, this modernist perspective on nationalism tends - in line with modernization theory in general - to provide us with another set of unidimensional lenses which hamper a sufficiently discriminatory understanding of modernity's actual complexity. Modernity is a convoluted condition and world systems theory should, if anything, have taught us where, in a global perspective, the same grand diachronic movement (the accumulation of capital) may help to produce apparently opposing outcomes. Here, the seemingly diachronic relationship of 'tradition' and 'modernity' emerges as the configuration of the contingent polarities in a complex, synchronically structured mutuality; a perspective whose logic maintains that 'failed modernization' cannot be discarded as purely and simply the wasteproduct of historically inadequate local intellectual-political projects.1 A glance at Yugoslavian and post-Yugoslavian social reality may (as in the case of many other areas of a 'second Europe' undergoing dramatic transition) provide us with the specific historical and contemporary raw material needed for further discussion. Beyond the programmes for modernization through national mobilization devised by local masterminds, what emerges is 'tradition' as a suffocating state contingent on the discords of an ambivalent global modernity; a condition compared with which conventional versions of modernization theory may well prove to be a tool with which to tighten the knot further.

2 A Contradictory Coalition and its Inherent Dilemmas Let the conditions for the historical emergence of real-socialism, as one modernization project among others, be our point of departure. Its original appearance within particular regions cannot be explained as being simply primordially conditioned by the character of Eastern European as opposed to Western European society; nor was its ideological surfacing structurally 'random', as we are sometimes told.2 We are confronted with a transformation, the inner dynamics of which were, amongst other things, contingent on global power relations. The historical achievement of the Western European bourgeoisies was, in terms of economic modernization, to develop an advanced industrial society based on science and technology, proletarianized labour and an increasingly sophisticated division of labour. This came about through the breaking of feudal bonds (as in France), a radical transformation of feudal social relationships (as in Britain) or through the direct physical eradication of entire peoples engaged

158

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

in non-capitalist forms of production (as in the extermination of the Indians of North America). However, owing to the emergence of imperialism as a worldwide system of domination, social revolutions in the twentieth century could never have the same agents nor the same historical, social and ideological content. The great popular revolutions of the twentieth century - the Soviet, the Chinese, the Yugoslavian and Albanian, the Cuban - have without exception taken place in societies on the periphery of an increasingly interdependent, but asymmetrically structured, global economy. Their chief problem was not to create new and more advanced forms of economy, but to prepare their societies to command the enormous scientific-technological potential already in existence. A precondition for overcoming structurally-determined economic underdevelopment was to free these societies from the unequal integration into the international division of labour that blocked the way. The bourgeoise elites characteristic of countries like Russia, China or preSecond World War Yugoslavia have, however, been either unable or disinclined to carry through revolutions of this kind. Typically, they have been weak and divided. There are certainly particular 'indigenous' reasons for this; but, once inserted into world-wide structures of domination, their opportunities for action were effectively blocked by their insignificant scale, by their subordinate and symbiotic relationship with international large scale capital, and by the continued selfish tutelage of their peripheral societies by dominant world-political centres. The immense economic power of the West, combined with the successful early construction of strong modern states, powefully limited the ability of indigenous elites in Eastern Europe and elsewhere to fight back (cf. Chirot 1989). Thus, historically, the ascent to power of centralized and highly disciplined communist one-party politocracies was not, from the perspective of 'modernization', random. Rather, it expressed a historical necessity. There was the need to mobilize and concentrate the scattered resources of poor exploited societies on the periphery of the capitalist world; societies dominated by powerful disintegrating and centrifugal social tendencies and cultural configurations. There was the associated need for a forceful, centralized authority with sufficient economic bargaining power to deal with predatory great powers, discriminatory international organizations and foreign capital, the power of which underscored the convoluted development of economic underdevelopment together with political Balkanization and corruption. Under the historically prevailing circumstances, all of this could hardly have been accomplished by any other social agent (cf. Schierup 1990). Of course, what was in the beginning a necessity and a driving force behind a sort of'evolutionary leap', became a stumbling block for further resource mobilization and modernization in both economic and political terms. But the conspicuous demise of a projected long-term revolutionary transformation of all

Beyond Modernization

159

spheres of life cannot be deducted from the social character or the ideological horizon of the bureaucracy itself, or from the nature of an inflexible state administrative planning process as such. Soviet history, from Khrushchev to Gorbachev, like Yugoslavian history from Kidric to Markovic, testifies, despite contradictions, to a will and action to reform the economic and political system of real socialism from within. The incapacity of the post-revolutionary state bureaucracies to lead their nations beyond a certain threshold of modernity is politically 'overdetermined', so to speak, by the types of social coalition that lie at the very root of the bureaucracy's political authority. The paralysis of almost any communist reform effort, economic as well as political, cannot simply be blamed on the bureaucracy's own taste for power 'in the last instance', nor simply on the inability of an uncompromising "moralistic centralism" to tolerate "partial truth" and its tendency to "absolutize everything" (Gellner 1993: 2). Rather, it represents an intricate problem of transgressing certain established forms of political consensus and legitimation. In the case of the Soviet Union, this has been most systematically demonstrated by the work of Victor Zaslavsky (1982). In Yugoslavia this question has acquired a specific character; a problematic which has most extensively been discussed by the work of the Zagreb sociologist, Josip Zhupanov.

2.1 'Real Self-Management' The way in which the new post-war Yugoslavian working class was formed, within a society that was in 1945 still overwhelmingly agrarian, had important political consequences. Much of the old politically radical working class perished during the Second World War or left the ranks of the workers after the war to pass into the political and administrative structures of the new socialist state apparatus. With the massive inflow of peasants into industrial work, the working class assumed a number of new features reminiscent of the south-Slav tradition of closed, corporate egalitarian village communities; it was submissive and humble towards state power to which it had always been tied as taxpayers and soldiers, but sufficiently far from the state to conserve a measure of internal autonomy (Koroshic 1988: 97; Cf. Mouzelis 1978). Zhupanov (1977) locates the central dilemma for Yugoslav socialist development in the contradictory relationship between a traditionalist society in the world's economic periphery and a conception of socialism that sprang from the Western labour movement (see also, Katunaric 1988: 153). Industrialism made possible, at least for some time, a compromise between the two. The mediating value was an 'egalitarianism' of traditionalist type which departed from the perspective of equal redistribution and an image of the limited good pertaining to the local corporate community. Extensive initial economic development, espe-

160

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

cially forced industrialization, apparently led to the equalization of the different parts of the country. At the same time it formed the basis for extensive employment which similarly appeared to promote equal opportunities. This model of society as a whole was realized and reinforced at the microlevel in the structural unit of the working organization. The economy was fragmented along irrational lines (of administrative and political control) into functionally disconnected and isolated 'segmentary associations' characterized by a dual power structure (Zhupanov 1969) - that is, one derived from the technostructure and from self-management principles, and one derived from the power of informal groups. It was the latter which eventually came to predominate in the shape of an informal corporatist coalition between localized bureaucracies and the quasi-proletarians of a fragmented and traditionalist working class, crystallizing around the central values of redistribution and egalitarianism (Schierup 1990 a). The ideological world view of the central post-revolutionary political leadership, however, was fundamentally that of modernization. Its dominant conception of long-term development was the construction of a technically advanced society. The achievement of these goals could not forever lean towards the egalitarianist matrix of a proto-peasant, manual working class, even if this was the main political legitimation for the bureaucracy's dominant position in society and for its role in redistributing limited goods. At a certain point, influential party-elite factions were to push forcefully for methods of economic management based on the allocative functions of the market, income differentiation, the large-scale implementation of experts, and the stimulation of individual entrepreneurship. The radical market-orientated reforms of the 1960s can be seen as an attempt to create the preconditions for a more skill and education-intensive economic development, following the systematic and massive education of new skilled and highly educated cadres during the previous two decades (Schierup 1990). As such, the reforms also represented an attempt to integrate into the international division of labour on a more equal footing. In this sense, it was a break with earlier extensive industrial development, and with the prevalence of egalitarianist social values in a society with an unskilled industrial labour force occupying a central position in the established scheme of accumulation. It represented a radical break with state bureaucratic hegemony and with egalitarianist socio-political matrixes to the political benefit of directors of large firms, the technical intelligentsia and highly skilled and urban people in general. It meant upsetting a delicate economic and socio-political rural-urban equilibrium in favour of the advanced urban-based segments of the population, but in a society where the unskilled/semi skilled, rural/semi-rural population would still represent an indispensable source of legitimacy for any stable political regime.

Beyond Modernization

161

3 Re-bureaucratization and New/Old Liasons The extensive economic and political reforms of the 1960s - which radical Marxist writers often prematurely described as "the restoration of capitalism" (e.g. Carlo 1972) - were, however, to become an interim form of state bureaucratic rule. The overall results of the reforms were disappointing. Rather than leading to the expected great leap forward, radical reformism without an adequate institutional infrastructure brought economic, political and social anarchy and fragmentation. One adverse social consequence of the reform policy was the rapid marginalization of large sections of the manual labour force. So-called peasantworkers, a numerically important social category, were hit from two sides, inasmuch as the structural changes in industry occurred simultaneously with the launching of a selective 'green revolution' in agriculture (see further, ibid., 82ff and 158ff). All of this undermined the powerful traditional basis of the reforming state bureaucratic elite's legitimacy among the manual working class while, simultaneously, the elite found it increasingly difficult to control the new social and cultural forces unleashed by the reforms. This appeared particularly menacing when student revolts, and numerous strikes by skilled workers, started to combine with the centrifugal and potentially very dangerous forces of resurgent nationalist claims in this overwhelmingly ethnically mixed society. The federal elite's response became, during the early and mid-1970s, a peculiar combination of authoritarian repression with permissiveness and new pervasive reforms of the social, political and economic system from above. The proclamation and institutionalization of a new phase in the development o f ' selfmanagement' should, on the one hand, have acted to harness popular protest and claims for social change to a common socialist cause under the guidance of the established elite. On the other hand, the aim of this new reform wave was to curtail unwanted tendencies towards the economic anarchy and so-called 'technocratic' dominance which had resulted from the haphazard manner in which the economic reforms of the 1960s had largely been conducted, and which allegedly threatened to restore the socially and politically disruptive peripheral capitalism that typified the years prior to the Second World War (Schierup 1990). However, rather than ushering in a new progressive era of popular democracy and efficient economic development, the reforms of the 1970s very quickly came to represent pervasive re-bureaucratization. 'Real self-management' turned into a flood of bureaucracy, not only in the state institutions, but also in the regional and local coordinating bodies for self-managers in Yugoslavian firms (ibid., 226ff). This resulted from the fragmentation of enterprise technostructure in the early 1970s based on the unsuccessful launching of an ambitiously conceived, so-called, "self management system of planning".

162

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

This provoked a powerful political backlash. Writing in the 1980s - in the midst of the present social and economic crisis - Zhupanov (1983b) speaks of a realignment of the old coalition between the manual working class and the political bureaucracy. The political reaction cast Yugoslav society in a mould qualitatively different from that of the 1950s and 1960s: it meant the profound retraditionalization of society. Bureaucratization during the 1970s mainly took place at the level of the republics, and became dominated by local bureaucracies with no grandiose visions of internationalism, popular democracy, or economic and technological self-reliance. It exploited the opportunities that a transformed 'self-management system' offered for the pervasive bureaucratization of all social relationships and took on a profoundly localized form against the background of constitutional amendments granting a large measure of political and economic autonomy to individual republics. This was a coalition of unequal partners in which the patron (the elite) 'protected' the working class by guaranteeing jobs, a minimal income and extensive social privileges, while the 'protected' (the workers) - the much-hailed historical 'working class' of actually existing socialism - guaranteed the elite its social legitimacy (Zhupanov 1983b). A coalition of this kind presupposed mutual communication: labour accepted the official ideology, while the elite accepted the values of radical egalitarianism. The elite embraced egalitarianism not out of genuine belief, but because a curtailment of differentiation simplified the social system and made it easier to administrate. This communication between the political elite and labour provided a solid basis for social stability in the face of the deepening economic crisis (Zhupanov 1985). It was profoundly authoritarian in character. All that had ever existed in the form of genuine workers' selfmanagement at the enterprise level largely died out to be replaced by the voluntaristic regulations of a ramifying bureaucratic apparatus. The republic's new bureaucratic elites, entrenched in what increasingly looked like new local 'national states' were driven by predominantly particularist motives, without long-term conceptions of development, and marked by shrinking room for manoeuvre in relation to transnational capital. The new regimes had fundamental structural features in common with the political elites of pre-war Yugoslavia. Under the lengthening shadow of economic subordination, the essential features of a pre-war neo-colonial ancien regime - the reproduction of state power through a network of primordial loyalties (see Tomasevich 1955) from the early 1970s onwards fused with the most authoritarian features of the social and political relations of real socialism. The local party elites and the 'national working classes' were bound together by innumerable ties of an increasingly traditionalistic nature. These were displayed in idioms such as kinship, friendship, locality and ethnicity, and they took the form of a complex network of reciprocal favours which pervaded the whole of society (Schierup 1990; cf. Sampson 1985, in discussion of other socialist countries). Vertical

Beyond Modernization

163

patron-client relationships and nepotist networks of favouritism - rooted in enterprises, local communities and a widely ramified underground economy - came to penetrate the entire fabric of society. During the 1980s and 1990s, in a situation where national conflicts were coming to a head, these types of local alliances transformed themselves into broader populist state-people-Führer-like movements. This transformation became a distinctive feature of Serbia's development (when Milosevic came to power on the back of a radical populist 'anti-bureaucratic' movement propelled by factions within the Communist Party itself); but also in Croatia where, in 1990, Franjo Tudjman's so-called Croatian Democratic Alliance (HDZ) (which integrated forceful political-managerial habits belonging to that republic's remarkably hard-line Stalinist past) inaugurated a neo-authoritarian near-to-oneparty regime.

4 On the Fringes of the Global System With reference to the Yugoslav politician and economist, Boris Kidric's (1952 and 1969) theory of state capitalism from the early 1950s, Chaslav Ocic (1983) suggests that the problem of bureaucratic particularism was a latent feature of Yugoslavia's entire post-war development. Indeed, it was one of the most fundamental structural problems of 'real socialism' (See Schierup 1990). Kidric cited a 'localism' and economic particularism already manifest immediately after the Second World War as the expression of bargaining over the division of surplus value between different sections and levels of the state bureaucratic apparatus. These strove to establish and perpetuate administrative monopolies over smaller or larger sections of social property, even when this led to economic stagnation and to a waste of public resources.3 In the multiethnic society of Yugoslavia, manifestations of bureaucratic particularism have been most dangerous for the socio-economic system at the level of the republic. Here lie the best opportunities to centralize social power at a sub-federal level and to give public legitimation to divisive power-monopolies. Ocic (1983) discerns a continuity between the manifestations of local particularism in Kidric's day and the burgeoning nationalist ideologies that legitimated the seperatist ambitions of the bureaucracies of individual republics and autonomous provinces during the 1980s. Since the early 1970s, Ocic asserts, political bureaucracies at the republican level have managed to centralize power within republican borders to such an extent that the existence of a common Yugoslav economy and the very future of the federation has been brought into question. As the interests of the political bureaucracy could not effectively and legiti-

164

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

mately be expressed through the political system of self-management, they were, during the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s, forced to "veil themselves in the disguise of different populist, 'nationalist' and similar ideologies often presenting themselves as the expression of some scientific theory" (ibid., 137-8). Ocic uses his conception of bureaucratic particularism to explain the specific terms on which Yugoslavia has become linked to the world economy since the early 1970s. The nature and causes of a protracted economic crisis cannot be reduced to increased balance-of-payments problems and foreign dependency. In a local and international environment where recurrent waves of radical reformism appear inevitably to result in repressive backlashes, they are connected with the fundamentally centrifugal dynamics of state bureaucratic power relationships. This leads to the growing disintegration of the economic system (see also Mihajlovic 1981; Bilandzhic 1981; Horvat 1985). Despite the Yugoslav Constitution's emphasis on a unitary Yugoslav market, closed and separate 'national' sub-economies (corresponding to the territories of single republics and autonomous provinces) "slowly but surely" developed (Ocic 1983). This territorialization of individual autarchic economies within the federation was defended with a number of 'visible and invisible' instruments wielded by competitive 'national' economic interests located in the individual republics and autonomous provinces. These latter produced, argues Ocic, their own legitimation through the fabrication and management of still more openly populist-nationalist and regionally-particular political ideologies (see also Bilandzhic 1981; Katunari 1988). The fragmentation and segmentation of the market for commodities and services described by Ocic, and also of other factors of production like capital and labour, became increasingly evident during the 1970s and 1980s, and culminated in the rivalry among today's allegedly 'post-communist' republican elites. The various republics and provinces developed seperate power structures which favoured the economic autarchy of single administrative units. By means of a number of informal mechanisms, they protected themselves against competition by commodities produced in other republics. They obstructed the attempts of enterprises in other republics to establish plants on their territory. Capital investments increasingly took place only within single republics, while interrepublican transfers of capital constantly dwindled. Because of its exclusiveness and an overwhelming fragmentation, the Yugoslav economy lost the benefits of increasing economies of scale, and of the development of functional specialization through republican and regional comparative advantages in resources, technology, labour and skill. As each republic endeavoured to develop its own separate 'national' economy, the Yugoslav economy as a whole assumed the form of numerous undercapitalized, badly integrated, parallel, non-cooperating production units. Through informal political power structures, these units fiercely protected their own republican and

Beyond Modernization

165

local level markets 'at home' while they fought and undercut one another in order to sell similar products on the world market (Ocic 1983; Koroshich 1988). Patterns of trade were either locked within the borders of each single republic or, increasingly, flowed from each republic towards the world market (Ocic 1983). The fragmentation and inner disintegration of the Yugoslav economy found its corollary in its growing subordination to foreign capital, of which the most important and fateful aspect became the conditions for technology transfer.4 The corollary of the autarchy of republics and autonomous provinces, and even the autarchy of smaller administrative divisions within the former Yugoslavia, was that single units forged individual bonds with Western partners. Production equipment, industrial licences and spare parts were bought from foreign partners in a completely uncoordinated and haphazard manner (Mihajlovic 1981; Ocic 1983: 1 lOff). The existence of a multitude of different technical conceptions and systems, licences, and standards impeded cooperation among Yugoslav partners and rendered Yugoslav plants increasingly dependent on foreign partners, with the subsequent collapse of any coherent development policy and of any determined effort at technical research and development (Durek 1981). This signalled a re-traditionalization of all social relationships.

5 Reperipherialization as Retraditionalisation 5.1 Marginalization of the Intelligentsia As expressed by Koroshic (1988: 147), the specific forms of articulation between the centrifugal and particularist forces of bureacratic management and the forces of an unequal international division of labour gave the Yugoslavian crisis of the 1980s the character of a "crisis of innovation". In terms of labour relationships, this came to mean the continued predominance of unskilled or semi-skilled manual labour in 'peripheral' labour processes structured in growing dependency on transnational capital. At the same time, however, development during the 1970s and 1980s represented a crisis and a marginalization of the technical intelligentsia': a paradoxical situation in which, as observed by Koroshic (ibid.), a huge, but largely structurally superfluous technical intelligentsia was matched by an ever decreasing number of international patents.5 At the micro-level this was contingent on the ways in which individual 'selfmanaged' enterprises operated. On the basis ofZhupanov's (1983a and b) model of a coalition between the bureaucracy and the working class, Yugoslav enter-

166

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

prises could be described as closed protectionist enclaves employing defensive egalitarianist strategies to defend the privileges of the already employed, coupled with a reluctance to employ new skilled and technically-advanced labour. New technology was frowned upon and innovators frequently came into conflict with their working organizations (Koroshic 1988:147; see also, Schierup 1990:141fif). The prevailing patterns of state bureaucratic intervention in the economy reinforced the closed character of individual enterprises (Koroshic 1988). Under this system, even firms running at a deficit might even occasionally pay their workers higher wages than firms working successfully according to economic criteria. As the success of a firm came to depend more and more closely on administrative intervention and informal relationships with local bureaucratic power-structures, so all economic and functional criteria for employing new labour tended to be eliminated. Instead, 'mechanical solidarity', centred around the primordial loyalties of family, friendship, locality and ethnic group, became the most important criterion for accepting new members, while relations of 'organic solidarity' increasingly dissolved (Zhupanov 1981: 1952; Schierup 1990: 141ff). While earlier impressive efforts to promote large scale research and development floundered and then collapsed (see Durek 1981; Horvat 1985), no new long-term conception of an integrated education of technological cadres were conceived. Flexible and functionally-integrated networks of smaller-scale, hightech and research-and-development enterprises and institutions, so powerful in the core industrial countries, were not within the horizon of the dominant politocratic conception of society (Koroshic 1988: 145). Under these conditions, the existing technical intelligentsia was either isolated in some inferior administrative department, 'disciplined' according to the static criteria of a conservative management, or left to languish in unemployment. The pervasive restructuring of the Yugoslavian secondary school system from the late 1970s onwards can be seen as both reflecting and systematically reproducing this situation, thereby setting the stage for the massive re-traditionalization of society.

5.2 Levelling Aspirations Propelled by optimistic and egalitarianist visions of a new modern and technically advanced social era, Yugoslavia in the 1960s witnessed an eruption of social and professional aspirations among young people and a mushrooming of higher educational institutions. The historical result, under the conditions of late-1960s 're-peripherialization', was the 'hyperproduction' of young 'experts' and intellectuals whom a stagnating economic structure was unable to absorb (cf. Zhupanov 1981). The long-term trend towards a new, more skilled and edu-

Beyond Modernization

167

cated reserve army of unemployed workers during the 1970s became a permanent structural feature of the social stratification system in the 1980s (Davidovic 1986; see also, Schierup 1990). The school system ceased to act a channel for social mobility, and people increasingly made their way by means of other (political and traditional) mechanisms for social promotion. In order to earn a living, young people were forced into what effectively became a massive retraditionalization of society embracing all facets of life. They were driven into the informal layers of an expanding but technologically primitive underground economy, or else they were forced to sustain themselves as parasites in a familistic process of barter. Not only did family and kinship groups conserve their central meaning in the life of the individual, they assumed an increasingly important significance. Families had to find the relationships and the means whereby their children could enroll schools for intellectual professions or attend a suitable university faculty. The family had to establish relationships with (or directly pay) somebody for a young person's entry into her first job. The family would buy his or her apartment, or in other ways solve the young person's need for a place to live. "Just like his peer 200 years ago", wrote Zhupanov (1981: 1953) at the beginning of the 1980s, "a young person cannot lean himself towards any other institution than his own family-background... Other institutions let him down - and if he has no rights to expect and realize through the institutions of society, then he must get them by barter and blackmailing; and here the family is his main support". An army of young unemployed intellectuals came into conflict not only with a changing social and economic reality but also with the political leadership's conservative view of extensive industrial development as the only strategic option (Koroshic 1988: 146). This view engendered a pervasive reorientation of the educational system during the late 1970s under which an industrial labour force started to be formed which would fit the political leadership's horizons and Yugoslavia's retrograde position in the international division of labour. This entailed a drastic reduction in the number of students accepted for higher academic education, high priority given to short-term education directed towards skilled industrial employment and other skilled occupations, the replacement of the former secondary-school system's stress on versatility and general knowledge with a system which enforced very early specialization in extremely narrowly defined subjects directed towards specific categories ofjobs; and, finally, the marked territorialization of the entire educational process. The explicit goal of the first school reform along these lines, undertaken in Croatia in 1978, was to curtail "elitist tendencies" in the old school system (Podrebarac 1985). Political-administrative measures forced about 70 per cent of the primary school-leavers to enroll in schools preparing for working-class

168

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

professions, and the educational system effectively ceased to provide a means for inter-generational social mobility (Zhupanov 1981: 1950). While these specialized programmes drastically diminished the quality of general education and of the school system as a whole, Strpic (1988) argues, there is no evidence to suggest that they were any better than those that they replaced. Moreover, the opportunities for youth outside the larger towns to equip themselves with educational qualifications diminished. And this was according to a regionalist principle. The bill for the reform in Croatia envisaged that the highly reduced general occupational profiles should be educated in larger towns, a measure explicitly intended to prevent inter-regional mobility among the younger members of the population and to discourage inter-regional marriages (ibid.: 39). An intricate system which linked contracts to employment in specific organizations obliged students to work in the same local areas in which they had started their education; "for outside their own local area, without kinship and clan relationships, it has practically been impossible to get such contracts in the economy or in social institutions" (ibid., 39). By means of its radical regionalization of education and its curtailment of "excessive aspirations", Strpic argues, the political bureaucracy increased its administrative control over the reproduction of labour and enhanced its ideological command. At one fell swoop it managed drastically to narrow the social basis for the recruitment of a future technical and humanist intelligentsia (ibid.), and to block avenues towards social mobility for the majority of the population (Zhupanov 1981). Moreover, the educational reforms supported the reproduction and reinforcement of the existing structure of class-based dominance in society by narrowing the scope of higher and general education and restricting it to larger urban centres (Zhupanov 1981; Strpic 1988). A few exclusive schools with good reputations became the prerogative of those who had the right contacts. Thus reproduction of the social elite was not threatened. In its effects, writes Strpic (1988: 39-40), the educational reform adapted itself well to the degenerative development of the dominant economic and political processes. An extensive semi-industrial and industrial production and allocation of surplus value supported the petrification of a primitive accumulation of capital and, as long as it lasted, consolidated the rule of a primitive bureaucracy in alliance with foreign financial capital. The reformed educational subsystem acted as a "systemic mediator", Strpic - concludes in his critique of the Croatian educational reform, "procuring suitable servants and subjects - noncreative, uncritical, unfit for high-productivity, self-organization and social action". This retrograde development was interlaced with a broad re-affirmation of the rural segments of the economy and a type of 'rural-urban symbiosis' that has, to the present day, remained at the heart of Yugoslavian and post-Yugoslavian society.

Beyond Modernization

169

5.3 The Rural-urban Symbiosis Socialist industrialization was, in the particular Yugoslavian case, closely connected with the so-called 'peasant-worker' strategy. A decentralized strategy of labour-intensive industrialization brought the factories close to the villages and peasants, while cooperation between individual peasant households and the socialized sector of agriculture became the basis for a modernization which generated a growing surplus of labour in peasant agriculture and new reproductive needs. Wages high enough to attract the growing rural surplus population, but low enough to force the worker to keep a foothold in the village and on the land, became the basis for a continuous process of 'primitive accumulation' and 'cyclical migration' (cf. Meillassoux 1981), and for the constitution of the peasant-workers as a major stratum in the new industrial working class (Kostic 1955; Markovic 1974; Cvjetichanin etal. 1980; Puljiz 1977). Owing to the partial reproduction of this large labour force within the framework of a rural subsistence-oriented economy, wages in the socialized sector of the economy could be kept low and 'free rent' from peasant agriculture continuously harnessed as a source of external accumulation (Koroshic 1988) in favour of'socialist reconstruction and development'.6 In purely statistical terms, the proportion of the rural population in the total Yugoslavian population decreased quite dramatically; a process which began shortly after the Second World War and continued into the 1980s (Puljiz 1977; Livada 1988). Officially, the proportion of 'peasant-workers' in the Yugoslav working class also decreased considerably, particularly after the early 1960s (Cvjetichanin et al. 1980: 22ff.). Nevertheless, most of the population continued to live in villages or in minor urban centres. Even those who were employed outside the farm, and who were officially registered as 'workers', continued to live at the homestead, which remained an essential part of the family economy. These were the numerous village-based commuters (see Oliveira-Roca 1984 and 1988). The genuinely urban population would only rarely sell its agricultural land; they almost invariably held on to it, partly to supplement an inadequate income (see Cvjetichanin 1988), and partly to ensure a defensive retreat in the event of misfortune or crisis (Cvjetichanin 1980: 172ff.; Cvjetichanin 1988). This means that in both the village and in the town one finds a population which can be called "ad-hoc" or "situational" peasants (Koroshic 1988: 91). Those living in the village are not genuine peasants, but rather surviving relics of the peasantry who more or less support themselves on the land. In the urbanindustrial areas one finds the presence of spurious elements of a peasant economy. The exacerbation of Yugoslavia's economic crisis during the 1980s restored the importance of private agriculture, which from henceforth was to become the most important 'shock-absorber' for the crisis when the urban-industrial segment of the economy was forced to wake up after having been "doped by exter-

170

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

nal accumulation" (i.e. foreign loans and migrant remittances) during the 1970s (Puljiz 1987: 15). The great economic reforms and incipient prosperity of the 1960s, and a conspicuous petro-dollar boom during the 1970s, seemed to fade away as historical interludes when the latent economic crisis became overt in 1980. At this juncture a still fairly traditionalist peasant agriculture could once again, as it did during the Great Depression of the 1930s (see Schierup 1990), become the main bastion of retreat. Thus "with historical irony... the individual peasant holding which the agrarian policy, during the whole post-war period has endeavoured to beat down as a survival from past times" once again (as in the 1930s) became "the main cushion for the crisis warding off a social misery ofhuge dimensions" (Puljiz 1988:20; See also Mitrany 1951 and Schierup 1990). Cultural backlash and the 're-traditionalization' of all social relationships went hand in hand with the reaffirmation of a 'rural-urban symbiosis' which affected most of the population. Most exposed to dramatically decreasing living standards were those members of the urban population who living exclusively on their wages or pensions. As the crisis forced the population to rely more heavily on private land, and on other supplementary sources of income, the 'mixed' agricultural household and 'peasant-worker' stratum in the villages was reaffirmed (see Cvjetichanin 1988). Also a large part of the urban population symbolically and economically reinforced their social relationships with the village population by reviving their interest in inherited agricultural plots (like, for example, the industrial and officeworkers in Zagreb, Belgrade and other large cities who returned to the villages to cultivate their inherited plots during weekends). Hence, according to Cvjetichanin (1988:128-29), "a massive trend started moving in the opposite direction" to the pervasive post-war processes of industrialization and urbanization: "i.e. from the non-agricultural to the agricultural sector". However, this obvious reaffirmation of the 'peasant-worker' was no longer a specific type of'primitive accumulation' directed towards a dynamic process of domestic industrialization. Rather, 'the free rent' reaped from a subsistenceoriented agriculture was now transferred directly abroad in the context of a growing transnational domination of the whole economic process. The most important mechanism became that of sub-contracting, where foreign companies made arrangements with Yugoslav firms to utilize existing production facilities and to exploit village-based labour in return for sub-minimal wages. Perhaps the most conspicuous example of this process was the development of the textile and clothing industry during the 1980s (Chepulis 1984a), which, in effect, meant the re-establishment of the tradition of foreign dominance in that industry established during the period between the two world wars (as described by Chepulis 1984b; see also, Schierup 1990: 39-40 and 46ff). Because of the low productivity of labour and unfavourable conditions on the world market during the 1980s, textiles were generally exported at prices way

Beyond Modernization

171

below the cost of production; and exports themselves became "an economic sacrifice and necessity for maintaining production" (Chepulis 1984a: 12). This was a direct effect of the economic policies that prevailed during the 1980s and which, by means of a number of measures, enforced a reorientation towards "export at any price" (ibid.). A comparative advantage of the Yugoslav textile industry was its proximity to European markets. Nevertheless, the crisis forced wages down to far below the minimum level of subsistence. The Yugoslavian textile industry paid lower wages than any other industry and became notorious for having the 'highest level of exploitation in the world' (Ekonomska Politika 1989: 15ff.). Thus, with an average of less than three dollars a day, the wages of Yugoslav textile workers fell below those in countries such as Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea some of Yugoslavia's main competitors on the world market (ibid.). As in other NICs, unskilled female workers with close ties to the village and agriculture formed the bulk of the labour force in the textile industry (cf. Gomez and Reddock 1987). Most of them came from 'mixed' agricultural (peasant-worker) households and their wages represented only a small supplement to the total family income.

6 Memorandum for Modernity It was to this dismal situation - of economic crisis, of socio-political fragmentation, of cultural segmentation cum retraditionalization - that the Serbian Academy of Sciences reacted in its so-called Memorandum of 1986. This Memorandum is the most famous as well as the most notorious document pertaining to the new wave of ethnic nationalism that has erupted in various parts of former Yugoslavia since the beginning of the 1980s; written by Slovenian, Croatian and Kosovo Albanian intellectuals, as well as by many liberal Serbian intellectuals in opposition, it is habitually referred to as a sort of Milosevicean Mein Kampf. However, those perusing the Memorandum for some kind of conventional Nazi-style race biology, a renouncement of 'democracy', an open call for the brainless discipline of uniform mass movements, a sensucht for black pedagogics, or the hailing of ritualized violence and militarism, will search in vain. The first part of the Memorandum includes sound sociological analysis of the roots of political fragmentation and authoritarian-bureaucratic misuse of power, of economic decay, educational demise, and the cultural regression into the particular neo-Stalinist version of ethnicist traditionalism characteristic of Yugoslavia in the 1970s and 1980s. It pushes a plea for economic reintegration and

172

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

generalized modernization within the framework of an advanced market economy with a social dimension. It argues for a liberal pluralist democracy and a broad modern-style rationalist cultural renaissance in conformity with the creed and the demands of modern Europeanism. The second, controversial, and the only publicly discussed part of the Memorandum is, in contrast, phrased in rather national-chauvinist terms. It presents an ethnic nationalist alternative to the paramount grand recipe for modernization cast in the mould of a rejuvenated pan-nationalist Yugoslavian federal project. If this paramount (federal Yugoslavian) project fails, the memorandum declares, its history and its present (1986) dismal condition justify - in a sitution where all others appear simply to follow their idiosyncratic ethnic-nationalist goals - that even the Serbian people may concentrate all of its cultural energy on defining its own ethnic-nationalist trajectory into the modern age. Dejä vu! We meet here the familiar iron logic of the modernist intellectual interpretation of nationalism, most radically expressed by Gellner: the nationalist imperative of modernity cast in a functional fit (whether achieved through ethnic nationalism or via some other route to cultural homogenization) between one economy, one state and one (modern standardized national) culture. This was the essential message of the Memorandum captured by Slobodan Milozevic, who was then (1987) moving to the apex (through a palace revolution) of the Serbian communist party, and which he translated into the infamous populist slogan: "All Serbs in one state!" (whether a modern rational and culturally homogenized Yugoslavian project or something else). But the Memorandum's shocking repercussions cannot be inferred simply on the basis of a critique of the document itself, as many have attempted. The Memorandum was scarcely more radical in its ethnic-nationalist rhetorics than the cyclically reappearing rhetorics of other previous nationalist intellectuals: Croatians during the early 1970s, Slovenians and Albanians (in the Serbian province of Kosovo) from the early 1980s; not to mention the Islamist allegations of the former dissident and today's president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Izetbegovic. The Memorandum's particularly explosive impact can only be understood in terms of the social situation in which it appeared and was used. Not only did the Serbs represent what was by far the largest population group, albeit scattered throughout the federation, so that their open ethnic-nationalist claims were a much greater threat to the political stability of precarious federal arrangements than those of any other nationality. Not only had the influence of the numerically dominant and traditionally politically potent Serbian heartland been forcefully curtailed by Tito's bizarre confederationist constitution of 1974; and not only did aggressive Serbian irredentists outside this central homeland (in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia) - increasingly exposed to ethnicized political games in every republic - represent a potentially radical nationalist force. What was particularly ominous was that all these factors combined with severe eco-

Beyond Modernization

173

nomic crisis and social breakdown from the beginning of the 1980s onwards; a situation aggravated by international super-austerity measures in the form of revived federal (liberal market) reform policies; the so-called Stabilization Programme which once again threatened to deprive the common woman of her state-sponsored bread and salt. The whole of former Yugoslavia (not only the Serbs) was, at the time, degenerating into a state of explosive social unrest. As has been proved time and again almost everywhere in Europe during the last few years, this was fertile soil for ethnic-nationalist mobilization. And particularly so in a situation like Serbia's in the late 1980s, when the only existing organized political power (the local communist party) now turned openly nationalist, but without being challenged by competing political agencies or by a broad and politically articulated civil society. Slobodan Milosevic's populist rhetoric proved the most compelling of all the competing ethnic-national impulses entering the Yugoslavian neo-Balkanization theatre during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It exerted a powerful appeal on most social strata in Serbian society. Its tremendous mobilizing effect could be attributed to its ability to fuse several traditionally competing political discourses and ideological perspectives together. At the same time, the so-called 'anti-bureaucratic revolution' was able effectively to distance itself from the most discreditable features of the 'old' (politocratic) system and yet to integrate and forcefully reformulate its basic left-populist idioms of legitimation. At the same time it was able to present itself as something genuinely contemporary - the agent of transition to a brighter 'European' future - and successfully to ally itself with, incorporate, and merge with traditional nationalism and its populist support into one overarching ideological-political hegemony. This lent it, at least at the beginning, almost universal popular legitimacy. Serbia was to be transformed into a prosperous modern 'Switzerland of the Balkans', relying on a high-tech market economy and new spontaneous forms of (plebiscitary) democracy combined with the very best of the past - the tradition of Yugoslavian 'self-management' (direct local level democracy) and the age old Serbian fighting spirit (the romanticist ethnic-nationalist Kosovo-mythology). The basic message was, however, like that of the Memorandum, essentially and in the name of contemporary 'Europeanism' that of 'nationalism for modernization'.

174

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

7 The New Nationalism Anathema of Reason? Nationalist mobilization among Serbs throughout the federation was only the overture to warfare and 'ethnic cleansing'; features that are definitely not in themselves foreign to the formation of modern nation states. The Holocaust has been interpreted as a sort of quintessence of modernity (Bauman 1989). 'Ethnic cleansing' has been a fundamental component of the processes by which several European states have, in the course of recent history, constructed the essence of their more or less 'pure' modern national being: for example, the 'cleansing' of Jews and Gypsies in Germany, of Jews and Germans in Poland, of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies in Croatia, of Armenians and Greeks in Turkey. 7 During the 1980s and early 1990s 'ethnic cleansing' also became one of the most conspicuous features of so-called post-communist political transformation on the territory of former Yugoslavia. It is practised not only by the Serbs but, more or less vigorously, by all the parties involved in current conflicts. Viewed cynically, this might, in light of historical experience, be seen as yet another phase in the creation of modern culturally homogenized national states, and assuming notably bloody features in an ethnically mixed area of the European continent marked by competing nationalist projects. But it is still difficult to discern any fulfilment of the modern logics of nationalist master-programmes like the Memorandum or even Milosevic's "anti-bureaucratic revolution". We find neither the spirit of rationalist enlightenment at work, nor any Protestant ethic of a Weberian style modernity which is superficially a traditionalist fundamentalism: according to Gellner (1992b), the only two surviving avenues in the conquest of contemporary modernization. Nor will the historical image of the Holocaust's rationalised and hyper-perfectionist modern mass murder suffice. Rather, at least superficially, the generalized violence following ethnic-nationalist mobilization throughout former Yugoslavia appears to correspond to Enzenberger's (1993) axiom ofthe triumph of irrationality in contemporary civil wars; a pandemonium of'losers fighting losers' with no orderly conception of the present, let alone a vision of the future. Or as described in similar vein by social scientist, Maria Kaldor (1993): "the new nationalism is private, anarchic, and disintegrative". The seemingly unbounded nature of current 'ethnic cleansing' cannot be explained with reference to an elaborate and relatively coherent ideological system like, for example, Nazism. It has to do instead with the particular character of the new nationalism, which, Kaldor argues, could best be identified as "a primitive grab for power" based on an anarchic "war economy", "a social formation dependent on continuous violence", not a war economy in the traditional sense of one sustaining strong states, but rather one which sustains "a loose coalition of petty criminals, ex-soldiers, and power-hungry anonymous politicians all of whom are bound together" under the banner of ethno-

Beyond Modernization

175

nationalism "in a shared complicity for war crimes and a shared interest in reproducing the sources of power and wealth". The new nationalism is decentralizing and fragmenting in contrast to earlier nationalisms which were centralizing and unifying. Its ideological legitimation has become that of trivial and ad hoc identitarian claims. This is a far cry from the modernist horizon of the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences or, for that matter, from any other local master programme for national reconstruction in ex- or post-Yugoslavia. The basic scenario corresponds only too closely to that of many other crisis points in the contemporary world: Cambodia, Afghanistan, Palestine, the Horn of Africa, Angola, the postSoviet trans-Caucasian region, or even Nicaragua, Venezuala and Peru, to mention only a few. In other words, it corresponds more to a general modern global process marked by the return of neo-traditionalism in the contexts of 'political economies of internal war' (Duffield 1994), than to the fantasies of modernist Balkan intellectuals. This does not necessarily force us back to primordialism as part of an interpretative framework alternative to modernization theory. We may, more productively, see neo-traditionalism as one major contemporary identity-forming pole contingent on the complex cultural logic of a truly paradoxical global system of modernity (cf. Friedman 1988). After the world-wide demise of two of the great modernist ideological paradigms and social compromises (welfarestate capitalism and state-socialism), while post-modernism tends towards intellectual hegemony in a stagnant consumerist West, and while modernism moves towards a 'Confucian' East (ibid.), a new traditionalism assumes hegemony in the identitarian space, in both the Third and the Second World. As in post-modernism, neo-traditionalist movements have become the "seekers of solid identities" in a contemporary world of contingency and flux (Peterson 1994). But on the periphery of the transnational world-system, these ersatz neotribes (Maffesoli 1989, Bauman 1992 and 1993) express something existentially different from the identitarian manipulation of the modern media 'image space' (Peterson 1994: 6) in the post-modernist West. They also express the cultural accompaniment to the fabrication of new local shadow economies structured around (given the circumstances, rather well founded) survivalism and fast spoils intricately woven into the fabric of very real traditionalist social relationships (kin, clan, friendship, locality, ethnicity). We encounter the growth of an ethos belonging to mafia-like patron-client networks and informal economies; configurations induced and made imperative by transnational relationships which have turned these parts of the world into the last link in a chain of complex interdependency structured along the lines of political dominance and an uneven international division of labour. Their particular background in the 'Second World' is the exposure of conditions increasingly at odds with a global capitalist economy undergoing profound

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

176

restructuring. The social and economic systems of 'real socialism' proved unable to command or develop forms of organization coherent with the demands of the 'third industrial revolution' (the microelectronic one) with 'just-in-time' flexibility, human creativity, and decentralized institutional autonomy harnessed to an intensified accumulation of capital. At the same historical juncture, transnational capital's vastly expanded integration of formerly 'third world' regions into its economic orbit meant that the stagnating and increasingly worldmarket dependent economies of'real socialism' were abruptly exposed to new sources of ferocious competition. In large areas of the 'Second World' the diacritical development became that of the incremental evacuation of intellectual and skilled labour from the accumulation scheme, an extended brain drain, and the forced full or partial reproduction of the majority of the remaining labour force within informal shadow-economic networks. In Yugoslavia, this found particularly dramatically expression in the revival of the generalized rural-urban symbiosis. In this context pervasive re-traditionalisation functions as the elementary cultural kit for day-to-day social life revolving around decentralized regional-local particles. The imperatives of the new transnational micro-electronic world order has left modernist reformers with hardly any other choice than to combine efforts at economic, political and cultural change with some transformed version of habitual legitimation policies. Hyper-radical modernization projects - like that of Ante Markovic, the last federal premier of Yugoslavia, or Jegor Gajdar's neoliberal market absolutism - have with unexpected speed been devoured by their own unwelcome offspring: social marginality, poverty and threats of mass unemployment. But, in leaning towards the well-worn matrixes of populist legitimation pertaining to a late edition of real-socialism, local regimes are easily caught in a social dynamics which they are not themselves able to control. In a part of the world where international super-austerity measures and isolationist containment policies make no social compromise whatever possible, the only legitimacy left for ship-wrecked modernist elites, and the only avenue to the benefits of modernity apparently still open to the common man, appear, in the last instance, to be that of internal war, 'ethnic cleansing' and an anarchic economy of pillage, all framed by a massive cultural exodus into a more glorious past. This is the critical historical memorandum that Yugoslavia addresses to any unilateral modernist perspective.

