From Elitism through Corporatism to Pluralism? The Role of Elites in the Political Transition of Ukraine

The group set out to analyse the dynamics of elite groups in Ukraine today, both internal and inter-group, and their ideas on major socio-economic, political and foreign policies, in order to identify the degree of competitiveness between groups, methods of elite recruitment and the degree of elite response, which influence both the political agenda and the results of political activity. Having observed the contemporary debate and identified the pre-eminence of various elite groups in the decision-making process at the regional and state levels, they also sought to determine the type and degree of elite consensus which might be achieved in contemporary Ukraine. They also considered the extent of concealed power, in terms of covert interaction more characteristic of corporate societies, which might allow for the abuse of authority within a technically democratic system. The group then went on to consider the stages of counter-elite transformation and the continuing importance of the communist elite, as well as the issue of rivalry versus consensus. They see their findings as relevant not only to the Central and Eastern European context but also to the situation in Latin America today.

The Hungarian Economic Elite After the Political Transition

Erzsebet Szalai (Hungary). The Hungarian Economic Elite after the Political Transition. Ms. Szalai is a research fellow in the Institute of Political Sciences in Budapest and worked on this project from July 1996 to June 1998. In the period following the political changes of 1989, the leading forces of the economic elite have gained increasing superiority over the political and cultural elites, with the clear ambition of putting the latter to their service. The power relations within the economic elite were characterised by "a war of all against all". The desire to gain precedence over others became an openly declared value. The formation of estates and the intensification of competition became embodied in a multitude of lobbies which cropped up to assert short-term interests. After the state socialist period, possession of at least two of the social, economic and cultural forms of capital is necessary to join one of the three segments of the elite: political, cultural or economic. What defines the ability of the members of the three elite groups to assert their interests is their ability to convert any of the three types of capital into another. That is to say, the basis on which they can retain and extend their position is "symbolic capital" as interpreted by Bourdieu. The concept of symbolic capital is useful for describing the power relations following the collapse of state socialist systems and societies. In the state-socialist system, the political, economic and cultural spheres are tightly interwoven, and this interpenetration slackens only slowly after the system's disintegration. A close institutional relationship between the three spheres continues to make it easier for power actors to convert social, economic and cultural capital from one type to another. Symbolic capital, or the easy transfer between the three spheres, in turn reproduces the institutional relationship, or more precisely, complicates the separation of the three spheres after the fall of state socialism.

Ideologies of (and in) interpretations and Interpretive Communities

This project had a dual aim: first to survey the (scanty) literature on interpretive communities, and second to apply the concept in a specific context, i.e. in current Hungarian literature. Interpretive communities are closely linked to one of the most disputed issues of literary and theoretical discourse to date, namely canonicity. Not only is the body of the canon selected, presented and interpreted by a specific interpretive community (that of the professionals), but the production of theories themselves, including the theory of interpretive communities and of the canon, is part and parcel of professional interpreters' activity. Thus, while belonging to an interpretive community is a function of other interpretive communities, the entire conceptual system of interpretive communities is a function of a specific (professional) community. Literature in the period of political transition is characterised not only (and not necessarily) by the transitional nature of literary works or literary discourse, but rather by continuous debates about canon and interpretive communities, and here Kalman carried out a number of case studies of current discussions of this nature in Hungary.

Changing Values in a Transitional Period

This project examined the change in values in the still unfinished transitional period in Serbia during the 1990s and compared it with Greece in the same period. During this period the social and political transition affected the ruling value system primarily through changes in the modes of the production and representation of reality. The most remarkable trait of this period in Serbia is the parallel and interweaving existence of different value systems. The very perception of reality has been blurred by the emergence of a very complex technical and ideological structure. Reality is presented by and through extensions and additions, the models of which are language and media. With the development of media technology and global communication and information systems, representation has become the only available reality. This enables the media to overtly and unlimitedly intervene in reality, to manage and change it without constraint and thus have a direct impact on values. The difference between public and private is abolished, so the media start promoting exclusive collective values. However, since the collective thus loses its counterpart, it itself needs to be redefined. This confusion of values make the possible results of their change uncertain. It will either open up a space for multiculturalism and social pluralism and thus completely replace the old systems of values, or result in an indefinite survival of different, often contradictory, value systems and conceptions of reality, which often lead to all forms of exclusivity and intolerance.