Notes 1 2 3

As in the case of communism and nazism as represented by Gelber (1992b). Implicated, seemingly, by, for example, Gellner (1992b). An argument similar to that of Föher et alt. (1983).

Beyond Modernization

177

4

Over 90 per cent of contracts with foreign partners to import technology have contained various restrictive clauses (Ocic 1983: 11 Iff.). In 1983, for example, 62 per cent of the contracts excluded the export of products produced with purchased technology; 44 per cent obliged the Yugoslav buyer to report any technological progress or invention connected with the use of purchased equipment to the partner with which the contract was made; and 26 per cent contained clauses that obliged the Yugoslav partners to use the purchased technology in combination with imported raw materials, materials for operation and maintainance, and spare parts from sources decided by the seller. The results have became outspoken technological dependency, stagnating autonomous development of technology in Yugoslavia and decreasing competitive power on foreign markets (Ocic 1983; Bajec 1981; Durek 1981). 5 While the size of its intelligentsia is very large, of all the countries of Europe Yugoslavia has the lowest number of patents realized in relation to the number of citizens (Ocic 1983: 110). 6 This, accordingly, represents a 'real socialist' version of what the French social anthropologist, Claude Meillassox (1981) calls 'migration tournante' (i.e. cyclical migration). He argues that capital realizes the means of lowering the reproduction costs of labour in the periphery of its global system (in third world countries) via the purchase of the cheap labour power belonging to migrant workers feeding themselves on the basis of peasant subsistence crops. This household-based food production never enters the capitalist market or burdens the capitalists' expenses for variable capital. It is based on unpaid household labour within a separate and qualitatively different pre-capitalist sector of production. It represents a continued primitive accumulation effected through the migration' of peasant-workers oscillating back and forth between contexts dominated by two juxtapposed modes of production: that is, on the one hand, the 'rural' (pre-capitalist), socalled 'domestic mode of production' and the dominant capitalist one. Therefore, at the same time as capital exploits and disintegrates them, the deliberate and organized conservation of'pre-' or 'non-capitalist' systems of reproduction exempted from the ordinary labour market become essential for continued capital accumulation.

7

Most thoroughly modem 'ethnic cleansing' have been cultivated in Nazi-ideology and a perverse industrialized practice, but has been brought to a horrendous modern effectivity even in the 1930s Stalinist-Soviet ethnic deportation politics. Arch-modernist and rationalist par exellence, Ernest Gellner (1992b, 1993), tends to see this as the outmostly perverted forms of a modern rationalist 'reason' running astray; aberrations, paradoxically, deamed to ruin due to their their very 'hyperperfection'; i.e. their absolutism, fanaticism and uncompromising vanity, while aspiring to bring about modernization by strict design and rigid social engineering. The surviving and successful projects of modernization are rather the pragmatic, open minded and flexible 'muddling through' ones.

References Bauman, Zygmunt (1989): Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press Bauman, Zygmunt (1992): Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge Bauman, Zygmunt (1993): 'Racism, antiracism and moral progress'. Leeds, Stencil. Bilandshic, Dushan (1981): Ό osnovnim tendencijama drushtvenog razvoja', Nashe Teme, 25 (12): 1859-70. Carlo, Antonio (1972): 'L'esperienza jugoslava - dal collettivismo burocratico alia ristaurazione del capitalismo', Terzo Mondo, no. 18 Chepulis, Rita L. (1984a): A New Form of Seasonal Labour With Particular Reference to the Textile/ Clothing Industry in SR Croatia, Research paper, Oslo University Chepulis, Rita L. (1984b): 'The Economic Crisis and Export-Led Development Strategy of SFR Yugoslavia: In Between Possibilities and Limitations', Paper for the Mediterranean Studies Seminar: Models and Strategies of Development, Dubrovnik, IUC, April

178

Carl-Ulrik Schierup

Cvjetichanin, Vladimir et al., Mjeshovita domacinstva i seljaci-radnici u Jugoslaviji. Zagreb: Institut za drushtvena istrazhivanja Sveuchilista u Zagrebu Cvjetichanin, Vladimir (1988): 'Motivacije mjeshovitih domacinstava i njihovih altemativno zaposlenih chlanova', Sociologija Sela, no. 99-100: 115-30. Davidovic, Milena: 'Nezaposlenost i drushtvena nejednakost u Jugoslaviji'. Gledishta, 27 (7-89): 3-35 Durek, Danijel (1981): 'Tehnologija borbe za dohodak', Nashe Teme, 25 (12): 1966-71 Ekonomska Politika (1989): 'Tekstilna industrija: Vishe od shtrajka', no. 1926: 15-17 Duffield, Marie (1994): "The political economy of internal war: Asset Transfer and the intemationalisation of public welfare in the Horn of Africa", (draft) to be published in Wars of Hunger. Zed, 1994 Entzenberger, Hans Magnus (1993): Aussichten aus den Bürgerkrieg. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Friedman, Jonathan (1988): "Cultural logics of the global system: A sketch". Theory, Culture, and Society, vol. 5: 447-60 Gellner, Ernest (1983): Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Gellner, Ernest (1992a): 'Nationalism in the vacuum', in Motyl, A. J.(ed.) Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities. New York: Columbia University Press : 243-54 Gellner, Emest (1992b): Postmodernism, Reason and Religion, London and New York: Routledge Gellner, Emest (1993): 'What do we need now? Social anthropology and its new global context', Anthropology, no. 5: 2-4 Gomez de Estrada, Ofelia and Rhoda Reddock (1987): 'New Trends in the Internationalization of Production: Implications for Female Workers', in BOYD, Rosalind E. et al. (eds.), International Labour and the Third World, The Making of a New Working Class. Aldershot: Avebury Horvat, Branko (1985): Jugoslavensko Drushtvo u krizi. Zagreb: Globus Kaldor, Mary (1993): "Yugoslavia and the New Nationalism", New Left Review, no. 197: 96-112 Katunaric, Vjeran (1988): Dioba drushtva. Socijalna fragmentacija u americhkom, sovjetskom i jugoslavenskom drushtvu. Zagreb, Socioloshko drushtvo Hrvatske Kidric, Boris (1952): 'Govor na VI kongresu KPJ', in Borba Komunista Jugoslavije za socijalistichku demokratiju (VI kongres KPJ/SKJ), Belgrade: Kultura Kidric, Boris (1969): Ό nekim principijelnim pitanjima nashe privrede', in Kidric, Boris, Sabrana dela, knjiga III, Belgrade: Kultura Koroshic, Marijan (1988): Jugoslavenska kriza. Zagreb: Naprijed Kostic, Cvetko (1955): Seljaci industrijski radnici. Beograd: Rad Livada, Svetozar (1988): 'Socijalno-demografske promjene u selu i poljoprivredi', Sociologija Sela, no. 99-100: 35-48 Maffesoli, Michel (1991): Les temps des tribus: le dec!in de I 'individualisme dans les societes de masse. Paris Markovic, Petar (1974): Migracije ipromene agrarne strukture. Zagreb: Zadruzhna shtampa Meillassoux, Claude (1975): Maidens, Meals, and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Mihajlovic, Kosta (1981): Ekonomska stvarnost Jugoslavije. Belgrade Mitrany, David (1951): Marx Against the Peasant: A Study in social dogmatism. University of North Carolina Press Mouzelis, Nicos (1978): 'Greek and Bulgarian Peasants: Aspects of their Socio-Political Situation during the Inter-War Period', in Mouzelis, Nicos: Modern Greece. Facets of Underdevelopment. London and Basingstoke, MacMillan Publishers Ltd. Ocic, Chaslav (1983): Integracioni i dezintegracioniprocesi uprivredi Jugoslavije. Belgrade: the Central Committee of the League of Communists in Serbia Oliveira-Roca, Maria (1984): 'Tipovi migracije radnika u Jugoslaviji', Sociologija Sela, no. 83-86: 316 Oliveira-Roca, Maria (1988): 'Cirkulacija aktivnog stanovnishtva sela', Sociologija Sela, no. 99-100: 131-42 Peterson, Abby (1994): 'Racist and antiracist movements in postmodern societies: between universalism and particularism', paper prepared for the XIII World congress of Sociology, Bielefeld, July 1994 (draft)

Beyond Modernization

179

Puljiz, Vlado (1977): Eksodus poljoprivrednika. Zagreb: University of Zagreb Puljiz, Vlado (1987): 'Ruralno-socioloshka istrazhivanja i glavni trendovi promjena u nashem selu', Sociologija Sela, vol. 25: 9-18 Puljiz, Vlado (1988): 'Seljashtvo u Jugoslaviji', Sociologija Sela, no. 99-100: 5-24 Memorandum SANU (1989): 'Memorandum SANU Grupa akademika Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti ο aktuelnim drushtvenim pitanjima u nashoj zemlji', Nashe Teme, 33. v. (1-2) p.128-63. Roskin, Michael G. (1991): The Rebirth of Eastern Europe. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Podrebarac, Vladimir (ed.) (1985): Socijalistichki samoupravni preobrazhaj odgoja i obrazovanja u SR Hrvatskoj 1947-1984. Zagreb: Shkolske novine Schierup, Carl-Ulrik (1990): Migration, socialism, and the international division of labour: the Yugoslavian experience. Aldershot: Avebury Strpic, Dag (1988): Obrazovanje, tehnoloshki i drushtveni razvoj i drushtvena infrastruktura', Nashe Teme, no. 1-2, vol. 32: 24-42. Tomasevich, Jozo (1955): Peasants, Politics and Economic Change in Yugoslavia. Stanford and London Zaslavsky, Victor (1982): The Neo-Stalinist State: Class, Ethnicity and Consensus in Soviet Society. Armonk: Μ. E. Sharpe Inc. Zhupanov, Josip, (1969): Samoupravljanje i drushtvena moc, Zagreb, Nashe Teme. Zhupanov, Josip (1977): Sociologija i samoupravljanje, Zagreb, Shkolska knjiga. Zhupanov, Josip (1983a): 'Trzhishte rada i samoupravni socijalizam', Nashe Teme, no. 3, vol. 27 Zhupanov, Josip (1983b): 'Znanje, drushtveni sistem i "klasni" interes', Nashe teme, no. 7-8: 1048-54. Zhupanov, Josip (1985): 'Radnichka klasa i drushtvena stabilnost', Kulturni radnik, no. 5: 1-20.

Participation at the Firm Level in the Transformation Process (Three blank slips of paper and a pigeon feather) Csaba Mako and Agnes Simonyi

1 Introduction The concept of participation has broadened in the past twenty years. Debate on the highly diversified forms of autonomy, cooperation and control within work organizations has enriched the sociological approach to participation after the initial and often simplified concepts of direct employee participation in decision-making. These advances oblige us to pay careful attention to new developments in the labour process, not just to test achievements in already-known dimensions and to measure results according to already-accepted theories of employee participation. In radically changing social situations, sociologists face a more difficult - but also more challenging - task, not only in confronting the new reality with existing paradigms but in identifying emerging phenomena or fresh combinations of former and recent features of social development. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, in Central and Eastern Europe, there were widespread illusions as to the prospects of labour relations and the new role of employees and their interest associations. The international, economic and social conditions of the real processes of social transformation in these countries, however, framed events differently. The new institutions of labour relations and social cooperation displayed unexpected patterns, and social scientists are now seeking to understand the motives and intentions of the social partners within the transformation process. Since the social and economic context of the current transformation process varies from country to country in this region, very different strategies and practices of institution-building, combined with national and local traditions of interest representation and participation, are creating a rich variety of labour relations. The theme of this paper - namely participation is an integrated part of the complex system of labour relations. But this integration, in its form, contents and importance has never been homogeneous in the countries of this region and it has always exhibited obvious system-specific characteristics.

182

Csaba Makö and Agnes Simonyi

2 The Role of Participation in the Labour Relations System In principle, the following institutions - each of which has its own social and political weight - constitute elements of the autonomous system of labour relations (Hethy, 1991): • The system of national-level tri-(bi)partite negotiations (In Hungary the National Council of Reconciliation of Interests, NCRI, was established as early as 1988). • The system of collective bargaining between autonomous partners. Given the lack of autonomy of the partners, the earlier firm-level system of agreements cannot be considered to be collective bargaining, although it ensured a certain degree of consensus between management and employees, both of which, however, had dependent status. • The institution of collective labour action, which was non-existent in these countries, with the exception of Poland and Hungary, until 1989-90. • Employee participation took various forms in the region. One version was the system of union representatives (as in the former Soviet Union); another was so-called 'direct participation' (like the self-management system in ex-Yugoslavia, or the Enterprise Councils which have functioned in Hungary since the mid 1980s). A third version was based on the increased autonomy of employees and their groups in work organizations (considered as independent actors in firms' internal labour markets), examples being the economic working associations -"VGMK"- in Hungary or the autonomous work brigades of Bulgaria in the 1980s. Naturally, these three versions of employee participation could also coexist, thereby creating special mixes. All four institutions of labour relations listed above have a rationale and traditions which have influenced the functioning of the others. In certain periods, one institution has substituted for others or they have exchanged roles. For instance, the already substantial experience of tripartite negotiations has established norms for firm-level agreements in the absence of a well-developed system of collective bargaining. Or direct participation by employees in management may have partially replaced the still immature practice of labour action. The autonomous system of labour relations has its political, legal and economic dimensions. National level negotiations comprise mechanisms which connect labour relations to political decision-making (government, unions, employers and union organizations, parliament, etc.). The economic and social structures underpinning the substantive rules of the various markets are expressed in the system of collective bargaining. The legal regulation of collective bar-

Participation at the Firm Level in the Transformation Process

183

gaining and labour disputes link the system of labour relations to the national system of jurisdiction. Participation is a field in which individual as well as collective action, economic interests as well as self-realization, interweave. The seemingly 'softest' institutions of labour relations comprise a scenario in which employees react to ongoing technological, organizational, financial and labour market developments in their sector. In this sphere, the patterns of everyday workplace cooperation are constantly reformulated in the light of new individual and collective experiences. In influencing the decision-making process, in solving technical or organizational problems, in manipulating human relations, and in expressing interests, people not only construct their working life but create the basic conditions for social, economic and cultural reproduction. None of the economic reforms of the past decade could have succeeded if they had not taken account of this fact; and nor can the current transformation process ignore the complex web of relations among these micro-worlds.

3 The Forms and Dimensions of Participation Employees may participate in their firm's decisions at different levels: they may express their opinions and interests at the level of their immediate workplace, workshop or office, and at higher managerial levels. This dimension of participation corresponds to a decision-making system which may or may not provide room for differing degrees of employee involvement in a firm's affairs. Another dimension of participation is the closeness of involvement in the firms' managerial and decision-making system, ranging from the exchange of information, through official respect for the employees' opinions in decisions, to codetermination. These types of involvement may be officially regulated by laws and agreements or by social practice and traditions. These latter may sometimes be more influential than legal regulations, although their combined effects vary from country to country, and also according to the context of managerial systems or of local, branch, firm-level practices. From the employees' point of view, the intensity of their involvement may be characterized by other categories as well. Occasional participation or the expression of opinions in support of colleagues, unions or managers represent an intensity of involvement at a lower level than regular contributions in the form of organized action or the acceptance of official responsibilities (membership of works councils, union representation) within the decision-making process. As regards the aims of participation, a distinction is drawn between problems relating to working conditions and strategic issues. A similar approach, though

184

Csaba Makö and Agnes Simonyi

one more differentiated in its sociological character, is adopted when task- and power-oriented participation are distinguished. All the above-listed dimensions may take the form of direct or indirect (representative) participation. Indirect participation is exercised through various interest-representing associations (unions, works' or enterprise councils, bodies supervising pension and health funds, etc.). Direct participation takes a wide variety of forms in the world. There are the forums and institutions of communication between management and employees, ranging from quality circles to regular workshop conferences on production issues, innovations or on working conditions. Since the 1970s, important initiatives have been undertaken in this area following the new human resource management approach. Direct employee participation may take place through such organizational arrangements as 'assembly cells', 'working islands', 'modules', internal subcontracting groups (like the Hungarian VGMK in the 1980s), where employees shape their everyday working practices and, in the longer term, the patterns of cooperation and power relations within the labour process. Property partnership and financial engagement in the maintenance of employment is regarded as a special form of employee participation. The American ESOP schemes are the most well-known examples. But the various forms of MBO, the Hungarian MRP (a version of the American model), various company stock ownership systems, the East Central European coupon-based employee ownership system, or other direct forms of property-sharing, also belong to this category of participation. The objectives behind the creation of these types of employee participation vary from the economic to the social. Whatever the intentions may be, the safeguarding of employment, the broadening of financial resources, the creation of closer employee identification with the firm, and property-sharing can be achieved in very different organizational and managerial settings. Day-to-day participation practices within such firms do not automatically increase with financial participation by their employees.

4 The Role and Importance of Participation in the Hungarian Labour Relations System In Hungary, the various components of the labour relations system have developed unevenly over past decades. In the previous political context, ideological and political limits were set on the development of the first three of the abovementioned components. All three areas - the creation of national level tri- or bipartite negotiations and the institutionalization of collective bargaining, as well as of labour disputes - were not tolerated by the still monolithic political

Participation at the Finn Level in the Transformation Process

185

system. However, there was always the need to create social consensus in the workplace level which favoured the development of various forms of employee participation in Hungary. The motives were very different, ranging from management interest in cooperation with the rank-and-file, through the adaptation and diffusion of new managerial techniques, the ideologically motivated endeavour to humanize the workplace with especial emphasis on identification with the firm, to politically motivated attempts to introduce so-called self-management schemes in order to counterbalance growing managerial power. (These last-mentioned motives were especially visible in the 1980s as the political forces attempted to maintain control over the emerging technocrats and union bureaucracies who, often in coalition with managers, successfully influenced redistribution processes against the centralizing efforts of the national political and economic actors.) These concepts, the desire to realize them, and the life-span of the different forms of participation, were subject to interaction among different social forces at the firm and national level. Both forms of employee participation - the direct and the representative (indirect) - were widespread in the Hungarian system. The most important direct forms were experimentation with autonomous working units, group-level decisions on wage distribution, group-based cost-saving centres, internal subcontracting systems, and the widespread and highly publicized working associations (VGMK) of the 1980s. The growing role of union representation - as expressed through the various shop steward and firm-level union committees after the mid-1970s, together with the creation of enterprise councils as self-governing bodies in the second half of the 1980s - was the most significant development in indirect participation. Having gradually obtained their participation and bargaining rights, the unions were anxious to see how other direct forms of employee participation and non-union representation could be implemented. They were afraid of losing their newly-acquired functions (of the 1970s) in employee representation, which was a well-known component of labour-relations systems in the industrialized countries. In Hungary, the unions' position was more problematic, since they were still in a politically dependent position until 1989, and they felt threatened after the 1970s by non-union-controlled representation and direct participative forms, and by new managerial techniques to create direct channels of communication with the employees. Research has shown that employee participation was a key element in Hungarian labour relations after the 1970s. In its different forms it partially substituted for the autonomous institution of collective bargaining and labour disputes, and, together with informal mechanisms of interest conciliation, helped to stabilize the work process while creating enduring cooperation between the partners at the firm level. (The tight labour market situation and the organizational problems generated by the shortage economy strengthened the informal power position of the work groups who played a crucial role in solving them.)

186

Csaba Makö and Agnes Simonyi

Increased opportunities for firm-level participation after the 1970s enabled certain employee groups to accumulate important social skills in the evaluation and manipulation of social and organizational situations, in negotiation with different social partners, and in the elaboration of overviews of enterprises and their environment. These experiences directed attention to the limits of participation, and they highlighted the missing elements of the labour relations system which were hindering the expansion and more efficient use of firm-level participative schemes.

5 Changes in the Role and Place of Participation within the Labour Relations System since 1989 Since 1988/89, in Hungary - somewhat earlier than political transformation itself - the system of labour relations has been reformed. Labour relations have developed into an autonomous system as the social partners, employers and employees and their interest-representing organizations, have gained independence from other political and economic organizations. The roles of the main actors in the labour relations system have been clarified, and they have acquired the right to negotiate with each other as well as with the government. Legislation (the new Labour Code, the Employment Act, etc.) has regulated their sphere of action and the different institutions of negotiating, bargaining and the collective solution of labour disputes. Recognition of the social partners' independence has given rise to the pluralization of the competing interest-representing organizations, so that new unions and employer organizations have been born. At the national level, a Council of Interest Reconciliation was created in 1988 to negotiate and agree on wage increases and social and employment issues prior to parliamentary debate. These innovations in the labour relations system have been especially important in a situation of overall changes in the Hungarian economy. The comprehensive transformation of property relations, the privatization of public firms, together with the emerging new private sector, the decentralization of many of the former large organizations and the profound economic recession - these have been the main factors of economic transformation. In circumstances of unstable economic conditions and the huge social costs of transformation met by large groups, the above-described new elements in labour relations helped to maintain stability and sometimes even to resolve critical situations of unrest. At the same time, firm-level participation seemed to lose its importance. There were (and still are) certain commentators who expected firm-level negotiations and bargaining (formal or informal) to diminish in importance under pressure

Participation at the Firm Level in the Transformation Process

187

from the new phenomenon of a high level of employment. Others supposed that private property and capitalist management would 'import' the well-known methods of firm-level negotiations which 'manufactured consensus'. Apart from these assumptions (that I shall attempt to refute later on), the place of participation in the Hungarian labour relations system has certainly changed. It has lost its political and ideological significance (local employeremployee conflicts can hardly be transposed into basic social contradictions), and its functions with regard to to firm-level issues have became more circumscribed. In the meantime, the social and political positions of the partners have been re-established at the firm level due to various factors: the appearance of direct private property, the definitive disappearance of the' mythologies' of work and the 'class approach', declining production because of the deepening recession, and the new institutions and legal measures enabling decisions or protest to be influenced at the firm level. However, it would be an over-simplification of the situation to state that these new rights have been acquired by employees in a historical period in which they have lost their real bargaining strength under pressure from the labour market and the recession. Employee groups in a strong position within firms can still be found, despite dismissals and unemployment. Even with increased unemployment, productivity has fallen, demonstrating the survival of low requirements. The high social costs of transformation and the lowering of living standards have been tolerated, and the strike rate has been low in the past few years. Some strikes have been desperate revolts against the 'non-cooperative' management of workers in marginal sectors and positions, while others have been mounted by powerful employee groups in order to improve their pay and working conditions. A view widely accepted among labour relations experts is that, in periods of recession, when unemployment increases the number of strikes diminishes. This is taken to be a sign of the weak bargaining positions of employees and their unions. In this respect, Hungary seems to be no exception. While in the 1980s there were widespread fears among Hungarian (and other Central East European) political and social scientists that a fall in living standards accompanied by a retreat from full employment would lead to social unrest, this has not been the case in these first years of the transformation period. The number of strikes, participants in them and the total of days lost through strikes, have all remained low in Hungary, thereby testifying to the validity of the above 'rule' on the lower level of open and manifest conflict circumstantiated by formally weakened bargaining positions. At the same time, doubts may be raised concerning the differentiated bargaining positions of workers still in employment. In Hungary, where the majority of the jobless are long-term unemployed and hundreds of thousands are in casual employment, these facts show that those who managed to keep their jobs in the first waves of lay-offs and workplace closures, are considered necessary for the stabilization and possible recovery of their firms.

188

Csaba Makö and Agnes Simonyi

I now briefly describe a case which shows that there is no direct relationship between a given labour market situation and the employees' bargaining position.

6 A Managerial Initiative Rejected The 'D' Co. Ltd. was created at the beginning of 1992 as a joint venture with two-thirds Hungarian and one-third foreign ownership. Half of the company's products are sold on international markets. The foreign proprietors took over key positions in management and launched a new human resources strategy for the firm. Together with the Hungarian representative of the management, they were convinced that it was sufficient to give the blue-collar workers somewhat higher wages and better working conditions compared to the firms operating in the local labour market and management could rely on a satisfied workforce. When establishing the joint venture, the mixed management signed an agreement with the local union which guaranteed employment and the level of the firm's social benefits. The principal objective of the new management was to maintain and increase the company's market share through improved quality. For this purpose they introduced a 'knowledge centred' incentive system which replaced the former one in which low-skilled workers received better wages than their highly qualified colleagues. This innovation was linked with the introduction of the new 'Quality Insurance System', which required the support of the workers, of their unions, of lower level supervisors, and of middle level managers. Despite the efforts of the new management, higher wages, better working conditions and stable employment, there was no significant improvement in productivity, in product quality, or in the level of morale among the workers and within the firm as a whole. The following factors were apparently responsible for low morale. There were exaggerated expectations among the company's shopfloor workers of radical wage increases; indeed, that Hungarian wages would soon reach the Austrian level. This 'dream' was fuelled during preparatory negotiations of the planned joint venture by some of the Hungarian managers probably in order to ensure the workers' support. Austrian wages, in fact, are extremely high - six to ten times higher - when linked with productivity and product quality, but otherwise 'only' one and a half or two times higher than Hungarian wages. The other reasons for low morale lay outside the blue-collar worker's community and within management. After the creation of "D" Co. Ltd., the new top management of the Hungarian-Austrian joint venture introduced a management style based on the 'autocratic' version. From a technical

Participation at the Firm Level in the Transformation Process

189

point of view, these decisions were well prepared and elaborated. But they lacked the participation not only of the workers and unions but also of the middle managers, who had played an important role in the decision-making process of the former publicly-owned firm but were now entirely excluded from the decisions taken by top management. Thus, this important sector of management could not and did not identify with the firm's management decisions. In this type of decision-making system, both blue collar workers and managers are merely 'executors', they are not 'co-creators' of the firm's policy aimed at changing the incentive system, quality assurance, and to introduce a new practice of manpower use. The management of "D" Co. Ltd. first made an appropriate diagnosis: they thought that the lack of cooperation between workers and managers was the result of communication difficulties. To overcome this human relations problem, the management introduced an open policy initiative by asking the workers to inform them about their interests and the topics that they wished to read about in the company's newspaper. In order to collect the workers' opinions on managerial initiatives, "sealed mail boxes" were placed in each workshop in "D" Co. Ltd. Two months later, before publication of the next issue of the company's newspaper, the manager responsible for communication between management and the rank-and-file attempted to gather the workers' opinions. But the overall results of the campaign were as follows: "Three blank slips of paper and a pigeon feather". After this complete failure of its initiative to improve communication and open dialogue with the workers, the management realized that, within its ranks, the middle managers were more on the side of the workers than of top management. The trade-union plant-level organization pursued a policy of 'confrontation' with the top management's initiatives and, in this respect, the middle managers supported union action against management. In the absence of overall consensus between rank-and-file, middle managers and top management, the employees refused a minor offer by the management for participation and applied pressure to influence wider issues of working conditions. If one examines not only certain isolated phenomena of participation or non-participation (refusal to participate) but also the dynamics of "everyday workplace events" and continuous changes in the relationships between the partners, one finds that employees realized their interests through both open and hidden forms of participation. After the failure of the above-mentioned managerial campaign to improve communication with the workforce, shop-floor workers and middle managers achieved success in various important areas - for instance, by signing the first Collective Agreement of June 1994. The top managers - or key figures in the company's executive management - were forced to recognize the necessity of building the social consensus of their partners. Establishing stable agreement with the workers and the unions would identify not only the interest- and powerrelations among the workers and between the workers and the trade union but

190

Csaba Makö and Agnes Simonyi

also within the management. With regard to this latter aspect, it was crucial to realize that the 'malaise' of the middle managers was due their lack of participation in the firm's decision-making process. The initial diagnosis identified the tensions between managers and workers as psychological in character (misunderstandings, difficulties of communication, etc.). However, after a one-and-ahalf year 'learning process', management discovered the true nature of the problem: that is, the key role of interests and power relations. It became obvious that the 'core workers' (and the union leaders) or the middle managers would not voluntarily practice self-restraint or give up their 'strong positions' in the decision-making system created in the former state company. Within this social context, the rejection of the management's proposed form of participation - collection of workers' suggestions and their publication in the company newspaper is understandable. The different forms of employee participation (the voicing of opinions in the newspaper, work's council since 1993, etc.) are an important component of firm-level labour relations. However, these participatory instruments cannot substitute for collective bargaining or social consensus based on the concertation of interests and power among the social partners. In this regard, it is worth noting that collective bargaining and labour disputes are the best known system of short-term interest conciliation between the employer and employees. The role and function of participation are also linked to interest relations and power relations, but from a long-term rather than short-term perspective (Gabor Füredi (1994).

7 Combining 'Voice' and 'Loyalty' In a situation of profound crisis between the social partners in a firm, participation can substitute - temporarily - for collective bargaining. In the case of 'C' Co. Ltd., which operated in the textiles industry, a seemingly paradoxical situation has been described: resistence and strong protest combined with cooperative participation. (Orolin, 1994) 'C' Co.Ltd. was established in the autumn of 1990, with 50% Hungarian and 50% Italian capital. The objective of Italians was both to acquire markets and to gain long-term profit based on low wages. (At present the average wage in 'C' Co. Ltd. is a little more than one-eighth of the average in the Italian plants of the foreign investors.) The priorities of the Italian owners can be summed up as follows: order, discipline, quality and profit. Within an extremely short period of time, the workforce was cut to 30%. Before privatization, 1000 workers produced 80,000 metres per day of different textiles. In the new Italian-Hungarian firm, this quantity was produced in a month by the 300 workers that remained.

Participation at the Firm Level in the Transformation Process

191

In parallel with this decline in employment and production, the influence of the former trade union was eroded. The changes in the ownership structure resulted not only in an increased intensity of work and slow wage growth increase but also, surprisingly, in badly organized work and worsening working conditions. Preparation for the privatization of the former state textile (weaving mill) company was carried out in a "climate of secrecy": nobody was informed about the privatization plan. The employees therefore thought that everything was against them. In everyday factory life, the 'Italian trainers' treated the Hungarian textile workers as 'third rate workers' and showed no respect for them: even joking and chatting were prohibited during working hours. After two and a half years of unsuccessful attempts by the workers to reach collective agreement on job classification and wage increases - in an industry in which male workers were paid the lowest industrial wage - the workers staged a 'warning strike' in October 1993, and later a longer strike in December of the same year. (The degree of support for the strike was 90% in the plant situated in the capital, and 100 % in the plant operating in a regional centre.) Despite the strikes, the Italian owners who during the two and a half years had increased their property share and had become the dominant owner - finally agreed to a 12% basic wage increase and an 8% quality bonus (premium), but they did not sign the collective agreement. To understand the economic performance of "C" Co. Ltd. one must bear in mind its huge indebtedness (100 million Ft) due to the shrinking market. In this situation, the very survival of the firm was at stake. The workers were strongly aware of the firm's imminent bankruptcy: for them, the real threat was not the signing of the collective agreement but the survival of the firm and hence the saving of their jobs. The situation was aggravated by the constant violation of the Hungarian labour code by the Italian director - who was unaware of Hungarian law regulating labour relations. Even in these circumstances of conflictual labour relations, the workers participating in the strike expressed their commitment to and strong identification with the firm. This emerges clearly on reading extracts from the 'memo' drawn up by the Worker's Assembly during the warning strike: "Beyond the disorganization of work, there are numerous deficiencies and mistakes in the technological instructions for which the worker's collective cannot take responsibility. Employees, guided by professional self-esteem and by the risk of losing their jobs in the case of plant closure due to bankruptcy, tried to warn the decision-makers of the Co. Ltd. in time to avoid damage caused by the inappropriate technological instructions. The worker's assembly cannot accept and rejects the Italian organizers' often abusive behaviour towards the workers ..." (Orolin, 1994: p.).

Hence workers' participation in this case has a twofold character. On the one hand there is strong protest which even takes the form of strikes for agreement to be reached on the most important issues of working conditions, employment

192

Csaba Makö and Agnes Simonyi

and wages. On the other, workers constantly participate in solving the technological and organizational difficulties of the plant. Those forms of participation consisting of strong protest or a rejection of managerial initiatives, and the forceful representation of employee interests, may give rise to formal collective labour disputes. With reference to alreadymentioned elements of Hungarian labour relations, we may say that employee participation may either provoke or prevent the escalation of labour disputes into strikes. The distinctive feature of Hungarian labour relations is the low level of strike activity compared with the other countries undergoing transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. According to the research report compiled by the Phare Project Fact Finding Committee in 1993, which examined different forms of participation and compared views and interests, in many cases the threat of strike action leads to the settlement of conflicts. In 30% of cases, formal strike calls were not followed by strikes, and peaceful solutions were found instead. In particular, broader and branch-wide strikes (for instance in the railway or the electricity generating sectors) were prevented by agreements reached after the strike had been called. As collective labour disputes were being prepared, the social partners conducted intensive negotiation, either directly or through their representatives, in order to establish the pre-conditions for further cooperation. In 1993, eleven branchlevel wage agreements were reached, covering 5% of all the employees. Altogether, around 16% of the labour force was affected by such agreements (Berki, 1994). In some of the multinationals to have established plants in Hungary (in the form of'green field' investments), different forms of employees resistance have led to important wage agreements and to the establishment of the first smaller local unions, thereby emphasising the importance of the works' councils. The labour relations system of the multinationals operating in Hungary modulates between their national traditions, international contexts and Hungarian development (Neuman, 1993).

8 Changes Towards a Three-dimensional System of Participation As a new element in the changing labour relations system since 1993, especial mention should be made of the works' councils. These are institutions which provide representation for the entire workforce; and they have had several predecessors in Hungary: in 1918-19, between 1945 and 1948, in 1956, and in different revolutionary periods as institutions ensuring workers' control when

Participation at the Firm Level in the Transformation Process

193

managerial influence has weakened. Despite obvious differences in social, economic and historical circumstances, several common institutional features can be discerned in their reappearance and functioning: • Workers' councils were created in revolutionary situations when the traditional institutions of political democracy were paralysed, and when radical changes in property relations had created a vacuum and instability in management. • This form of workers' self-management was designed to integrate the contradictory roles of employers and employees. The intention was to defend the employees' interests (as with any traditional union) while taking over managerial responsibilities (in organizing production). In 1919, for example, workers' councils were responsible for labour discipline, defence of socialized property, and production control. • These councils have never restricted their action to the firm level, but seek to establish ties both horizontally and vertically in order to gain political control over the national economy: partly because of their ambitious and contradictory aims and partly in order to stabilize the political, social and managerial institutions, i.e. parliament, unions, private and public property (Varga, 1989). In 1992, the Labour Code prescribed the creation of works' councils as obligatory in all firms in order to ensure employee participation in work-related decisions. Works' councils were to be elected in firms with more than fifty employees - and works' delegates in smaller firms with more than fifteen employees by secret ballot for a three-year period. The candidates were to be nominated by the unions or other groups of employees. These councils have the following rights: • co-determination of the firm's social welfare decisions; • the expression of employees' opinions on managerial decisions concerning reorganization, privatization, the use of human resources, vocational training and retraining, new working methods, and so on; • information provided at least twice a year on the firm's economic situation, on investments, wages, liquidity, etc. At the same time, these councils cannot organize and support strikes. The institution of works' councils represents a radical break with the past when the trade union's function of employee interest representation and participation were confused. The new Labour Code separates the main function of the unions (interest-bargaining) from participation by employees. According to the Labour Code: " Participative rights are exercised in the employees' name by works'

194

Csaba Makö and Agnes Simonyi

council or works' delegates elected by them." (Labour Code, 1992: chap. IV. par. 42). Besides participation in interest representation and bargaining through the unions, the works' councils in their present form can be regarded as a second institution for employee participation. The mandatory system has certain similarities to those in other countries (like Germany or Austria) with a so-called 'dual system' of labour relations. It is expected to develop social norms and rules of the game for long-term conflict resolution between the social partners at the firm level. The outcome of these rules may foster cooperation between employers and employees and among their different groups. Owing to the short life of the works' councils, it would be premature to evaluate their activity. The first ballot in 1993 redefined the representativeness of the different union confederations. Of the eight trade union federations, MSZOSZ received 71%, the Autonomous Unions 18%, and the Democratic League of Independent Unions 6%, of votes during the works' councils elections. There are signs that trade unions consider the works' councils to be their rivals in influencing decision-making at the firm level. This is due to the as yet incomplete divison of labour between the two institutions which would formally separate bargaining and cooperation. Mention should finally be made of a new element in employee participation as a social product of spreading innovative managerial techniques in the field of human resources. In the vacuum of labour relations immediately after political trasformation, the need for everyday communication and problem-solving has over-ridden direct relations between management and employees' groups (see the above case of the Austro-Hungarian firm). Moreover, the transfer of Western managerial skills and systems is one of the most visible and urgent challenges faced by the Hungarian economic elite, given the growing influence of Western and multinational firms. Various forms of teamwork, 'lean' and 'flatter' organizations, the establishment of more 'heterarchic relations' within organizations, the reorganization of firms' newspapers and bulletins, group discussions, are all on the list of new managerial initiatives. (Mako Cs. - Novoszäth P. 1994.) Privatization, productive decentralization, the crisis of the redistributive mechanisms, the diminishing possibilities of 'concession policy', the pluralization of employee and employer organizations - all these individually and collectively constitute a challenge for Hungarian labour relations. Not by chance, the social partners have been pressing for a 'social pact' since 1990. At the national level, there is a strong need to stabilize social relations through centralized agreements. But at the firm level, despite the relatively high unemployment rate and economic recession, high quality performance, problem-solving, adaptability, cannot be obtained through central agreements. Cooperation between employers and different employee groups is based on economically

Participation at the Finn Level in the Transformation Process

195

motivated collaboration, not on institutionalized and/or ideologically motivated social obligations. Even without public intervention, this leads to the "microcooperativism" (Streeck, 1991) constituted by the rational self-interest of the social partners in employment, wages, skilling, working conditions. This tendency, which has been described in the highly developed countries during the past decade, can be identified in some spheres of the Hungarian economy as well. Thus, within the Hungarian system of labour relations, highly heterogenous firm-level configurations resulting from the multiform presence of participation are becoming of crucial importance. Unified and centralized models of labour relations are important to establish a stable political background, and so are norms regulating the relationship between the social partners, but their role in orienting firm-level labour relations should not be overestimated.

References Berki, E. (1994): Börmegällapodäsok, 1993, Munkaügyi Szemle, XXXVIII. Evf., Januär Burawoy, Μ., Lukäcs, J. (1992): The Radiant Past, (Ideology and Reality in Hungary's Road to Capitalism). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Ftlredi, G. (1994): "New Requirements for Human Resource Management in the Joint-Ventures Firm: the Case of the DWA", in: Makö-Novoszäth (eds.): Convergence vs. Divergence: the Case of the Corporate Culture. Budapest:Com and Con Co. Ltd. - Center for Social Conflict Research HAS. Hithy, L. (1991): Hungary's New (Emerging) Industrial Relations System, Trends and Dilemmas. Budapest: Institute of Labour, Ministry of Labour. Ishikawa, A. (1992): "Patterns of Work Identity in the Firm and plant: An East-West Comparison", in Sz011 (ed.): Labour Relations in Transition in Eastern Europe. New York: Walter de Gruyter Makö, Cs., Simonyi, A. (1992): "Social Spaces and Acting Society", in Sz611 (ed.): Labour Relations in Transition in Eastern Europe. New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 60-76. Makö, Cs. (1992): From State Corporatism to Divided Unionism? Project on "Industrial Relations and Trade Unions in Former Socialist Countries ". Vienna: Institute for Advanced Studies. Neumann, L. (1993): "The Hungarian Suzuki". Budapest: Institute of Labour, Paper prepared to the OECD Seminar. Orolin, Zs. (1994): A Cantoni Kft munkaügyik kapcsolatainak alakuläsa: 1990-1994. Budapest: MÜM Munkaügyi Kutat-Intizet. Poör, J. (1994): Towards the Western HRM Practices in Local Subsidiaries of MNCS in the Former Socialist Economies, 9th Workshop on Strategic Human Resource Management - EIASM, St.Gallen, 3-4 March. Simonyi, A. (1994): Foglalkoztatas es munkavegzes dolgozoi tulajdon-ban. Budapest: OTKA Kutatäsi Jelentis, Mäjus. Streeck, W. (1988): Editorial Introduction, in Economic and Industrial Democracy, vol. 3, no. 3. August, pp. 307-8. Varga, L. (1990): "Munkästanäcsok Magyarorszägon: 1918/19-1956", in Makö-Nemuman (eds.): A munkäsutonomia kiterjesztesenek lehetsegei, Budapest: MTA Szociolögiai Kutatö Intözet. Vince, P. (1993): Stages of State Involvement: Dilemmas and Turning Points for Privatization in Hungary. Budapest: Kopint-Datorg.

Polish Reforms: The Fine Art of Learning and Forgetting Piotr Ploszajski

1 How this Paper Began This conference is about lessons, and so too is this paper. Thus it came as no surprise that the very process of preparing for it was an intellectually stimulating lesson. It consisted of writing and rewriting original ideas which constantly changed as I laboriously tried to fashion a coherent concept out of a loose cluster of thoughts and theses. Only a few days before the final deadline, while the paper was still in a chaotic state, I was asked to participate in another conference, at very short notice. This was to be a panel discussion on a topic described by organisers as "market democracy". Interesting, I thought, and started to consider what to say. It did not take me too long to realise that this was no easy task. What is market democracy, anyway? From one point of view, there is nothing less 'democratic' then a true market. It discriminates sharply between producers and buyers by eliminating the weak and favouring the strong: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Consequently society as a whole becomes a multilayered cake of which the bottom isn't sweet at all. Of course, the term is being used in the broad sense, and with some self-discipline and determination one can come up with a list of market properties, the simultaneous existence of which would allow us to call it 'democratic'. However, there was no doubt in my mind that the resulting model would be normative-ideal type rather than descriptive. There is no such thing as 'democratic market' in reality. It is a metaphor, just as much as 'democracy' itself is. Secondly, I thought, the Polish market is not exactly and directly evolving towards this never previously attained ideal; or, to be exact, it is both partly evolving towards it and partly not. However, there must have been some important reason for the organisers to want us to discuss this issue: a reason that was obvious in the light of my previous experience as participant at numerous conferences on post-socialist transformation held on both sides of the Atlantic. The underlying assumption behind the choice of topic was most probably that, since

198

Piotr Ploszajski

we are moving towards market democracy, the panellists were expected to describe the details of the process. Consequently, moving 'towards' implies at the same time 'moving away' from some other state - quite obviously 'market autocracy', whatever that may be. Fortunately, I wasn't given a chance to deduce what a market autocracy may be because the panel was called off. Nonetheless, the episode made me think about a related but much broader subject: the history of the last four years in terms of how social scientists, politicians, journalists, economists and 'ordinary people' view the choices which the transforming societies face and have to make. Aside from being interesting as such, this perspective seemed to be also very much into the major stream of this conference, and I decided to make it the main theme of my paper. Quite early in this process I realised that the fields of academic analysis and policy-making, as well as 'street reasoning', are still dominated by simple dichotomies which unfortunately do not serve solely as poetic metaphors. On the contrary, in far too many instances, they take the place other strategies of change which should be developed at the government level and substitute for in-depth scientific analysis. The result is a plethora of superficial slogan-loaded 'programmes of development' at the political level and the entangling (mixing theory with ideology) of concepts in academia. The choice pattern suggested willingly or otherwise - by many of these 'strategies for post-socialist development' is always the same: a shift away from the Beast and towards Beauty. This is certainly a phenomenon which is historically justified. Let us examine it a little more closely.

2 Beauty and the Beast: The rise and fall of what used to be everybody's favourite fairy tale This year I shall be celebrating quite an important anniversary. Twenty years ago I went abroad for the very first time, to the USA to study at the Harvard Business School. Since then I have travelled a great deal and have obviously greatly enjoyed the experience, with one exception: It did not take long for me to understand the real meaning of the popular saying: "There's no such thing as a free lunch". During most of these years the scenario was always the same: I would be invited to some Western university or training centre and asked to tell a few breathtaking stories about the functioning of the communist system. We would then have lunch (or dinner) to exchange further anecdotes, this time less academic and more personal. The responses were also invariably the same, expressing understanding and sympathy. I would then return to Poland and de-

Polish Reforms

199

scribe what I had seen to colleagues and students fascinated by 'The Land of Plenty'. Things have been largely the same in the last four years since the great post-socialist revolution began. The responses have changed somewhat, though, and now express envy and wish me good luck. I certainly enjoyed the lunches and the trips. But the international situation re-enacted in these incidents reminded me of a zoo, with the public and the animals staring at each other and amazed by each other's strangeness. (No need to ask who was the monkey in this metaphor). This situation had come about because, for most of the twentieth century, the world appeared quite simple. On one hand, there was capitalism with its class society, its concentrated private ownership of the means of production, and its overwhelming market mechanisms. On the other, there was socialism with its allegedly classless society, state ownership, and overwhelming central planning. One was the mirror contradiction of the other. On both sides, stereotypes arose and became deeply embedded in social consciousness and official ideologies. Socialist societies long dreamed about idealised Western democracy and the blessings of the free market. For their part, the people of North America, Italy or Sweden were terrified by stories about the oppressiveness of central planning and the misery of the economy of shortage. However, this was not a situation of real choice, because, in fact, nobody had a chance to choose anything. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, people believed they that they knew the answer: the free market without too much central intervention". The world seemed to be 'fixed' the way it was. It was only the distant Third World countries which, for many years, have suffered the pain of the real dilemmas of development. But for the First and the Second Worlds, the Third World has always been the far-off land of children's favourite fairy-tales And then came perestroika in the Soviet Union, the victory of Solidarnosc in Poland, the reunification of Germany, the democratic governments of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and post-socialist unrest in many other countries. It was only natural that all these societies should immediately turn to the oversimplified solutions that they regarded as the obvious alternatives. Nor was it surprising that all of them should have found it difficult to shed the obsessive, yet somehow very useful, clear-cut dichotomies of right and wrong, efficient and inefficient, friend and enemy: Beauty and the Beast. Professor Mokrzycki of the Polish Academy of Sciences has recently commented on a phenomenon which he calls paradoxical: the long-standing Polish tradition of articulated democracy vis-ä-vis the problems apparent in today's democratic practice. In the light of the Beauty/Beast mechanism for the formation of idealistic programmes, however, this is not a paradox at all. These articulated democratic programmes were the products of dichotic thinking; they were the products of social protest not of social pragmatism.

200

Piotr Ploszajski

This phenomenon of streamlined stereotyping is by no means restricted to Europe only. Two years ago I was invited by Time Magazine to take part in a much-publicised discussion on developments in Eastern and Central Europe. The discussion provoked a great deal of barely concealed frustration among the organisers which was reflected in the cover story of the December 1991 issue. The article made frequent reference to the Eastern guests' unwillingness to accept the TIME'S optimistic view of post-socialist transformation as moving from the misery of oppression by devious communism towards the relief and happiness resulting from democracy and the free market. This same stereotype was responsible for much frustration among Polish sociologists as well. Over the last four years they have found it frequently difficult to explaining a number of social phenomena which did not fit this pattern. For example, although now, with hindsight, almost everybody says that the 1993 election results were predictable, the magnitude of the Solidarnosc-based parties' defeat nevertheless came as a complete surprise to many sociological idealists. All this, though, has not taught us enough. We are all still very much trapped by comfortable dichotomies. Only a few days ago I received an invitation to the 1994 Polish Sociological Congress emphatically entitled People and Institutions: Social Order in the Making. This title should be looked at very carefully. It is does not read "New Social Order", nor "Social Order in the Remaking", but means exactly what it says: a social order is supposedly being made out of social disorder, maybe even chaos. The term 'order' here is used in its normative sense; as a value judgement not a description. I am quite sure this is not simply a linguistic slip: it is one of the symptoms of the phenomenon I am trying to describe here.

3 The Discreet Charm of Simple Choices Clear-cut dichotomies (choices) are being used, or rather misused, for strategymaking and for analytic purposes not only for historically justified reasons but also because they are simple to use and safe. One can never go wrong with them. Of course we are moving towards the market, of course democracy is our goal, of course ..., etc. At the same time, however, these simple one-way choices are intellectually and pragmatically very dangerous because they induce us to think that we already have the answers that we need, and that we have already made the necessary strategic decisions. This applies equally to strategy-makers and to social

Polish Reforms

201

analysts, who all desperately need detailed custom-made and workable blueprints for transformation. Yet another danger using simple Beauty/Beast choices is that they obscure other possible choices. A good example is the choice: state-own versus privatised economy in which privatisation becomes an ultimate goal, and not one of the available instruments of economic rationalisation. It is no exaggeration to call this fatal attraction by simple choices a widespread phenomenon among both politicians and social scientists in Eastern Europe (and beyond). Last month I returned from a world conference in Mexico on transforming economies which brought both decision-makers and academics together. The proposed or declared routes for development were univocally the same: • from autocracy to democracy; no specific references were made as to which kind of democracy - American, Swedish or German - and if some custommade type was to be adopted, then which one exactly? • There is no democracy as such, merely different models of it which frequently only vaguely resembling one another. • from central planning to the free market; if so then how much of each? There was no real understanding that some sort of central regulation is necessary. Quite understandably so; after all, whatever is 'central' is the Beast, whatever is 'free' is Beauty. Some commentators, indeed, have an even more dramatic departure in mind: from the direct coupon-based distribution of shortages towards free-style market boxing. They apparently think that this is the true meaning of 'economic liberalisation'. • from a one-party to a multi-party system; we certainly have a 'one party plus', but how many are required to qualify as a 'multi-party' system? There are 210 parties registered in Poland; is this already the ultimate multi-party system that we dreamed of? Certainly not, since the ideal is some 'more thanone-party' system with all the necessary interactive mechanisms in place. Otherwise this dichotomy is totally useless as a guiding strategy. All this bring us logically to the next lesson to be drawn from post-socialist developments to date.

202

Piotr Ploszajski

4 From Simple Choice to a Choice Matrix A Hungarian participant at the above-mentioned conference clearly wanted to sum up his arguments with some clever metaphor. So he did. In talking about the major route his country's economy was now taking, he likened it to "moving away from Hungarian goulash towards McDonalds' Big Mac". I objected that this was over-optimistic, and that the real option lay midway along the choice spectrum: "either goulash with French fries or a Big Mac with paprika salad". During the four years of post-socialism, development has been driven mostly by the powerful off-centre force of'escaping from'. Quite naturally, at the beginning the exact direction was not particularly important as long as it increased the distance from the hated system left behind. No feature nor institution that was part of that system or symbolised it could be included in the new order. The compass of development was set in the vague direction of 'democracy' or 'free market', and the trial-and-error strategy was set in motion. It is only recently that strategists and analysts have begun to think in terms of a specific point on a particular choice spectrum, whether this concerns some aspect of economic policy, social programmes, the structure of governmental institutions, etc. The directional-only guidance provided by the general ideological imperative of escaping from/towards has revealed itself to be no longer adequate. "We think that the general .studies on transition to democracy," declared the organisers of an international sociological seminar held in Warsaw last October, "should be complemented (replaced) now by more elaborated approaches reflecting the growing diversity of the transformation processes". And none too soon, we might say. In an article on democracy and economy, Morawski, another Polish sociologist, provides us with a good illustration of such an approach. Morawski analyses three practical dilemmas in the process of 'making a citizen' and seeks to describe the specific points on those choice spectrums related to that process, while matching them against the Polish socio-political situation of today. The dilemma of .sequence, for instance, offers a spectrum build on the evolutional sequence known from Western history: liberal state - liberal economy - liberal democracy - welfare state. The dilemma of method is a choice between the bottom-up and top-down strategies for acquisition of citizen rights. The place dilemma concerns the spectrum comprising the places where a citizen is born (made) out of an individual: the public and the private spheres. This is not all, however. There are a great many such individual choice spectrums, just as there are many dimensions to a socio-economic-political system. Thus, the design and/or analysis of a complete development strategy requires simultaneous multi-point analysis.

Polish Reforms

203

An interesting frame for such analysis in the economy, and a good example for my arguments here is the Structural Reform Matrix developed and used by the journal Economic Reform Today. This enables the design, and ongoing evaluation, of an economic reform by providing a list of twenty-three critical policy options, with individual weights showing the relative importance of each, and a methodology for measuring the variables. The policy options are grouped into nine policy categories: Trade Liberalisation (category weight = 19), Foreign Exchange (CW = 14), Financial Market Liberalisation (CW = 11), Prices and Wages (CW =11), Fiscal And Monetary Policy (CW = 10), Privatisation (CW = 10), Foreign Investment (CW = 7), Information (CW = 2), Enabling Environment (CW =16). These are presented as side-by-side vectors on a 0 - 100% scale. The 24th vector represents the Total Reform Rating. I have several doubts about the methodology itself, but the general idea of drawing up a comparative picture of a complex social process is well in line with the arguments of this paper. The Total Transformation Rating would, of course, require many more Policy Categories comprising numerous Policy Options, for the 'spectrum of spectrums' to represent all the choices necessary for reconstruction of the social order. When made in each respective country for successive reform periods, these choices would form individual transformation profiles (macro-development options) which would then be subject to discussion and comparison. However, there is not just one development option; indeed, there may be several. At this stage of post-socialist transformation, there is a desperate need for analysis of different acceptable/possible/feasible arrangements of policy options which will yield different optional transformation profiles. It will then be necessary to moving to an even higher level of analysis. I call this the Choice Matrix. This, in fact, is nothing other than symbolic description of possible complex strategies for socio-economic development. Having finally abandoned the simple strategies of 'escaping from' and 'towards the ideal', this would usher in the advanced stage of'where exactly we intend to go'. Thus far, however, neither successive Polish governments nor social scientists have seemed willing and/or able to offer a clearly-stated integrated transformation strategy, nor even strategy options. Developments are influenced on a chaotic day-to-day basis by actual societal situations and the individual preferences of the decision-makers of the moment. As a result, development choices on both the micro and macro scale simply happen rather than being made rationally. Thinking in terms of global strategies and using the choice matrix metaphor may help transformation strategy-makers to locate the country-specific point on practically the only Choice Mega-Spectrum now available to both Western and Eastern countries: that between socialist capitalism and capitalist socialism.

204

Piotr Ploszajski

As is evident, this time the choice is real. Also, neither of its two terms is Beauty or the Beast, and this makes the choice very difficult indeed.

5 Learning to Forget However, as if it were not difficult enough in itself, the learning process required for post-socialist societies, governments, as well as social scholars, is just one of the elements necessary for success in the future. The other element, which requires even greater skill and determination, is the process of forgetting the old stereotypes and beliefs, and the old logic on which they were founded. There is no doubt that the latest market reforms in Poland constitute an important and worthwhile example of an unprecedented attempt to transform the very identity of a complex social system. Politicians study them in an overall attempt to forecast world dynamics. Academicians find them a good case of total intervention on a macro-scale. Businessmen look for venture opportunities and new markets. Policy makers and change agents learn different aspects of the social system's dynamics and its resistance to change. Many analysts, however, have demonstrated a symptomatic lack of understanding of the real nature of all these changes. Typically, they perceive them as a struggle to achieve a more economically efficient and socially just system, while in fact their goal is to transform the criteria of efficiency and justice themselves. Replacing the old criteria requires, of course, both entirely different developmental policies on the part of the reform strategists (see: Lesson Three) and a basically novel approach to understanding of the resultant phenomena. Socialism was a distinctive socio-political as well as economic order, one which was relatively efficient and just when judged against its peculiar criteria. It is therefore naive to believe, as many on both sides of the former Iron Curtain seem to do, that it can simply be replaced by an 'obviously better one', the 'only' problem being the smooth introduction of the 'generally-accepted' and long 'awaited reforms'. Market and entrepreneurship principles are indeed very attractive and effective, but they do not enter a system operating in a social vacuum. Socialism was grounded on a set of theoretical assumptions, values and tempting promises (although these latter turned out to be unrealistic). At some point, each assumption, value, and promise took on a life of its own and created social and political processes, structures and mechanisms which served in turn, to perpetuate and reinforce the status quo. The economic and political priorities of the socialist era, together with the impact of the officially

Polish Reforms

205

promoted hierarchy of social prestige, created a resilient network of diverse multi-level group interests. These have proved stubbornly resistant to many attempts at systemic reform. As matters stand, the economic aspects of the current market- and entrepreneurship-oriented reforms may well be the least significant. Because of their philosophy, assumptions and specific solutions, they penetrate deeply into the social and political fabric and affect the key elements of the societal system of values, individual beliefs and cognitive assumptions, official ideologies, rules of social order, and so on. It is much clearer now that it was four years ago that revolutions and reforms may come and go, but their aftermath persists for a long time afterwards to affect future reforms and revolutions. Socialist structures, values and behaviours do not vanish overnight, even after a communist party steps down or the Berlin Wall is pulled down. In a way, a large part of society is still 'socialist at heart' regardless of the extent to which people vigorously reject the ideological label verbally. Countless lessons in Marxism, albeit unwanted, still prove effective after all those years. Long exposure to the mechanisms of the old system has inevitably resulted in the internalisation of some of its ideas. The present economic reforms, with a free market and entrepreneurship as their main underlying values, may thus have much wider consequences than the adjective 'economic' might imply. 'Residual communism', as I shall term it, is clearly visible when one inspects the results of the latest sociological surveys assessing social tolerance of ownership changes. There seem to be no reservations towards private ownership in banking, foreign trade and commerce. When it comes to heavy industry, though, almost 50% of respondents only partly support privatisation, and 15 to 25% oppose it. An experienced social researcher knows that the reply 'partial support' may well denote a complete lack of any solid criteria in certain cases. It also may indicate that some respondents in fact oppose the privatisation of their own firm ("because it is special"), while at the same time accepting ("naturally") the general principle of privatisation ("because it is necessary"). Very symptomatic are the results concerning the role of foreign capital. To the question "What part of industry may be sold to Western investors?", 34% respondents answered categorically "None", and another 40% "Some". The above interpretation of the uncertain answers given by some respondents confronts us with a total of almost 75% of the Polish population which expresses reservations towards foreign capital. Hence, the capital- and technology-thirsty Polish economy is to join the world system in a steamy atmosphere of xenophobia and nationalism. The allegedly rejected lectures in Marxism still apparently arouse fear of the Bad Capitalist. It would probably be much too optimistic to believe that Poland is an exception here, and that the situation in the other East European countries is any different in this regard.

206

Piotr Ploszajski

Another good example of this process, one which probably applies to all postsocialist countries, is the role and status of the intelligentsia. It cannot be denied that this group played an important role under socialism. Some intellectuals, aware of socialism's 'inhuman face', fought against it, but others profited from its 'negative selection' mechanisms. However, most of them, willingly or not, enjoyed the high social status and various privileges resulting from the ideological assumptions of the system, which needed intellectuals for its legitimisation and for ornamental purposes, rewarding them in return with official respect, honorary medals, a steady income, false freedom, and places in the front row at official ceremonies. Now that market reforms are in progress, some members of the intelligentsia have suddenly realised that it is they who will have to pay dearly for the long-awaited changes. In a system ruled by stock exchange, market and competition a mediocre intellectual moves to the back of the social theatre, while the front rows are occupied by self-made, often uneducated, millionaire, skilled entrepreneurs. He or she is not going to like the change, for it goes against the belief, well-learned under socialism, in the justifiably privileged place in the social structure that 'belonged' to the intelligentsia. Those debating the future of Poland tend to agree that the fate of the reforms depends closely on the emergence of an entirely new middle class composed of entrepreneurs, industrialists, financiers, merchants, and so on. The call for a middle class has been so strident, however, that the consequences have often been overlooked. The creation of a middle class in the post-socialist societies is indeed indispensable, but it requires more drastic changes within the social structure than have been envisaged. The middle class may for temporarily do quite well without an upper class, but the post-socialist economic reforms require a lower class for reasons well known to those who understand the socio-economic mechanisms that drive the market system; and it is of course the aspiring middle class which stimulates economic development. So what is needed, in fact, is not only a new class of skilful entrepreneurs but a whole new social structure of society with an entirely new social stratum. This may create (it is already creating, in fact) severe social problems as some groups strongly resist the idea of being pushed down the ladder. After all, many learned, and learned well, their socialist lessons on the primacy of the working class and on the importance of being 'equal'. These socialist resentments may in some circumstances be used effectively for political purposes by an opposition promoting populist values, and they may thus affect the shape and pace of marketand entrepreneurship-oriented reforms. Post-socialist societies and governments certainly have a great deal to learn if they are to control ongoing changes. In view of what I said in Lesson One, it is probably quite justified to claim that the same is true for the Western societies and governments. To succeed, however, we must also to decide what we should

Polish Reforms

207

forget and how to do so. Paradoxically enough, in the course of human history we have accumulated an extensive body of knowledge on how to learn new things, and some very elaborate educational systems for implementing it. But we know very little about how to quickly forget those old beliefs and ways of doing things which stand in the way of the necessary changes. We all need to learn a lot in order to forget.

6 The Crowded Boat As a result of the post-socialist revolution there is no longer a clear-cut 'zoo syndrome'. We are all more or less on the same side of the bars (I wonder which side). The benefits are unquestionable and so too, unfortunately, are the disadvantages. There are no truly local issues any more; nor there are problems that have significance only for global processes and which can be overlooked by local policy-makers and businessmen. It is quite certain that whatever problems the post-socialist economies and societies face, they may easily become the Western world's problems as well. This is very worrying for many because it forces them to leave their comfortable niches, think globally, learn new things, forget old ones, and constantly change. There is no escape . That is why the East and the West can no longer afford just to stare at each other. Both sides must begin to look and to consider carefully what they see. Current events in Central and Eastern Europe not only have consequences on the West 'as a whole'; they also affect macro-economies, whole societies and global politics, as well as households, small businesses and the private lives of individuals. Consequently, also Eastern and Western scientists have to learn a lot from each other. Not so much, or rather not only, by exchanging research concepts and data but by comparing the way research as such is organised and adapted to the mechanisms of the socio-economic system. We are all in the same boat now, and it is getting rather crowded.

7 From Newtonian to Einsteinian Sociology This additional lesson will be brief, although the topic is so important that it warrants much more elaborate discussion in a separate paper or even a book. I feel obliged, however, to make at least cursory mention of it here. I refer to the

208

Piotr Ploszajski

analytical abilities required of social sciences vis-ä-vis the complex 'morphogenetic' nature of mega-systemic changes in the post-socialist states. It is quite apparent from what I have said so far that the social order in these countries is currently the mixed product of the simultaneous influences of two entirely different sets of rules deriving from both the previous and the ongoing system. Analysis and explanation of an entity of such a hybrid nature is extremely difficult and calls not only for interdisciplinary and matrix ('holographic') approaches but also for new 'hybrid' explanatory theories. The post-socialist social order in the period of transformation (changing its dynamic state) is characterised by dominant sensitive parameters fluctuating with the amplitude close or beyond the so called bifurcation points (at which they change their dynamic equilibrium). In such a period the system looses its integrity and is over-sensitive to even subtle changes in its parameters. It is then, say complex system theorists, that its functioning becomes highly specific and cannot be explained with the help of the theories and analytical instruments good for analysis of the relatively stable systems. For the social scientists concerned with research on the post-socialist transformation this brings about a far-reaching conclusion, namely that the sociology of existence and the sociology of formation are, in fact, two different disciplines requiring, in part, different paradigms and research instruments. It is even quite likely that the latter needs theoreticians with different research temperament. He/she should be able to cross the inter-disciplinary boundaries without guilt, use the metaphoric reasoning for complex system's explanation, and find the delicate necessary balance between the methodological rigor and vigour. If I may use a metaphor here and make a reference to natural sciences, the present situation requires that the social researchers interested in understanding the system under transformation abandoned the quasi-static 'Newtonian sociology ' and begin to develop an 'Einsteinian sociology' more apt for higher velocities of change.

8 Hybrid Theories for Hybrid Systems It is quite apparent from what I have said so far that the actual social order in transforming countries is currently a mixed product of simultaneous influences by two entirely different set of rules coming from both the previous and ongoing system. On one hand, literally thousands and thousands of new wholesale businesses - the typical products of early market economy - are mushrooming every month.

Polish Reforms

209

On the other, we are witnessing a never-ending parade of labour unrest and strikes called by trade unions in large industrial companies, raising demands that are apparently derived directly from socialist ideology. The invisible hand of a free market is beginning to demonstrate its effects. It is accompanied, however, by the stubborn attempts of the Ministry of Finance to regulate the functioning of the economy 'by hand'. The social status of values like individual entrepreneurship and self-dependence seems to be steadily rising among different groups of society. At the same time, socialist re-sentiment and so called 'trained demandability' do not show signs of getting any weaker. The analysis and explanation of social entity of such a hybrid nature is extremely difficult and not only calls for new interdisciplinary and matrix ('holographic') approaches, but also for some new hybrid explanatory theories. E. Mokrzycki wrote of his country's academic situation but his conclusions seem to also have a much more general validity: Polish sociology neither shows a tendency to generating holistic meta-theoretical systems, nor to adopting them. (...) Generally, one has to observe that (...) having had a long history and a large and differentiated legacy, it is from this point of view rather amorphic. (Mokrzycki, 1990).

The author seems to be of the opinion that that this is a symptom of theoretical openness; maybe yes, maybe not. Equally justified is an assumption that it is a result of methodological powerlessness vis a vis the amorphic nature of the research subject. Professor Mokrzycki senses it to some extent when he writes several pages later: " sociological problems of Polish society were in most cases located in the theoretical space marked by the model of socialist order on one side, and the picture of contemporary Western society expressing itself in the theoretical-methodological concepts of standard sociology on the other, (ibid.)

Political sciences as well as economics and management theory are facing similar schizophrenia on the subject. On the way, they demonstrate in the same way as sociology, spectacular ignorance in interpreting the past and anticipating future phenomena, particularly those that do not fit the 'normal' pattern. Let us recall the overwhelming helplessness in trying to explain, for example, the immediate mechanism of the socialist system's breakdown, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, Tyminski's phenomenon or the monetary crisis of 1992. The best stock market analysts are no more skilful in selecting the winning stocks than a monkey in the famous contest between Wall Street brokers. The post-socialist order in the period of transformation (meaning: changing its dynamic state) is characterised by the dominant sensitive parameters fluctuating with the amplitude that is close or beyond the so called bifurcation points.

210

Piotr Ploszajski

It is at these points that the system's variables change their dynamic equilibrium. In such a state the system loses its integrity and it is over-sensitive to even subtle changes in its parameters. Prigogine (calls it order by fluctuation. The concept introduces a new outlook for the nature of macro-system dynamics: a new model of the world where butterflies trigger disasters. It is then, say the theorists concerned with the complex system's functioning, that its functioning becomes highly specific and cannot be explained with the help of the theories and analytical instruments used for the analysis of relatively stable systems. For those social scientists who do research on the post-socialist transformation, this leads to a far-reaching conclusion. Its seems that the sociology of existence and the sociology of formation are in fact two different disciplines requiring, in part, different paradigms and research instruments. It is quite likely that the latter even needs theoreticians with different research temperaments. Anyone dealing with sociological research on transformations should be able. • to cross the interdisciplinary boundaries without feeling guilty; • to use metaphoric reasoning for complex system explanation; • to find the necessary and delicate balance between methodological rigor and vigour. If I may use a metaphor here and make a reference to natural sciences, the present situation requires that social researchers interested in understanding the system under transformation abandon the quasi-static 'Newtonian sociology' and begin to develop an 'Einsteinian sociology' that is more apt for higher speeds of change. The brilliant catastrophe theory conceived by Rene Thom as opposed to the traditional idea of revolution by accumulation of quantitative changes may be a good example of the difference between the two. Incidentally it is both unfortunate and symptomatic that Thorn's concept have not been tried out for the explanation of the anti-socialist transition although its potential for this purpose seem much greater than those of traditional modernisation theories. 'Einsteinian sociology' and in fact 'Einsteinian social sciences' in general, will take a lot of learning and forgetting on the part of social theorists. The major transitions will have to take place along the following lines: From (forgetting)

To (learning)

• • • •

Morphogenesis Holographic analogies Relativism Dynamic approach (explaining non-equilibrium) Concept of growing differentiation

Reductionism Mechanistic approach Universalism Static approach (explaining equilibrium) • Concept of growing entropy

Polish Reforms

211

Open system approach • Closed system approach • Concept of competition and survival Concept of co-existence and cooperation Information system as a structure • Information system made up of of data sets allocation allocated data • Social evolution by natural selection Conscious differentiation of structures and processes - the products of random mutations • Social processes as linear functions Social processes as non-linear functions Qualitative analysis • Quantitative analysis Heterachy and pluralism • Hierarchy and centralism Research on social legitimisation • Research on social power Searching for harmony • Searching for individual identity (of individuals and systems) (of individuals and systems) Transactional approach • Individual approach Identity searching (abstract analysis) • Descriptive analysis All this is leading to yet another important conclusion regarding the nature of 'Einsteinian sociology'. Namely, it is becoming quite clear that sociology as it stands - a fairly integral scientific discipline - is by far insufficient to explain the sociological phenomena of today's transitions. To be able to do that, sociology will have to become a hybrid set of theories and methodologies, only part of which have something to do with social sciences at all. Some of the theoretical paths that have to be taken are leading nowhere or make promises for a mile long step that after while turn out to be hopeless idle jumping. Some others, even though they do not open entirely new perspectives, may become a useful exercise in metaphoric explanation, indispensable for doing research on complex social reality. It is only very rarely that such an effort is rewarded by an unquestionable discovery. However, this does not free the social researcher from the obligation of looking far beyond the boundaries of his or her 'own' discipline. The border between methodological purity and dogmatism tends to be very thin in some cases. The prescription for theoretical development is surely neither methodological rigour nor vigour. But fortunately between these two extremes there is still a whole spectrum of intermediate approaches.

References Mokrzycki, E. (1990): Socjologia w filozoficznym kontekscie (Sociology in Philosophical Context). IFIS Publ.: Warszawa. Prigogine I. and Stengers I. (1990): Zchaosu kuporzadkowi (From Chaos to Order). PIW: Warszawa.

Theory, Specificity, Change: Emulation, Selective Incorporation and Modernization Roland Robertson

1 Basic Considerations As we move further away in time from what appeared to be the collapse of communism in Europe in late 1989, the idea that all or most of the societies that were dominated by communist regimes could have been lumped together under a single rubric becomes increasingly surprising, at least from a sociological point of view. In this respect we can now see that social scientists were somewhat naive in their acceptance of the categories of the discourse of 'world politics' (notwithstanding the limited usefulness, for example, of the blanket concept of totalitarianism). In any case, between the late 1940s and the late 1980s the 'communist world' was, to varying degrees, insulated from many of the changes that were occurring in Western social science. Moreover, by the late 1980s Western social theory was itself undergoing substantial paradigm shifts. The upshot was that when formerly 'communist societies' became - again to varying degrees open to the social theory of non-communist Europe, North America (Canada and the USA), and other parts of the world their academics and intellectuals were to find a puzzling array of social-theoretical positions, some of them of quite recent formulation. But one must not exaggerate this, particularly in the cases of Poland and Hungary. In any case, of particular relevance here are theories concerning globalization and what is often called the world-system, on the one hand, and theories of postmodernity and new conceptions of modernity, on the other. At the same time, West European, North American and other social and cultural theorists were to be greatly surprised by the seemingly sudden, apparently widespread fall of communist regimes. This too has spawned new analytical notions. A lot of effort has been spent since 1989 by political scientists and sociologists outside the former communist orbit in discussing their failure to predict the fall of communism (just as they may be surprised by its partial revival). At the same time, new or revived problems have arisen outside the old communist sphere as a direct consequence of communism's 'collapse' and the efforts in

214

Roland Robertson

supposedly post-communist societies to effect societal transformation, vitalization or revitalization. Widespread interest in the related themes of civil society and citizenship are major examples. Of particular significance has been the search for societal models for selective emulation. This has involved social scientists both within and outside formerly communist societies in taking specific positions concerning the location of these societies with respect to general directions of change. Are these societies - or some of them - best characterized as post-communist? As post-colonial? As modernizing? As democratizing? As becoming capitalist societies? And so on. With the possible exception of the category of post-communist, each of these prognoses was in fact already available in global political culture before 1989. This is an issue to which I want to give particular attention in this paper. I will, however, do so in wide-ranging, general-theoretical terms. I will not focus specifically on the areas of Europe which until quite recently were dominated by definitely communist regimes. It should be said at this early point that what has happened in the previously communist societies east and southeast of the old Iron Curtain since 1989 has contributed much to - although it has not been the only precipitant of - the current flowering of concern with nationalism. The recent widespread interest in nationalism on the part of social scientists, historians, and others started in fact in the late 1970s or early 1980s - that is, definitely prior to the apparent collapse of communism. (We must be very careful, as I have already intimated, not to exaggerate this collapse with respect to both its geographical extent and its societal scope and depth.) The interest in nationalism has greatly expanded since 1989, in response to developments in Central, East and Southeast Europe, as well as in various parts of the former Soviet Union. 'Nationalism' is in fact a pivotal concept, in terms of which numerous trends and movements in recently communist or quasi-communist societies have been interpreted and analysed. However, this tendency to employ and apply ideas from the lexicon of research on, and theory concerning, nationalism (and ethnicity) in reference to such societies has, in my judgment, been rash, although most certainly not wrong. This needs elaboration. Speaking specifically of the former Soviet Union, but to some extent about "other multiethnic Soviet-type societies", Zaslavsky (1992: 99) has cogently addressed the issue of nationalism and post-communism. He argues that Soviet nationality policy had the effect of promoting and accelerating the process of nation building: "During the Soviet period various populations which had not previously developed national consciousness acquired national identities and turned into nations" (Zaslavsky, 1992: 105). He goes on to argue that it "would be a grave mistake if analysts, concentrating on the wellknown consequences of traditional nationalism and premodern ethnocentric mobilization, overlooked important new characteristics and modernizing functions of the nationalist revival in the most developed parts of the former Soviet Union, such as the Baltic and Slavic republics" (Zaslavsky, 1992: 110). He con-

Theory, Specificity, Change

215

eludes his discussion by insisting that "an unbiased analysis of the role of nationalism and separatism in the present transformation of Soviet-type societies helps dispel the traditional perception of nationalism as a largely divisive, xenophobic, and therefore anachronistic movement" (Zaslavsky, 1992: 117). My objection to the tendency to focus on nationalism and ethnicity as the centrepiece in the analysis of post-communist societies is not that these are irrelevant, but rather that they should not be seen as the only lenses through which we look at the general issue of societal transformation in formerly Communist Europe. Certainly no satisfactory analysis of the former Soviet Union and other societies of the communist type can be reached without systematic recognition of Soviet nationality policy and its recent and continuing consequences, but to regard the issue of nationalism as the focal point of discussion of social change and modernization in Eastern Europe is misleading. It would not be so misleading were it not for the tendency in some quarters to think about nationalism as by definition a form of resistance to all outside forces, as essentially atavistic. Nairn (1993) has argued that much of the theory of contemporary nationalism has been promoted on the basis of what he calls "the new international pessimism." He appears to mean by this that theories of nationalism still rest to a considerable degree on an "internationalist" perspective defined by its opposition to nineteenth and early twentieth-century nationalism. (It is a striking feature of the contemporary analysis of nationalism that among its most conspicuous figures are people who are or have been Western Marxists.) Nairn (1993: 168-9) argues for a new kind of internationalism and thus for a new (normative) approach to nationalism: "globalization would bring about and actually encourage the proliferation of smaller competing entities, rather than wipe them off the map." Post-communist states operate in a much more globalized world than when they became enclosed within the largely Soviet communist domain. However, it should also be noted that soon after the Russian Revolution of 1917 there developed a powerful communist project of globalization. Thus I am here distinguishing roughly between projects of globalization, on the one hand, and the overall process of globalization on the other. The latter, although greatly affected by projects of globalization, refers to the very long, historical making of the world into a single place (Robertson, 1992). Thus in speaking of post-communist states operating in a very globalized world since 19891 refer to the world that those states re-entered following a period of containment within a particular project of globalization. It is not a simple matter to distinguish empirically between globalization projects and globalization per se. Nonetheless it is clear that the Communist International was a planned, 'voluntaristic' alternative to the relatively unplanned (but of course Eurocentric) thrust of changes that were rapidly compressing the entire world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; although we should take seriously Suny's (1993: 85) argument that in

216

Roland Robertson

the beginning Bolshevik external policy was "an effort directed primarily against British imperialism." In the Soviet Communist project a special place was of course given to the nationality question. An interesting way of expressing the main issue is provided by Suny (1993: 55), who writes that "for Communists of the civil-war period, internationalism was less the servant of the Soviet state than the Soviet state was the servant of internationalism." In what is often called the post-communist world - as well as the 'post-colonial' world (which, some have argued, indicates more accurately the present circumstances of actual or potential societal units in the old Soviet communist orbit) - there are much higher degrees of global interdependence and global consciousness than was the case in the mid- and late-1940s. So, in a manner of speaking, newly post-Soviet societies - as well as 'ex-communist' societies that were not pro-Soviet - have 'returned' to a global situation that is significantly different from the one which they largely left in the late 1940s.

2 Cross-Societal Emulation and Selective Incorporation I am directly concerned here with the issue of what Westney (1987) has called cross-societal emulation. In her study of the transfer of Western organizational models to Meiji Japan, Westney is concerned with the Japanese adoption of a wide rage of new institutions, communication technologies and manufacturing methods. As Westney (1987: 11) says in the introduction to her study, at the same time as Japan "embarked on its modernization program in the 1870s, all of the great powers were engaged in organization building on a major scale." In various ways and to varying degrees this was, she argues, true, inter alia, of the Third French Republic, newly unified Germany, the post-Civil War United States, and of Great Britain. As Westney (1987: 11) observes, "Japan could therefore obtain more detailed and sophisticated information on Western organizational systems ... than would have been the case two or even three decades earlier." She certainly does not underestimate the remarkable speed and scope of Japanese "innovation and innovation" during the Meiji period, but she also insists, rightly in my view, that virtually all societies - certainly all nation-states since the onset of the increasingly widespread appearance of both nationalism and the state form of societal organization during the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries - have emulated 'organizational models' in other societies. In this sense Meiji Japan constitutes but a very noteworthy example of an historically widespread phenomenon. Meiji Japan, argues Westney (1987: 12), "is so remarkable for the apparent voluntarism of its emulation of foreign organiza-

Theory, Specificity, Change

217

tional forms and for the speed and scope of its borrowing." It thus stands close to one end of a continuum of emulation. In noting the increasingly widespread nature of societal organization building and of what nowadays is often referred to as restructuring, Westney makes a particularly important point, upon which it may be best to quote her at length. Speaking of the 1870s, and 1880s, she (Westney, 1987: 11-12) maintains that: We must not understate the very significant variation among Western societies in the speed and sequence of the organizational revolution, or the differences in structure and behavior that resulted in part from that variation and in part from the different social bases on which the new social structures were built. At the same time, however, it is essential to emphasize the fundamental similarity of the transformation ... Contemporary observers of the essential similarity of these changes took it as evidence of the unidirectionality of historical evolution.

In fact, the sense at the end of the nineteenth century that Westney speculates about was an early version of the convergence theory that was to emerge fully among social scientists in the early 1960s. In any case, she argues that it was the basically common background of Western societies and the cross-societal emulation among these already closely linked societies that gave rise to the appearance of similarity. Yet "emulation was considerable, spurred by competition among the nation-states (especially in the military arena) and justified by ideologies that emphasized the unidirectionality and 'progress' of historical evolution" (Westney, 1987: 12). One might add that, about one hundred years later, there are now a growing number of supranational, intergovernmental and international non-governmental organizations - not to speak of specialists in comparative analysis - which (or who) encourage, or at least, facilitate cross-societal emulation. While Westney's approach is valuable and she is persuasive about the significance of what she calls cross-societal emulation, her perspective is limited by her specific concern with organizational and institutional transfer (Westney, 1987:24-32). Cohen (1987) has used the term "selective receptiveness" to refer to the ways in which societies seek to maintain balances between internal and external cultural patterns. His perspective is thus broader than that of Westney. My own preference is for the term "selective incorporation." In any case, the main point is that emulation and/or incorporation have been central ingredients in the formation and transformation of societies all over the world, and that they have been particularly evident since the formation of nation-states, on the one hand, and extensive globalization on the other (Robertson, 1992). In fact, it is becoming increasingly recognized that most nationalisms were formed on an international basis (cf. Greenfeld, 1992) - more specifically, that the promulgation of national identities involved quite a lot of cross-societal emulation with respect not merely to the form of national identities, but also to their content. (See also Alter, 1989: 28-34.)

218

Roland Robertson

Modernization theory as such was developed in the West under basically Cold War conditions. We can in fact now see, even if it was not so widely seen in the 1950s and 1960s, that modernization theory was in a number of respects a partisan product or aspect of the bipolar, Cold War circumstance. (In this sense many of the proponents of modernization theory were, to varying degrees, involved in a counter-communist project of globalization.) It may well be that the neglect of international and inter-societal issues can partly be explained by this. In any case, 'classical' modernization theory paid relatively little attention to inter-societal relations and the dynamics of comparison between societies. It certainly did not focus directly upon the international aspects of nationalism and national identity. There were, on the other hand, those who tried to rectify such inattention (Nettl and Robertson, 1968). Had such factors been widely theorized we might not now be in the confusing analytical situation that we are. The issue of emulation and incorporation is a central ingredient of what I have called the dynamics of comparison between societies. Only now are we coming to realize the full extent of cross-societal communication and the significance of crossregional, cross-societal and cross-communal 'borrowing'. Defeating what I would call the myth of cultural autonomy is thus a major task for contemporary sociologists, anthropologists, and other practitioners.