Democratic Transition and Political Patronage

Mr. Korosenyi begins by analysing the particular relationship holding between politics and administration in different countries. Within Europe three major patterns have emerged in the 20th century. Firstly there is the politically neutral British Civil Service, secondly the German and French state bureaucracies, which traditionally are supposed to embody the "common good", and thirdly there is the patronage system of the so-called consociate democracies, e.g. Austria. In general Mr. Korosenyi believes that, though politics do not penetrate into the Hungarian administration to the extent they do in Belgium and Austria, nevertheless, there is a stronger fusion than there is in the traditional British pattern. He is particularly interested in this relationship with regard to its effect on democratic institution building and the stabilisation of the new regime in Hungary, now the old "nomenklatura" system has been abolished. The structure of the Hungarian government was a result of the constitutional amendments of 1989 and 1990. Analysing this period, it becomes clear that for all the political actors who initiated and supported the democratic transition to democracy, the underlying assumption was a radical depoliticisation of the administration in order to maintain its stability. The political leadership of the executive is a cabinet government. The government is structured along ministries, each headed by a politician, i.e. the minister, who is a member of the cabinet. The minister's political secretary is not a cabinet member, but he or she is a politician, usually a member of the parliament. The head of the administration of the ministry is the administrative state secretary, who is a civil servant. He or she usually has four deputies, also civil servants. Naturally it is assumed that there should be a clear separation between politicians and civil servants. However in practice, the borders can be blurred, giving rise to a hybrid known as the "political civil servant". Mr. Korosenyi analyses the different faces of these hybrids. They are civil servants for the following reasons. They need special educational qualifications, working experience, a civil service exam etc., they are not allowed to do anything which is incompatible with their impartial role, and they cannot occupy political office nor may they appear in the name of any political party. On the other hand, the accepted political dimension to their function is revealed by the following facts. The state secretary (a civil servant) may participate in cabinet meetings instead of the minister. The state secretary is employed by the minister. A state secretary or any of their deputies can be dismissed at any time by the minister or the prime minister. In practice then, ministers appoint to these senior administrative positions civil servants whose personal and political loyaties are strong. To the second level of political patronage in ministries belong the ministerial cabinet, press office and public relation office. The ministerial cabinet includes the private advisors and members of the personal staff of the minister. The press office and the PR office, if they exist, are not adjusted to the administrative hierarchy of the ministry, but under the direct control of the minister. In the beginning of the 1990s, such offices were exceptions; in the second half of the 90s they are accepted and to be found in most ministries. Mr. Korosenyi's work, a 92-page manuscript of a book in Hungarian, marks the first piece of literature within the field of political science which analyses the structure of the Hungarian government in the 1990s and the relationship between the political leadership and the public administration.

Civil Society and Political Parties in the Period of Transition

The major aim of Mr. Marada's project was to investigate the role of political parties on the one hand, and various institutional forms of civil society on the other, in the process of establishing mechanisms of political decision-making and policy-formation in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, after November 1989. Mr. Marada wanted to examine what consequences the interplay and tensions between political parties and institutions of civil society had on the status and practical understanding of citizenship and civil society. At the beginning of his research Mr. Marada found that, while the sphere of the political was relatively clearly defined, the phenomenon of civil society required a conceptual clarification. He devoted a great deal of time to analysing the emergence, development, and disintegration of Civic Forum as the major agent of the regime change and subsequent political reforms. Alongside this analysis is a commentary on Czech society in general, drawing on established research to show how, as yet, a kind of civic incompetence reigns within the country, and how this situation has its roots in the belief, promoted by politicians themselves, that politics is an activity for experts only. The final outcome of his research took the form of a series of articles, in English, totalling 40 pages.