3 Other Conceptual and Analytical Problems A major problem of sociological theory is not that it has been too general or 'foundational' (which has been a leading complaint in recent years), but rather that it has tended to generalize about the wrong things. Much of this deficiency with respect to the objects (and subjects) of generalization lies, as far as contemporary issues are concerned, in the area of nationalism and ethnicity. General theorization of nationalism and ethnicity is in fact only in its infancy. The 'particularisms' of nationality and ethnicity have largely been seen throughout the history of sociological theory as accidental and/or regressive - or in the currently fashionable phrase, contingent ('unexplainable') features of human life. This is largely because sociology - and social science in general - has, as part of the general narrative of 'the Enlightenment project,' been practised on the assumption that contingency is not a matter that can be directly catered for in strictly theoretical terms. As a consequence of this general perspective, most of 'official' theoretical work has been conducted with respect to very general sociocultural trends and tendencies. The trends and tendencies that have constituted the central ingredients of sociological - more generally, social - theory have actually been advanced and

Theory, Specificity, Change

219

formulated on the (usually implicit) assumption that a theorist can detect and discern certain general features of life inside a few West European and/or North American societies and then posit them as features of sociocultural life in to to. This is, in fact, the presupposition on which the principle of 'grand narrativity' has rested. I believe this is a significant point, particularly since cultural theorists (not simply postmodernists) have, for the most part, been uninterested in comprehending how so-called grand narratives arose in the first place; except for amorphous and simple-minded invocation of the idea of 'Western hegemony'. Nor have they been directly interested in the concrete relationships between different grand narratives. The theorization of the issue of inter-societal, comparative dynamics is one aspect of this problem. It should be stressed, however, that in the present context I take the existence of national societies as a given. I do not, in other words, problematize societies, more particularly the homogenous form of society that we associate with the rise of the nation-state in the mid-eighteenth century (McNeill, 1986). In the modern period it has been elites within nation-states who have been particularly concerned with cross-societal emulation and selective incorporation and who have indeed made such activity a crucial aspect of nation-state formation and/or transformation. On the other hand, we are at this time becoming increasingly aware of the general significance of cultural flows across geographical space and are much less inclined to subscribe to the old view of autonomous and sequestered sociocultural communities (Tsing, 1993). Thus a limitation of conventional theory has been that it has taken for granted the existence of national societies, rather than taking the formation of nations and states - nation-states - as a general sociological problem. To be sure, both the study of the state and, more or less independently, the nation have received much attention in recent years. But those foci have not as yet been thoroughly co-ordinated and incorporated into general theory. One of the barriers to such incorporation has been the failure to acknowledge that both the state and the nation have developed in terms of discourses; although I should make it clear that I am not here subscribing to any specific, certainly not a strong, form of discourse analysis. In relatively recent times we can readily see that the ideas of state and nation have been globally cultural. That nation-states should have unique identities has been an increasingly global, 'universal' expectation - a global rule. This stance contrasts greatly with the popular wisdom that nationalism in the assertive sense is essentially counter-global, that it is a form of resistance or opposition to a globalization process conceived of as a process of homogenization - or, 'worse', Westernization. While it has become increasingly clear - notwithstanding the latter view - that nationalism (more elementally the idea of the nation) is rooted in global ideas about all human beings living inside national 'containers,' the global bases of state formation are somewhat less clear. Jessop (1990:349) has cogently argued that "whatever the precise origins of the differ-

220

Roland Robertson

ent components of the modern state... their organization as a relatively coherent institutional ensemble is crucially dependent on the emergence of the concept of the sovereign state". I cannot, however, pursue this topic in the present context. Suffice it to say that the idea that the state - more generally the nation-state - has been entirely 'self-generated' and is solely indigenous will not hold up (Hall and Ikenberry, 1989: 16-21), in the face of mounting evidence and argument which suggest that 'state' and 'nation' (as well as 'society') have, in large part, been internationally and globally constructed and that it is at the very least misleading to see them as autochthonous products. To put it very simply: Since at least the late-eighteenth century, nation-states have been largely formed and/or revamped in terms of increasingly global ideas concerning self-determination, on the one hand, and the 'shape' of states on the other. In using the objective 'global' I am pointing not merely to the widespread nature of these ideas or images. I am going much further than this in indicating that such ideas have acquired the status and force of a global political culture or, more accurately, the components of a global culture (Meyer, 1980). This global political culture is thus an aspect of the global field per se, not simply an extensive phenomenon of the late twentieth-century world (Robertson, 1992). This perspective raises questions concerning similarity and difference across the global field (Robertson, 1994), upon which I have already lightly touched. The general issue as to whether the 'units' of the world as a whole are becoming more or less similar is a matter that I cannot discuss at length here. Suffice it to say that the most striking thing about contemporary modes of difference - such as tradition, culture, heritage, and identity - is their globality. As Handler (1994: 37-8) has put it, in his discussion of the usefulness of the concept of identity, the "discourse on identity, though global is recent". Handler (1994:38) is also, I think, correct in his observation that "political and cultural leaders everywhere have learned to phrase claims for international recognition in languages of identity: that is a language the empowered understand". What has been called "strategic essentialism" captures this point well, calling attention to the ways in which claims as to the naturalness of identity declarations may well be calculated attempts to gain recognition from the powerful. The irony here, of course, is that - although by now global in their reach - contemporary ideas about uniqueness did in certain fundamental ways originate in the West and to that extent can be seen as manifestations of what some have called "cultural imperialism". In other words, the very terms in which contemporary "minority', 'ethnic', and 'national' groups (more accurately their actual or would-be leaders) seek recognition, resources and rights are, in large part, Western in origin. Moreover, it is becoming clear that many of our conceptions of national uniqueness have also rested on assumptions which have in fact been largely produced by political and intellectual elites in numerous modern nations, in the same general spirit as that which

Theory, Specificity, Change

221

has resulted in nihonjinron in Japan (Yoshino, 1992). (Broadly speaking, nihonjinron is the discourse on Japanese uniqueness.) Such considerations make the entire issue of heterogeneity-versus-homogeneity complex. New ways of thinking are clearly called for in this phase of world history. I have explored some of these problems elsewhere, partly in terms of the idea of 'glocalization'. This term captures the increasing tendency for universalism and particularism to go hand in hand - for universal ideas to be diffused in terms of normative expectations of uniqueness and/or for universal ideas to be cast in specific reference to constructions of 'local' differences (Robertson, 1994). There have been two major general changes in the character of social-science theory since the flowering of the debate about convergence and modernization in the 1960s. On the one hand, there has steadily developed a number of attempts to theorize the world as a whole; on the other, there has arisen a general 'anti-totalizing' thrust, primary elements of which are captured in (by now) conventional conceptions of postmodernity. Both of them have gained ground partly via an increase in 'interdisciplinarity' and in the development of the 'metadiscipline' of cultural studies. For some time the two tendencies made relatively little contact with each other. In recent years, however, a number of people have posed the problem of the compatibility of these 'totalizing' and 'anti-totalizing' thrusts. Within the focus on the world as a whole, the main problem with which I am concerned is the relationship between homogenizing and heterogenizing tendencies across the contemporary world - more generally, the interplay of universality and particularity, or universalism and particularism. With respect to the 'postmodern' camp, the major theme that I want to emphasize is the apparent contradiction between claims as to the privileged status of the local and the communal, on the one hand, and the generalizing 'foundational' argument that the world has indeed become 'localized' on the other. Ultimately, one has to decide whether one is going to approach the idea of postmodernity from a global perspective, or whether, on the other hand, one is going to tackle 'the problem of globality' from a postmodern position. This is not a matter of 'pure reason' - it involves much empirical consideration. I will, in any case, adopt the first tack. Adherents to one or another form of the postmodern position have rarely made claims that they can account for the global perspective, but there are, in contrast, some explanatory accounts of the postmodern stance. A few of these are global. This does not constitute a validation of the global perspective per se, but it is something which has to be kept in mind. It seems to me that at the core of many interesting empirical problems and a lot of the problems of choosing between two or more paradigms there lies, in the late twentieth century, one relatively specific problem which I have called the universalism-particularism issue (Robertson, 1992). The salience of this issue

222

Roland Robertson

has been greatly enhanced by a number of recent historical and empirical events and circumstances. Among these are, indeed, the apparent collapse of communism across much of the globe and the evident assertion, or reassertion, of a wide range of nationalisms and ethnicities, including a remarkable proliferation of demands on the part of 'native' or 'indigenous' peoples, of which the Earth Summit in Brazil (1992) and the 'unofficial' events surrounding it constitute a striking example. Indeed, the events in Brazil amply demonstrate the need for a sociology of the world (in its societal, self-identity, world-politics, and communal-species aspects (Robertson, 1992). The UN gathering on human rights in Vienna (1993) raises similar analytical problems. To this should be added a considerable proliferation of other forms of'identity presentation'. At the same time, in a number of the societies where there is not currently a strong particularistic, homogenizing thrust (of which 'ethnic cleansing' is the extreme type case) we find considerable interest in the issue of multiculturality. Much of this tendency and other such tendencies have been matched and often encouraged by the development of a wide range of politico-intellectual concerns with broadening the 'representational space' within which an increasing variety of new 'voices' can be heard. It is worth noting at this point that there may be a closer link between a certain kind of 'worldist' perspective and a particularist or relativistic one than meets the eye. For, to some extent, one can make sense of many particularistic developments in terms of Wallerstein's notion of anti-systemic movements (Wallerstein, 1991a; 1991b). The idea of anti-systemic movements has become central to Wallerstein's own version of the world-systems perspective which he has been so influential in developing. Arguing now that culture is 'the battleground' of the contemporary capitalist world-system, Wallerstein (1991b: 15883) maintains that this system has been sustained by what he calls (Western) metaphysical presuppositions. Anti-systemic movements that ostensibly challenge these presuppositions often have the largely unintended consequence of consolidating the world-system. In fact, Wallerstein subscribes to a perspective on global order that involves the argument that it is through disequilibrating rather than equilibrating tendencies that order is promoted and sustained. Leaving on one side that issue, it should be noted that even though Wallerstein himself has not apparently encouraged it - nor certainly have even more economistic forms of world-systems theory - the current proliferation of anti-systemic developments is remarkably compatible with the core features of Wallersteinian world-systems theory. In other words, much of the vast body of work which is currently concerned to open up and expand the space for 'minority' discourse is, somewhat ironically, directly or indirectly attuned to world-systems theory. Thus much of anti-totalizing discourse actually rests in the last analysis upon totalizing foundations.

Theory, Specificity, Change

223

4 Modernization and Convergence The original, explicit debate about convergence occurred mainly in the USA in the period of relative optimism following the decline of Stalinism, on the one hand, and the end of McCarthyism on the other. Convergence theory peaked not long after the announcement of the Krushchev 'thaw' and like many trends in social theory was closely related to world-political and global trends, to which social - or more specifically, sociological - theory has, nonetheless, paid but scant explicit attention. (Indeed, in my view sociological theory's neglect of 'world politics' - but, more specifically, international relations - has been a major flaw.) Convergence theory was situated, almost inevitably, in Cold War discourse; even though it was normally expressed in 'detached' social-scientific terms and rhetoric and was directed in part at the growing international presence - in a sense, the construction - of the Third World. I must, however, emphasize that convergence theory has had a particular genealogy. As far as its mainly 'Western' lineage is concerned, the following considerations are of particular note. First, convergence theory has its roots in Enlightenment ideas concerning the 'triumph of reason.' Second, during the period of Saint Simon, Comte, Marx and British political economy the hope was that a homogenized and unified humanity would be reached via contemporary empirical trends, of which the most striking was 'industrialism.' Third, during the classical period, the period of the early institutionalization of academic sociology, Max Weber announced his theory of "the iron cage", a theory which appears to have envisioned a total world of bureaucratic and economic rationality. As I noted at the beginning of this chapter, this was also a period of sharpening cross-societal emulation. The iron-cage metaphor went hand in hand with the growing sense of the similarity of (Western) societal transformations. This was what I have called the take-off period of modern globalization (Robertson, 1992: 59). Fourth, and this is something that was certainly not anticipated by classical social theorists, the 'empire' began to 'strike back'. By this I mean that in the very same period that some of the 'classical sociologists' were declaring the triumph of Western 'universalism', political leaders and intellectuals in Asia particularly East Asia - were beginning to puzzle about the relationship between allegedly homogenizing, universalizing trends and their own particular 'traditions'. At the same time, or soon thereafter, people such as Spengler, and then Heidegger, were making their attempts to 'shore up' the West in reaction to this new-found reflexiveness on the part of the East. Fifth, at the conclusion of World War I there was a very strong - and highly consequential - particularizing thrust in evidence at the Paris conference. This was expressed most clearly in the Wilsonian policy of self-determination - particularly for a number of European

224

Roland Robertson

'nations'. This phase in the full crystallization of the idea of self-determination occurred in tandem with classical sociology's strong societal emphasis. Together they have constituted a continuous presupposition of much of twentieth-century social science. Sixth, after the eventual defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, convergence theory proper - of which modernization theory was partly a derivative (Moore, 1979) - began to develop. Both German and Japanese conceptions of the world as a whole had involved rival views as to how the world might be organized along distinctly particularistic universal lines. They were, in large part, responses to the Communist International project of globalization. Moreover, it should be observed that the tradition of applied macrosociology that was established, particularly in the USA, during World War II in order to deal with the envisaged problem of democratizing the most militantly anti-democratic societies was an immediate forerunner of both modernization and convergence theory proper. This tradition of applied macrosociology was undoubtedly given a sharp boost by the occupations of Germany and Japan. Seventh, with the crystallization of the Cold War in the late 1940s there began to emerge two versions of convergence theory, in the broadest sense: Western modernization theory and communist internationalism (Albrow, 1990; cf. Robertson, 1993). This development was increasingly intertwined with the extension of the principle of national self-determination and independence to what became known as the Third World (which category in turn came to include Latin American nations that had achieved formal independence largely during the first half of the nineteenth century). It was, of course, a central feature of full-fledged convergence theory that the trajectory of modernization involved a shift from particularism to universalism. Only a few prominent writers of the late 1950s and the 1960s fully acknowledged the importance of the particularistic aspects of (national) identity. Even fewer acknowledged the fact that the very idea of particularity was built into the culture of the international system. In other words, there was very little recognition of the fact that expectations concerning full national admission to what some have called "international society" (Bull and Watson, 1984) included the expectation of viable national identities. This problematic lies at the heart of the current and growing debate about globalization.

5 Globalization, Not Convergence There is, as I have said, a very unfortunate tendency to regard the globalization process as being centred upon processes of homogenization and the spread from some points of view, the imposition - of Western universalistic standards

Theory, Specificity, Change

225

across the entire world. Hence the current popularity of the term, 'cultural imperialism'. In contrast, it ought to be clear that the space-time, global compression of relatively recent history has involved both universalizing and particularizing trends; and that the latter constitute an aspect of globalization which is as crucial to it as is the more frequently addressed theme of universalization (which, as I have intimated, is from certain points of view a form of Western or Northern homogenization). In any case, if one defines or characterizes globalization as a homogenizing trend then every form of particularization will be seen as falling into categories such as 'anti-global' or the assertion of the local against the global. What we need, on the other hand, is a much more comprehensive and a more flexible account of the making of the contemporary world as a whole, one which acknowledges the complex interplay between localities and their global construction. As I have indicated, I have recently been attempting to deal with this in terms of the concept of' glocalization' (Robertson, 1992:173-4; Robertson, 1994). One of the biggest analytical problems in this respect inheres in the tendency to think of such themes as globality-and-locality along lines deriving from conventional sociological polarities like large versus small and macro versus micro. I think that this is misleading (and that serious discussion of this problem may well lead to a thorough rethinking of such polarities in general terms). The very category of'locality' is clearly a globally diffused category, just as is the notion of 'home'. In the same way that Dürkheim talked of the cult of the individual sustaining individualism, we should now think of localism and particularism as 'global facts'. To put it sharply, assertions of indigeneity - demands for indigenization - are for the most part demands for 'particularistic' inclusion. For all of the talk about difference, incommensurability and anti-totalism we should not take things at their face value in this respect. The old debate about modernization and/or convergence was largely one concerning 'objective' trends with respect to nationally framed societies. In spite of certain efforts in the late 1960s to make the entire issue of divergence versus convergence one of comparative interaction - in brief, to employ symbolicinteractionist perspectives in the study of relations among societies - the old debate more or less died before such an approach could become central. The major precipitant of the demise of both modernization and convergence theory was the rise in the early 1970s of world-systems theory. World systems-theory displaced the major unit of analysis - substituting the world in its primarily economic aspects for societies. In contrast, globalization theory does three things which world-systems theory has failed to do. First, it renders the world, what I call the global field, as a place of comparative interaction - with societies being major, but by no means the only, agents of such interaction and comparison. Second, it elevates cultural considerations to a primary place. Third, the con-

226

Roland Robertson

ception of globality in fact involves thinking about the world as a whole, in which other agents are as much part of the global field as societies. I have suggested on several occasions (Robertson, 1992: 25-31 and 198-200) that there have been four major and increasingly concrete, but nonetheless contested, components of the overall process of relatively recent globalization: national societies; individual selves; the international system of societies; and humankind. Empirically speaking, the world as a whole can be seen from any one or a combination of these perspectives. But analytically the major task is to think about the world multidimensionally. Insofar as the overall process of globalization empirically relativizes each of these perspectives then clearly the ground has been established for the proliferation of 'postmodern' stances. There is much more to this model than can be discussed here. Perhaps the most important theme of globalization theory that is relevant to the present discussion is that it emphasizes both the contested nature of universalism and the pan-locality of particularism. As far as the contested nature of universalism is concerned, Bourricaud (1987) has put the issue well in stating that it is the problem of 'universal reference' that is crucial in today's world of 'multiple interlocutors'. Particularism cannot be legitimated except in universalistic terms, but those terms are constantly subject to dispute and the exercise of power. To put it in a very different way, it is the particular which makes the universal work. At the same time, the promotion of particularity is increasingly organized on a global basis - hence, for example, the global and international organizations whose purpose it is to call attention to and advance the rights of native or indigenous peoples. It is thus the empirical connections between universalism and particularism that is a significant hallmark of the contemporary period. So the debate about globalization may be thought of as an upgrading of the old problem of convergence versus divergence. For the most part, that older debate was concerned with the 'objective' problem as to whether societies, regarded as relatively windowless monads, were becoming more or less similar. In contrast, the thematization of globalization places interactions and comparisons at the heart of the discussion; and does not find a polarity in the universalparticular relationship.

6 Comparative Dynamics and Modernization In my first attempts to deal with these kinds of issue (Nettl and Robertson, 1968), Nettl and I saw the cases of the Russia of Peter the Great's time and Meiji Japan as the primary historical examples of deliberate, explicit and systematic emulation and selective incorporation of institutional practices and ideas from other

Theory, Specificity, Change

227

societies. The suggestion was that those two cases could be construed as prototypes of a twentieth century circumstance in which most national societies are involved in emulative activity. That notion includes, of course, selective, differential rejection of other societies' attributes and imputed aspirations. Now, however, I would argue more ambitiously that, to different degrees, all societies have tended not merely to respond selectively (Cohen, 1987) to significantother societies, but also to produce and reproduce their own national identities in such terms. Indeed, emulation and incorporation have been central to processes of nation-state formation. In other words, I argue that Peter the Great's Russia and Meiji Japan are simply well known examples of a much more widespread tendency. Emulation and selective incorporation are normal, not exceptional. Indeed, they are conditions of national-societal vitality, even of survival. 'Comparative dynamics' is, then, shorthand for the process whereby societal elites - or would-be elites - become involved systematically in comparisons with other societies. It is along such lines that we can begin to see the actual processes which give rise to some societies, rather than others, becoming lead societies or models for change in particular periods; although, needless to say, some societies are heavily constrained to adopt a particular focus, rather than alternative ones. Thus the societies that were contained within the old Soviet orbit were greatly limited in their effective comparisons and selective incorporations by Soviet - more particularly, Russian - domination. These issues of what I have called comparative dynamics were largely ignored by the modernization and convergence theorists of the 1950s and 1960s. One might add that the current interest - largely following Castoriadis (1987) in the 'social imaginary' has considerable relevance to this theme. The social imaginary does not, in terms of the ideas presented here, constitute a kind of free-floating image (imagination) of an ideal or preferred societal condition. As Arnason (1989) has argued, the 'central significations'of the social imaginary do, contrary to Castoriadis, have definite reference to the actual world with which a society is confronted. Thus although there is inevitably considerable interest in the practical problems of which kind of societal trajectory the largely post-communist societies of Eastern and Central Europe should follow, we need to know, more fundamentally, a great deal more about the - inevitably complex - ways in which actual comparisons with what Bendix called "reference societies" are made. Such knowledge will clearly include competition and conflict within societies as to which societies - if any - should be, to different degrees, emulated; the institutional location of influential actors; the role of intellectuals; and so on. It is along such lines that we may "bring modernization back in" to social science (Robertson, 1987). Clearly, this new type of modernization theory will also have to take careful account of the production and reproduction of negative images of other

228

Roland Robertson

societies (see e.g. Mathy, 1993), as well as the operation and construction of collective memories (Gillis, 1994). Let me return briefly to the issue of the situation in Eastern Europe. Ash (1993: 9-11) has compared East and West European nation-states in the pre1989 period. Whereas at Stalin's death, East European states were more like each other and more formally integrated with each other than West European states, by the late 1980s this situation had been reversed. By that time "East European states...had diverged not only from the Soviet model but also from each other" (Ash, 1993: 9). (The situation in Western Europe has, of course, changed since then.) Ash's perspective leads us to the whole question of the emulative practices at work in Eastern and Central Europe in a longer historical perspective, including the complex matter of the terms in which national aspirations were formulated prior to communism. Early in this paper I talked about Japan's emulative capacity during the Meiji period. The great difference between Japan and Eastern Europe is that over the centuries Japan has been able to exercise much control over its relationship with 'the outside world', because of geographical and other factors. The states and nations of the East European area have had no such luxury. Eastern Europe (in the broadest sense) has been for many centuries an area in which distinctions between inside and outside have been fluid and unstable. What lies inside and outside Eastern Europe has really never been clear and its categorical status has been and still is a matter of dispute. At the same time the 'societal units' within this ill-defined region have themselves had considerable difficulty in defining themselves on an inside/outside basis. Indeed this has historically been a major basis of political and military conflict. Moreover, the expression of national autonomy has itself frequently been done in terms of externally generated ideas, at the centre of which have been, in the modern era, Enlightenment notions concerning nationhood and national identity. Thus although the theme of Eastern European regions being "safeguarded against Western ideas" but not against Western technology in the mid-nineteenth century (Okey, 1982: 64) captures an important trend, one also has to note that conceptions of nationhood largely defined 'the safeguarders'. In this sense, modernization has as much to do with the terms in which aspirations to nationhood and of national identity are formulated in emulative terms, as it does with the aspirations of nation states as such. To put it more sharply, emulation is in part made possible by the incorporation of ideas about how to have a basis for emulation. In turn, emulation and selective incorporation may become part of nation-state building (Alter, 1989: 34-7). Speaking mainly of Eastern Europe in the early nineteenth century, Okey (1982: 33-4) has written: The Habsburgs spoke Viennese dialect and corresponded in French; numerous Ottoman sultans were descended from Christian slaves; Islamicized Bosnian begs celebrated the Christian festivals

Theory, Specificity, Change

229

of their forefathers; Hungarian professors wrote Patriotic Latin histories and spoke Slovak at home; the elegant polonaise was in origin a peasant dance; while folk poetry often described, in garbled form, episodes in the lives of the mighty some centuries before.

If it was in this kind of context that Eastern Europe experienced the differential impact of the primarily West European Enlightenment (Okey, 1982: 35-58; cf. Robertson and Roudometof, 1995) - an imperial, rather than a national-societal one. In a very diffuse sense, the idea of modernization may be applied to this circumstance, notably with respect to so-called enlightened despotism. But, in any case - as Okey (1982: 36) notes - "the age of Enlightenment was a time of increasing competitiveness between states. Faced with the threat of a rising Prussia and Russia, which were ruled by energetic Westernizers with philosophic pretensions, little wonder that the states of [Eastern Europe] turned to the new creed for salvation". Thus the states of East Central Europe are very experienced in the 'selection dilemmas,' of modernization in spite of the forty years or so in which their emulative capacity was constrained and distorted by Soviet and other forms of communism. In fact, the latter formed the grounds upon which a number of East Central states became "used to comparing themselves to the West and are now involved in the project of imitating Western political and economic institutions..." (Offe, 1993: 657-8). As Offe notes, this project is bound up problematically with a relatively low threshold of tolerance with insecurity and poverty.

7 Conclusion I have attempted here to underline the significance of selective emulation and incorporation in the history of human societies and to indicate how systematic and problematic such projects have become during the twentieth century. Comparative analysis has long been a vital ingredient of some social sciences, but we are only now coming to realize that comparison has been central to nationstate formation and transformation; and that such comparison is a proper - indeed a necessary - field of study for the social scientist. Comparison has often proceeded without the assistance or intervention of the comparative specialist, but increasingly the work of academic and professional comparativists has affected and become part of the political and administrative activities of the modern state. It has become a major ingredient of the basically reflexive nature of modernization (cf. Beck, 1992). For the late-twentieth-century social scientist a major task is to comprehend as systematically as possible the ways in which comparison has been a normal - indeed, a necessary - aspect of nation-state formation and transformation. Social scientists are often these days called upon

230

Roland Robertson

to play roles in projects of selective emulation and incorporation (and thus of avoidance and rejection). In any case their comparative work frequently enters into the emulative and incorporative projects of the nation-state. In this sense, comparison is inevitably political, indeed ideological. Full recognition of this surely leads us to appreciate that the comparative study of nation-state centred comparison has by now become an essential activity, an activity which is crucial to our comprehension of globalization and modernization.

References Albrow, Μ. (1990): "Globalization, Knowledge and Society", in M. Albrow and E. King (eds), Globalization, Knowledge and Society. London: Sage. Alter, P. (1989): Nationalism. London: Edward Arnold. Arnason, J. P. (1988): "Culture and Imaginary Significations," Thesis Eleven, 20. Ash, T. G. (1993): In Europe's Name: Germany and the Divided Continent, New York: Random House. Beck, U. (1992): Risk Society. London: Sage Publications. Bourricaud, F. (1987): "Modernity, 'Universal Reference' and the Process of Modernization," in S. N. Eisenstadt (ed.), Patterns of Modernity, Volume I: The West. New York: New York University Press. Bull, H. and Watson, A. (eds) (1984): The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Castoriadis, C. (1987): The Imaginary Constitution of Society. Cambridge, U K: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, E. (1987): "Thailand, Burma and Laos - An Outline of the Comparative Social Dynamics of Three Theravada Buddhist Societies in the Modem Era," in S. N. Eisenstadt (ed.) Patterns of Modernity, Volume II: Beyond the West. New York: New York University Press. Gillis, J. R. (1994): "Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship," in J. R. Gillis (ed.) Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Greenfeld, L. (1992): Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hall, J. A. and Ikenberry, G. J. (1989): The State. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Handler, R. (1994): "Is 'Identity' a Useful Cross-Cultural Concept?" in J. R. Gillis (ed.) Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jessop, B. (1990): State Theory: Putting Capitalist States in Their Place. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Mathy, J-P. (1993): Extreme-Occident: French Intellectuals and America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. McNeill, W. H. (1986): Polyethnicity and National Unity in World History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Meyer, J. W. (1980): The World Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State", in A. Bergesen (ed.), Studies of the Modern World System. New York: Academic Press. Moore, W. E. (1979): World Modernization: The Limits of Convergence. New York: Elsevier. Nairn, T. (1993): "Internationalism and the Second Coming", Daedalus, 122 (3), Summer. Nettl, J. P. and Robertson, R. (1968) International Systems and the Modernization of Societies: The Formation of National Goals and Attitudes. New York: Basic Books. Offe, C. (1963): "The Politics of Social Policy in East European Transitions", Social Research, 60 (4). Okey, R. (1986): Eastern Europe 1740-1985: Feudalism to Communism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (second edition). Robertson, R. (1987): "Bringing Modernization Back In", Contemporary Sociology, 17 (6).

Theory, Specificity, Change

231

Robertson, R. (1992): Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage Publications. Robertson, R. (1993): "Globalization and Sociological Theory", in Herminio Martins (ed.) Knowledge and Passion: Essays in Honour of John Rex. London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. Robertson, R. (1994) "Globalization or G localization?" Journal of International Communication, 1 (1). Robertson, R. and Roudometof, V. (1995): "Nationalism and Globalization in Southeastern Europe", Soziale Welt. Suny, R. N. (1964): The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tsing, A. L. (1993): In the Realm of the Diamond Queen. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wallerstein, I. (1991a): Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms. Oxford: Polity Press. Wallerstein, I. (1991b): Geopolitics and Geocultures: Essays on the Changing World-System. Cambridge, U K: Cambridge University Press. Westney, D. E. (1987): Imitation and Innovation: The Transfer of Western Organizational Patterns to Meiji Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Yoshino, K. (1992) Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry. London: Routledge. Zaslavsky, V. (1992): "Nationalism and Democratic Transition in Postcommunist Societies", Daedalus, 121 (2), Spring.

Part Three Social Change and Modernisation: Lessons for and from Eastern Europe

Cultural and Civilizational Change: The Core of Post-communist Transition Piotr Sztompka

1 In Search of Theoretical Resources It is quite common to claim that the post-communist transition in Eastern-Central Europe is an entirely unique process, without any precedent in history. This is an understandable reaction to the prevailing feeling of surprise experienced by common people and social scientists alike. We never predicted the revolutions of 1989 in the first place, and then we were surprised again to see the blockages, frustrations, "frictions" (Etzioni 1991, Sztompka 1992) that emerged in the post-revolutionary transformations. Recently, we have despaired at reawakened nationalism, ethnic strife, religious fundamentalism, skyrocketing crime, and the most vicious conflicts and cleavages that are now breaking apart what was supposed to become a unified, free, peaceful and democratic Europe. If all these processes were truly unique, we would at least be excused our ignorance, because no received theory could ex definitione be of any use in understanding and interpreting them. We could safely forget all earlier sociological wisdom and grope in the dark, hoping that some new theory would be invented to deal with radically new historical events. The trouble is that theoryconstruction is an arduous and prolonged endeavour, with no certain outcome, whereas some intellectual orientation in the chaos of changes is an urgent and pressing need. Fortunately, the assumption of uniqueness is wrong. No historical process is ever entirely and absolutely unique. It may be an overstatement to say that history literally 'repeats itself, but there is certainly something that does repeat itself in history. Uniqueness is always relative to some aspects, dimensions, or traits of phenomena. There are enough non-unique aspects of post-communist transition to make existing sociological theories applicable. Before new, original theories are formulated and tested, those we have available may throw a great deal of light on current processes. We are not entirely helpless, because for a century and a half sociology has produced a number of theories which are at least partly relevant to contemporary events.

236

Piotr Sztompka

The question is, which theories? And the answer depends on what we want to explain or interpret. Under the general label of transition, it is useful to distinguish three phases. The first, historically located in the 1980s, may be called the heroic and romantic phase. This was the period of growing contestation, emerging democratic opposition, new forms of social self-organization, and the slow decay of the economic and political foundations of real socialism. Several theories proved their explanatory power in handling these phenomena. Sociological accounts of the period have successfully invoked theories of collective behaviour and social movements (Sztompka 1982, Sztompka 1988), of legitimization and deligitimization of power (Rychard and Sulek 1988), of system equilibrium and disequilibrium (Staniszkis 1989), or of re-emerging civil society (Nowak 1980, Koralewicz and Ziolkowski, 1990). The second phase, dating to around 1989, may be called the euphoric revolutionary period, and we have rich and varied theories of revolution with which to interpret it (theories of relative deprivation and theories of dual sovereignty, for example, have clearly proved themselves relevant). The theories of charisma and charismatic authority have also made valid contributions. Finally, the theory of anomie has been profitably used to explain the post-revolutionary normative vacuum. But there is a third phase, the one now in progress and which produces the strongest sensation of helplessness and of the inadequacy of standard theoretical tools. This we may call the pragmatic period of systemic transformations which began in 1989 and is still far from completion. The 'syndrome of surprise' is particularly acute in this phase: the clock of reforms runs so much slower than anybody expected; the process encounters many obstacles; it produces such strong backlashes, boomerang effects, unintended consequences; what was believed to be irreversible, shows so many disturbing signs of reversals (e.g. the renewed political strength of former communists, the growing imperial ambitions of Russia, its xenophobic and populist isolationism vis-ä-vis European Union, autocratic temptations of local rulers). I wish to focus on this recent period and to suggest a theoretical approach which might be a good source of enlightment. As this is clearly a case of an epoch-making, historical change of great magnitude and complexity, we would be well advised to refer to the theory of social change. And yet it is an illusion to believe that there is anything like a theory of social change as such, precisely because there is nothing like social change as such. What exists in history are multiple, varied processes embracing selected aspects or dimensions of social reality. All the classical authors who advanced their theories under the label of'social change' focused, in fact, on highly specific matters. Herbert Spencer concentrated on the structural and functional differentiation of the social organism; Karl Marx on alienation, pauperization and the polarization of classes; Lewis Morgan on technological innovations;

Cultural and Civilizational Change

237

Ferdinand Tönnies on the loss of community in the wake of urbanization, industrialization and massification; Emile Dürkheim on the division of labour and the growth of the 'moral density' of populations; Max Weber on the rationalization, secularization and 'disenchantment' of the world. All these approaches are valid insofar as they grasp fragments of the overall transformation from traditional, pre-industrial to modern industrial society (Sztompka 1993), and they may also prove relevant to the current case of transformation from the 'fake modernity' of real socialism to the 'authentic modernity' of the developed democratic West. Nevertheless, this 'menu' of theoretical dishes can be enriched with one more item worthy of consideration.

2 Cultural-civilizational Analysis There is one particular focus, one specific approach, which has been relatively neglected in analysis of post-communist transition but which, to my mind, seems remarkably promising: let me call it the cultural-civilizational approach, whose founding father was Alexis de Tocqueville. The lesson he teaches us is not to underestimate the 'soft' intangible factors of habits, mentalities, symbols, frameworks, rituals, routines. The focus of his study of successful American democracy is worth quoting at length, since α contrario it may suggest a great deal regarding the as yet unsuccessful democracies of post-communist Europe: "The manners of the people", Tocqueville writes, "may be considered as one of the great general causes to which the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States is attributable. I here use the word customs with the meaning which the ancients attached to the word mores; for I apply it not only to manners properly so called - that is to what might be termed the habits of the heart - but to the various notions and opinions current among men and to the mass of those ideas which constitute their character of mind. I comprise under this term, therefore, the whole moral and intellectual condition of the people''' (Tocqueville 1945, vol. I: 12). This is clearly a somewhat mixed bag of concepts: it includes what people do (their conduct), what they think (their mentality), and what they are expected to do and think (their culture and civilization). These three levels of human experience must be kept analytically separate. Those sociologists who heeded Tocqueville's advice largely adopted a psychological approach. They investigated individual attitudes, motivations, reasons, and at most aggregated them statistically. When applied to communist or post-communist society this approach resulted in accounts of "socialist mentality" (Koralewicz and Ziolkowski, 1990), of "social subconsciousness", (Marody 1987), of "captive mind" (Milosz 1953), of "Homo Sovieticus" (Tischner 1992).

238

Piotr Sztompka

I submit that the most fruitful approach is a cultural-civilizational one: the search for the underlying patterns of thinking and doing shared by the members of a society, and which are therefore external and constraining with respect to each of its individual members. What matters is not just what people do and think, but primarily what they are made to do and think by their cultural milieu. Thus, Tocqueville's message must be rescued from psychologism, and here another classical sociologist, and incidentally another Frenchman, may be of help: Emile Dürkheim. Following Durkheim's notion of "social facts sui generis", I shall consider cultural precepts as instructing societal members what ought to be done and believed in either because it is good, or because it is done and believed in by most people, or because it has always been done and accepted. In other words, culture invokes the authority of righteousness, normalcy, or tradition, and derives its legitimacy and sanctioning power from these sources. The hyphenated term 'cultural-civilizational' already implicitly divides this area of 'social facts' - or as Dürkheim would put it, "representations collectives" - into two levels: cultural and civilizational. By 'cultures' I mean socially ordered systems of meanings, symbols, rituals, codes, frames. They exist at the level of social subconsciousness; people are rarely aware of them; they are taken for granted; and yet they shape and regulate human conduct and thinking. By 'civilization' I mean a socially shared universe of objects, utensils, technologies, knowledge, beliefs, values, norms, institutions. They are consciously entertained by the actors (though with various degrees of articulation), accepted and adopted as instruments with which to achieve their goals or to satisfy their needs. Culture is most fundamental, deepest, invisible layer; civilization is the more superficial, perceivable, socially created environment in which people live. My choice of a cultural-civilizational perspective as particularly relevant to the study of post-communist societies is not a matter of theoretical taste, nor is it prompted by current fashion; it is entailed by diagnosis of the historical situation in which we live. Since this diagnosis is not widely shared by the proponents of "transitology" (van Zon 1993), let me state it in an emphatic form. I contend that what we are witnessing in the countries of Eastern-Central Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of communism is not merely the second birth of capitalist economy; nor is it merely the reconstruction of democratic polity; nor is it merely the restitution of some earlier social order - a 'return' to Europe, to the West, to 'normality', or whatever. Rather, it is the construction of a new social order out of a curious mixture of components of various historical origins. It involves the transformation of the most fundamental, deepest culturalcivilizational fabric. This major cultural and civilizational breakthrough is the core of post-communist transition.

Cultural and Civilizational Change

239

3 Three Heuristic Sources and their Tentative Applications It is for this reason that I recommend cultural-civilizational analysis in the Tocquevillian and Durkheimian spirit as a general theoretical framework for analysis of post-communist transition. However, this theoretical tradition has evolved into a number of distinct contemporary formulations. We are faced with a wave of new cultural theories. Lamont and Lareau are right: "Culture has recently become an 'in' topic in both American and European sociology" (Lamont and Lareau 1988: 153). Ulf Hannerz jokes that "culture is everywhere", and comments on the "success story of what has so long been a favorite concept of anthropologists" (Hannerz 1993:95). Alexander and Seidman observe the same trend: "In the past few years there has emerged a new and powerful interest in the study of culture, an interest that has produced important work throughout the humanities and social sciences" (Alexander and Seidman 1990: vii). How can we handle this richness and variety of contributions? For my present purposes, I propose to adopt a strategy of "disciplined eclecticism": "the controlled and systematic use of complementary ideas drawn from differing orientations" (Merton 1976: 169). This is also the option chosen by contemporary students of culture: "The full array of theoretical resources is necessary if a general and comprehensive social scientific understanding of culture is finally to emerge" (Alexander 1988: 10). And it also applies to understanding of the specific case of post-communist culture. There are at least three schools of thought which seem especially useful to the student of the cultural-civilizational fabric and its transformation in the postcommunist period: (a) the historical sociology of the "civilizing process" as propounded by Norbert Elias, (b) the theory of "habitus" by Pierre Bourdieu, (c) the analysis of the "discourse of civil society" by Jeffrey Alexander. Each of these approaches conveys an important message and has considerable heuristic potential. Norbert Elias and the 'civilizing process'. Norbert Elias makes a strong case for a historical perspective in sociology. The ontology itself of the social world demands it; for "social phenomena in reality can only be observed as evolving and having evolved" (Elias 1978:227). And this entails the futility of synchronic methods of research: "Since every historical phenomenon, human attitudes as much as social institutions, did actually once 'develop', how can modes of thought prove either simple or adequate in explaining these phenomena if, by a kind of artificial abstraction, they isolate the phenomena from their natural, historical flow, deprive them of their character as movement and process,, and try to understand them as static formations without regard to the way in which they have come into being and change?" (Elias 1978: xv).

240

Piotr Sztompka

With reference to civilizations, the principle of historism means that they are not given or ready-made, but rather evolve as the historical achievement of concrete societies. There is a continuous "civilizing process" as the ongoing "sociogenesis of our civilization" (Elias 1978: xiii). "Civilization describes a process or at least the result of a process. It refers to something which is constantly in motion, constantly moving forward" (Elias 1978: 5). The origins of the process are to be found in the shared life-experiences of the people; civilizations are "crystallizations of collective history". (Elias 1978: 7) So much for Elias. Now let us apply these insights to our problem. How and where culture does originate? Collective life has various ambits micro, mezzo and macro; it is conducted in families, groups, local communities, nations and global society. All those contexts or social settings have a culturegenerating potential. There exist quite idiosyncratic group cultures (e.g. professional soldiers), regional cultures (e.g. fishermen, mountaineers), distinct national cultures (Eskimo, Italian, German), cultures of empires (e.g. Roman, Aztec), an emerging global culture (most obviously in the area of consumer patterns or mass media). In twentieth-century Europe we encounter another peculiar culture-generating setting of vast breadth: the communist bloc (perhaps the closest historical analogy would be the culture of the empire). The imposition of similar institutional and organizational forms, similar life-ways, similar ideologies on a number of nation-states in Eastern and Central Europe, and their enforcement for several generations, enabled the communist system to create a common cultural framework over and above distinct national cultures and relatively insulated against wider global culture: the unique set of values, rules, norms, codes, standards that typify the bloc as a whole, namely the bloc culture. Even though there were obvious national variants in the manner in which these cultural precepts were implemented (the DDR was not the same as Hungary, Poland was not the same as Czechoslovakia, and so on), fundamental, underlying commonalities could be discerned. Life under communism produced a unique legacy, a peculiar cultural-civilizational syndrome. Unexpectedly and unintentionally, this legacy came to play a twofold historical role. First, it had a 'boomerang effect' on the project of 'real socialism' by blocking its operations, undermining its efficiency, viability and legitimacy from within, and eventually engendering its collapse. It was a kind of hidden timebomb placed under the communist project from its inception. And second, outlasting the conditions that bred it, and even enhanced to some extent by the immediate effects of prolonged oppositional struggle and revolutionary experience ("conspiracy syndrome" and "post-revolutionary malaise" (Sztompka 1991), it has persisted since the demise of communism and stands in the way of democratic reform. Strangely enough, it has proved to be a subversive force against both totalitarianism and democracy. Only a historical, diachronic perspective can reveal the origins of this peculiar cultural-civilizational pattern.

Cultural and Civilizational Change

241

Pierre Bourdieu and 'habitus'. The theoretical approach of Pierre Bourdieu aids understanding of the characteristic inertia of the cultural-civilizational heritage. Bourdieu's central idea is that of a 'habitus': the acquired mode of acting and thinking which is executed in semi-automatic, unconscious manner in everyday conduct. More precisely, habitus consists of "systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them". Such principles are "collectively orchestrated without being the product of the organizing action of a conductor" (Bourdieu 1990: 53). The origins of the habitus can only be explained historically: "The habitus, a product of history, produces individual and collective practices - more history in accordance with the schemes generated by history. It ensures the active presence of past experiences" (Bourdieu 1990: 54). Habitus is "embodied history, internalized as a second nature and so forgotten as history". It is "the active presence of the whole past of which it is a product" (Bourdieu 1990:56). When the present conditions change radically, habitus, instead of being instrumental and adaptive, may turn out to be highly dysfunctional and maladaptive. Bourdieu's discussion fits perfectly with the typical experience of post-communist societies: "The persistence of the effects of primary conditioning, in the form of the habitus, accounts equally well for cases in which dispositions function out of phase and practices are objectively ill-adapted to the present conditions because they are objectively adjusted to conditions that no longer obtain" (Bourdieu 1990: 62). What were the processes that instilled a specific habitus in the members of real-socialist societies? Three types of influence may be distinguished. First, and most obviously, there was the impress of socialist institutions, forms of organization, ideological structures. This was carried forward by prolonged habituation, indoctrination, "thought-control" (Arthur Koestler), the imposition of fake "super-reality" (Alain Besancon) on human minds - until it reached the domain of unreflexive psychological and cultural codes. Second, it was effected by the emerging adaptive reactions, or defence mechanisms, that people developed in order to cope with socialist conditions. Those adaptive arrangements and mechanisms paradoxically have outlived their time, become petrified in social structures, cultural patterns, popular consciousness, and they are still fully operative in the post-communist society. Third, rather ironically, anti-communist revolutionary upheavals - and their associated experiences of elation, enthusiasm, mobilization, high aspirations and hopes, spontaneous activism and participation - have left their own lasting imprint on post-revolutionary society. In some circumstances, a return to normality may breed disenchantment, firus-

242

Piotr Sztompka

tration, relative deprivation and similar moods which effectively block further reforms and endanger the fruits of the revolution. Once the institutional structures of 'real socialism' had been torn down, one might have expected the 'socialist habitus' to disappear as well. Unfortunately, this was not the case. As one knowledgeable researcher observes: "What is striking when we analyze the political attitudes in the 1990 is their surprising, truly structural similarity to the attitudes encountered and described in earlier periods" (Marody 1991: 166). Let me enumerate some spectacular symptoms of this surprising persistence. In spite of constant reminders that 'we are at last in our own home' people seem not to care, and they are rather reluctant to involve themselves in public action. This enduring passivism and political apathy is remarkable. The government is still perceived as the opponent of society, as 'them' against 'us'. The authorities are still treated with suspicion. People continue to play the game of 'beating the system', as if nothing has changed, as if the system were still alien, imposed, something to be rejected. "Parasitic innovativeness" (Marody 1991) flourishes in the new forms made possible by privatization, an emerging capitalist market, and the uncertainties of transitory laws. Large numbers of people become involved in all sorts of illicit trading, smuggling, tax and duty evasions. New, highly organized forms of such behaviour appear. If one observes the entrepreneurial activities now spreading, it is amazing how many of them are still based on distrust, uncertainty about the future and traditional 'grab-it-and-run' tactics. 'Disinterested envy' is still very much in evidence, and in fact has more opportunities for expression and more potential targets as the population of those who have 'made it' (those who have attained political office, quickly grown rich, opened a successful business, or attained public fame) grows with tremendous speed. Resentment against this group easily lapses into the old egalitarian rhetoric. As an acute observer of Eastern European scene correctly notes: "In most of these countries there is still widespread support for relatively egalitarian distribution of the wealth thus created and for a strong welfare state" (Ash 1990:21). Among the majority who 'have not made it', or even lost their earlier standard of living in the turmoil of revolutionary change (large segments of the working class, peasantry, not to mention the more than one million unemployed - a phenomenon non-existent during the socialist period), there is growing nostalgia for the former arrangements of the paternalistic state, and strong claimant demands. There is the view that the government is obliged to meet basic needs, to provide free medical services and free education, to supply jobs, pensions, social security, welfare benefits. There are probably not many who would wish to return to communism, but there are large masses who dream of some 'third way': humanitarian capitalism or, to paraphrase the old slogans about socialism, 'capitalism with a human face', or 'the Polish road to capitalism'. These are only some of the moods and sentiments that mysteriously resemble old ways

Cultural and Civilizational Change

243

of thinking and doing. They constitute the persistent legacy of 'real socialism' which haunts Eastern European societies from its grave. Jeffrey Alexander and 'discourse analysis'. The third theoretical approach in analysis of the post-communist cultural-civilizational syndrome is the 'discourse analysis' proposed by Jeffrey Alexander. Under this approach, culture is understood as "a structure composed of symbolic sets" (Alexander and Smith 1993: 156), the network of meanings derived from the common experience of groups and shared collectively which in turn shape their beliefs and actions. These are "structures of a more basic kind which organize concepts and objects into symbolic patterns and convert them into signs" (ibid.). "People understand new experience and its meaning in terms of the given symbolic classification system, and they act accordingly" (Kane 1991: 57). Culture provides a "tool kit of symbols, stories, rituals and world-views which people may use in varying configurations to solve different sets of problems" (Swindler 1986: 237). Applying the late-Durkheimian dichotomy of the sacred and the profane, coupled with the Levi-Straussian idea of binary opposites organizing the symbolic-cultural domain, Alexander analyses the "discourse of civil society" underlying the political practices of modern democracies. He defines the concept as follows: "We call these sign sets discourses if they meet two conditions. First, they must not only communicate information, structuring reality in a cognitive or expressive way: they must also perform a forceful evaluative task. Binary sets do so when they are charged by the 'religious' symbology of the sacred and profane" (Alexander 1989: 8). Culture - in this view - is always organized in binary terms of the good and the bad. "Positive codes, indeed, can be understood only in relation to negative ones. The conflict between good and bad functions inside of culture as an internal dynamic" (Alexander and Smith 1993: 158). Let us use these ideas as heuristic hunches. The 'discourse of real socialism', as Alexander would probably label it, may be reconstructed as a set of seven oppositions, each of which displays a clear evaluative bias towards one 'sacred' pole and against the opposite 'profane' or 'polluted' pole. The most fundamental and lasting cultural code organizing thought and action in the conditions of real socialism is the opposition between two spheres of life: private (personal) and public (official). As the Polish sociologist Nowak testifies: "The life of the average Pole is lived in the two, overlapping worlds: the domain of private contacts and the institutional-official sphere" (Nowak 1979: 30). And this observation can certainly be generalized to other 'real socialist' societies. The opposition appears in a number of guises: 'society versus authorities', 'nation versus state', 'the people versus rulers', 'us versus them'. It is an opposition with an unambiguous moral flavour. The private sphere is the domain of the good - of virtue, dignity, pride; the public sphere is the domain of the bad - of vice, disdain, shame. Activities carried out in the private sphere are elevating, while any contact with the public sphere is "pollut-

244

Piotr Sztompka

ing" (Alexander 1989). Power centres are perceived as alien and hostile; the government is seen as the arena of conspiracy, deceit, cynicism, or at least stupidity and inefficiency. 'Beating the system', outwitting the authorities, evading public regulations, rules, laws is a widely-recognized virtue, and successful rogues evoke admiration mixed with envy. Excessive egoism, attempts to appropriate common goods, 'grab-it-and-run' tactics to safeguard personal wellbeing are condoned, or at least excused. The state is held responsible for providing welfare and security, and blamed for all personal failures. On the other hand, private connections, networks, loyalties - in the workplace, among friends, at home - are overestimated and idealized. The second dichotomy opposes the past and the present. It is normal for people to glorify and idealize earlier times. The phrase "before the War" (meaning World War II, in the aftermath of which real socialism was imposed in the sphere of Soviet domination) has always signified the best in all domains of life. And when it came to oppositional struggle and anti-communist revolution, the main theme was a return to the institutions and traditions of the past, rather than the shaping of new forms for the future (there was always strong suspicion of 'market socialism', a 'social market economy' or in brief the so-called 'third way', which was ridiculed as the sure way to join the "Third World'). Jürgen Habermas insightfully conveys this nostalgic climate with his term "rectifying revolutions", observing in 1989 that there was a "total lack of ideas that are either innovative or oriented towards the future" (Habermas 1990: 4-5). The third of our binary pairs is the opposition betweenfate and human agency. The world is perceived as operating according to pre-determined rules, and history as running in a pre-established direction. Providence, or destiny, or chance, or impersonal political forces, or inaccessible decision-making mechanisms, are held responsible for human fate. People believe that they have no say in the running of public affairs, no opportunity to influence their own well-being. They are therefore reluctant to engage themselves in public life because they see no realistic way in which this could change anything, and at the same time they clearly perceive the risks and the price of activism. The eminent Polish sociologist Stanislaw Ossowski called this fatalistic attitude "the Lilliput syndrome" (Ossowski 1967). Passivism, apathy, a 'wait-and-see' attitude, 'free-rider' behaviour are further pervasive features of this cultural pattern. The fourth and related opposition contrasts two brands of freedom: negative freedom (freedom from something, independence, autonomy), and positive freedom (freedom to do something, influence, control, mastery, potency). The cultural bias is clearly towards the former. People crave for and cherish liberty and self-determination. However, this may easily degenerate into anarchy, a contempt for and evasion of all rules, a disrespect for law and morality, widespread permissiveness. Mass activism focuses on defence against real or imagined in-

Cultural and Civilizational Change

245

fractions of freedom, on opposition and contestation, rather than on positive, constructive contributions to the operation of society. The fifth binary pair is the opposition between mythology and realism. There is a tendency to elevate mythical, religious, ideological thinking over mundane, realistic and rational arguments. People mistake dreams, visions, idealized heroic traditions, Utopian hopes and aspirations for harsh reality. There is a constant expectation of miracles - economic, political - recourse to magical strategies and belief in some supernatural guidance or protection against adversities. The sixth opposition contrasts the West and the East. This involves the uncritical glorification of the Western way of life, economic and political arrangements, consumer patterns, products, artistic achievements. The West is regarded in an undifferentiated, stereotypical way as synonymous with freedom, affluence, social security and every imaginable virtue. Any criticism, even citing internal Western sources, is treated with suspicion as propaganda. Western political leaders are endowed with a charisma that they rarely enjoy at home, and even third-rate Western consumer products are preferred to local goods. Finally, the seventh opposition sets expediency against truth. Beliefs, loyalties, attachments are treated opportunistically and instrumentally as valid as long as they bring benefits, and provided that they are effective. Truth, faithfulness, straightforwardness are not considered to be autotelic values. Hypocrisy, cynicism, but also dogmatism and intolerance of others, predominate in the political and intellectual domains. Stereotypes and prejudices easily gain acceptance. Double standards in talk and deeds - official and private - are quite common. From "grand' to middle-range theories. These are general 'grand' perspectives formulated at the highest level of abstraction. But there are also numerous middle-range theories ready for application to this case. Some of them are new, fashionable and flourish in contemporary sociology. A good example is the theory of globalization. Economic interdependencies, political unification, the cultural uniformization of the world are crucial factors in understanding the chances of transition, as well as the barriers against it. Other relevant middle-range theories are less fashionable; some of them have even been rejected or abandoned long ago, perhaps prematurely, and now appear in urgent need of rethinking. As a supplement to the theories of globalization it would be well to return to the old anthropological theories of cultural diffusion, cultural clash or conflict, as well as to some of the discredited ideas of convergence theory. Also belonging to this category is the theory of tradition. The mechanisms whereby traditions are selected and transmitted over generations, the secret of the sudden re-awakening of dormant traditions (e.g. ethnic or nationalist revival), the use of tradition in political struggles, the inventing and deconstructing of traditions - all these are questions posed anew by the experiences of post-communist societies. Another theory of unexpected current relevance is the theory of charisma, or more generally of the personal factor in history. There is no doubt that the drama of

246

Piotr Sztompka

1989 involved a cast of outstanding protagonists: Gorbachev, Walesa, Havel, Reagan, Yeltsin, to name but a few. There is then the theory of'national character', or the even more metaphysical Hegelian idea of 'national spirit' which, purged of its biological or racist overtones and rephrased in historical interpretation as the specific accumulated, sedimented experience of concrete nations, may prove helpful in understanding the striking differences among the former socialist countries in the speed and direction of their post-communist reforms. Finally, there is the theory of social identity, which explains the frantic search for lost roots, loyalties, ideological commitments in the post-communist ideological and political vacuum.

4 Conclusion This article has merely sketched a research programme with a specific focus and has suggested theoretical resources potentially useful in its implementation. It has attempted to redirect current study of post-communist societies away from its dominant economic and political (institutional) emphasis and towards a more intangible - but also more fundamental - area of culture and civilization. It has claimed that the barriers to transformation are to be found at the deep, hidden level of the basic cultural-civilizational fabric, and that the success of post-communist transition crucially depends on the eradication of every vestige of real socialism in this area. A market economy, democratic polity and a free society will not emerge without a radical re-shaping of symbols and codes, routines and rituals, frames of thinking and doing; without - in a word - new "habits of the heart".

References Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Seidman, Steven (eds.), (1990): Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alexander, Jeffrey C. (1992): "Citizen and Enemy as Symbolic Classification: On the Polarizing Discourse of Civil Society", in: M. Lamont and M. Foumier (eds.), Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press 1992 Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Smith, Philip (1993): "The Discourse of American Civil Society: A New Proposal for Cultural Studies", in: Theory and Society, vol. 22, pp. 151-207 Ash, Timothy, G. (1990): "Eastern Europe: The Year of Truth", in: New York Review of Books, February 15, pp. 17-22 Bourdieu, Pierre (1990): The Logic of Practice, Cambridge: Polity Press Elias, Norbert (1978): The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners, New York: Urizen Books Etzioni, Amitai (1991): "A Socio-Economic Perspective on Friction", Washington: mimeo

Cultural and Civilizational Change

247

Habermas, Jürgen (1990): "What Does Socialism Mean Today?", in: New Left Review, No. 183, September-October Hannerz, Ulf (1993): "When Culture is Everywhere: Reflections on a Favorite Concept", in: Ethnos, vol. 58, pp. 95-111 Kane, Anne (1991): "Cultural Analysis in Historical Sociology: The Analytic and Concrete Forms of the Autonomy of Culture", in: Sociological Theory, Vol. 9, No.l, pp. 53-69 Koestler, Arthur (1975): Darkness at Noon, New York: Bantam Books Koralewicz, Jadwiga and Ziolkowski, Marek, (1990): Mentralnosc Polakow (Mentality of the Poles), Poznan: Nakom Lamont, Michelle and Lareau, Annette (1988): "Cultural Capital: Allusions, Gaps and Glissandos in Recent Theoretical Developments", in: Sociological Theory, Vol. 6, pp. 153-68 Marody, Miroslawa (1987): "Antynomie spolecznej swiadomosci" ("Antinomies of Social Consciousness") in: Odra, No.l, pp. 4-9 Marody, Miroslawa (1991): "Dylematy postaw politycznych i orientacji swiatopogladowych" ("Dilemmas of political attitudes and world-views"), in: J. Wiatr, Polska 1980-1990, Warsaw University Press, pp. 157-74 Merton, Robert (1976): Sociological Ambivalence, New York: Free Press Milosz, Czeslaw (1953): The Captive Mind, New York: Alfred Knopf Nowak, Stefan (1979): "System wartosci spoleczenstwa polskiego" ("The System of Values of Polish Society"), in: Studio Socjologiczne, No. 4/1979 Nowak, Stefan (1980): "A Polish Self-Portrait", in: Polish Perspectives, pp. 13-29 Ossowski, Stanislaw (1967): Ζ zagadnien psychologii spolecznej, (On Issues of Social Psychology), Warszawa: Polish Scientific Publishers Rychard, Andrzej and Sulek, Antoni (eds.) (1988): Legitymacja: Klasyczne teorie ipolskie doswiadczenia, (Legitimation: Classical theories and Polish experiences), Warszawa: University of Warsaw Press Staniszkis, Jadwiga (1989): Ontologia socjalizmu, (The Ontology of Socialism), Warszawa: In Plus Swindler, Ann (1986): "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies", in: American Sociological Review, Vol. 51, pp. 273-86 Sztompka, Piotr (1982): "Dynamika ruchu odnowy w swietle teorii zachowania zbiorowego" ("The Dynamics of Social Renewal Movement in the Light of Collective Behavior Theory"), in: Studia Socjologiczne, Nr. 3-4, ss. 69-94 Sztompka, Piotr (1988): "The Social Functions of Defeat", in: L. Kriesberg, B. Misztal (eds.), Social Movements as a Factor of Change in the Contemporary World, Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, pp. 183-92 Sztompka, Piotr (1991): "The Intangibles and Imponderables of the Transition to Democracy", in: Studies in Comparative Communism, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 295-311 Sztompka, Piotr(1992): "Dilemmas ofthe Great Transition", in: Sisyphus: Social Studies, Vol. 2 (VIII), pp. 9-28 Sztompka, Piotr (1993a): "Civilizational Incompetence: The Trap of Post-communist Societies", in: Zeitschrift fur Soziologie, Heft 2, April, pp. 85-95 Sztompka, Piotr (1993b): The Sociology of Social Change, Oxford: Blackwell Tischner, Jozef (1992): Etyka Solidarnosci i Homo Sovieticus (The Ethics of Solidarity and Homo Sovieticus), Krakow: Znak Tocqueville, Alexis de (1945): Democracy in America, Vols. I and II, New York: Alfred Knopf Zon, Hans van, (1993): "Problems of Transitology - Toward a New Research Agenda and New Research Practice" (Krakow, August 1993, Academy of Economics, mimeo)

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade: Lessons for and from Eastern Europe Edward A. Tiryakian

1 Introduction The dynamics of social change have been an ongoing concern of sociology from its very inception as the consciousness of society in the writings of Saint-Simon and Comte. To foresee what the near future will bring in the way of structural changes - in this sense, to provide a (social) scientific base for prophecy - is a common denominator of the main liberal and radical wings, whether we call these "positivism" or "marxism" or by some other generic designation. Yet, sociological prophecies, or empirically grounded diagnoses pointing to emergent large-scale social changes, have on the whole not fared better than older religious prophecies. As an exception, credit must be given to Saint-Simon for having perceived the coming of the industrial social order as the new social order of modernity, and even for having anticipated the European Community (Markham 1964; Heather 1992). But after him, sociological anticipation of the near future has been characterized more by 'Type I' and 'Type II' errors of prophecy than anything else - in this instance, 'Type I' is to foretell major structural changes that do not occur, and 'Type II' is not to foresee major structural changes that do occur. As instances of 'Type I', it might be pointed out that from Marx down to Wallerstein's world-system analysis, so-called 'scientific' socialist analysis has repeatedly seen capitalist systems as ending in revolutions (or large-scale transformations) that will be succeeded irreversibly by a socialist economic order. Type II errors are more frequent, and perhaps more serious in pointing to limitations in our conceptualizations and research approaches to macro-social phenomena which pertain to the dynamics of modernity. To illustrate, the political explosion of the middle and later 1960s on university campuses in advanced industrial societies - and in an abortive manner, in advanced socialist societies as well (Czechoslovakia and Poland) - as well as the emergence of what became known as the lifestyle and expressive symbols of'counterculture' were all quite unexpected phenomena, at variance with the sociological models of the late

250

Edward A. Tiryakian

1950s.1 But similarly, in the late 1960s and early 1970s the global setting, outside the Soviet empire, was rocked with the 'cultural revolution' and political violence that seemed a prelude to revolution: what respected social science models of that period prepared us for the general swing to conservatism in the majority of countries (including China) that took place during the next ten years?2 And then, of course, we can examine in vain the social science literature on the Soviet Union ten years ago for analyses pointing to its demise from within its borders and not as a result of a thermonuclear holocaust. It is ironic in this context that critical theorists made a fetish of Habermas' 'legitimation crisis' of modern society, by which they understood the crisis of the Western liberaltechnocratic state, and never bothered to consider the much larger legitimation crisis of the socialist planned economy state! These are not the only instances of unanticipated large-scale transformations that have swept the world without sociological warning, or rather, without adequate sociological accounting. The area of new social movements (Touraine 1981; Melucci 1989; Rucht 1991; Oberschall 1993) has characterized the past 30 years, and of these, the most far-reaching in actuality and implications are those involving changes in collective identity - at the level of race/ethnicity, gender, politico-religiosity, and national identification. The first two of these are fairly obvious (though the dynamics of the transformation of the self-identity of'Coloreds' and 'negroes' to 'Afro-Americans,' 'Blacks' and now 'African Americans', and the transformation of women's self-identity, are both exceedingly significant and complex interrelated phenomena). By the third, politico-religiosity, I have in mind that contrary to the widely accepted 'secularization' paradigm of the 1960s and early 1970s, which took the retreat of religion from the public to the private sphere to be the one-way track of modernity, various settings have witnessed the opposite, whether the fundamentalist movements of Islam and Protestantism or various political confrontations of the authoritarian state by the Catholic Church in Poland, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. By the fourth social movement, national identification, I have in mind the weakening of primary commitment to the nation-state in favour of a lesser-scale polity which is regarded as more 'authentic' culturally. What comes to mind in the case of Western nation-states are the social movements and political parties of autonomy for various regions that are more than just territories for their activists but true national/ethnic homelands: the PQ in Quebec, the SNP in Scotland, Plaid Cymru in Wales, MLNV and ETA in the Basque area, the Lega Nord and other regional movements in Italy, etc.3 The extension eastward of this broad set of socio-political movements that challenged the legitimacy of the nation-state was, in retrospect, an unanticipated but key factor in the implosion of the Soviet empire. For in place of Homo Sovieticus and the homogenization of a single new socialist order centred in

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade

251

Moscow, the unexpected return of nationalism in the periphery (and not the Asian periphery, either, which might have been a demographic possibility for the Muslim republics of the USSR) (Carrere d'Encausse 1978; 1991) fanned the spark of reform lit by perestroika. The list of unanticipated major changes, of sociological 'surprises' so to speak, in our contemporary world can be greatly extended, ranging from the dramatic appearance of the Sinitic/Confucian civilization-states as major global economic actors to the overnight dismantling of apartheid in South Africa and the equally unexpected Israeli-PLO agreement to begin the peace process. Each of these, of course, has major regional and global significance. What I intend by these preliminary remarks is to establish that certainly among the most far-reaching changes in our contemporary period are those that cannot be reduced to nor explained in terms of factors exogenous to the respective sociocultural systems in which they have occurred. Rather, they merit explanation partly as resulting from some external stimuli but much more, as interactions of various endogenous factors - economic, political, and cultural. My purpose in this paper is not to analyse each of these but rather to propose that we need to rethink the general frame of reference in terms of which social change is approached. Without seeking to be definitive, I would like to propose that in analysis of the vast series of transformations on the contemporary scene it would repay us to upgrade what has been termed 'modernization theory': while waiting for a more resonant or elegant term, this might be suggestively called 'neomodernization analysis' (NMA). It is the linkage of this approach with the situation of Eastern Europe which is of particular interest.

2 Rethinking Modernization I will assume that readers of this paper are familiar with development of modernization analysis in the post-war years, and in its seeming eclipse by dependency analysis, which was followed by world-system analysis (Harrison 1988; So 1990). It may be important to recall from the 'early' period of modernization analysis that its stimulus was the awakening of the Third World in the wake of the demise of colonial empires after World War II. What were the choices facing a new bloc of actors on the world stage, from Africa and Latin America to the Middle East and Asia? These ex-colonies (some quite old ex-colonies, as in the case of Latin America, but still retaining colonial mentalities and social structures) were in effect 'new nations', seeking direction for their development out of the colonial 'iron cages' of the pre-war setting and into the uncharted seas of modernity.

252

Edward A. Tiryakian

In effect, this created a new 'market' for the social sciences, with eager clients and generous 'suppliers' (e.g., foundations such as the Ford Foundation). The success of the United States as a triumphant liberal democracy of World War II and as a major stimulus in the post-war economic reconstruction of Western Europe prompted the internationalization of American social science. Various strands of research and theoretical traditions coalesced in the 1950s and early 1960s into a multidisciplinary comparative perspective on development which seemed particularly useful for the 'jump start' of Third World development. If the specification and codification of the major lines of development of advanced societies that combined economic growth and liberal democracy could be accomplished by the social sciences within a general framework, might not this lead to a 'quick-start' for the rest of the world in catching up with the West? This, in effect, was the fundamental premise and promise of what came to be called 'modernization theory'. Unfortunately, 'the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak'. That is, although the elites of the 'new nations' overtly sought modernization, the institutional structures and the collective mentalities of many regions were inadequate to the task. This was partly accounted for the fact that the resources of small states that had had a rationale in the imperial scheme of things as, say, an administrative centre or as a refuelling station, were insufficient to provide the capital base for development. But partly, also, many of the elites gave priority to political ideologies over economic necessities (as in the case of Ghana and Guinea), or even to their own personal aggrandizement. In effect, this led to very regulated social markets that reinforced traditional structures and allegiances. And finally, the former imperial powers that had undertaken formal political decolonization in an amazing short period of time had powerful economic interests in their midst that emerged as 'multinational corporations' (and later evolved into 'transnational corporations' or TNCs). As consumers and refiners of raw materials, they as a group were able to control the international market, which made it very difficult for the 'new nations' to develop capital surplus for infrastructure development. For this and ideological reasons related to the changing political climate in Western countries in the late 1960s and early 1970s, modernization analysis (which in reality may be better thought of in the plural, i.e., modernization analyses) fell into some sort of desuetude in academe in the 1970s. The sociology of development turned more to a structural-historical analysis of international political economy. Modernization theory/analysis in the hands of its critics became reified and stereotyped as a Western-centric, simplistic, naive evolutionist dichotomous view of development from 'tradition' to 'modernity'. Some of the criticisms were quite justified, and I will take up this point shortly. But external critics for the most part dismissed modernization theory simply because of its association with a 'conservative' sociological viewpoint connected

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade

253

with Parsonian 'functionalism'. They seemed to show little awareness of either specific modernization analyses or of the reflections of modernization analysts themselves regarding the problematics of development, the need for conceptual refinement, and more comprehensive comparative research (Huntington 1976; Tipps 1976; Desai 1976; Shils 1981; Eisenstadt 1976). I have indicated that part of the dismissal of modernization theory was its association with the theoretical guidance of Talcott Parsons, more narrowly seen as 'structural functional analysis' or 'functionalism' tout court. That perspective had been lambasted in the late 1960s for its failure to deal with real social change. But before the end of the 1980s two major changes of global significance took place that posed significant anomalies for a 'world-system' framework. First, significant socio-economic growth transformations took place in East Asia (with the way led by Japan) that are rapidly modernizing the 'Confucian civilization' countries into major global competitors with a favourable balance of trade. This 'manufacturing of miracles' in East Asia (in contrast to other regions) has been accomplished without sharply increased social inequalities, unlike other contemporary regions or, for that matter, unlike the historical experience of much of the West in the last century (Gereffi and Wyman 1990). It is anomalous that a peripheral zone in the world-system scheme of things could find within itself the dynamics of growth and modernization (standard of living, health care, educational level attained, etc.) so as to rapidly increase its autonomy vis-ä-vis the developed Western 'core' capitalist states. A second major regional transformation, just as unexpected and even more rapid, was the socio-political transformation of the entire complex of the Soviet empire from a highly centralized empire with its own socialist logic of development (or, as it turned out, of non-development) to an admission of failure in the economic realm, a brief groping for economic and political modernization (perestroika), and then, a cascade of political events that gave contemporary relevance to Dürkheim's pregnant concept of 'collective effervescence'. Certainly, among the new 'manufactured miracles' manufactured by social mobilization against a communist regime, were the events of 1988-89 leading to the destruction of 'The Wall' and the reunification of Germany. The submerged countries of Eastern Europe in one historical moment gained emancipation from an empire that had been seen as an impregnable monolithic fortress. Although some of the factors that brought this about may be viewed as exogenous (e.g. the television which allowed East Germans in Berlin to see that Westerners did not live like an abject proletariat, contrary to communist propaganda; or the Afghanistan war which was the Soviet's Vietnam or Algeria and contributed to Gorbachev's unwillingness to conduct costly colonial wars in Eastern Europe), they do not account for much of the variance in the dynamics of change of the Soviet world.

254

Edward A. Tiryakian

These two major sets of regional changes at the beginning of this decade - a decade which if only at the cultural level would be momentous as the last years of a global century and a millennium that saw the rise (and fall?) of the West as the hegemonic region of the world - are certainly stimuli to a revitalization of the modernization paradigm. Not that with changes in world reality and with changes in the knowledge base of these changes the framework would be identical to that of a generation ago, but that a recasting of this framework stressing the primacy of interactive endogenous factors is warranted, hence the designation 'neo-modernization analysis' (NMA). There are several recent writings that reflect this NMA orientation from several angles, such as Berger (1992), Beck's 'reflexive modernization" (1992), the collective volume of Zapf (1990), and finally, 'postmodernization' (Crook, Pakulski and Waters 1992). I would also include here, without the specific designation of 'modernization', recent works by action theorists like Sztompka (1991) and Touraine (1984) who stress the capabilities of social actors (including collective units) of becoming, of being proactive rather than reactive to their environment. At the metatheoretical level, which I take with Parsons to be the specification of a 'frame of reference' useful for interrelating theory and research (Parsons 1979/80). I have drawn attention to presuppositions of modernization analysis and how they compare with those of world-system analysis, which has also evolved since its initial formulation in the 1970s (Tiryakian 1991; 1992). Without seeking to repeat or synthesise this literature, let me propose a few major components of this general perspective: • Volitional change for upgrading and altering their situations is always a possibility for social actors, who should be seen as much as collectivities as individuals. The general metatheoretical grounding for this has its formulation in Parsons' 'voluntaristic theory of action', and its phenomenological base in the notion that all social actions take place as actors' responses to being-in-a-situation (Parsons 1968). This grounding, I propose, provides a better 'micro-macro' linkage than neo-utilitarian models such as the 'rational choice' perspective (Alexander, Giesen, Münch and Smelser 1987). • Societies as groups of actors are capable of seeking new lines of development that are consonant with the goals and values that frame their spatial-temporal horizon; the more inclusive are collective decisions and commitments as to the collective trajectory to be pursued, the more likely will modernization succeed. However, cultural, political, and economic values and priorities are not always harmonized with available resources, so that there is no probability of'successful' modernization, neither for those seeking to achieve initial major transformations nor for those who have earlier attained a stage of successful upgrading.

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade

255

• Modernization is not a single process of system transformation and/or general efficiency upgrading. In a given society, some of its sectors and some groups of actors may consciously pursue paths of modernization all the time, some may do so some of the time, and some may even reject paths of modernization (e.g., those receiving resources from an older institutional arrangement than the one being upgraded) most of the time. • If the Enlightenment was a major chrysalis of the ideology of modernity, which underlies the telos of theories of modernization and development in general, some aspects of its theorizing needs revision in light of more recent historical development. Thus, religion, either as the institutional church or as a marginal sect can be shown to play in various settings a significant role in the modernization process. It does so by legitimating and mobilizing actors in new ventures and channels or in delegitimizing an abusive political order and providing resistance as an alternative structure in an otherwise authoritarian or even totalitarian state. More concisely, the religious sphere - as events in the past fifteen years or so have shown in Poland, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Iran, Chile, and many other countries - merits being treated as a potential if not actual 'lever of social change' rather than the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment treatment of it as a fetter. • Processes of modernization involve short-term costs and sacrifices, whether material or manpower costs or both. Some of these will involve hardship for segments of the population and not all will benefit equally, but a general criterion forjudging the success of modernization is that a greater number of actors have better life chances, better opportunities to cope with environmental exigencies during or in the aftermath of a process of modernization than prior to its inception. • Processes of modernization, while historically patterned, are adaptable to a variety of settings, though at the same time they may cluster in a single country or set of countries. There is nothing fixed about being a 'centre of modernity' and a comparative historical approach may suggest there have been several such 'epicentres' of modernity, with new ones to come (Tiryakian 1985). In this vein, one may view the present decade or period as a transition period in centres of modernity, with East Asia and its Beijing-Taipei-SeoulTokyo axis as an emergent centre of modernity. A high commitment to the growth of knowledge and technology, a strong economic nationalism conducive to high savings and investment rates, a high rate of ethnic and cultural homogeneity, the absence of a colonial mentality - all these and more portend a high potential for becoming a global center of modernity. • Modernization is neither uniform throughout a given sociocultural system nor is it continuous, even after some specified 'take-off stage. An aspect of the dynamics of modernization, one which needs greater attention theoretically as well as empirically, is the cyclical nature of modernization. There are

256

Edward A. Tiryakian

periods of increased activity to alter or upgrade social structures and institutional arrangements, not only within but across societies, and there are other periods where complacency or fatigue sets in with little collective effort at upgrading and renovation. These periods of seeming relative inactivity may appear as periods of'decline' (e.g., the Netherlands in the eighteenth century following its glorious transformation two generations earlier), or they may be periods of 'latency' in the Parsonian AGIL designation of action systems, that is, periods when new innovations and new mentalities are slowly being generated though not in the official institutional order and power structure of society. The periodization of modernization in terms of cycles can fruitfully draw on several theoretical and research traditions, including Sorokin (1957), Parsons (1968), and world-system analysis.5 This is a partial list of general considerations. In the next section, I will seek to relate the modernization approach framed above to the situation of East Europe.

3 Lessons for East Europe Eastern Europe - by which I mean the broad crescent from Estonia to Bulgaria is a historical and cultural area that forms a double periphery. It has been historically a periphery of two more remote civilizations, that of imperial Moscow and that of the Ottoman empire. It has also been a periphery of more accessible Western civilization, further differentiated into the Scandinavian social democracies, the Germanic empire, and the Austrian-Hungarian empire.6 One result of this situation of structural dependency has been that Eastern Europe, for the most part of the modern period, has lacked autonomy in the economic as well as in the political sphere. Yet, with the first major wave of nationalism in the nineteenth century that marked the political development of Western countries into modern nation-states, Eastern Europe also felt itself to be an area of'submerged nations'. Cultural nationalism and even armed struggles for emancipation (as in the case of Poland, Hungary, and the Balkan Ottoman dependent territories) were significant features of the East European landscape. Nonetheless, except for a very brief interwar period when several countries achieved nominal independence in the wake of the dismembering of empires defeated in World War I, we can say that, in effect, the post-1989 period is the first time when Eastern Europe as a whole has been free to choose its own course of action. Or rather, for the first time Eastern European countries have been free to choose what each wishes to become, without this being defined or superimposed from above, by alien elites (or by elites acting as agents or auxiliaries for

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade

257

imperial powers). In this respect, the Eastern countries are structurally in a position of'new nations', new actors on the world stage similar to the 'new nations' of the 1960s that emerged from the collapse of remaining Western empires. That should suggest the relevance of NMA for Eastern Europe. It is also true that the world historical situation of the 1990s is not the same as that of the 1960s, nor is it the same as an earlier cycle of modernization in the nineteenth century which was the crucible for the emergence of Western nation-states. Certainly, the external environmental situation of the 1990s is increasingly characterized by globalization as a set of processes - technological, political, economic, and cultural - interlacing the world into networks that stretch and deform national-state boundaries (Albrow and King 1990; Featherstone 1990; Sklair 1991; King 1991). This may be seen as increasing the constraints on the viability of small states, but it may also be seen as providing new opportunities, inasmuch as there is a momentous increase in information and communication flows that place any country and units in that country (such as knowledge centres) in touch with the rest of the world in an instantaneous matter via telecommunication and electronic networks (Inkeles 1988). Eastern European countries - as almost all parts of the world - have espoused economic growth and political democratization as the desired values of national policy. Obviously some major hurdles will have to be surmounted if these values are to be realized, however imperfectly. One is the problematics of national identity in the sense of defining the boundaries of the national community. Many of these 'new nations' have old ethnic minority groups which yesterday were the ruling elites of the country: Russians in the Baltics, Turks in Bulgaria, Hungarians in Northern Romania and in Slovakia, etc. Are these to participate fully in the national development of the country? That is, are full citizenship rights to be given and are these minorities to be considered a valuable resource for national development or as a threat, a subversive population?7 And how are the members of the ethnic minority going to relate to the larger national setting - as an arena of increased commitment and participation or as a Kafkaesque Castle, a menacing alien setting? Eastern European countries can scan various settings of 'new nations' for comparative materials on social integration. Africa offers one laboratory in which the appeal of democratic national development that bloomed in the early 1960s sadly tapered off in the direction of tribalism and authoritarian rule (somewhat like the experience of many Eastern European countries themselves in the 1930s). On the other hand, national development in East and Southeast Asia - as in the case of Singapore and Malaysia, and perhaps the 'new' Philippines - provides evidence that economic development and other positive facets of modernization can occur in multiethnic states. Another large problem or impediment to modernization is that there is a need to shed the collective mentalities that were nurtured by generations of de facto

258

Edward A. Tiryakian

autocratic rule, of rule from above, in the effective absence of civil society that would encourage freedom of expression and individual responsibility. In effect, imperial rule - Tsarist, Ottoman, Soviet - stifled the decision-making process at the local level. The collective mentality that this general social order fostered was one of seeking security and avoiding risk. The system did provide a modicum of social security - full employment (or underemployment), health, housing - and some ethnonational peripheric representation in the central party structure in exchange for the concentration of power at the top. The transition from a command to a market economy, particularly in a harsh global environment where advanced economic countries are retrenching their own corporate structures under the guise of being 'globally competitive', is provoking vast social traumas in the form of sudden unemployment, inflation, lowered standard of living, and even, in the case of Russia, a lowering of average life expectancy.8 Although the former communist rule is abhorred by all, the appeal of social democracy is making itself felt in several recent (1993) elections, such as those in Lithuania and Poland. This should not be seen as a regression to authoritarian, communist rule, as a wave of'anti-modernity'. It is more an aspect of the modernization process which Western countries themselves went through in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and gave rise to the welfare policies of industrial states. If the desire to reestablish the social safety nets of the authoritarian order is understandable, and should be understood by Western observers, there are also pitfalls involved. First, the reaction to liberalization may invite back into power elites whose mentality was moulded in an authoritarian regime and who are likely to restore the old nomenklatura system of power and privilege. Second, and by the same token, this will make it very difficult for a newer generation, one more open to institutional and economic innovations, to take over the reins of national development. A great shortage facing East European countries, which may be typical of all 'developing nations', is the lack of socially responsible entrepreneurs, an essential aspect of modernization (Grancelli 1992). Various factors are involved. One is that the previous socialist regime not only downgraded the value of seeking profits, of money-making enterprises, but also the ideology of collectivism led in practice to negative sanctions on manifestation of individualism, or to put it in more colloquial terms, to fear of 'sticking one's neck out'. For nearly half a century, Eastern Europe operated in an atmosphere that shunned entrepreneurship; consequently, it would be naive to think that risk-taking in long-term economic enterprises can be induced overnight as something valuable for individuals and for the society in general. The second factor is that the climate for entrepreneurship, and for doing business in general, is in several Eastern European settings contaminated by crime and corruption.9 To some extent this may be seen as a spill over from the Communist period, both at the top of the system

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade

259

(which led to the disenchantment of communism as much as anything else) and at the bottom. Of course 'corruption' is not the monopoly of any regime, liberal, post-colonial, or post-communist (Theobald 1990). But for 'developing countries' - in which I include Eastern Europe - diffuse corruption is particularly corrosive of responsible entrepreneur ship. Of course, there are new entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe and Russia who tap transnational networks established during the Communist era to form a 'new class' of capitalists benefiting from the privatization of industry. But they still have to be instilled with the values of engaging in economic innovations for the benefit of the entire country, and not just for personal gain and affluent life styles. At the same time, governments must see entrepreneurs, especially those in infant businesses, as allies in the modernization process rather than as persons to be distrusted.10 Here I would propose that a 'success' story of modernization was nineteenthcentury Japan, which encouraged entrepreneurship that was socially responsible, contributing to national development and the catch-up process; and by extension, this seems to be a common denominator in the success of other East Asian countries. In contrast, I still have recollections of talking to small-business entrepreneurs in Nigeria in the 1960s who felt frustrated at obstacles raised by the ruling elites in power - for example, only party members or children of the elites had access to capital in local banks.11 One last remark on entrepreneurship. Since East Europe still has, relative to Western industrial societies, a high level of its population in the rural sector, it would be wise for state policy to encourage rural entrepreneurship as an integral aspect of privatization and transition to a market economy; a sad mistake for many of the independent new nations of the 1960s (and of Soviet countries earlier) was to push for heavy industrialization. Instead, modernization of the agrarian sector and encouraging rural entrepreneurship should be given high priority. A model of a highly successful Western nation which has modernized with a predominantly agrarian oriented economy is Denmark, and adjacent to Eastern Europe is another successful modernization of a small state that has retained its cultural identity, namely Austria. Further on the contemporary scene, Eastern Europe can benefit from the on-going experiences of rural industrialization in China with its "blend of semipublic and semiprivate, semibureaucratic and semientrepreneurial responses" (Peng 1992; Nee and Young 1991). I conclude this section on lessons for Eastern Europe with two remarks. First, as old 'newcomers' on the world stage, Eastern European countries can find a great many "roads to modernity", to borrow a title from the suggestive writings of Ben Nelson (1981). In other words, there are many models of modernization, and since no one society presents the model of modernization, it is best for the responsible elites and younger generations in Eastern Europe to 'shop around' for models and implementations of modernization that seem optimal for par-

260

Edward A. Tiryakian

ticular institutions. In this connection, Eastern Europe may want to consider the strategy adopted by Japan in the Meiji period, when Japanese missions went to different countries which became important 'reference societies'. 12 Second, ultimately, the lesson for Eastern European countries is that the path or paths to modernity are more likely to be actualized if they correspond to national traditions and aspirations, democratically arrived at by popular consultation. There should be a symbiotic relation between modernizing elites and popular consent. Forums for this interaction must be found, either created or recreated, and the 'new' university in Eastern Europe is a likely place for this.13

4 Lessons from Eastern Europe Modernization analysis made a great advance over earlier endeavours at dealing with social change which were either a general 'grand design' of social change or narrowly descriptive. NMA, in keeping with this, is essentially comparative and geared to the genuine internationalization (or better, globalization) of sociological knowledge (Albrow and King 1990). This can only mean that followers of NMA can find a rich laboratory in the multiple experiences of Eastern Europe, first in terms of the present transition, which is a new cycle of modernization, and second in terms of the experiences of the Soviet imperial period 19481988. The structuring and destructuring of socialist society, the patterns of evasion of authority in everyday life, the underground institutions of resistance, the emergence of stratification in an ideologically egalitarian society, the maintenance of cultural identity in the face of sovietization - all this and much more that can be recorded from archival data and from personal and collective biographies provides us with highly significant data to inform sociology regarding modern colonial and neo-colonial society. To integrate this into NMA is a challenging and opportune task, one that already has some notable examples, such as in the recent writing of Rudolf Andorka, who applies modernization analysis to the case of socialist Hungary (Andorka 1993). His conclusion that the collapse of the regime was ultimately because of its loss of legitimacy is enriched by his pointing out that in addition to structural shortcomings, the socialist attempt at modernization floundered because the system lacked two basic civic virtues - civility and self-reliance and instead was characterized by a high level of distrust and enmity toward members of society other than face-to-face groups. Associated with this, was a high level of feelings of anomie, of powerlessness, even when the regime changed from Stalinian totalitarianism toward "a softer authoritarianism in the 1980s" (Andorka 1993: 331). Other notable reworkings of modernization analysis in

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade

261

relation to the transformations of Eastern Europe include the work of Zapf on the former DDR (Zapf 1990), and the lucid general exposition of Müller (1992). The latter recommends the heuristic merit of Parsons' multi-dimensional theory of modernity, while cautioning against tying it to a hasty evolutionary logic grounded in the Western European experience of fifty years ago. Müller, quite correctly in my opinion, sees modernization analysis as sensitizing us to the dilemmas of Eastern European transformations rather than pointing to exporting Western institutions (including a laissez-faire plan of economic reforms or 'shock therapy') in order to induce the 'catch-up' modernization of Eastern Europe (Müller 1992: 144-147). It goes without saying that the spirit with which to seek comparative data on Eastern Europe is not that of liberal triumphalism, be it the Fukujama perspective or some other variant. It is a spirit of scientific curiosity and eagerness to learn about the structures and dynamics of a part of the world that was until very recently so close yet so far; a part of the world which initially was taken by many as a 'road to modernity', just as the modern Western empires at the turn of the century were justified as new roads to modernity for their subjects. The lessons to be learned from Eastern European quantitative and qualitative data (treating these in terms of, say, a comparative analysis of'internal colonialism' or as a 'breakdown of modernization') do not only concern the recent past. They are also about the structural and social psychological legacies of the past in the challenges of present transformations - challenges ranging from the liberation of populations from the collective mentalities of a centralized regime which discouraged individual initiatives to the challenges of redefining national identities. One must equally find data about processes of socioeconomic restructuring in a much smaller economic space (since the break-up of the empire meant the loss of a large trading partner in the East) which is also much larger (exposure to the international global economic environment). In a millenarian decade of transition, the present modernization of Eastern Europe offers a vast laboratory of different experiments in surviving in a difficult period of transition, which after all is what the coming of the millennium is all about.

Notes 1 I would include in these the "end of ideology" model put forth by Daniel Bell a few years before the maelstroms of the mid-60s (The End of Ideology. On the political exhaustion ofpolitical ideas in the fifties. New York: Free Press, 1960). It remains to be seen whether its latest version, Francis Fukujama's The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992), will provide a better passport into the next century.

262

Edward A. Tiryakian

2 There is a neglected sociological model formulated in the 1930s by Sorokin which is heuristic for anticipating short-term alterations in collective sentiments. That is the "principle of limits" of linear trends (,Social and Cultural Dynamics, abridged version, Boston: Porter Sargent, 1957, pp. 660675). 3 On Italian movements, see Daniele Petrosino, "Is it Possible to Invent Ethnic Identity? Some Reflections on the Italian Case", paper presented at the international conference, "Nationalism in Europe: Past and Present, (Os Nacionalismos en Europa: Pasado e Presented, Santiago de Compostela (Spain), 27-29 September, 1993. One should bear in mind that, within a region having historical and cultural specificity from the nation-state "centre", movements for autonomy will not have a single but many political manifestations, with different target referents for autonomy, ranging from cultural demands for language dominance to political independence. 4 The roots of modernization analysis, of course, go back to the last century and the writings of Marx, Weber and Dürkheim and many others who worked on various aspects of the development of modern society. The empirical processes involving conscious improvements in technologies and institutional arrangements stretch back much further in time. 5 For world-system analysis, see in particular Review, II (Spring 1979), entire issue. 6 I acknowledge the heterogeneity of these categories, since they are more than political but also cultural boundaries: the "Germanic" case has had a strong Protestant influence and a high emphasis on major facets of Western modernization, in the realm of science, technology and higher education. The Austro-Hungarian component overlaps with the linguistic aspect, but the Catholic tradition in the religious sphere provides a basis of differentiation. 7 The situation of Russians in the Baltics, especially Estonia, highlights this ambiguity, especially since Russian nationalists in Russia get political mileage at home by proclaiming the interest of the "home country" in protecting Russians in the diaspora. For some Estonians this recalls Hitler's statements of concern for Germans in the Sudetenland. For a more detailed discussion of Russians in the Baltics, see David D. Laitin, "Russian Nationalism in Post-Soviet Estonia", paper presented at the international conference, "Nationalism in Europe; Past and Present", Santiago de Compostela, September 27-29, 1993. 8 It was recently reported that public health in Russia has deteriorated precipitously in the past five years, with life expectancy of males declining from 67 years to 59 years, well below all major industrialized countries (Durham Morning Herald, February 3, 1994). 9 "It is this vise, with bribe-taking bureaucrats on one side and racketeers on the other, that is making business in Russia an increasingly daunting affair," ("Graft and Gangsterism in Russia Blight the Entrepreneurial Spirit", The New York Times, January 30, 1994). 10 Perhaps characteristic of the indifference towards or distrust of entrepreneurship is the following statement from Estonia: "We see there is a complete lack of sympathy on the part of legislators to small business... there is essentially no level playing field on which to give small businesses a chance to grow into medium-sized and big businesses", attributed to Marina Kaas of the Estonian Small Business Association, The Baltic Independent, November 26-December 2, 1993, Β 1. 11 For further discussion on Nigeria in this context, see Theobald, op. cit. 12 See the important study by Tomihide Kashioka, "Meiji Japan's Study Abroad Program: Modernizing Elites and Reference Societies", Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Duke University, 1982. 13 Of course I realize that universities in Eastern Europe, such as Charles University in the Czech Republic, Tartu University in Estonia, and Jagiellonian University in Poland are centuries old. But they are "new" in the sense that they are now freed from the ideological veneer and constraints of the pre-1989 setting. Furthermore, there is also a "new new" university, the Central European University in Budapest and Prague, funded by the Hungarian-bom entrepreneur George Soros, who typifies in many respects the sort of socially responsible entrepreneur that is badly needed for the reconstruction of Eastern Europe.

Modernization in a Millenarian Decade

263

References Albrow, Martin and Elizabeth King, (eds.) (1990): Globalization: Knowledge and Society. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, Alexander, Jeffrey, Bernhard Giesen, Richard Münch, and Neil Smelser (eds.) (1987): The MicroMacro Link. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, esp. 289-387. Andorka, Rudolf (1993): "The Socialist System and its Collapse in Hungary: An Interpretation in Terms of Modernisation Theory", International Sociology, 8 (September 1993): 317-37. Beck, Ulrich (1986): Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne: Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. English translation as Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London and Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992. Berger, Johannes (1992): "After the Victory of the West: Theories of Modernization Revisited", Annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Pittsburgh, August 1992. Crook, Stephen, Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters (1992): Postmodernization. Change in Advanced Society Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Desai, A. R. (1976): "Need for Revaluation of the Concept", in Cyril E. Black, (ed.), Comparative Modernization New York: Free Press, pp. 89-103. Eisenstadt, S. N. (ed.) (1972): Post-Traditional Societies New York: W.W. Norton. Eisenstadt, S. N. (ed.) (1986): Historical Traditions and Patterns of Modernization and Development The Jerusalem Quarterly, 38. d'Encausse Ηέΐέηβ Carröre (1991): La gloire des nations ou lafin de I 'Empire sovietique, Paris: Fayard. d'Encausse, Ηέΐέηε Carrtre (1978): L'Empire eclate. Paris: Flammarion. Featherstone, Mike (ed.) (1990): Global Culture: Globalization, Nationalism and Modernity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gereffi, Gary and Donald Wyman (eds.) (1990): Manufacturing Miracles. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Grancelli, Bruno (1992): "Organization innovation and entrepreneurial formation. Some Comparative remarks", in Bruno Dallago, Gianmaria Ajani and Bruno Grancelli, (eds.), Privatization and entrepreneurship in post-socialist countries: economy, law, and society. New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 89-109. Harrison, David (1988): The Sociology of Modernization & Development. London: Unwin Hyman. Heater, Derek (1992): The Idea of European Unity. New York: St. Martin's Press, pp. 97-108. Huntington Samuel P. (1976): "The Change to Change: Modernization, Development, and Politics", in Cyril E. Black, (ed.), Comparative Modernization New York: Free Press, pp. 25-61. Inkeles, Alex (1988): "Linking the Whole Human Race: The World as a Communication System", pp. 133-74 in H. L Sawyer, (ed.), Business in the Contemporary World New York: University Press of America. King, Anthony D. (ed.) (1991): Culture, Globalization and the World-System. Binghamton, New York: Department of Art & History, SUNY. Markham, Felix (ed.) (1964): The Science of Man and other writings,. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Melucci, Alberto 1989): Nomads ofthe Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Müller, Klaus (1992): "Modernising Eastern Europe: theoretical problems and political dilemmas", Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, 33: 109-50. Nee, Victor and Frank W. Young (1991): "Peasant entrepreneurs in China's 'Second Economy': An Institutional Analysis", Economic Development and Cultural Change, 39: 293-310. Nelson, Benjamin (1981): On the Roads to Modernity. Conscience, Science and Civilizations, (ed.) by Toby E. Huff, Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. Oberschall, Anthony (1993): Social Movements: Ideologies, Interests, and Identities New Brunswick: Transaction. Parsons, Talcott (1968): The Structure of Social Action. New York: Free Press,

264

Edward A. Tiryakian

Parsons, Talcott (1979/80): "On Theory and Metatheory", reproduced in Paul Colomy, (ed.), Functionalist Sociology. Brookfield, VT: Elgar Publishing, 1990, pp. 48-59. Parsons, Talcott, R. F. Bales and E. A. Shils, (eds.) (1953): Working Papers in the Theory of Action. New York: Free Press, pp. 163-269; Parsons, Talcott. (1968): The Structure of Social Action,. New York: Freepress, chap. 7. Peng, Yusheng (1992): "Wage Determination in Rural and Urban China: A Comparison of Public and Private Industrial Sectors", American Sociological Review, 57 (April): 210. Rucht, Dieter (ed.) (1991): Research on Social Movements: The state of the art in Western Europe and the USA. Boulder CO: Westview Press. Saint-Simon, Henri de (1814): "The Reorganization of the European Community", in his Social Organization, The Science of Man and other writings, (ed.) by Felix Markham. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964. Shils, Edward A. (1981): Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sklair, Leslie (1991): Sociology of the Global System Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. So, Alvin Y. (1990): Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency and World-System Theories. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, Sorokin, P. (1957): Social and Cultural Dynamics. Boston: Porter Sayent Sztompka, Piotr (1991): Society in Action: The Theory of Social Becoming (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Theobald, Robin (1990): Corruption, Development and Underdevelopment. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Tipps, Dean C. (1976): "Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of Societies: A Critical Perspective,", in Cyril E. Black, (ed.), Comparative Modernization New York: Free Press, pp. 6288 Tiryakian, Edward A. (1985): "The Changing Centers of Modernity", in E. Cohen, M. Lissak and U. Almagor, (eds.), Comparative Social Dynamics: Essays in Honor ofShmuel N. Eisenstadt. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 131-47. Tiryakian, Edward. A. (1959): "Occupational Satisfaction and Aspiration in an Underdeveloped Country: the Philippines", Economic Development and Cultural Change, 7: 431-44. Tiryakian, Edward. A. (1991): "Modernisation: Exhumetur in Pace (Rethinking Macrosociology in the 1990s)", International Sociology, 6 (June): 165-80. Tiryakian, Edward. A. (1992): "Pathways to Metatheory: Rethinking the Presuppositions of Macrosociology", pp. 69-87 in George Ritzer, (ed.), Studies in Metatheorizing in Sociology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Touraine, Alain (1981): The Voice and the Eye. Cambridge and Paris: Cambridge University Press/ Maison des Sciences de Γ Homme. Touraine, Alain (1984): Le retour de l'acteur. Paris: Fayard. Zapf, Wolfgang (1990): "Modernisierung und Modemisierungstheorien", pp. 23-39 in Zapf (ed.), Die Modernisierung moderner Gesellschaften. Verhandlungen des 25. Deutschen Soziologentages in Frankfurt am Main 1990. Frankfurt: Campus. Zapf, Wolfgang (1992): Die Transformation in der ehemalingen DDR und die soziologische Theorie der Modernisierung. Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), AG Sozialberichterstattung, P92-104.

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity? Economy and Society in Eastern European Transformations Klaus Müller

1 Introduction Since the fall of communism, transformation research has become a prolific field of study for all the social sciences. Political scientists, economists and sociologists have rapidly moved into the domain of Soviet Science and Communist Studies. Numerous opinion polls, comparative economic analyses and social surveys have been conducted. A wide variety of newly-founded journals, studies and a constant flow of reports by international organizations provide insights into the still astonishing and inadequately explained processes under way in Eastern Europe. When confronted by this scientific landscape - which grows increasingly complex - one may reasonably ask for integrating theories which reconstruct the now visible problems of East European reforms and provide reference points for systematic theory-building. It also makes sense to address this demand to modernization theory - an interdisciplinary programme developed in parallel with the reorganization of international relations after World War II and which expanded into a general theory of social change during the decolonization of the Third World in the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, now that the collapse of Soviet communism has pulled historical materialism down with it,1 there seems to be no other candidate for the status of a general theory of social change. Nevertheless, resuming the topics of modernization theory cannot consist of a return to the evolutionary theory of modernity which characterized the social sciences until the 1960s and underwent an astonishing revival in the German neo-Parsonianism of the 1980s. If Eisenstadt's comparative view proves correct, then events in Eastern Europe are in line with those 'great revolutions' that challenge the central categories of Western macro-sociological analysis by pitting the conception of a purposive logic of evolutionary processes against the importance of historical contingencies, the scope of innovative actions, ecological restrictions and the dynamics of inter-societal relations (Eisenstadt 1992a). In contrast to the anonymous logic of functional differentiation, Tiryakian de-

266

Klaus Müller

scribes the past thirty years as marked by the emergence of new movements which first formed as the anti-colonial protest which upset the advanced Western societies in the 1960s and then, in a third wave, toppled communist rule in 1989 (Tiryakian 1993, 3ff). According to Sztompka, the peculiar a-theoretical revolution of the East European movements calls for a change of paradigm, at least in sociology, which breaks with every variety of historicism and evolutionary development theory (Sztompka 1993: 10). Now that the 'competition of systems' - which was also a competition between models of society - has come to an end, numerous sociological categories have apparently lost their validity. Even after the 'victory of the West', there is no reason for propounding a triumphant new version of a programme which has been repeatedly criticized over the past decades, not least by Eisenstadt. This is particularity the case now that the "old line apologists" (Alexander 1992: 6) of modernization theory are confronted by a set of anomalies arising from the East European transformations, so that instead of adaptive upgrading, we observe economic breakdown; instead of broader inclusion and generalized values, we find ethnically and religiously defined demarcations; instead of a coherent goal attainment, we witness the emergence of fragile reform coalitions struggling to cope with ungovernable societies, especially in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). A resumption of modernization theory only seems promising, therefore, if it assumes a self-critical stance towards its own history on the one hand, and takes account of the specific historical constellation within which the transformations of post-communist societies are taking place on the other. I shall first recall the historical importance of the 'classical approach' in its twofold guise a as both theoretical and political programme - a feature it shares with current transformation debate on Eastern Europe. As a second step, I shall point out a central problem which contemporary (neo-Parsonian) modernization theory encounters in analysis of East European transformations but is unable to solve: providing an adequate description of the relationship between economic reform and social reconstruction. It is principally this failure, at once theoretical and political, which has led to the predominance of orthodox economic models in analysis of transformation. Accordingly, I shall outline some questions which, in my opinion, will decide the future of a revised modernization theory which is no longer concurrent with Soviet Marxism, but with post-modern indifferentism.

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

267

2 Changing Patterns of Modernization An evaluation of modernization theory should begin with reconsideration of the historical core of its main issues and questions, even though this may prove difficult for a universalist approach. Only by recognizing the historical cleavages in modernization processes since 1945, will it be possible to make realistic assessment of the manner in which East European societies are now seeking to catch up with West European development, thereby avoiding misleading analogies.

2.1 The Classical Discourse on Modernization The classical theory of modernization was developed in the late 1940s as an interdisciplinary framework for research on the conditions for, and the possibilities of, democratic reconstruction in Western Europe and the Far East. The restructuring of the social sciences which ensued is usually described as a dual revolution characterized in empirical terms by a uniform, 'behavioural' methodology, and in theoretical terms by a concept of 'system' which ramified into economic input-output analysis and equilibrium theory, structural-functionalist sociology, political cybernetics and game theory (Bell 1982, Pt. I; Easton 1965, 17 ff) In the decades that followed this revolution, debate in the social sciences concentrated on a range of issues which concerned certain partial aspects of modernization. Comparative political science discussed the influence exerted by historical traditions, psychological value attitudes, pre-political loyalties and national symbols on the willingness to support democratic institutions. The object of its analysis went under the heading of 'political culture', a term first introduced by Almond, Pye, Verba, Inkeles and others (Almond 1956; Almond & Verba 1963; Inkeles 1961; Pye & Verba 1965). Lipset addressed the question of the "social requisites" of democratic behaviour (Lipset 1959). Political sociology analysed the roles of parties, elites and interest groups in the process of political mobilization. Development economics - a discipline also founded in the 1950s - studied the technologies, investment strategies and the foreign trade and distribution policies necessary for achievement of sustained economic growth (Rostow 1952). The interdisciplinary nature of (by no means homogenous) modernization theory responded to the weaknesses of the old institutionalism of the 1920s, which considered North-American democratic institutions and procedures as alone sufficient to place the newly-emerging nations of Central and Mid-Eastern Europe on the path of democratic progress, but failed to cope with the hard

268

Klaus Müller

realities of economic crises and the success of populist dictatorships. The emphasis of the classical approach on social integration, economic growth and political control was to a major extent directed against Soviet Marxism "resulting from [...] the emergence of communism in the post-World War II period as an unambiguously competing form of modernization" (Almond 1968: 332). On the other hand, the critique brought by modernization theory against totalitarianism theory contributed considerably to the de-ideologization of East European studies. The enormous social dynamics of the Soviet-type societies, the growing heterogenity of their (politically produced) classes and a legitimizing 'implicit social contract' between workers and the apparatus could not be explained by a state-centred theory which neglected every interaction between culture, society, economy, party and the state.2 Many of the investigations carried out by early modernization theorists took the model of North American or Anglo-Saxon democratic capitalism as their premise. Extending the field of application of the modernization approach to post-colonial societies in Africa and Asia, however, led to a certain opening and self-criticism. Apter studied the complex prerequisites for a successful 'transfer' of Western institutions into non-Western cultural spheres, and in this context warned against identifying modernization with industrialization. Historically and systematically, the classical approach was framed by Talcott Parsons. In one of the earliest works of modernization theory, which referred to post-war Germany, Parsons extended the domain of sociological theory to description of the imbalances and pressures of modernization processes with respect to controlled social change. Since the institutional structure of a society depends on its capacity to integrate, Parsons maintained that structural change, even though it mainly concerns the economic sphere, is eo ipso a sociological theme. Even a seemingly self-organized economy is therefore embedded in a network of contractual relations based on solidarities, mutual confidence and expectations which absorb direct conflicts of interests. This applies even more to processes of structural change. In contrast to doctrinaire Marxism and to the technological determinism of other modernization approaches, Parsons insisted on the significance of motivational and cultural factors. Social change cannot be steered by conditions, incentives and constraints alone: '"Economic forces' operate through processes of exchange and hence within the framework of contract" (Parsons & Smelser 1956, 255 ff.). The definition of the situation from the perspective of social agents influenced by moral sentiments, 'vested interests' and demands considered legitimate, is decisive. A policy which neglects this aspect must take into account rigidities, defensive attitude systems and unstable institutionalizations.3 Parsons later translated his framework, which was primarily based on an action theory "from the point of view of the actor" (Parsons 1937, 46), into an evolutionist philosophy of history as steered, cybernetically, by increasingly generalized values. Although many modernization theo-

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

269

rists were unable to agree with this speculative concept, they shared a common insight with Parsons: successful social change is based on a difficult balance between economic growth, non-economic orientations and integrative norms. Managing social tensions, running a crisis-prone economy, and mobilizing the population, required considerable political capacity (Coleman 1968: 398). The influence of modernization theory went far beyond its academic impact, and in two ways. As regards the internal organization of advanced capitalist societies, it generalized the Keynesian revolution of economic policy into a programme for the socio-political "institutionalization of class conflict", as Dahrendorf put it. Parsons was one of the first sociologists to recognize that the welfare state, an open educational system and a redistributive tax policy were the main social innovations of the twentieth century. Therefore, the model of society propounded by modernization theory did not merely define the "orthodox consensus" (Giddens 1982) of the social sciences; it was built into the normative identity of Western post-war societies. Approaches to modernization theory acquired an influence over political consultation which was only comparable to Keynesian economics. In international relations, its universalism corresponded to the objectives set by the UN institutions of global cooperation in solution of international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems. 4 The (self-)criticism conducted by the classical approach during the 1960s was provoked mainly by Parsons' attempt at an evolutionary synthesis. It focused on the methodological weakness of an explanation of social change based on functional imperatives, and also highlighted the action-theoretical deficiencies and Eurocentrism of the underlying norms of development.5 Owing to the substantial failure of numerous attempts at industrialization - brought about by enduring inequalities within the international economic order and by the increasing ecological costs of'adaptive upgrading' - for nearly a decade the modernization approach was pushed into the background by theories of imperialism, theories of dependency and mounting criticism of growth. However, the lasting impact of modernization theory did not stem from Parsons' grand theory. It derived instead from the wide variety of comparative studies conducted under the auspices of the international organizations, such as the reports by the International Labour Office, numerous special investigations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the the World Bank's annual Human Development Report, a connection which Anthony Giddens characterized as follows in the early 1980s: "it is important to recognise that from the 1960s to the present day, this type of theory has become an important contributing element to the world system itself. This is because the assumptions upon which it is based are, broadly speaking, shared by western governments, in their interaction with the Third World, and by development agencies associated with the United Nations, the World Bank, and so on."6 This was one of the reasons why

270

Klaus Müller

the modernization approach survived its academic criticism - even that levelled against it by Giddens.

2.2 The Neo-Parsonian Comeback of Modernization Theory 'Classical modernization theory' was a highly heterogeneous field of research7 - much more diversified than was apparent in its polemic against Marxism and against contemporary advocates of 'post-modernism', and also more diversified than some of today's neo-Parsonians seem to assume. The strongest evidence for the continuing normative impulse of modernization is the fact that the Soviet-type societies were overwhelmed by the 'generalization' of Western values in the 1980s. Gorbachev's definitive break with the doctrine of international class struggle, his recognition of the universality of human rights, and his appeal for the renewal of the UN beyond the Cold War, confirmed the long-term effectiveness of the CSCE principles negotiated in the 1970s.8 Perestroika was therefore an admission that the modernization of the Soviet-type societies, as demonstrated by the scientification of production, the urbanization of society, an improved level of education and a rising number of self-organized activities, had reached the point where the democratization of the monolithic party system became inevitable. This development had been predicted by Western Marxists like Bauer and sociological convergence theorists like Sorokin for some time.9 Furthermore, the expectations raised by modernization theory are built into the policies of the 'radical reformers' and implemented by the aid programmes of international organizations. Like the reconstruction of Western Europe after 1945, 'catching-up' by East European societies should be able to rely on the expertise and the political counselling of international organizations. Along with internal democratization, for most of the East European states access seemed possible to those organizations - the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and the IMF - from which they had been hitherto excluded. The first major programmes, initially aimed at reforming the socialist economy, and shortly afterwards at accomplishing the transformation from plan to market economy, were formulated by the East European governments in close cooperation with Western advisers. The first attempt to induce transition by 'shock therapy' was negotiated between the Polish government and the IMF. The most extensive analysis of the Soviet economy so far conducted was prepared by the World Bank and other development organizations for the meeting of the seven leading industrialized countries (G7) in Houston. Because, until the late phase ofperestroika, no comparable sociological studies had been conducted, sociology was criticised for not having 'foreseen' the collapse of Soviet power. Sociological theory, which in fact had had very little contact with Soviet science, arrived on the scene too late. After the fall of Soviet

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

271

communism, it addressed the same questions which applied to Western Europe after 1945 to those countries now trying to catch up with the political and economical systems of Western societies in "a Third Wave of democratization" (Huntington 1991; Inkeles 1991; Rustow 1990). The first round of theoretical assessment revived the institutionalist idea of a 'transfer of institutions', inquired into the 'prerequisites for democracy', and compared the 'transitions to democracy' in South America and Southern Europe against the East European situation (Karl & Schmitter 1991; Linz & Stephan 1992; Lipset, Seong & Torres 1993). In view of this convergence among the questions addressed by the classical modernization approach, it was predictable that Mouzelis would try to remedy the defects of sociological transformation research by reference to Parsons' 'prognosis' of East European development.10

2.3 The 'Morning after': The Defects of the Neo-Parsonian Approach The return to the optimistic view of classical modernization theory was understandable at the moment when the communist system collapsed, especially since it concurred with the expectations of the East European populations. Four years afterwards, however, everything appears in a more sober light. The shared past of the East European societies is continuing more persistently than anyone would have thought into a common present marked by a fall in production, rising inflation and declining standards of living. The communist apparatus lost its authority in a way that led to an 'inflation of power' which still obstructs any coherent policy: rule by decree coexists with the anarchy of competing groups. The steep decline in investment, the emigration of highly-qualified segments of the population and still largely concealed unemployment, provoke fears that the crisis will deepen.11 The differentiation among the East European countries applies at present to prioritized privatization strategies, to the sequencing of reforms, and to statistical estimates of the breakdown, with Russia distinguished by extremely negative figures due to its substantially more unstable political conditions. The level of stabilization of GDP achieved by Poland and Hungary in 1993 is still very low, and once again depends on still incalculable secondary conditions. Given this depressing situation, combined with continuing power struggles in Eastern Europe and the weight of the old structures (Mokrzycki 1993), the issue is no longer why the social sciences failed to 'predict' the end of the Soviet system. Instead, the questions to be asked are the following: How could historians and social philosophers so easily believe in a new edition of the "intellectual revolution of 1848" (Ash 1990: 396)? How could uncritical Western economists seriously work on programmes for transition to a market society within 500 days? How could sociologists think that realization of a "liberal project" for a "Europe consisting exclusively of democratic constitutional societies"

272

Klaus Müller

(Senghaas 1990: 37) was within reach? It looks as though reckless analogies and the false promises of a Marshall plan for Eastern Europe have distorted the perception of a historically unique situation. The social sciences, their good intentions notwithstanding, are partly to blame. The premature idea of a 'transfer of institutions' reproduced the mistake of the 'old institutionalism': political institutions - i.e. voting methods, the role of parties and interest groups, parliamentary techniques, minority rights, social welfare, and so on - are highly esteemed because of their universalist pretensions. But how these institutions can be established and protected against populist and nationalist takeovers is - and remains - unclear.12 Those who advocate a 'civil society' in Eastern Europe have insulated their normative concept (based on Aristotle in antithesis to Hegel) against the 'bourgeois' sphere of economics, thereby prolonging the well-known weaknesses in Almond's and Verba's concept of'political culture'. The defects in explanations of East European change do not stem solely from enthusiasm for the peaceful revolutions of 1989; they also have far-reaching conceptual reasons. Without too much exaggeration, one may discern a convenient merger between economic theory, political science and sociology: neoclassical economists argue on the basis of the functional requirements of effective markets; political scientists cite the imperatives of Western-style democracy; sociologists refer to the institutional prerequisites for functioning markets. All this makes sense in discussion of what East European societies do not have. The real question, however, is how rudimentary markets with fragile democracies can operate in times of lost orientation and in an environment of delegitimized institutions. And the kind of dynamics that this triggers. Not coincidentally, observers of East European transformation concentrate on economic development. Nor is it a coincidence that the discourse of transformation is dominated by economic models. A central problem of East European societies is that they have inherited a relationship between economics, politics and society which had no counterpart in the West. In Eastern Europe, two operations must be undertaken simultaneously: the economy must be reorganized, and the elementary political and legal conditions for this reorganization must be created. In contrast to democratic capitalism, and contrary to liberalist assumptions, the simultaneity of economic reform and political emancipation is, in fact, an obstacle to both economic efficiency and the assertion of political influence.13 The theoretical apparatus required to deal with this precarious constellation of phenomena, however, derives from the ideal-type of a fully differentiated market society. This raises several problems which I shall discuss in the next section. One might expect the revival of modernization theory to result in an interdisciplinary adjustment of transformation research. Yet this theory is, I believe, unaware of the extent of the challenge raised by this new situation. It has not

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

273

realized that the meaning of the term 'modernization' has undergone paradigmatic changes in its short history. Although the success of Western post-war modernization depended closely on a set of Keynesian policies until the 1960s, matters have radically changed in the last decade. In the early 1980s, 'modernization' came to signify an international policy of deregulation which rendered it increasingly difficult for politics to intervene in economic processes. Just as Tiryakian defined "shifting centres of modernity" (Tiryakian 1986), so one may define "changing patterns of modernization". Since the 1980s, modernization has been viewed as a mainly market-induced process which receives its impetus from technological innovation and liberalized markets. Neglected, therefore, has been the institutionalized arbitration of conflicting interests and the whole complex of a distributive justice (Rawls 1971, Ch. 5) which determines the principles of taxation, property relations, the allocation of public goods, and the role of the public sector - even though, according to the classical approach of modernization, this complex indicates the level of a society's social integration. As a result of this change in meaning, the discourse of modernity as projected onto Eastern Europe is dominated by "some completely unsociological economic ideas".14 As Przeworski notes with astonishment, 'reform' and 'marketization' seem to have become mutually synonymous in Eastern Europe. 'Modernization' is reduced to the internalization of market-oriented behaviour (Przeworski 1991,158), and 'action' is restricted to the maximization of individual welfare a view far to narrow to be acceptable to sociology. It is precisely this outcome that accounts for the silence of'grand' sociological theory on the unexpected manner in which East European transformations are proceeding. The neo-Parsonian theory of modernization, which is being developed in Germany with Hegelian zeal, has agreed to a comfortable division of labour with current economic dogma. To the left, so to speak, of Parsonian theory, Habermas has declared neo-classical economic theory to be "the most advanced social science" and has abandoned his specifically sociological approach to economics (Habermas 1981, II, Ch. 7, Sect. 2.3:384ff). Luhmann, who argues from the Parsonian right, has described the economy as a self-organized system of prices which operates independently of human needs and the natural and social prerequisites of production. In both versions, the economic sphere is a functionally differentiated, autonomous and a-moral zone of society. Any intervention in the (by definition) complete price system of an economy is viewed as a regression to a pre-modern state. Economically induced disparities and conflicts of interest, power relations and demands for social justice cannot, therefore, constitute problems within the framework of this artificial construction. In other words, neo-Parsonian sociology does not maintain sufficient distance from mainstream economic theory. Lacking preparatory work of its own comparable with Parsons' critique of the utilitarian action theory propounded by the economists of his time, it cannot intervene in discourse on economic

274

Klaus Müller

transformation to correct its reductionist view. It cannot make proper assessment of the repercussions of economic crises on social integration and on the political legitimacy of society. Hence, it lags behind the problem-consciousness attained in the internal controversy of advanced economic theory. In order to illustrate this proposition, I suggest that a revised sociological theory of modernization should be based on the themes addressed by economic controversy itself. At the same time I hope to gain a fresh perspective on economic debate. Behind neo-classical analysis of transformation, a distinct social programme is to be found, even though it is based on a highly questionable view of the dynamics of social change. This reciprocal correction seems worthwhile, not least because the theory of society - from Marx and Weber to Parsons - has received decisive impetus from communication between sociology and economics.

3 The Negative Sociology of Analysis of Economic Reform Of course, the crucial contribution of economic thought to the advancement of reform cannot be dismissed: East European societies were economically 'constituted', and Marxism-Leninism made the unleashing of productive forces one of its prime objectives and accepted the challenge of a competition among systems. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it was not the political opposition carried forward by dissidents, but the decrease in levels of mass consumption after the mid-1980s that provoked the final crisis of communist power.15 The available economic data on Russia indicate a recession which has already surpassed the Great Depression of the 1930s.16 Therefore, the primacy of the economy is all too understandable: the legitimation of reform policy is closely linked to its economic success.

3.1 Elements of the Economic Discourse on Transformation The decisive advantage of economic discussion of reforms is that it offers clearcut alternatives: market versus planning, privatization versus centralist bureaucracy, money versus barter, decentralised business-units versus clumsy state enterprises; the free flow of goods and capital versus state-run foreign trade. The free pricing of goods is supposed to enable markets otherwise distorted by state funding efficiently to allocate scarce resources, and it brings the additional benefit of consolidated state finances. Privatization is expected to induce private initiative and to decentralize responsibility for the reform of the economy.

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

275

Capital markets are believed to lead to a realistic evaluation of enterprises and to the closure of loss-making companies. Cutting export duties is supposed to lead to better investments and refunding, while the liberalization of imports is expected to impose price discipline. These measures seem interdependent and coherent, and they do not allow for any gradual compromise.17 Their rapid implementation is supposed to dissolve old monopolies and prevent new ones. Time is regarded as decisive. The 'radical scenario' developed by the IMF promised the FSU an adaptation process involving only a few years of painful adjustments, after which success would ensure social consensus for the reforms before too many frustrations could arise. After an adaptation process in which GDP was supposed to diminish by 10%, and industrial production by 20%, growth, with a tolerable unemployment rate of 6%, was considered possible.18 Only radical structural change, it was said, could compensate for the jobs lost in industry due to employment opportunities in growing (private) services. A 'conservative scenario' would delay consolidation until the next century. The empirical background drawn on by Western advisers like Allison, Aslund, Dornbusch, Lipton and Sachs is a study of the (former) Soviet Union prepared by the IMF in cooperation with the World Bank, the OECD and the EBRD, and amplified by follow-up reports.19 Similar studies have been carried out on other East European countries. Apart from some minor differences, the textbook version of neo-classical equilibrium theory is their common theoretical denominator.20 Let us refer to this widely-known programme as 'transformation discourse'. On the one hand, it narrows the perception of, and controversy over, the best route from socialism to capitalism to the permissible alternatives;21 on the other, since it is a programme institutionalized in international organizations, it tends to create power structures which are effective in generating the demarcation of political blocs and government proclamations. Conversely, the hegemony of the neo-classical paradigm over the much broader field of economic approaches relevant to East European transformation (Grosfeld 1992) results from institutional effects rather than from theoretical reasons alone. Most East European reform economists have been educated at Western universities with curricula that reflect the (understandably) anti-state propensities of many reform intellectuals. After all, neoclassically-minded reformers have privileged access to Western organizations and government offices, which tie their aid promises to specific reform sequences. The selectivity of theoretical perception corresponds to the selectivity of Western policy recommendations (Müller 1992, 137ff.). The abstract character of economic reform models has attracted a good deal of criticism: there are no adequate internal savings from rapid privatization; the over-hasty liberalization of prices does not lead to the more efficient allocation of goods, but to monopolies; insider-privatizations preserve existing power struc-

276

Klaus Müller

tures; the liberalization of external trade encourages a massive flight of capital and disastrously exposes industries to international competition; because of market-failure provoked specifically by the transformation process, the prerequisites for this model cannot be implemented in Eastern European conditions (Wittkowsky 1992: 586fif). Arguments of this sort are supported by the empirical evidence of the last two years, but they misunderstand the strategy of official reform plans. The powereffects inherent in neo-classical discourse can only be grasped if one has a clear idea of its intentions, which are by no means restricted to the functioning of a 'pure economy'. This is not at all surprising. In Eastern Europe, market economies must not be maintained, but introduced. Yet it is not at all clear, though implicitly taken for granted, that the same theories used to explain the reproduction of markets can be applied to their construction.

3.2 The Politics of 'Pure Economy' From this follows the decisively altered political role of neo-classical theory in the context of East European transformations. The '500-day' plan presented by Shatalin was not to be taken seriously as a theory, and it would have damaged the academic reputation of any economist were it meant to be a scientific analysis. The actual purpose of the programme was to divest the old functionaries of their power. Likewise, the so-called radical reforms implemented since 1990 have been mainly intended to ensure political irreversibility. A strategy aimed at destroying existing institutions is certainly something rather different from a programme for economic reconstruction. Therefore, the questions recently asked by Murell - "What is Shock Therapy? What did it do in Poland and Russia?" - are not merely rhetorical but challenge us to deal seriously with the social theory presupposed by the reform economics (Murrell 1993). It is typical of radical reform programmes that their social implications are not spelled out but are held to be the more or less self-evident consequences of economic constraints. The implicit strategy seems rather self-evident. The "top priority" of privatization (Sachs 1991) is to dismantle the corporatist union between factory-managers and workers. This is based on the idea that state enterprises must, by necessity, react passively and inflexibly to market conditions and are expected to maximize subsidies, while managers preserve their power by mobilizing their workers' fear of being 'shaken out' by future reforms. 22 The state, for its part, is overburdened both financially and administratively by the magnitude of the reconstruction required.23 Since the state cannot be entrusted with any active function, complete 're-tooling' must take place outside the state sector.

From Post-Communism to Post-Modemity?

277

The aim of this unconditional privatization is to ensure a redistribution of property and income which gives precise regulation to the further process of reform. To quote Lipton and Sachs: "In essence, privatization requires first that ownership rights, now vested in the enterprises, and particularly in the workers councils, must be eliminated" (Lipton & Sachs 1990, 308). The redefinition of property rights is intended to install classes which are willing to support the further reform process. The parallel deregulation of prices is undertaken not only to improve efficiency but to eliminate egalitarian values. The differing chances of different groups of workers to transform mounting prices into higher wage demands lead - according to a kind of applied functionalistic theory of social stratification - to functional disparities, which are presumed to create proper incentives. The unconditional reduction of budget deficits would amount to no less radical intervention in the political structure. The inflationary expansion of the money supply stems from two principal sources: enormous inter-company debts in Eastern Europe and, in the FSU, the credit still granted by the old central power to trade among the republics.24 Therefore, the restriction of credit now being demanded is directed against one of the political levers which keep the old industrial and regional connections in operation. The economic discourse of reform thus ranges far beyond economic change. Its aims are to reorganize the social structure, to implement new laws, and to intervene in the political process - all goals (and this is crucial) which pay no regard to politically-needed compromise, social norms or feelings ofjustice, but which merely create economic constraints. Broadly speaking, economic discussion of reform depends on two assumptions: firstly, the notion that anybody acting under any circumstances always pursues his or her rationally calculated self-interest; secondly, a kind of applied theory of totalitarianism which maintains that, since the system of real socialism has totally failed, it will shortly entirely disappear - a process often labelled "creative destruction".25 The atomized individuals of the market are supposed to crystallize around newly-created (or 'transferred') institutions. "Spontaneous economic activity is evident": this succinct formula by Lipton and Sachs contains in essence the message of the neo-classical programme. "Existing society is only appeased, not used as an agent of reform", was Murrell's comment (Murrell 1993: 115 ff.). Because of this purely negative relationship with still-existing society, one might well speak of'negative sociology'.

278

Klaus Müller

4 Bringing Sociology Back In If my perception is correct, this negative sociology entails four lines of argument in reformulation of a modernization theory which seeks to free itself from neo-classical transformation discourse. I do not, of course, intend to deny the importance of macroeconomic consolidation for East European societies. But I do want to moderate the suggested therapy with its unintended consequences, which only too easily erode the very preconditions for stabilization programmes. Important departure-points for the reciprocal adjustment of sociology and economics can be found in the conflicts now marking advanced economic debate.

4.1 Beyond the 'Pure Market' This aspect primarily concerns the concept of market as employed by transformation discourse and which already requires sociological extension for economic reasons. Contrary to general belief, the functioning of markets and the ordering capacity attributed to them are anything but self-evident, and they cannot be copied from the self-image of successful Western market societies. When official reform discourse presents the market as a self-evident fact, it neglects the wide variety of historical market societies and the diversity of competing market theories (cf. Hirschman 1986). Therefore, any discussion of transition from plan to market should first make clear what is meant by a 'market economy'. Interestingly enough, differing consequences can already be drawn from the restrictive premises of the dominant economic theory in transformation discourse. The market concept applied in the neo-classical policy recommendations by Sachs or the IMF borrows its scientific authority from General Equilibrium Theory, a paradigm which operates under very specific technical premises, and the assumptions of which guarantee the coherent coordination of the decentralized activities of rational actors. With given initial endowments, preferences, technologies and prices, this model economy achieves the optimal allocation of resources and equilibrium prices, where supply and demand are equalized. This equilibrium, moreover, fulfils certain criteria of welfare economics: rational actors do not choose any prices or wealth distribution other than those given in equilibrium; no actor or group of actors can improve their situation without worsening the situation of others. The academic reputation of this approach is based on its universalist nature and its mathematical precision, although this has produced "the general impression that there is a 'scientific' theory which demonstrates the efficiency of market economies" (Hahn 1992: 101). It was the merit of Hahn as a pioneer of General Equilibrium Theory that he insisted on a major dilemma: namely that it is precisely the mathematical rigour

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

279

of this approach which diminishes its descriptive relevance - and this applies a fortiori to the policy recommendations that derive from it. When interpreted as a model of an empirically given society, the theory's specific prerequisites become assumptions that are anything but trivially fulfilled - and it thereby provides an instructive picture of the non-economic prerequisites of functioning markets (cf. Hahn 1992: 105 ff.). In this sense, a practically inevitable conflict arises between efficient allocation or accumulation and a distribution of property and income able to create suitable incentives for productive activities. The topicality of this question results from the widely-voiced fear that the market economy in Eastern Europe may have discredited itself even before it has become properly established, because of marked inequalities, the inexplicable enrichment of certain actors, and an ineffecient tax system. Markets cannot eliminate such distortions by themselves because they sanction existing property and distributive relations, whatever their origins (i.e. nomenklatura buy-outs, mafia practices, the conversion from state to private-monopoly or truly innovative enterprises). A coherent market economy is by no means a moral-free zone. Its reproduction depends on taxation principles, income policy and transfer systems. These correct monopolistic positions on the one hand, and take long-term development potential 26 into account on the other, especially normative criteria: "it seems difficult to ignore the claims of justice altogether" (Hahn 1992: 106). Even if the "ideology of egalitarianism, of redistribution and 'social justice'" led to a general rejection of performance principles and to counterproductive incentives (Zaslavski 1993: 8), social norms cannot be scaled down to the individualistic ethics of achievement. Not only because the transition to a market economy produces specific inequalities which are not justified by functional contributions, meritocratic criteria or general welfare effects. 'Efficiency', 'welfare' and 'performance' are characteristics from which individuals only benefit by organizational mediation. Transformation cannot be restricted to the level of individual incentives (cf. Genov 1991: 335). Many pathologies of the now-disintegrated socialist mode of production are quite 'rational' means of individual enrichment. According to welfare-economic and sociological considerations, however, a reorganization of institutional structures is crucial, and this entails re-interpretation of solidarities and norms ofjustice rather than their elinimation. Economic change, i.e. the dissolution of old institutions, "must be balanced by new processes of integration unless it is to disrupt the system". 27 A sociological correction of the overestimated organizational capacity of markets is also necessary with regard to the functions that markets cannot fulfil by themselves, but on which the efficiency of market economies closely depends (regarding the structure of public expenditures and the size of the public sector). Markets engender an under-supply of public goods. The poor infrastructure and the educational backwardness of those Western countries whose

280

Klaus Müller

public functions have been privatized most drastically are evidence in support of this assertion (Hahn 1992: 106). The transfer of the Western idea of a minimal state to the East European context has led to a situation in which the tasks of politics, beyond its ordering functions, are no longer described in positive terms. The infrastructure, the skilling level of the population, and research capacities (which were long considered to be comparative advantages) have fallen victim to insufficient public investments, the erosion of the educational system, and the parlous state of the East European universities - a tendency at the cost of longterm development prospects. However, the extent and functions of the public sector cannot be defined economically or in terms of individual benefits (Arrow 1963: 17ff), and it is for this reason that they are contested. The necessity for state intervention, public property, and public services in areas where no efficient and equitable results are to be expected because of market failure is not controversial. The proportion of state-directed enterprises defined according to strategic, national or industrial-policy options may also be large in overtly capitalist countries (in France, Italy, Austria and, after unification, Germany, for example) and it is determined by political choice and ideologies. Thus, East European reform policy is confronted with all the questions that were discussed in Western literature (with changing outcomes, however): the optimal relation between market and hierarchy, autonomy and control, centralization and decentralization, and so on. But the answers suggested in the West are not immediately transferable to the East. In a market economy, public activities must be justified in terms of their opportunity costs. In transitional societies, the pressure of a private sector which propels public enterprises and institutions towards efficiency is lacking (Grosfeld 1992: 65). The realm and the mandate of the 'visible hand' will have to be renegotiated in the light of specific circumstances.28

4.2 Reorganizing Property Relations It is especially with regard to property rights that the dynamics of transformation have obscured all the clear-cut alternatives to the neoclassical strategy. Privatization has not resulted in the expected differentiation of a private sector in any East European country. Not because of any lack of 'radicalism', but because its effects have depended far more than expected on the institutional heritage, traditional practices and the organizing capacity of the old order. As Stark has shown for Hungary, well-defined property rights have not emerged, but nor has the former state-ownership continued unchanged. A combination of private and public property prevails in typical Hungarian firms. As well as management-ownership and the shop-floor ownership of separate parts of the enterprise, Stark registers a clear trend towards the re-nationalization of ownership

From Post-Communism to Post-Modemity?

281

rights: "The fastest growing new property form is a limited liability company owned by other limited liability companies owned by joint stock companies, banks, and large public enterprises owned by the state".30 Therefore, privatization is not a technical procedure. It involves instead negotiation between old and new actors over new forms of property. The plurality of privatization procedures is often interpreted as a lack of commitment by the government to 'grand privatization', but it is in fact due to the multiple interests involved. The creation of property rights cannot be reduced to considerations of efficiency and the promotion of enterpreneurship. In this process, the local nomenklatura's power-stabilizing strategies overlap with the concern of the employees to protect themselves against unemployment by acquiring company shares. Even the most radical government's interest in the rapid privatization of large firms is polyvalent: the attempt to stabilize the currency by absorbing private surplus money through the sale of vouchers competes with concern to achieve a secure tax yield; the establishment of free capital markets conflicts with reservations over selling off the national economy to foreigners. Nothing else makes the ideological undercurrents in the property debate more explicit than the restitution of property to its pre-war owners in Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and the ex-GDR, a policy which leads to competing legal claims and sets lasting impediments on (foreign) investment.31 Given this diversity of interests, Arato (consistently enough) suggests that competing claims for what was formerly 'people's property' should be settled in accordance with the principles of a civil society. Precisely because this procedure creates a wide variety of owners, it may prevent the undesired (re-)concentration of property: "Consultations regarding the specific method of privatization in each case with employee councils, unions, loyal self-governments, and other interested parties would make the whole process more broadly acceptable than the current extremes of spontaneous and state controlled privatization" (Arato 1993: 637 ff.). One of the fears raised by official reform economists in this context has proved unfounded. Increases in efficiency and changes are also possible under old or mixed ownership. The most recent research by the World Bank on the situation in Poland concludes that large state-businesses often manage the transitional crisis better than smaller private ones. State businesses are among the forerunners of transformation: they have often achieved greater production increases than smaller firms, and they register growing export surpluses. But a state business which is capable of behaving rationally in a micro-economic way is a clear indication of the potentially positive role of existing organizations in the development of reforms (see Pinto et. al. 1993). In other words: to a great extent, the success of transition to capitalism will depend on the mobilization of this potential.

282

Klaus Müller

4.3 Toward a Political Sociology of Transformation The task at present is to gain a better grip on the interaction between economic reform, political stabilization and the readiness of the main actors to compromise. 32 In order to illuminate the political dynamics of economic reform, Przeworski has suggested some game-theory models which appear rather prophetic in the light of events in Russia in 1993. This approach has two advantages. In contrast to neo-classical efficiency discourse the political dimension of reforms is made explicit: "From the political point of view, reforms are a strategy of control from above" (Przeworski 1991:183). Compared to neo-Parsonian sociology and comparative politics, the accent shifts from the 'functional requisites' of successful transformation to the actual alignments of undecided conflict.33 The East European governments are thus faced with a profound dilemma. They must impose reform programmes designed by Western technocrats on their own people - who, ideally, might be ready to cross the inevitable 'vale of tears' by the most difficult route; but if success is not forthcoming, and if the costs of transformation are too high, the leadership is in danger of losing the confidence of the people. There is no easy way out: either the government continues its attacks on 'vested interests' with methodical ruthlessness - at the risk of alienating itself from trade-unions and other interest groups - and, if necessary, overrules parliamentary opposition by decree, but this erodes democratic legitimacy and pushes the opposition outside the parliament (Przeworski 1991,165,183ff.); or the executive takes democratic rules seriously and allows compromise, even if this means weakening its intended programme. The inevitable conclusion is that the governments of Eastern Europe do not have any optimal strategy available to them, or, to phrase it with Przeworski's sense of paradox: "Their optimal strategy is inconsistent" (Przeworski 1991: 174). This means that the reform process is basically unstable and alternates between the poles of the dilemma mentioned above. As a result, the seemingly clearcut dualism between 'radical reformers' and 'conservatives' fades away. We cannot expect a complete theory of transformation from game-theoretical models and their interpretation. Nevertheless, they describe a state of affairs which might shift attention from (ideal) functional preconditions to (perhaps) attainable goals. The shift from functional imperatives to strategic interaction allows the reintroduction of action theory perspectives which overcome the anonymous 'evolutionary universale' of late Parsonian modernization theory. The instability of these models under mutable conditions reflects the effective fragility of conflicting interests and newly-created institutions. This opens up a broad field of empirical investigation into the influence of strategic actors and possible compromise structures. On the other hand, Etzioni's advice to the East European peoples to reduce their expectations also holds for those Western ob-

From Post-Communism to Post-Modemity?

283

servers who expect an economic policy more coherent than that to be found in their own countries (Etzioni 1991 and 1992).

4.4 Beyond the State and the Market It appears that 'modernization' cannot be created by market impulses and privatization alone; the differentiation of an efficient economy cannot be reduced to the creation of price-mechanisms. The model of a pure market used in transformation discourse cannot define its field of application in its own terms. Put more precisely: neither the size of the market sector nor the optimal privatization strategy nor the optimal form of enterprise are given. In view of the problems outlined above, the objective of 'transition' to a market economy loses its sharp outlines: "It is not at all clear that the choice between a centralized command economy and complete laissez-faire is the only choice" (Hahn 1992: 100; Grosfeld 1992: 74 ff.; Nove 1992). Hahn, one of the most outstanding representatives of'enlightened neo-classics', is quite ready to draw a prima facie paradoxical consequence; namely that General Equilibrium Theory advocates the transition not to a 'free market', but to a 'mixed economy'. Sociology should see this as grounds for questioning the 'purely economic' themes of privatization and efficiency. If there is one lesson to be learnt from classical modernization theory it is Parsons' objection that 'modernization' cannot be reduced to economic liberalization alone (Parsons 1945: 273). Current official programmes for transition, therefore, already fail because of their purely utilitarian behavioural assumptions. 'Efficiency' cannot be restricted to mere adaptation to present and future conditions; rather, it must be defined in terms of social norms and cultural values.34 'Constructive change' must allow for feelings of group solidarity, safety-demands and ambivalent definitions of situations within the groups involved; a complex which Parsons summarized as a "system of vested interests" (Parsons 1945: 241 ff.). The specific tasks of sociology - and therefore its contribution to a revised modernization theory - consist firstly in an action-theory-based shift in the orthodox conception of the market. This implies relaxing the insistent focus on the price system of an economy in favour of the extended perception of the organizational capacities of economic institutions and of the bargaining-systems connected to markets. This shift in perspective seems all the more logical since 'planned economies' themselves, in fact, were not centrally managed; they, too, were characterized by negotiations, information management and opportunist behaviour at all the levels of the hierarchy (Montias 1992). The choice between plan and market was ideologically stylized on both sides. Now that the the myth of a 'planned economy' has been shattered, the liberalist Utopia of 'self-organizing markets' (for which 'autopoiesis' is only a sociological code name) should

284

Klaus Müller

be discarded. Comparative analysis of organizational forms, strategic action patterns and information behaviour is a new field in which sociology can operate with its own concepts and contribute to critical analysis of economic programmes. The transformation problem acquires the altered meaning of a transition from a negotiated plan economy to a negotiated market order. Bringing sociological aspects into this discussion means, secondly, acknowledging the importance of the interpretative patterns with which the actors of transformation perceive themselves. The political controversies among Eastern European ideologists of the late 1980s - whether to renew socialism or to transform it into a market economy - were disputes among competing interpretations of the situation. The new symbols of the 'market', and the expectations which attach to them, are no less ambivalent. The observable tendencies in many East European countries towards authoritarian presidential rule, volatile parliamentary coalitions, the mutual blocking of executive and legislature, competition between the centre and periphery, the 'rebirth' of national symbolisms, and so on, must not be reduced to a static alternative between dictatorship and democracy. These phenomena are also disputes over the meaning of the 'common good' for society (Di Palma 1992; Eisenstadt 1992: 34 ff.). The distinction between hardliners and reformers overlaps on both sides with the distinction between radicals and moderates - which gives rise to a number of very different coalitions (Przeworski 1991: 66 f f ) . From a sociological point of view, democracy is not a self-establishing ideal but a 'contingent outcome of conflicts', and during its uncertain course, the borders of politics, affiliations, loyalties and compromises must constantly be determined institutionally. Thirdly, the classificatory terms of the classical approach and the relative explanatory models must be redefined. The spheres of politics and the economy are not functionally closed, and the correlation between societal and political systems does not correspond to functionalist conceptions. Comparative research suggests that the traditional viewpoint should be reversed. South European and Latin American experiences show that many of the 'functional preconditions' for democracy are in fact its result. Therefore, a civil society, consolidated interest groups and economic growth are not the indispensable initial prerequisites for a viable democracy (Karl & Schmitter 1991), although they do play an important role in Eastern Europe, for the reasons mentioned above. Conversely, successful economic reforms are also possible in authoritarian contexts with a systemic mix between commands and markets, state and private ownership. There is no general evidence for a positive correlation between democracy and economic growth (Brus 1993: 437; Przeworski and Limongi 1993). These results are of twofold methodological significance. The actual dynamics of transformation in social and political systems are beyond the scope of the functionalist systematic of classical modernization theory, and they confront its evolutionary teleology with regressive phenomena and ambivalences (like the

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

285

proximity between nationalism and democratic citizen's movements), with individual events which acquire symbolic meaning (like the assault on the television building in Vilnius or the August coup in Moscow), with revived and newlyinterpreted traditional elements. After 'functional imperatives', the second category which Parsons applied in order to reduce the empirical variability of social forms loses its stringency: the "structural imperatives of compatibility" (Parsons 1951: 177 ff.) are weakened to the "structured contingency" of open transformation (Karl and Schmitter 1991: 270 f.). This also implies that Western societies, which were relatively stable until the 1960s, have been unable to act as a reference model for modernity (Sztompka 1994: 19 f.) since they left the path of the "well-ordered nation state". For empirical analysis of East European reform processes, the required conceptual reorientation should enable perception of the 'contingency' of political decisions, especially the substantial differences and ambivalences among the reformists. In this regard, the static choice between shock therapy and gradualism is less important than the question of how the inevitable 'stop-go' can lead to and remain on a sustainable path of reforms. In theoretical terms, this flexibility raises two questions which have so far gone largely unanswered: if the explanation of East European change in terms of functional imperatives is inadequate, what are the chances of a general theory? If the criteria of evolutionary progress are inapplicable, what happens to the normative universalism which held together the classical paradigm?

5 From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity? Perhaps the most far-reaching challenge raised against a redesigned modernization theory lies at the level of meta-theory. East European societies are experiencing a development process with a dynamics hardly compatible with Parsons' view of "orderly processes of empirical change" (Parsons 1951: 482) but which are of a more general nature; the concept of order itself is questioned - and thereby the normative horizon of classical modernization theory. In view of the the ambivalent pursuit of reforms and of the destructive potential present in Eastern Europe, the increased interest in theories of chaos and catastrophe is not accidental (see Karl & Schmitter 1991:270; Kolakowski 1992: 43 f.; Tiryakian 1993:532; Friedman 1993). Contested boundaries, the decreased steering capacity of politics, the fragmentation and segmentation of society are very apparent in the FSU; and similar phenomena are becoming increasingly evident in Western societies and international relations as well. The 'new world order' seems to be characterized far more by unpredictable events, fractionalism,

286

Klaus Müller

structural discontinuities and non-linear phenomena than by integration, evolution and progress. In this respect, the relevance of a 'post-modern experience' seems apparent, and it is underlined by a radical non-simultaneity. While the East European reform elites try to catch up with the societies which successfully underwent West European post-war modernization, the integrative capacity of the Western model itself is in serious crisis. The neo-conservative change of modernization policy has burgeoned into a general crisis of the fiscal state35 which leaves little outlet for the reform needs accumulated in the Western societies. North American society - the 'leading society' of post-war modernization - displays cleavages and tendencies towards segregation that Parsons did not dare imagine. The distinctive features of international relations in the post-Bretton Woods era are a "decharismatization of the centers" (Eisenstadt 1992: 34) and tendencies to regional block-building which undermine the authority of universalist values. In other words, the East European societies are now embarking on a process which may be conceived as comparative dynamics; the familiar reference points of classical modernization theory offer only limited orientation. For this reason, sociology is handicapped in current modernization discourse. So far, no general theory of transformation has been forthcoming. For some time to come, instead of applying ready-made 'grand theories', sociology will have to reconstruct the inter-relations among the problems discussed in the last section. It can no longer offer a clear-cut world picture. Thus, after the demise of its Marxist-Leninist rival, modernization theory encounters a strong new competitor: a still young, post-modern social science derives its language from recent developments in systems theory and its political inspirations from new political actors.36 The antithetical relation to modernity of this new social science is marked by several dualisms which do not allow for traditional theory-building: it sets incommensurable discourses against science, perspectives against explanations, multi-cultural diversity against universality. How far this contributes to a clearer picture of Eastern European problems is, however, another matter.37 Many 'postmodern phenomena', instead of signalling that Eastern Europe is becoming "part of the world already under postmodern condition" (Bauman 1993: 742), point to the unsolved contradictions of modernity itself. Modernization theory should recognize that the challenge of post-modernism cannot be reduced to methodological differences; it carries far-reaching political and normative implications. Feher and Heller ascribe new significance to the East European 'post-modern revolutions' which break with the logic of modern revolutions established in 1789 and stand as the hallmarks of a postrevolutionary age in which the negative experiences of previous revolutions are taken into account and the semantics of social classes and the division into left and right political camps are renounced (see Arato 1993: 624 ff.). However,

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

287

who is to guarantee that the 'post-modern revolutions' and their "raging passion to restore" will not relapse into the universalism of the French Revolution? If Bauman isright,"modernity was a long march to prison".38 Just as Friedman welcomes, as liberation from universality, "a general shift from a modernist politics based in ideals of universal progress and development to a politics of cultural identity, whether gender, local or ethnic".39 By opposing principles of difference and contingency - which are just abstract - against the contradictions of modernity, statements such as this provoke a mistaken view of matters.40 Whether the post-modern position is more than a light-headed game of paradoxes or a delayed existentialism is still uncertain. Bauman deems it impossible to make a clear choice between the contradictory possibilities implied in the antinomy of'post-modern tolerance': solidarity and indifference. A sociology of post-modernism should clarify these matters if it is not to become an overfacile vindication of particularisms and exclusive movements of all kinds. A revised theory of modernization, which seeks to give a thorough account of 'post-modern phenomena', depends for its validity on careful avoidance of a confusion between a democratically attained decentralization of power and a fundamentalist, defensive culture of localism; and on its ability to achieve a balance between a modernity understood as world-culture and individual political traditions.41 Rather than proclaiming a 'post-victory era', it seems time to address the tensions internal to the Western pattern itself.

Notes 1 For more detailed analysis of this question see Müller 1994. 2 Zaslawski 1981,46ff. and 66; cf. Lewin 1988: 3, on the term 'totalitarianism': "It did not have much to say about where the system came from, where it was heading, what kind of changes it was undergoing, if any, and how to study it critically and seriously. In fact the term was, in this context, 'totalitarian' in its empty self-sufficiency: it did not recognize any mechanism of change in the Soviet Union and had no use for even a shadow of some historical process." On the 'implicit social contract' in Soviet society and its historical changes see Hauslohner 1987 and Zaslawski 1993: 6 ff. 3 Parsons 1945:242: "It is, therefore, never safe to count on the effects of changing a situation on the structure of interests without specifically investigating the definitions of the situations within the groups involved." 4 It is surely one of Parsons' merits that he held fast to these universal goals, despite the functionalization of the UN by the superpowers during the Cold War. 5 For a brief survey see Müller 1991,268-276. 6 Giddens 1982: 144. The relative importance of research conducted by the international organizations and its often strained relations with the academic modernization theory has been little discussed, even though critical development theorists like Albert Hirschman are well aware of it. The same applies to the tensions between such research and the policies of the international organizations. Cf. note 21. 7 Even if it was identified with the highly problematic "evolutionary logic" from a critical perspective developed in the late 1960s to which the later Parsons reduced it and which, curiously enough, the neo-Parsonians took as their point of departure (cf. Habermas 1975).

288

Klaus Müller

8 Cf. especially Gorbachev's speech delivered at the UN in New York on 7 December 1988 (in Gorbachev 1989). 9 Lewin 1988; cf. Parsons 1971, 127. An extraordinarily perceptive 'forecast' is to be found in Jayantanuya 1969. 10 Mouzelis 1993; see already Zapf 1990; cf. Müller 1992. Unfortunately, Alexander (1992, 76ff.) mistakes my (critical) account of the classical approach and its reactivation by the "old line apologists" as representing my own point of view. 11 Slumps in industrial production in 1992 amounted to more than 18% in Russia, to just under 10% in Hungary, to 11% in the former CSFR (after falling to 8% between 1991 and 1992 in Russia), to about 19% in Hungary, to about 25% in the CSFR. A more pessimistic indicator of future development is the even steeper fall in investment (data from Commission for Europe, Economic Survey of Europe in 1992-93). 12 On this problem see Apter 1991, esp. 470. 13 Przeworski 1991: 168;cf.Offe 1991. This is a constellation which has led to the bold theorizing of an optimal "sequencing" of reforms. 14 As Zapf 1992: 15, remarks. 15 Entry into the phase of mass consumption was perceived in the West and East as indicative of successful modernization (cf. Rostow 1952, or Zaslawski 1981:53 ff.). This explains, for example, why personal well-being is still measured principally by private consumption criteria, even in the comparatively privileged transformation society of the former GDR, and why the extension of public investment and gains in freedom are ignored. For analysis of the reasons for the failure of Soviet modernization see Müller 1992: 119 ff. 16 Western aid programmes agree that a critical juncture has been reached: capital flight far exceeds all international aid programmes and foreign investment. In 1992, capital flight amounted to $10-15 billion, i.e. 15% of GDP (Carrington 1993); foreign reserves totalled $23 billion in November 1993, according to the Russian Ministry of Finance. 17 Furthermore, neo-classical shock therapy shows metaphysical qualities: its failure can always be blamed on its insufficient enforcement. 18 According to Lipton and Sachs 1992: 222, there was no sign of a cut in real wages due to price liberalization, either in Poland or in Russia: "Price liberalization basically restored wage-price relations that had prevailed before the 1987 communist-led changes in enterprise autonomy"; cf. IMF 1992: 7 ff. 19 IMF/World Bank/OECD/EBRD 1991; IMF 1992 ff. 20 Even if, for example, the recommendations of Lipton & Sachs 1992 differ in detail from those of the IMF (e.g. the question whether the stabilization of exchange rates should be credited to the West). Further tensions exist between the reform programmes of the international organizations and the actual policy of Western governments. In particular, German currency conversion was carried out against all expert economic advice (Heilemann and Jochimsen 1993: 54), with predictable results: "East Germany, where shock therapy was most drastic, and which was thought - before the fall of communism - to have the most productive economy in the Eastern Bloc, suffered the largest decline among the more advanced East European countries. The obvious lesson that emerges from the East German case is that the formerly socialist economies cannot provide much employment at the wage levels of Western Europe" (Fischer 1993: 392). 21 Thus the process appears to be merely a question of the adequate sequencing and rapidity of measures which no longer require theoretical justification. Whereas Sachs considers privatization to be "top priority", monetary-Keynesians stress the importance of currency reforms. For a more sophisticated view on the sequencing of privatization see Husain & Sahay 1992. The profound differences between the Russian "radical reformers" Gaidar and Yavlinski on the importance of trade among the republics of the FSU resulted in competing election blocks. Yavlinski, who participated in the '500-day' programme, has recently come out in favour of a gradual strategy. 22 Characteristics which, in Russia, were attributed in particular to Volski's 'Civic Union' and to Rutskoi.

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

289

23 Fisher 1993: 394. The hugely excessive money supply has disguised the shortage of capital in monetary terms existing in all the East European countries. National savings cannot 'buy' the capital stock. In Poland it accounted for only 8% in 1991 (Przeworski 1991, 156). 24 Russia's transfers to the now independent republics of the FSU amounted to $17 billon in 1992, 22% of its GDP; 69% of Uzbekistan's GDP and 67% of Turkmenistan's are financed this way (The Economist, 20 November, 1993: 77 ff.). 25 For this reason proponents of a revised theory of totalitarianism, like Malia 1992, argue against any concessions to gradualism. 26 As the Russian experience shows, mere price liberalization worsens the labour bias of the Soviettype economies if there are no supporting measures of taxation or income policy, and it has negative effects on long-term development prospects: in 1992, gas-industry workers received 460%, scientists 74%, and education employees less than 60% of average income (Koen and Phillips 1993: 20 f.; cf. IMF 1993: 90 ff.). Income expansion at the expense of investment also characterizes the East German situation - an undesired development financed by massive West German transfers, which amounted to about 50% of East German BIP in 1992 and were mainly spent on private consumption. 27 Parsons & Smelser 1956: 292 ff. If empirical studies based on opinion polls can be trusted, then the majority of the Russian population ties its consent to market-economy reforms to meritocratic reward structures (Dutch 1993: 597). 28 The suggestions of the IMF et. al. (1991: 160-166) have remained indefinite. Privatization of the old-age pension scheme, for example, seems impossible, since the inflation of past years has wiped out private savings. The building-up of social services will be necessary to relieve the enterprises from their social security function, which they still perform. 29 For recent surveys see Frydman & Rapaczynski (eds.) 1993 and Glismann & Schräder 1994. 30 Stark 1993: 12f f.; for the Czech Republic see ibid., 14 ff.; Tittenbrun 1992 presents similar results for Poland. Bim, Jones, Weisskopf 1993 suggest, that a "fast-track" strategy of privatization "may not be in the best interest of the Russian industry. (..) more attention should be paid to the potential for utilizing hybrid enterprise forms in the transition to a market economy." 31 Parsons (1945:253) attributed a modernizing function to the expropriations carried out by the Soviets in the Eastern Zone. Ironically, the restoration of old ownership relations provided for by the German unification contract has proved to be one of the main barriers against modernization of the East German economy. For a similar case see The Economist, 5 March 1994, 75. 32 As Pye 1990, 17 fn. 2, correctly points out: "Ideologies of the Right should, however, be cautious about proclaiming the victory of capitalism and democracy. It is precisely the relationship between economics and politics that needs to be reexamined in the light of the current developments." 33 At least the early Parsons (1945: 244) was aware of the conflictual nature of social change: "It is a fundamental fact of social change that it impinges unevenly on the different parts of the society it affects." Nevertheless, in their preoccupation with order and consent, neither Parsons nor his followers have developed any idea of strategic action. The same holds, for different reasons, for General Equilibrium Theory. 34 Parsons 1937: 698 ff.; for a more general statement see Parsons 1940. 35 Etzioni 1993; for comparism among theories of fiscal crisis in capitalist, socialist and post-communist states see Campbell 1993. 36 For a critical assessment of catastrophe theory, "chaos" and "autopoiesis" see Müller 1992. 37 For a preliminary analysis see Bauman 1992: Ch. 7. 38 "It never arrived there (though in some places, like Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany or Mao's China it came quite close), albeit not for the lack of trying", as Bauman 1992, xvii, continues. 39 Friedman 1993: 207. 40 An outstanding example of ambitious paradoxes in post-modern social sciences is provided by Walzer's ode to tribalism (1992: 11): "The decisive common ground of the human race is particularism" - although Walzer would not go as far as Nairn (1993) who blames 'ethnic cleansing' in Bosnia partly on the universalism of Western politics and the United Nations because it prevented an exchange of populations at the time when it was still seemed possible (to Nairn). For some

290

Klaus Müller

critical remarks on Walzer, Nairn and "present postmodernist academic obscurantism" see Rule 1992 and Denitch 1994. 41 Pye 1990: 12.

References Alexander, Jeffrey (1992): Modem, Anti, Post, and Neo: How Sociological Theories Have Tried to Understand the 'New World' of'Our Time', (UCLA Center for Comparative Social Analysis, Conference 'The Return of Modernization Theory'), Ms. Almond, Gabriel (1956): Comparative Political Systems, Journal of Politics, Vol.18, 391-409. Almond, Gabriel (1968): Comparative Politics, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 12,331-36. Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney (1963): The Civic Culture. Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, Princeton: UP. Apter, David (1991): Institutionalism reconsidered, International Social Science Journal, No. 129, 463-81. Arrow, Kenneth J. (1963): Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd. ed., New Haven: Yale University Press. Ash, Timothy (1990): Ein Jahrhundert wird abgewählt, München 1992. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992): Intimations of Postmodernity, London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1993): Europe of the Tribes, in Lebensverhältnisse und soziale Konflikte im neuen Europa, Proceedings of the 26. Deutscher Soziologentag, Frankfurt/M 1993: Campus. Bell, Daniel (1982): The Social Sciences Since the Second World War, New Brunswick: Transaction Books. Bim, Alexander, S., Jones, Derek, C. and Weisskopf, Thomas E. (1993): Hybrid Forms of Enterprise Organization in the Former USSR and the Russian Federation, Ms. Brus, Wlodzimirz (1993): Marketisation and Democratisation: The Sino-Soviet Divergence, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 17,423-40. Campbell, John L. (1993): The Fiscal Crisis of Post-communist States, Ms. Carrington, Tim (1993): Russia's Hefty Outflow of Capital Hobbles Efforts at Much-Needed Economic Reform, Wall Street Journal Europe, 15 Nov. 1993. Coleman, James S. (1968): Political Aspects of Modernization, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 12, 395-402. Denitch, Bogdan (1994): Not All Bosnians Yet, Dissent 1994, No. 1 (Winter), 124ff. Di Palma, Guiseppe (1992): To Argue the Hard Case. Reflections on Research from Eastern Europe, Berkley: University of California (mimeo). Dutch, Raymond M. (1993): Tolerating Economic Reform: Popular Support for Transition to a Free Market in the Former Soviet Union, American Political Science Review, Vol. 87, No. 3, 590-608. Easton, David (1965): A Framework for Political Analysis, 2nd. enl. ed., Chicago 1979: Phoenix. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. (1992a): The Breakdown ofCommunist Regimes and the Vicissitudes of Modernity, Daedalus, Vol. 121, No. 2., 21-41. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. (1992b): Frameworks of the Great Revolutions: Culture, Social Structure, History and Human Agency, International Social Science Journal, No. 133, 385-401. Etzioni, Amitai (1991): Eastern Europe: A Wealth of Lessons, in Challenge, July-August, 4-10. Etzioni, Amitai (1992): How is Russia Bearing up?, Challenge, May/June, 40-4. Etzioni, Amitai (1993): Deficit Reductions in a Populist Age: How to Sell Shared Sacrifice, Challenge, March-April: 22-5. Fischer, Stanley (1993): Socialist Economy Reform: Lessons ofthe First Three Years, American Economic Review, Vol. 83, No. 2, 390ff. Friedman, Jonathan (1993): Order and Disorder in Global Systems: A Sketch, Social Research, Vol. 60, No. 2,205-234.

From Post-Communism to Post-Modernity?

291

Frydman, Roman and Rapaczynski, Andrzej (eds.) (1993): The Privatization Process in Central Europe, London: Central European University Press. Genov, Nikolai (1991): The Transition to Democracy in Eastern Europe: Trends and Paradoxes of Social Rationalization, International Social Science Journal, No. 128, 331-41. Giddens, Anthony (1982): Sociology: A Brief but Critical Introduction, London: Macmillan. Glismann, Hans and Schräder, Klaus (1994): Die Umwandlung von staatlichem in privates Eigentum II, Osteuropa, Vol. 44, No. 2, 142-60. Gorbachev, Michael (1989): Glasnost, Moskau: APN. Grosfeld, Irena (1992): Reform Economics and Western Economic Theory. Unexploited Opportunities, in Koväcs, Jänos M. and Tardos, Märtos (eds.) 1992. Habermas, Jürgen (1975): Towards a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism, Theory and Society, Vol. 2, No. 3. Habermas, Jürgen (1981): Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns II, Ffm.: Suhrkamp. Hahn, Frank (1992): The Relevance of General Equilibrium Theory for the Transformation of Centrally planned Economics, Prague Economic Papers, No. 2, 99-108. Hauslohner, Peter (1987): Gorbachev's Social Contract, Soviet Economy, Vol. 3, No. 1, 54-89. Heilemann, Ullrich and Jochimsen, Reimut (1993): Christmas in July? The Political Economy of German Unification Reconsidered, Brookings Occasional Papers, Washington: Brookings. Hirschman, Albert O. (1981): The Rise and Decline of Development Economics, in Essays in Trespassing, New York: CUP. Hirschman, Albert O. (1986): Rival Views of Market Society, New York: Viking Press. Huntington, Samuel P. (1991): Democracy's Third Wave, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 2, 12-34. Husain, Aasim M. and Sahay, Ratna (1992): Does Sequencing of Privatization Matter in Reforming planned Economies?, IMF Staff Papers, Vol. 39, No. 4, 801-24. IMF/World Bank/OECD/EBRD (1991a, b, c: A Study of the Soviet Union, 3 Vols., Washington: IMF. IMF (1992): The Economy of the Former U.S.S.R. 1991, Washington, D.C.: IMF. IMF (1993): Russian Federation, Washington, D.C.: IMF. Inkeles, Alex (1961): National Character and Modern Political Systems, in Hsu, F.L.K, (ed.) 1961: Psychological Anthropology: Approaches to Culture and Personality, Homewood, 111.: Dorsey Press. Inkeles, Alex (1991): Transitions to Democracy, Society, Vol. 28, No. 4, 67-72. Jayantanuya, Bandyopadjyaya (1969): The Changes Ahead, in Brzezinski, Zbigniew (ed.) 1969: Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics, New York: Columbia University Press. Karl, Terry Lynn and Schmitter, Phillipe (1991): Modes of Transition in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe, International Social Science Journal, No. 129, 269-285. Koen, Vincent and Phillips, Steven (1993): Price Liberalization in Russia, IMF Occasional Paper No. 104 (June 1993), Washington, DC. Kolakowski, Leszek (1992): Amidst Moving Ruins, Daedalus, Vol. 121, No. 2,43-56. Koväcs, Jänos Μ. and Tardos, Märtos (eds.) (1992): Reform and Transition in Eastern Europe, London: Routledge. Linz, Juan J. and Stephan, Alfred (1992): Political Identities and Electoral Sequences: Spain, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia, Daedalus, Vol. 121, No. 2, 123-39. Lipset, Seymour M., Seong, Kyoung-Ryung and Torres, John Charles (1993): A Comparative Analysis of the Social Requisites of Democracy, International Social Science Journal, No. 136, 153-76. Lipset, Seymour Martin (1959): Some Social Requisites of Democracy, American Political Science Review, Vol. 53, 69-105. Lipton, David and Sachs, Jeffrey D. (1990): Privatization in Eastern Europe: The Case of Poland, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2: 1990. Lipton, David and Sachs, Jeffrey D. (1992): Prospects for Russia's Economic Reform, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2: 1992, 213-84. Malia, Martin (1992): Leninist Endgame, Daedalus, Vol. 121, No. 2, 57-76. Mokrzycki, Edmund (1993): Socialism after Socialism: Continuity in the East Europpean Transition, Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, 108-15.

292

Klaus Müller

Montias, John Michael (1992): On Firms, Hierachies and Economic Reforms, in Koväcs, Jänos M. and Tardos, Märtos (eds.) 1992. Mouzelis, Nicos (1993): Evolutionary Democracy: Talcott Parsons and the Collapse of Eastern European Regimes, Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 10, No.l, 145-52. Müller, Klaus (1991): Nachholende Modernisierung? Die Konjunkturen der Modernisierungstheorie und ihre Anwendung auf die Transformation der osteuropäischen Gesellschaften, Leviathan, Jg. 19, Nr. 2, 261-91. Müller, Klaus (1992a): 'Modernising' Eastern Europe. Theoretical Problems and Political Dilemmas, Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 109-50. Müller, Klaus (1992b): "Katastrophen", "Chaos" und "Selbstorganisation". Methodologie und sozialwissenschaftliche Heuristik der jüngeren Systemtheorie, in PROKLA. Zeitschriftfür kritische Sozialwissenschaft, Issue 88, 22. Jg., No. 3, 340-73. Müller, Klaus (1994): Der osteuropäische Wandel und die deutsch-deutsche Transformation. Zum Revisionsbedarf modernisierungstheoretischer Erklärungen, in Lutz, Burkart and Schmidt, Rudi (eds.) 1994: Risiken und Chancen der industriellen Modernisierung in Ostdeutschland, Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Murrell, Peter (1991): Can Neoclassical Economics Underpin the Reform of Centrally planned Economies?, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 5, No. 4, 59-76. Murrell, Peter (1993): What is Shock Therapy? What Did it Do in Poland and Russia?, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 9, 111-40. Nairn, Tom (1993): All Bosnians Now?, Dissent 1993, No.3 (Fall), 403-9. Nove, Alec (1992): Soviet Reforms and Western Neo-classical Economics, in Koväcs, Jänos Μ. and Tardos, Märtos (eds.) 1992. Offe, Claus (1991): Das Dilemma der Gleichzeitigkeit. Demokratisierung und Marktwirtschaft in Osteuropa, Merkur, Vol. 45, No. 4,279-92. Parsons, Talcott (1937): The Structure of Social Action, 2nd. ed., 1949, Glencoe, III: Free Press. Parsons, Talcott (1945): The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change', in 1954: Essays in Sociological Theory, 2nd. ed., New York 1964: Free Press. Parsons, Talcott (1951): The Social System, London: RKP. Parsons, Talcott (1971): The System of Modern Societies, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Parsons, Talcott and Smelser, Neil J. (1956): Economy and Society, London 1984: RKP. Pinto, Bruno, Belka, Marek and Krajewski, Stephan (1993): Transforming State Enterprises in Poland: Microeconomic Evidence on Adjustment, Policy Research Paper 1101, World Bank. Przeworski, Adam and Limongi, Fernando (1993): Political Regimes and Economic Growth, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 7, No. 3, 51-69. Przeworski, Adam (1991): Democracy and the Market. Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Cambridge: CUP. Pye, Lucian and Verba, Sidney (Hg.) (1965): Political Culture and Political Developments, Princeton. Pye, Lucian (1990): Political Science and the Crisis of Authoritarianism, American Political Science Review, Vol. 84, No.l, 3-19. Rawls, John (1971): A Theory of Justice, Harvard: UP. Rostow, Walt W. (1952): The Process of Economic Growth, New York. Rule, James B. (1992): Tribalism and the State, Dissent 1992, No. 3 (Fall), 519-23. Rustow, Dankwart A. (1990): Democracy: A Global Revolution?, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 4, 7591. Sachs, Jeffrey (1991): Privatisation is Top Priority in Eastern Europe, IMF Survey, Vol. 20, No. 11. Senghaas, Dieter (1990): Europa 2000. Ein Friedensplan, Ffm. Senghaas, Dieter (1991): Europa, quo vadis?, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP-AP 2679, Ebenhausen. Stark, David (1993): Not by Design. Recombinant Property in East European Capitalism, Ms., forthcoming in PROKLA. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft, Issue 94, Vol. 24, No. 1. Sztompka, Piotr (1993): Lessons of Post-communist Transition for Sociological Theories of Change, in this volume.

From Post-Communism to Post-Modemity?

293

Tiryakian, Edward A. (1986): The Changing Centers of Modernity, in Cohen, Eric et. al. (eds.) Comparative Social Dynamics, Boulder, Col.: Westview. Tiryakian, Edward A. (1993): Die Neuen Welten und die Soziologie, Berliner Journal filr Soziologie, Jg.3, No. 4, 521-37. Tiryakian, Edward A. (1993b): Modernization in a Millenarian Decade. Lessons for and from Eastern Europe, in this volume. Tittenbrun, Jacek (1992): Der polnische Weg zum Kapitalismus, PROKLA. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft, Issue 89,22. Jg., Nr. 4, 604-21. Walzer, Michael (1992): Lob des Stammeswesens, Lettre International, No. 16. Wittkowsky, Andreas (1992): Alternativen zu Schocktherapie und Verschuldung, PROKLA. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft, Issue 89, Vol. 22, No.3, 580-603. Zapf, Wolfgang (1990): The Role of Innovations in Modernization Theory, Paper for Research Committee No 2,12th World Congress of Sociology, 9 - 1 3 July 1990, Madrid. Zapf, Wolfgang (1992): Die Transformation in der ehemaligen DDR und die soziologische Theorie der Modernisierung, WZP papers, Ρ 92-104, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. Zaslavsky, Victor (1981): In geschlossener Gesellschaft. Gleichgewicht und Widerspruch in der russischen Gesellschaft, Berlin 1982: Wagenbach. Zaslavsky, Victor (1993): Contemporary Russian Society and its Soviet Legacy: The Problem of StateDependent Workers, in this volume.

Notes on Contributors

Cristiano Codagnone: Lecturer, Institute of Sociology, Universitä Commerciale L.Bocconi, Milan. He received his Ph. D in Sociology from New York University in May 1994. His dissertation thesis, Big Businessmen: Continuity and Change in Russian Economy and Society, is presently under review for publication at Princeton University Press. Bruno Grancelli: Lecturer, Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale, Universita degli Studi di Trento. His publications include: Le relazioni industriali di tipo sovietico (1986); Soviet Management and Labor Relations (1988); and Privatization andEntrepreneurship in Post-Socialist Countries (with B. Dallago and G. Ajani), (1992). AntoniZ. Kaminski: Professor, Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Science. He has written on political and economic institutions, and international security. His last major publication: Institutional Theory of Communist Regimes. Design, Functions and Breakdowns, (1992). Andrzej K. Kozminski: Professor and Director of the International Postgraduate Management Center, University of Warsaw. He has published widely on organizational theory and international and comparative management. His last two books, published in 1993, are: Organizational Communication and Management: A Global Perspective (with Donald P. Cushman) and Catching Up? Organizational and Management Change in the Ex-Socialist Block. Joanna Kurczewska: Professor, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, The Polish Academy of Science, and Lecturer, Graduate School for Social Research, Warsaw. She is on the editorial boards of Polish Sociological Review, Studia Socjologiczne, and Polish Foreign Affairs. Csaba Mako: Professor, Budapest University of Economics, and Senior Researcher at the Center for Social Conflict Research, Hungarian Academy of

296

Notes on Contributors

Sciences. Key research interests: labour relations in the transformation process; multinational firms and corporate culture, small business and local economic regeneration. His publications include: Labour Process in an Arena of Social Fighting, and (with J. Koltay, P. Dubois and X. Richier) Innovation a I'Est et ä l'Ouest. Klaus Müller: Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Friedrich-Schiller Universität, Jena. He studied Philosophy, Political Sciences and Sociology in Berlin, Munich and London. Since 1985 he has been teaching Sociology at the Free University Berlin. Piotr Ploszajski: Professor and Chair, Warsaw School of Economics, Director General of the Polish Academy of Science. Among his latest books are: Between Reflection and Action: The Dilemmas of Management Theory (1985); Knowledge for Change: Developing Practical Theory (1990); Philosophy of Social Choice (1990); Polish Reform: Entrepreneurship in the Making (1991); and The Polish Roadfrom Socialism (with Walter Connor), (1992). Roland Robertson: Professor, University of Pittsburgh. He has written extensively on the themes of globalization, religion and social theory. Among his books are: International Systems and the Modernization of Societies', Meaning and Change', Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity (with Byan Turner), and Globalization. Agnes Simonyi: Associate Professor, Eotvos Lorand University of Sciences, Budapest, and Researcher at the Center for Social Conflict Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Key research interests: unemployment; changing patterns of employment; internal labour markets and labour relations. Carl-Ulrik Schierup: Professor in Social Anthropology. Lecturer at the Department of Sociology, University of Umea, Sweden. His publications include, Migration, Socialism and the International Division of Labour. The Yugoslavian experience (1990). Piotr Sztompka: Professor, Jagellonian University, Krakow; co-chair of the RC on Theory in the International Sociological Association. His publications include: System and Function (1974); Sociological Dilemmas (1979); Robert Merton: An Intellectual Profile (1986); Rethinking Progress (with J. Alexander) (1990); Society in Action (1991): Sociology in Europe: In search of Identity (with B. Nedelmann); The Sociology of Social Change (1994), and Agency and Structure: Reorienting Social Theory (ed.), (1994).

Notes on Contributors

297

Edward Tiryakian: Professor, Duke University, Durham. He is past president of the American Society for the Study of Religion, and the Association Internationale des Sociologues de Langue Francaise. He has published extensively in the areas of modernization, sociological theory, the sociology of religion, and the comparative aspects of development and national identity in Asia, Europe and North America. Victor Zaslavsky: Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland and LUISS, Rome. His recent publications include: Das russiche Imperium unter Gorbatschow. Seine etnische Struktur und ihre Zukunft (1991); From Union to Commonwealth (ed. with G. Lapidus), (1992); The Neo-Stalinist State. Class, Ethnicity, and Consensus in Soviet Society (1994), and L 'ascesa e il declino del sistema sovietico (1995).

Subject Index

a-theoretical revolution 3 ABB Zamech 100 accumulation 4, 16, 48, 157, 160, 168-170, 176-178, 210, 279 action theory 22, 25, 28, 268, 273, 282 adaptive upgrading 24, 266, 269 Afghanistan 175, 253 Africa 175, 178, 250, 251, 257, 268 Algeria 253 Americanization 37 anathema of reason 12, 174 Anderson Graduate School of Management 104 Angola 175 anti-bureaucratic revolution 173, 174 anti-modernity 23, 258 anti-systemic movements 222 apartheid 251 Aristotle 272 Asia 67, 223, 251, 253, 255, 257, 259, 268 associationism 28, 38 Austria 13, 150, 188, 194, 259, 280 autarchy 85, 164, 165 autocratic principle of government 16, 27 autopoiesis 283, 289 Balkanization 158, 173 Balkans 12, 155, 173 Baltic states 147, 148, 150 bankruptcy 94, 95, 116, 191 Basque area 250 Beauty and the Beast 198, 199 Belarus 147, 150 Berlin Wall 155, 205, 209 Big Mac 202 Bosnia-Herzegovina 172 Brazil 222 Bretton Woods 286 Britain 80, 157, 216 brokers 63, 71, 209 Bulgaria 133, 147,148, 150, 178, 182, 256,

257, 281 Bull 224, 230 Bumar Warynski 95 bureaucracy 17, 25, 33, 38, 52, 55, 58, 59, 88, 116, 120, 122, 124, 126, 128, 131, 141, 146, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 168, 274 Cambodia 175 capitalism 33, 35, 41,67,75,79, 107, 116, 118, 123, 127, 129, 130, 142,161, 163, 175, 177, 199, 203, 242, 268,272, 275, 281, 289 Capitalism. Socialism and Democracy 38 capitalist socialism 203 Catholic Church 250 Central-Eastern Europe 3, 9, 14, 15, 22-26, 29, 35, 36, 114 centralism — democratic 112 — moralistic 159 — resolute 156 centrally planned economy 45, 135 chaos 38, 39, 72, 200, 211, 235, 285, 289, 292 Charismatic individuals 143 charismatic organization 68 Chase International 99 Chile 255 China 158, 250, 259, 263, 264, 289 choice matrix 202, 203 CIBER 104 Civic Union 288 civil society 23, 39, 79, 133, 140, 145, 148150, 155, 156, 173, 214, 236, 239, 243, 258, 272, 281, 284 civilisational-cultural approach — adaptive reactions 5, 21, 241 — beating the system 242, 244 — bloc culture 20, 34, 240

300

— civilizing process 239, 240 — disciplined eclecticism 20, 239 — discourse of civil society 239, 243 — discourse of real socialism 243 — grab-it-and-run tactics 242, 244 — habits of the heart 20 — mythology and realism 245 — national cultures 20, 240 — Parasitic innovativeness 242 — post-revolutionary malaise 240 — representations collectives 20 — sacred and profane 243 — second nature 21, 241 — social facts 238 — socialist habitus 21, 242 — super-reality 21, 241 — third way 242, 244 — thought-control 21, 241 — transitology 238 civilization — Confucian 251 — Western 256 class approach 187 closed enterprises 47, 53, 54, 59, 60 collective — structural task unit 111 collective farms 48, 51, 52 collectivization 4, 47, 52, 61, 141 Colonel Zubatov 16 command economy 22, 34, 47, 78, 79, 108, 110-112, 118, 121, 125, 283 command-administrative system 47, 49, 50 command-driven society 48 commercial banks 63, 74 commodification of the economy 70 common good 244, 284 commonwealths 136 Communist International 215, 224 communist 9, 14, 19, 20, 23, 26, 39, 55, 59, 60, 69, 83, 85-91, 101, 120, 122, 132-135, 147-149, 155, 158, 159, 172, 173, 198, 205, 213-216, 218, 224, 231, 236, 237, 240, 241,244,253, 258, 266, 271, 274, 288 Communist Party 49, 60, 69, 86, 134, 163, 172, 173, 205 comparison — comparative analysis 9, 26, 52, 127, 217, 229, 261, 284 — comparative dynamics 219, 226, 227, 286 — comparative interaction 19, 225 constitutional order 140 constructive change 32, 283

Subject Index

consulting firms — Mariott brigade 98 — mercenaries 7 — technical aid 98 cooperatives 51, 53, 57, 59, 103, 120 Corporatism 67, 81, 82, 195 corruption 10, 23, 28, 34, 40, 59, 82, 116, 129, 131, 151, 158, 259, 264 counterculture 249 crime 175, 235, 259 crisis adaptation — archaicization of society 11 — black market hucksterism 57 — forced traditionalism 57 — second economy mode 57 — subsistence economy 5, 57 crisis of civilization 131 crisis of innovation 165 Croatia 17, 91, 163, 167, 168, 171, 172, 174, 177 Croatian Democratic Alliance 163 crypto-privatization 114, 121 CSCE 270 culture — barrack subculture 4 — cultural imperialism 18, 35, 220, 225 — cultural precepts 20, 238, 240 — cultural repertoires 79 — cultural revolution 250 — patronage 80 — rural nexus 47 Czech Republic 147, 148, 262, 289 Czechoslovakia 83, 98, 103, 104, 133, 135, 149, 199, 240, 249 decentralization 28, 37, 38, 95, 96, 112, 186, 194, 280, 287 decharismatization of the centers 286 defence conversion 55, 130 democratic constitutional societies 271 Denmark 259 dependency theory 25 deregulation 273, 277 destalinization 147, 148 dilemmas 3, 24, 36, 40, 129, 157, 195, 199, 202, 229, 247, 261,263, 291, 292 dissident movement 149 Durkheim's problem 39 EBRD 275, 288, 291 Economic Reform Today — Choice Mega-Spectrum 203 — spectrum of spectrums 203 — Structural Reform Matrix 203 — transformation profiles 203

Subject Index

economics — economic action 33, 34, 58 — economic culture 46 economy — anarchic war 11 — emancipated 80 — informal 38 — limbo 6, 78 — mixed 283 — pillage 13 — pure 276 — second 9, 10, 35, 51, 88, 114 — self-managed 12 — shadow 10, 12, 21, 35, 121, 175 — shortage 32, 64, 78, 119, 125, 129, 185, 199 — social 10, 35 — underground 10, 23, 34, 63, 163, 167 economy and society 30, 40, 63, 65, 77, 81, 152, 265, 292 education system — radical regionalization 168 — systemic mediator 168 — unemployed intellectuals 167 efficiency criteria 7 Ekonomska Politika 171, 178 elites — Artificers 136, 137 — attitude toward morality 143 — beliefs and ideology 142 — bonds 142 — bureaucratic-collectivist 144, 145 — charismatic 143, 144 — counter-elite 138, 143, 149 — formality versus informality 142 — Functional and Stratificational 137 — institutional 4, 9 — interactionist 9, 143, 145, 146, 150 — openness versus closeness of access 142 — organizational 38 — recruitment mechanisms 138, 142 — sense of mission 143 — statist orientation 135 — traditional 138, 243, 144, 146, 149 embourgeoisement 78 empires — Austrian-Hungarian 256 — Ottoman 228 — Soviet 250, 253 emulation — cross-societal 17, 18, 216, 217, 219, 223 — emulative capacity 228, 229 enlightenment 27, 174,218,223, 228, 229,

301

255 entrepreneurs — alertness 6, 64 — arbitrageurs 6, 64 — as a new social group 64 — bargain strategy 102 — clan ethics 66, 72 — creative destructors 64 — cultural backwardness of 66 — in Latin America 66 — merchants 64, 65 — modern rational businessman 77 — networks 74, 77 — personalism and particularism 75 — pragmatic-technocratic orientations 77 — Protestant Ethics 67 — self-realisation 76 — socially responsible 23, 258, 262 — time horizon 65 — trust and loyalty 73, 75 ersatz 175 Estonia 256, 262 ethical compromise 45 ethnic cleansing 13, 174, 176, 177, 222, 289 ethnicity 62, 135, 155, 156, 162, 175, 179, 214, 215, 218, 230, 250 European Union 236 evolutionary convergence 65 evolutionary development theory 24, 26, 28, 266 ex-Soviet republics 11, 83 external accumulation 169 family 11,39,76,111, 133, 166, 167, 169, 171 field model 30 forced industrialization 4, 47, 160 foreign investors 16, 83, 94, 95, 115, 123, 190,203,288 France 36, 39, 157, 280 French Revolution 152, 287 frictions 235 functionalism 34, 253 GATT 270 Gdansk 136 GDP 271, 275, 288, 289 General Equilibrium Theory 278, 283, 289, 291 Germany 3, 174, 194, 199, 216, 224, 230, 253, 268, 273, 280, 288, 289 Ghana 252 Glasnost 53, 291 global field 19, 220, 225, 226 globalization 17-19, 21, 213, 215, 217-219,

302

223-226, 230,231,245, 257, 260,263 glocalization 18, 221, 225 governmental paternalism 144 grand narrativity 18, 219 grand theory 21, 28, 31, 269 Great Depression 170, 274 great revolutions 26, 39, 265,290 Group 247 104 Guinea 252 Gulag Archipelago 141 Gypsum Company 124 Harvard Business School 198 Hermes 71 historicism 24, 266 Holocaust 98, 174, 177,250 Homo Academicus 14 Homo Sovieticus — normative type of personality 45 — self-reproducing institutions 45 — stage of system-maintenance 45 — Stalinist system-building 45 — terminal decline 56 homogenization 156, 172, 219, 224, 225, 250 Horn of Africa 175, 178 Hungary 11,13,14,83, 98-100, 102, 103, 105, 133, 147, 148, 182, 184-187, 192, 195, 199, 213, 240, 256, 260, 263, 271, 280, 288 Hybrid Theories 208 hyper-inflation 74 identity — national identity 218, 228, 257 imperialism 18, 35, 158, 216, 220, 225, 269 impersonalism — charismatic 68 — organizational 68 — procedural 68 income policy 49, 279, 289 Indians 158 individualism 28, 38, 178, 225, 258 Indonesia 171 industrial democracy 7, 8, 79, 91, 92, 94, 96, 195 industrial question 128 industrialisation — proto-industrial phase 110 — socialist 84, 110, 169 industry — heavy 48, 49, 205 — post-communist 83 inflation of power 271 institution-building 131, 136, 137, 139, 140,

Subject Index

142, 146, 150, 181 institutional change 79, 131,138, 146,292 institutional pluralism 67, 68 institutionalism 33, 267, 272, 290 instrumental activism 27 intellectual revolution of 1848 271 intelligentsia 5, 6, 15, 48, 78, 148, 149, 160, 165, 166, 168, 177, 206 internal colonization 141 international division of labour 13, 158, 160, 165, 167, 175, 179 International Executive Service Corps 99 International Labour Office 269 International Monetary Fund 269 Iran 255 Iron Curtain 15, 199, 204, 214 Islam 250 Italy 3, 37, 40, 80, 107, 152, 199, 250, 280 Izetbegovic 172 Japan 17, 216, 221, 224, 226-228, 231,253, 259, 260 Keynesian revolution 25, 269 KGB 58, 60 kinship groups 167 Kommersant 73 Kosovo 171, 172, 173 labour market — job turnover 49 — semi-free 49 — internal labour markets 32, 38, 182 labour relations — co-determination 193 — collective agreement 189, 191 — collective bargaining 40, 182 — collective labour disputes 192 — conflict resolution 140, 194 — cost-saving centres 185 — Council of Interest Reconciliation 186 — decision-making 89, 181-183, 189, 190, 194 — economic working associations 182 — employee ownership 184 — Employment Act 186 — enterprise councils 182,184, 185 — ESOP schemes 184 — human resource management 184 — knowledge centred incentive system 188 — Labour Code 186 — micro-cooperativism 195 — open policy initiative 189 — participation 11, 181 — Property partnership 184 — Quality Insurance System 188

Subject Index — social pact 194 — unions 60, 79, 85, 88-91, 93, 94, 182189, 192-194, 209, 281 — voice 58, 190 — work councils 14 laissez-faire 261 learning to forget — Bad Capitalist 15, 205 — intellectuals 206, 213 — new middle class 15, 206 — residual communism 15, 32, 205 — socialist at heart 205 LegaNord 250 legitimate authority 9, 38, 142, 143 legitimation crisis 250 Leninist party 68 localism 18, 163, 225, 287 losers fighting losers 11, 174 low-skilled industrial workers — conservative role 52 — obsolete jobs 52 — right to change job 52 — social compromise 52, 59 — Soviet arrested industrialization 52 — vyvodilovka 52 lumpenization of the population 50 mafia 175, 279 Malaysia 257 management — authoritarian 89, 162 — autocratic 13, 188 — communication 83, 84, 87, 91, 100, II i, 184, 185, 189, 190, 194 — inflow of foreign managers 84 — inside contracting system 120 — know-how 104, 119, 120 — political strategies 85 — semantic mismatch 8, 107 — survival strategy 120 — Transformational leadership 103 — Western-type education 103 manufactured miracle 253 market — absolutism 176 — induced process 31, 273 — rationality 125 — without production 70 market democracy 197, 198 market socialism 28, 109, 244 marketization 7, 10, 50, 53-56, 59, 107, 2 I — anti-market forces 50 markets — pure 10, 31, 278, 283

303 — rudimentary 31, 272 — self-organizing 283 Marshall Plan 272 Marxism 15, 27, 110, 205, 266, 268, 270, 274 matrioshka 111, 116, 127 Meiji period 216, 228, 260 Mein Kampf 171 Memorandum 12, 171-176, 179 Middle East 251 migration — rural migrants 48 military-industrial complex 7, 49, 50, 5356, 59, 60, 112, 117, 119 models of intelligibility 31 modernization theory see also functionalism — action systems 256 — classical approach 25, 268 — decolonization 252, 265 — evolutionist dichotomous view of development 252 — international political economy 252 — jump start 252 — neo-modernization analysis 22, 24, 25, 28, 251, 254 — neo-utilitarian models 254 — new nations 22, 155, 251, 252, 257, 259 — rational choice perspective 254 — voluntaristic theory of action 254 — world system theory 13, 15, 16, 19, 25 modernity — epicentres of 37, 38, 255 — roads to 259, 261 modernization — breakdown of 261 — changing patterns of 267, 273 — communist-style 46, 59 — cyclical nature of 22, 255 — failed 16, 156, 157 — projects and processes 11,17 — reflexive modernization 254 — Russia and its Soviet past 67 — successful 259, 288 — successful projects of 177 — take-off stage 255 monopoly — financial-industrial 117 Moscow 6, 45, 46, 56, 60-62, 70, 72, 75, 80, 104, 135, 147, 251, 256, 285 Moscow Center for the Study of Public Opinion 46, 56 MSZOS 194 Nation Building and Citizenship 26, 39

304

nation-state 18, 135, 147, 148, 216, 217, 219, 220, 227-230, 240, 250, 256, 257, 262 nationalism — culturally based conflicts 155 — nation-building 156 — national self-awareness 155 — nationalist movements 155 nations — developing 23, 258 — new 22, 155, 251, 252, 257, 259 — submerged 253, 256 negative sociology 31, 32, 274,277, 278 neo-classical paradigm 275 neo-evolutionist approaches 30 see also modernization theory neo-traditionalist movements 12, 175 neotraditionalism 40, 41, 67, 69, 82, 129 Netherlands 256 New Institutional Economics 34 new world order 285 Nicaragua 175, 250, 255 Nigeria 259, 262 nihonjinron 221 Nizhnyi Novgorod 150 nomenklatura 6, 10, 50, 69, 70, 83, 113, 122, 124, 149, 258, 279, 281 North America 80, 158, 199, 213, 219, 268, 286 Novosibirsk Report 45, 62 October revolution — culture and literature 46 — history and mythology 46 — system of aesthetic and moral values 46 old line apologists 266, 288 organizational change 7, 8, 40, 108, 114, 119, 120, 127, 129 organizational culture — Material-external 116 — organizational mid-life 94 — revolution through outsiders 94 organizational equilibrium — external-social 115 — internal-social 116 — material-external 115 — material-internal 118 organizational hero 68 organized consensus 48, 49 Palestine 175 participation 5, 11, 13, 14, 21, 59, 84, 87, 89, 97, 126, 132, 135, 181-187, 189195, 241, 257 particularism 18, 27, 66, 75, 163, 164,

Subject Index

179, 218, 221, 224-226, 287, 289 party-state apparatus 55, 58 patrimonial regimes 143 patron-client relationships 9, 163 patronage state 27, 36, 39 Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy 124 peasant community 47, 48 Perestroika 6, 14, 53, 55, 61,62, 78, 116, 129, 199, 251, 253, 270 Peru 175 Philippines 250, 255, 257, 264 Plaid Cymru 250 plan 86, 87, 90, 95, 108-110, 112-114, 122, 125-127, 191, 261, 270, 272, 276, 278, 283, 284 pluralism 67, 68, 79, 81, 82, 136, 151, 155, 211 Poland 3, 8-11, 15, 83, 91, 92, 95, 98-100, 102-105, 133, 136,147-150,174, 182, 198, 199, 201, 204-206, 213, 240, 249, 250, 255, 256, 258, 262, 271, 276, 281,288,289, 291, 292 Polish Agency of Industrial Development 96 political culture 149, 150, 152,203,214, 220, 270, 292 political prices 5, 49 political-administrative ascription — administrative barriers between different groups 47 — penetrability of administrative barriers 46 — state-controlled system of stratification 53 — strategically important groups 47 Polkolor 99, 101 positivism 144, 249 post-colonial societies 268 post-communist enterprises — autarchy 85, 164, 165 — barter 117, 167, 274 — collective ownership 125 — dying dinosaurs 89 — Employee shareholding 123 — foreign crusaders 7, 98 — government involvement 85 — Joint ventures 118 — Maximum Internally Financiable Rate of Growth 102 — new technocrats 94-96 — non-market behaviour 91 — populist politicians 7, 32, 92 — populist version of industrial democracy 91 — pretenders 7, 84-86, 91 — young wolves 100 post-communist societies 63, 80, 135, 142,

Subject Index

214, 215, 227, 238, 241, 245, 246, 266 post-modern revolutions 286, 287 post-modernism — delayed existentialism 36, 287 — fractionalism 36, 285 — incommensurable discourses 36, 286 — post-modernity 18, 36 post-socialist economic reform 206 potato age 156 poverty 13, 176, 229 pre-socialist history 16, 112 private enterprise 51, 70, 102, 103 private sector 35, 62, 63, 133, 186, 280 privatization — grand 281 — psychological adjustment 94 — solidarity between workers and management 94 — through liquidation 93 — without marketization 10 production without a market 70 property rights 122, 123, 132, 277, 280, 281 Protestantism 250 Quebec 250 radical reformers 25, 270, 282, 288 rational-legal framework 29 rationality — formal rules of the game 125 — market 125-127 — of the plan 125 — plan 125-127 — substantial norms 125 RCA 99 real socialism 3, 9, 10, 16, 19-21, 23, 35, 114, 121, 159, 162, 163, 176, 236, 237, 240, 242-244, 246, 277 Rechtsstaat 140, 149 rectifying revolution 244 redistribution — bureaucratic 49 — of economic and political power 80 reference societies 227, 262 religion 39, 76, 178, 250, 255 religious fundamentalism 235 residual communism 15, 32 restructuring plan 95 retraditionalization 171 Romania 133, 147, 148, 150, 257, 281 rule of law 132, 139, 144 Russia 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 16, 19, 26-28, 39, 40,48, 53, 56, 57, 60, 61, 63-67,6972,74-76,78-81, 83, 103, 110,128130, 141, 147-149, 150, 158, 226,

305 227,229, 236,258, 259, 262, 271, 274, 276, 282, 288-292 Russian society — polarization 56 Russians 69, 70, 71, 76, 130, 257, 262 Russification 147 Rzeczpospolita 103, 104 Scotland 250 Second World 147, 159, 161, 163, 169, 175, 176, 199, 290 Second World War 158 selective incorporation 17, 18, 217, 219, 226228 self-determination 155, 220, 223, 224, 244 self-government 134, 150 self-management — closed protectionist enclaves 166 Serbia 12, 173, 178 Serbian Academy of Science 12, 171, 175 simple choices — from a one-party to a multi-party system 201 — from autocracy to democracy 201 — from central planning the free market 201 Singapore 257 skilled workers — closed enterprises 47, 53, 54, 59, 60 — fat cats of Soviet industry 54 — labour aristocracy 54 — poor relations of the market economy 54 — Soviet military-industrial complex 53 Slovakia 133, 147, 148, 257 Slovenia 11, 17, 91, 102, 133 social action 33, 68, 168, 263, 264, 292 Social Becoming 38,41, 264 social change — historical development 255 — lever of 255 social consciousness 199,247 social cooperation 181 social democracy 16, 258 social movements 8, 58, 137, 236, 250 social order 9, 20, 34, 36-38, 132, 137-140, 142-144, 146, 155, 200, 203,205, 208, 238, 249, 258 social organization — archaic 47 — pre-capitalist patterns of 47 — social exchanges 29, 33 — social infrastructure 4, 48 social passivity 4, 48, 50 Social processes 134, 144,211 Social-Democratic Party 150 socialism

306

— in one single country 16 — inhuman face of 15 — modernity of 17 — negative selection 15, 206 socialist bureaucracy — bonding 127 — double bind 127 — Leviathan 126 — omnipotent impotence 126 socialist development — central dilemma 159 — industrialization 160, 169, 170, 237, 259 socialist capitalism 203 socialist development — egalitarianism 12, 32, 50, 159 — extensive employment 160 — industrialization 26, 84, 85, 110 — quasi-proletarians 12, 160 socialist management — ambiguous responsibilities 89 — apparatchiks 88 — bargaining and reciprocation 88 — dinosaurs 7, 84, 85, 91, 92, 94 — external bureaucratization 112 — foreman empire 124 — game strategies 89 — indulgency pattern 14 — informal parasitic networks 88 — innovation 88, 89, 91, 108, 110 — inter-role and intra-role conflicts 87 — negative power 88 — pay-at-risk compensation system 89 — plan formulation 87 — plan implementation 87 — political risk 112 — promotion through connections 89 — rent-seeking 33, 122, 123, 124 — social consumption funds 113 — soft budget constraints 122 unwritten ground rules 88 sociological idealists 200 sociological surprises 3, 21 Sociology — American and European 239 — Einsteinian 207, 208, 210, 211 — neo-Parsonian 273, 282 — Newtonian 207, 208, 210 — of development 66, 252 — of existence 208, 210 — of formation 208, 210 solidarity — mechanical 166 — organic 166

Subject Index

Solidarity Chase Bank 99 Solidarnosc 10, 199, 200 South Africa 251 South Korea 171 Southeast Europe 214 Southern Europe 131, 151, 152, 271 Soviet — empire 250, 253 — Lumpenproletariat 4, 47 — Marxism 266, 268 — mentality 71, 77 — society 27, 45-47, 49, 50, 54-56, 58, 59, 69, 70, 287 — urbanization 4, 48 Soviet Academy of Sciences 86 Soviet collective farmers — avenues of escape 51 — compulsory labour 51 — de-articulazation of the socialist mode of production 51 — decollectivization of agriculture 52 — geographical mobility 51 — lumpenization 50 — minimal security 52 — minimal work effort 52 — organized recruitment for work 51 — private partnership 51 —- second serfdom 51 — Stalin's lasting legacies 52 — supplementary economic structures 51 Soviet Russia 16, 28, 56, 63, 64, 66, 69, 110, 150 Soviet Science 265 Soviet Union 5, 6, 11, 40, 46, 50, 56, 61-63, 67-69, 71, 72, 74, 78, 80-82, 129, 130, 147, 148, 155, 159, 182, 199,214, 215, 2 3 1 , 2 5 0 , 2 6 6 , 2 7 5 , 2 8 7 , 2 9 0 , 291 Soviet-type societies 5, 9, 25, 46, 51, 55, 67, 68, 214, 215, 268, 270 Sovietization 23, 260 stabilization programme 173, 278 state — arbitrary distribution of rewards 47 — benefactor and protector 46 — dominant redistributive agency 5, 46 — politically determined priority tasks 47 State Commission for Planning — Construction Bank 109 — economic levers 109, 110 — material budgets 108 — state subsidies 109 — success indicators 108 state populism

Subject Index

— alliance with official trade unions 60 — hatred for the old 58 — popular base 60 — red-brown coalition 60 — social justice 31, 50, 59, 273, 279 state sector 51, 63, 276 state serfs 48 state-dependency — shift to individual entrepreneurship 56 Stomil 93, 94, 104 strategic essentialism 220 strikes 14, 60, 94, 116, 134, 161, 187, 191193, 209 structural fusion 29 structure — strong 126 — weak 127 structured contingency 285 sub-contracting 120, 170 Sweden 3, 41, 199 Switzerland of the Balkans 12 syndromes — conspiracy 240 — cultural-civilizational 20, 240, 243 — Lilliput 244 — of surprise 236 — zoo 207 system — anti-system 10 — non-system 10 — official 10 — unofficial 10, 28, 29, 38 system of laws — arbitration court 73, 74 — Civil Code 72, 73 — Commercial Code 73 — contractual obligations 73, 119, 145 — Employment Act 186 — interpretation 72 — resolution of business conflicts 73 systemic crisis 55, 56 systemic model 30 systems theory 157, 222, 225, 286 see also fiinctionalism Taiwan 171 techne 69 telos 62, 68, 69, 82, 255 The Economist 116, 117, 289 theories — anomie 236 — charisma 236 — collective behaviour and social movements 236

307 — convergence 18, 19, 21, 217, 223-225, 245 — dual sovereignty 236 — legitimization and of power 236 — relative deprivation 236 — system equilibrium 236 theories of social change — formal 30 — realistic 30, 31 third wave of democratization 25, 271 Third World 24, 33, 53, 55, 82, 107, 117,177,178, 199, 223, 224, 251, 252, 265,269 Time Magazine 200 totalitarianism 25, 27, 67, 81, 213, 240, 261,268, 277, 287, 289 trade unions — Leninist conception of 16 — police 16 — Democratic League of Independent Unions 194 trans-Caucasian region 175 transfer of institutions 3, 24, 25, 33, 35, 54,271, 272 transformation processes — ambivalences 28, 284, 285 — market reforms 19, 55, 204, 206 — regression phenomena 28 — shock therapy 55, 270, 285, 288 — traditional elements 28, 285 — wait-and-see approach 55 transition — euphoric revolutionary period 236 — from authoritarian to democratic regimes 131 — from feudalism to capitalism 79 — heroic and romantic phase 236 — In a millenarian decade 261 — pragmatic period of systemic transformations 236 — state-dependent type 46, 48 — to a "normal" Western-type society 45 — to modern rational capitalism 79 transnational corporations 252 tribalism 22, 257, 289, 292 Tsarist Russia 4, 110 Tungsram 99, 100 Turkmenistan 289 Turks 257 Tyumen 71 Ukraine 11, 74, 103, 147, 150 Ukrainian Galicia 150 unemployment 13, 23, 47, 94, 166, 176, 187, 194, 258, 271, 275, 281 United Nations 104, 269, 289 United States 216, 237, 252

308

universalism 66, 179, 221, 224, 226, 269, 285, 287, 289 urbanization 4, 19, 48, 170, 237, 270 Ursus Tractor Works 94 USSR 16, 61, 62, 82, 84, 95, 103, 130, 133, 135, 147-149, 251, 290 utilitarianism 31, 33, 34 Vilnius 285 Voprosy Filosofii 67 Wales 250 Warsaw 40, 95, 99, 104, 202, 247 Watson 224, 230 welfare 23, 32, 67, 146, 175, 178, 193, 202, 242, 244, 258, 269, 272, 273, 278, 279 Western Europe 27, 32, 67, 75, 228, 252, 264, 267, 270, 271, 288 Western Siberia 71 Westernization 37, 219 Work and Authority in Industry 16, 39 workers — attitude towards work and the state 46 — mass mobilization 58 — peasant 161, 169, 170, 171, 177 — quasi-proletarians 12, 160 — self-management 11, 13, 16, 85, 89, 91, 94, 95, 182, 185, 193 — state-dependent type 46, 48, 49, 51, 56 World Bank — Economic Development Institute 104 — Human Development Report 269 World War I 223, 256 World War II 224, 244, 251, 252, 265, 268 world-systems theory 222, 225 Yugoslavia 11, 13, 16, 104, 135, 158,159, 162-166, 171, 173-179, 182, 291 Yugoslavian textile industry 171 Zurich 100

Subject Index

Name Index

Abalkin.L. 52, 60 Abell.D. 90, 91, 104 Albrow, Μ 224, 257, 260, 263 Albrow, M. 230 Aleksandrowie? p 103, 104 Alessandrini, Alexander, J. C. jy, 45, 239, 243, 244, 246, 254, 263, 266, 288, 290 Allison, G. 275 Almond, G. 267, 290 Almquist, P. 56, 60 Alter, P. 217, 228, 230 Andorka, R. 260, 261, 263 Apter, D. 268, 288, 290 Amason, J. P. 65, 81, 227,230 Arrow, K. J. 280, 290 Ash, T. G. 228, 230, 242, 246, 271, 290 Aslund, A. 117 Aslund, P. 275 Babayeva, L. 63, 81 Bagnasco, A. 11, 39 Bales, R.F. 264 Barnard, C. 115, 120, 128 Bauer, O. 270 Bauman.Z. 27, 36, 39, 59, 60, 174, 175, 177, 286, 287, 290 Beardsley, T. 57, 60 Beck, V. 229,230,263 Beissinger, M. 14,39, 128 Belka, M. 292 Bell, D. 151, 261, 267, 290 Bellah, R. N. 30, 39 Bendix.R. 16, 26, 27, 37-39, 112, 128, 227 Berger, J. 263 Berger, P. 27, 39, 254 Berki.E. 192, 195 Berliner, J. 52, 60 Bialer, S. 59, 60 Bilandshic, D. 177

Bilandzhic, D. 164 Bim, A. 289, 290 Blackwell, W. L. 110, 128 Blau, P.M. 126, 128 Bodard-Silver, C. 36, 39 Boisot, M. 14, 39, 121, 124, 128 Bonazzi, G. 128 Borocz.J. 63, 81 Borodkin, L. 61 Boudon.R. 30, 31, 39 Bourdieu, P. 21, 39, 239, 241, 246 Branicki, M. 128 Brooks, D. 116, 117, 123, 128 Brus.W. 284, 290 Brzezinski, Z. 60, 67, 81 Buchanan, J. M. 140, 152 Bunce, V. 67, 81 Bunich, P. 54, 60 Bunin, I. 63, 70, 81 Burawoy, M. 65, 66, 81, 107, 117, 119, 120, 123,127, 129, 195 Burlatski, F. 50, 60 Campbell, J. L. 289,290 Carlo, A. 161, 177 Carrington, T. 288, 290 Chase, D. 98, 99 Chepulis, R. L. 170, 177 Chernichenko, Y. 50, 60 Child, J. 14, 39, 107, 121, 124, 127, 128, 129 Clegg, S. 36. 39 Cochran, T. C. 65, 81 Codagnone, C. 5, 6, 35, 63, 70, 72, 81 Cohen, E. 41, 217, 227, 230, 264, 293 Cole, A. H. 65, 81 Coleman, J. S. 136, 151, 152, 269, 290 Comte, A. 223, 249 Conovan, M. 61 Conyngham, W. 29, 40

310

Cook, L. 119, 129 Corradi, J. 66, 81 Crisp, O. 16, 39, 110, 129 Crook, S. 254, 263 Cvjetichanin, V. 169, 170, 178 Dahrendorf, R. 125, 126, 129, 145, 151, 269 Dallago, B. 10, 39 Davidovic, M. 167, 178 Davis, A. S. 91, 105 d'Encausse H. C. 251,263 Denitch, B. 290 Desai, A. R. 263 Desai, P. 14, 129, 253 Di Palma, G. 284, 290 Diamond, L. 151 Domnysheva, E. 60, 61 Dornbusch, R. 275 Douglas, Μ. 151 Duffield, M. 175, 178 Dunaevsky, L. 66, 75, 82 Durek, D. 165, 166, 177, 178 Dürkheim, E. 225, 237, 238, 262 Dutch, R. M. 289, 290 Dyker, D. 119, 129 Easton, D. 267, 290 Echols, J. 67, 81 Eder, K. 30, 39 Eisenstadt, S. 26, 30, 39, 253, 263, 265, 266, 284, 286, 290 Elias, N. 39, 239, 240, 246 Elkin, S. L. 151 Entzenberger, Η. M. 178 Etzioni, A. 235, 247, 283, 289, 290 Fanner, K. 69, 81 Farneti, P. 68, 81 Featherstone, M. 257, 263 Feeny, D. 152 Field, M. 29, 39 Fischer, S. 288, 290 Friedman, J. 13, 129, 175, 178, 285, 287, 289, 290 Friedrich, C. J. 67, 81 Fronczak, K. 104 Frydman, R. 289, 291 Fuller, L. L. 144, 145, 151 Füredi, G. 190, 195 Gabrisch, H. 104 Gaidar, E. 55, 288 Galkin, A. 50, 60 Gallino, L. 28, 39 Geliuta, Μ. M. 90, 105 Gellner, E. 58, 61, 156, 159, 172, 174,177178

Name Index

Genov, N. 279, 291 Gereffi, G. 253, 263 Gerschenkron, A. 16, 40, 64-66, 81, 110, 129 Giddens, A. 139, 151, 269, 270, 287, 291 Giesen, Β. 254 Giesen, R. 263 Gillis 228, 230 Glismann, Η. 289, 291 Gomez de Estrada, Ο. 178 Gorbachev, M. 55, 159, 246, 270, 291 Gordon, L. 60, 61 Gouldner, A. 14, 124, 129 Grancelli, B. 3, 6-8, 10, 14, 33, 35, 40, 107, 111, 112, 120, 121, 123, 124, 128, 129, 258,263 Granick, D. 129 Granovetter, M. 33, 34, 40, 77, 81 Greenfeld, L. 217, 230 Greenhouse, S. 100, 104 Griffith, W. E. 29, 151 Griffiths, F. 41 Grishenko, Z. 63, 70, 81 Grosfeld, I. 275, 280, 283, 291 Grossman, G. 114, 121, 129 Gunther, R. 151 Gurevich, V. 61 Habermas, J. 24, 31, 244, 247, 273, 287, 291 Hägen, Ε. Ε. 65, 81 Hahn, F. 278-280, 283, 291 Hall, J. Α. 220, 230 Handler, R. 220, 230 Hannerz, U. 239, 247 Harrison, D. 15, 19, 40, 251, 263 Hauslohner, P. 61, 287, 291 Havel, V. 246 Hayek, F. A. 141, 142,151 Hayek, F. A. 151 Heater, D. 263 Hegel, G.W.F. 272 Heilbronner, R. 57, 61 Heilemann, U. 288, 291 Hendley, K. 73, 81, 120 Hertzfeld, M. J. 118, 120, 129 Höthy, L. 182, 195 Highley, J. 151 Hirschman, A. O. 278, 287, 291 Hobbes, T. 136, 151 Hollis, M. 145, 151 Holloway, D. 54, 61 Homans, G. 129 Homans, Η. M. 126 Horvat, B. 164, 166, 178 Hough, J. 29, 40, 67, 81

Name Index

Huntington, S. P. 253, 263, 271, 291 Husain, A. M. 288, 291 Ickes, B. W. 107, 129 Ikenberry, G. J. 220, 230 Inkeles, A. 257, 263, 267, 271, 291 Ionescu, G. 58, 61, 133, 151 Ishikawa, A. 195 Jayantanuya, B. 291 Jeffries, I. 108, 109, 129 Jessop, B. 219, 230 Jochimsen, R. 288, 291 Johnson, C. 29, 40 Jones, A. 35, 40, 134 Jones, B. D. 151 Jones, D.C. 289, 290 Jowitt,K. 33, 4 0 , 6 7 , 68, 82, 111, 129, 136,143, 151 Kaldor, M. 174, 178 Kalugin, O. 58 Kaminski, A. Z. 138, 149, 151 Kane, A. 243, 247 Karl, T. L. 271, 284, 285, 291 Karoly, J. W. 99, 101, 104 Käser, M. 16, 40, 110, 129 Kashioka, T. 262 Katunaric, V. 159, 178 Kaufman, R. R. 151 Kharitonov, M. 45, 46, 61 Khoros, V. G. 47, 61 Kidric, B. 159, 163, 178 King, A.D. 263 Kirzner, I. 6, 40, 64, 82 Klimova, S. 66, 75, 77, 82 Klyamkin, I. M. 48, 61 Koen, V. 289, 291 Koestler, A. 241, 247 Kohout, J. 90, 104 Kolakowski, L. 285, 291 Kolvereid, L. 102, 104 Kontorovich, V. 33, 40 Koralewicz, J. 236, 237, 247 Kordonskij, S. G. 47, 61 Komai, J. 122, 129 Koroshic, M. 159, 165-167, 169, 178 Kosals, Y. 61 Kostic, C. 169, 178 Koväcs, J. M. 291 Kowalczyk, J. 95, 96, 104 Kozminski, A. K. 6-8, 83, 84, 87, 88, 104, 105, 115, 122, 129 Krajewski, S. 292 Krotov, P. 107, 117, 119, 123, 127, 129 Krys, R. 120, 128

311

Kryshtanovskaya, O. 63, 72, 82 Kuczi, T. 82 Kurczewska, J. 9, 38, 131, 138, 149, 151 Kux, Β. 100 Kuzminov, I. 82 Kuznetsov, E. 54, 61 Kwiatkowski, K. 84, 105 Laitin, D. D. 262 Lamont, M. 239, 247 Lareau, A. 239, 247 Lawrence, P. I l l , 112, 120, 121, 129, 130 Lederer, E. 136, 151 Lefebvre, V. 45, 61 Levada, Y. 46, 59, 61 Lewin, Μ. 37, 47, 53, 61, 126, 129, 287, 288 Ligachev, Ε. 49 Limongi, F. 284, 292 Lindblom, C. Ε. 141, 142, 152 Linz, J. J. 151, 152, 271, 291 Lipset, S.M. 65, 66, 82, 136, 152, 267, 271,291 Lipton, D. 275, 277, 288, 291 Lisichkin, G. 50, 61 Livada, S. 169, 178 Luhman, N. 24, 30, 31, 40 Lukes, S. 145 Lyengl, G. T. 82 Maevsky, V. 50, 61 Maffesoli, M. 175, 178 Makö, C. 13, 181, 194, 195 Malia, M. 289, 291 Mandel, E. 67, 82 March, J. 115, 120, 129 Markham, F. 249, 263 Markovic, P. 159, 169, 178,176 Marody, M. 46, 51, 57, 61, 237, 242, 247 Masarsky, M. 129 Mathy, J-P. 228, 230 McClelland, D. 82 McDaniel, T. 112, 129 McNeill, W. H. 219, 230 Meillassoux, C. 169, 178 Melotti, U. 67, 82 Melucci, A. 250, 263 Merton, R. 239, 247 Meyer, J. W. 220,230 Mihajlovic, K. 164, 165, 178 Milosevic, S. 163, 173 Milosz, C. 237, 247 Mindubaev, Z. 52, 61 Misztal, B. 107, 130, 247 Mitrany, D. 170, 178

312

Mokrzycki, E. 199, 209, 211, 271, 291 Mommsen, W. J. 146, 152 Montaigne, F. 116, 130 Montesquieu, C. 9, 132, 143, 152 Montias, J. M. 283, 292 Moore, W. E. 224, 230 Morawski, W. 202 Mosca, G. 136, 152 Moskof, W. 40 Mouzelis, N. 28, 40, 159, 178, 271, 288, 292 Müller, K. 24-26, 28, 31-33,36,37,40,261, 263, 275, 287-289, 292 Münch, R. 254, 263 Murrell, P. 276, 277, 292 Nagy, B. 82 Nairn, T. 215, 230, 289, 292 Nee, V. 27, 40, 259, 263 Nelson, B. 259, 263 Nettl, J. P. 218, 226, 230 Neumann, L. 195 Neverov, V. 71 Nicholson, N. 140, 152 Nisbet, R. 145, 152 Notkina, T. A. 59, 61 Nove, A. 108, 110, 130, 283, 292 Nowak, S. 236, 243, 247 Oakerson, R. J. 139, 152 Oberschall, A. 250, 263 Obloj, K. 88, 91, 102, 104, 105 Ocic, C. 163-165, 177, 178 O'Donnell, G. 152 Offe, K. 35, 40,229, 230, 288, 292 Okey, R. 228-230 Oliveira-Roca, M. 169, 178 Olson, M. 143, 152 Orolin, Z. 190, 191, 195 Ortega y Gasset, J. 136, 152 Ossowski, S. 244, 247 Ostrom, E. 143, 152 Parker, M. 36,40 Parsons, T. 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 36, 38-40, 253, 254, 256, 263, 268, 269, 283, 285, 287, 289, 292 Pear, R. 53, 61 Pearce, J. L. 89, 105, 119, 124, 125, 130 Peng, Y. 259, 264 Pervushin, S. 53, 61 Peterson, A. 175, 179 Petrakov, N. 55, 61 Petrosino, D. 262 Petrov, A. 117, 130 Phillips, S. 289, 291 Picht, H. 152

Name Index

Pinto, B. 281, 292 Pipes, R. 112, 130 Podrebarac, V. 167, 179 Polany, K. 36, 40 Poör, J. 195 Popov, G 58,60,61 Prigogine, I. 210, 211 Piyor, F. 52, 61 Przeworski, A. 273, 282, 284, 288, 289, 292 Puljiz, V. 169, 170, 179 Putnam, R. 152 Pye, L. 267, 289, 290, 292 Radayev, V. 63, 70, 82 Raeff, M. 16, 40 Rapaczynski, A. 289, 291 Rawls, J. 273, 292 Razvigorovka, E. 120, 130 Reagan, R. 246 Reddock, R. 171, 178 Robertson, R. 213, 215, 217,218,220-222, 224-227, 229-231 Rona-Tas, A. 63, 81 Rose, R. 123, 130 Roskin, M. 155, 179 Rostow, W. W. 267, 288, 292 Roudometof, V. 229, 231 Rousseau, J. 152 Ruble, B. 53, 61 Rucht, D. 250, 264 Rueschemeyer, D. 29, 40 Rule, J. B. 290, 292 Rustow, D. A. 271, 292 Rutskoi, A. 288 Rychard, A. 9-11, 34, 35, 40, 236, 247 Ryvkina, R. V. 46, 52, 53, 62 Sachs, J. 275-278, 288, 291, 292 Sahay, R. 288, 291 Saint-Simon, H. 223,249, 264 Sartori, G. 136, 152 Schein, E.H. 94, 105 Schierup, C. 11-13, 15-17, 158, 160-163, 166, 167, 170, 179 Schmitter, P. C. 151,152, 271, 284, 285, 291 Schräder, Κ. 289, 291 Schumpeter, J. A. 38, 64, 82 Seidman, S. 239, 246 Selyunin, V. 48, 62 Senghaas, D. 271, 292 Seong, K. 271, 291 Shils, E. A. 253, 264 Shirokov, F. 54, 61 Shkaratan, O. 54, 62 Shlapentokh, V. 10, 33, 37, 40

Name Index

Shmelev, G. 52, 62 Simon, H.A. 115, 120, 129 Simonyi, A. 13, 14, 181, 195 Sirianni, C. 27, 41 Skilling, H. G. 29, 41 Sklair, L. 257, 264 Smelser, N. 25, 29, 30, 40, 41, 254, 263, 268, 289, 292 Smimov, G. 62 Smith, P. 21, 39, 243, 246 So, A. Y. 251, 264 Soltan, K. 152 Sorokin, P. 256, 262, 264, 270 Staniszkis, J. 46, 51, 62, 236, 247 Starikov, E. 48, 50, 62 Stark, D. 11, 27, 32, 35, 40, 41, 120, 280,289, 292 Steele, J. 117, 130 Stein, G. 120, 130 Stengers, I. 211 Stephan, A. 271, 291 Streeck, W. 195 Strelyanyj, A. 51, 62 Strpic, D. 168, 179 Sulek, A. 236, 247 Suny, R. N. 216, 231 Swindler, A. 243,247 Szczot, S. 93, 94, 104 Sztompka, P. 3, 19-22, 24, 29, 30, 34, 37, 41, 235-237, 240, 247, 254, 264, 266,285, 292 Tardos, M. 291 Taylor, W. 100, 105 Teague, E. 88, 105 Theobald, R. 259, 262, 264 Ticktin, H. 67, 82 Timofeev, L. 33, 41, 51, 62 Tipps, D.C. 253, 264 Tiryakian, E. A. 21-24, 28, 29, 32, 41, 249,254, 255, 264-266, 273, 285, 293 Tischner, J. 237, 247 Tito, J. B. 172 Tittenbrun, J. 289, 293 Tocqueville, A. 9, 37, 140, 143, 152, 237, 247 Tomasevich, J. 162, 179 Torres, J. C. 271, 291 Touraine, A. 250, 254, 264 Trigilia, C. 41 Trotsky, L. 67, 82 Tsing, A. L. 219, 231 Tsoukas, H. 17, 41 Tudjman, F. 163

313

Tugan-Baranowsky, Μ. I. 110, 130 Tully, S. 99, 105 Turner, B. S. 36, 41 Tylor, C. 152 Urban, Μ. E. 126, 127, 130 Vajda, A. 82 Van Metre, L. 120, 130 Vanberg, V. 140, 152 Varga, G. F. 99, 193, 195 Varga, G.F. 100 Verba, S. 267, 290, 292 Vince, P. 195 Vishnevskij, A. G. 62 Vlachoutsicos, C. 112, 129, 130 Volin, P. 52, 60 Wadekin, Κ. E. 51, 62 Wälder, A. 27, 29, 33, 41, 67, 82 Walesa, L. 246 Wallerstein, I. 222, 231 Walzer, Μ. 289, 290, 293 Wandycz, Κ. 99, 105 Wawrzyniak, Β. 124, 130 Weber, Μ. 9, 38, 68, 75, 82, 143, 146, 152, 223, 237, 262, 274 Wedel, J. 51, 62 Weisskopf, Τ. Ε. 289, 290 Westney, D.E. 216, 217, 231 Whitlock, Ε. 55, 62, 117, 120, 130 Wieczorkowska, Α. 104, 105 Wildavsky, Α. 134, 144, 152 Williamson, Ο. 33, 41, 141 Winiecki, J. 33, 41, 107, 112, 122, 130 Wittfogel, Κ. Α. 132, 152 Wittkowsky, Α. 276, 293 Wolf-Laudon, W. 120, 130 Wrobel, Ε. 94, 105 Wyman, D. 253, 263 Yaroshenko, V. 52, 59, 62 Yasin, Y. 119, 124, 130 Yeltsin, B. 58, 60, 246 Yoshino, K. 221, 231 Young, F. W. 259, 263 Zapf, W. 254, 261, 264, 288, 293 Zaslavskaya, T. 45, 46, 50, 62 Zaslavsky, V. 4 -6, 11, 37, 47, 49, 53, 62,159, 1 7 9 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 5 , 2 3 1 , 2 9 3 Zhupanov, J. 159, 160, 162, 166-168, 179 Zinoviev, A. 45, 62 Ziolkowski, M. 236, 237, 247 Ζοη,Η. 238, 247 Zvorykin, Α. Α. 90, 105