A Sociological Study of the Political Subsystem in Yugoslavia

In this critical analysis of sociological studies of the political subsystem in Yugoslavia since the fall of communism Mr. Ilic examined the work of the majority of leading researchers of politics in the country between 1990 and 1996. Where the question of continuity was important, he also looked at previous research by the writers in question. His aim was to demonstrate the overall extent of existing research and at the same time to identify its limits and the social conditions which defined it. Particular areas examined included the problems of defining basic concepts and selecting the theoretically most relevant indicators; the sources of data including the types of authentic materials exploited; problems of research work (contacts, field control, etc.); problems of analysisl and finally the problems arising from different relations with the people who commission the research. In the first stage of the research, looking at methods of defining key terms, special attention was paid to the analysis of the most frequently used terms such as democracy, totalitarianism, the political left and right, and populism. Numerous weaknesses were noted in the analytic application of these terms. In studies of the possibilities of creating a democratic political system in Serbia and its possible forms (democracy of the majority or consensual democracy), the profound social division of Serbian society was neglected. The left-right distinction tends to be identified with the government-opposition relation, in the way of practical politics. The idea of populism was used to pass responsibility for the policy of war from the manipulator to the manipulated, while the concept of totalitarianism is used in a rather old-fashioned way, with echoes of the cold war. In general, the terminology used in the majority of recent research on the political subsystem in Yugoslavia is characterised by a special ideological style and by practical political material, rather than by developed theoretical effort. The second section of analysis considered the wider theoretical background of the research and focused on studies of the processes of transformation and transition in Yugoslav society, particularly the work of Mladen Lazic and Silvano Bolcic, who he sees as representing the most important and influential contemporary Yugoslav sociologists. Here Mr. Ilic showed that the meaning of empirical data is closely connected with the stratification schemes towards which they are oriented, so that the same data can have different meanings in shown through different schemes. He went on to show the observed theoretical frames in the context of wider ideological understanding of the authors' ideas and research. Here the emphasis was on the formalistic character of such notions as command economy and command work which were used in analysing the functioning and the collapse of communist society, although Mr. Ilic passed favourable judgement on the Lazic's critique of political over-determination in its various attempts to explain the disintegration of the communist political (sub)system. The next stage of the analysis was devoted to the problem of empirical identification of the observed phenomena. Here again the notions of the political left and right were of key importance. He sees two specific problems in using these notion in talking about Yugoslavia, the first being that the process of transition in the FR Yugoslavia has hardly begun. The communist government has in effect remained in power continuously since 1945, despite the introduction of a multi-party system in 1990. The process of privatisation of public property was interrupted at a very early stage and the results of this are evident on the structural level in the continuous weakening of the social status of the middle class and on the political level because the social structure and dominant form of property direct the majority of votes towards to communists in power. This has been combined with strong chauvinist confusion associated with the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, and these ideas were incorporated by all the relevant Yugoslav political parties, making it more difficult to differentiate between them empirically. In this context he quotes the situation of the stream of political scientists who emerged in the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade. During the time of the one-party regime, this faculty functioned as ideological support for official communist policy and its teachers were unable to develop views which differed from the official line, but rather treated all contrasting ideas in the same way, neglecting their differences. Following the introduction of a multi-party system, these authors changed their idea of a public enemy, but still retained an undifferentiated and theoretically undeveloped approach to the issue of the identification of political ideas. The fourth section of the work looked at problems of explanation in studying the political subsystem and the attempts at an adequate causal explanation of the triumph of Slobodan Milosevic's communists at four subsequent elections was identified as the key methodological problem. The main problem Mr. Ilic isolated here was the neglect of structural factors in explaining the voters' choice. He then went on to look at the way empirical evidence is collected and studied, pointing out many mistakes in planning and determining the samples used in surveys as well as in the scientifically incorrect use of results. He found these weaknesses particularly noticeable in the works of representatives of the so-called nationalistic orientation in Yugoslav sociology of politics, and he pointed out the practical political abuses which these methodological weaknesses made possible. He also identified similar types of mistakes in research by Serbian political parties made on the basis of party documentation and using methods of content analysis. He found various none-sided applications of survey data and looked at attempts to apply other sources of data (statistics, official party documents, various research results). Mr. Ilic concluded that there are two main sets of characteristics in modern Yugoslav sociological studies of political subsystems. There are a considerable number of surveys with ambitious aspirations to explain political phenomena, but at the same time there is a clear lack of a developed sociological theory of political (sub)systems. He feels that, in the absence of such theory, most researcher are over-ready to accept the theoretical solutions found for interpretation of political phenomena in other countries. He sees a need for a stronger methodological bases for future research, either 1) in complementary usage of different sources and ways of collecting data, or 2) in including more of a historical dimension in different attempts to explain the political subsystem in Yugoslavia.

Changes in the Social Status of Women in Societies in Transition: Russia and Armenia

The project studied the way the post-communist transition has affected the position of women in society and two post-Soviet states, Armenia and Russia, were chosen for a comparative study. Although in many respects the two countries show rather similar tendencies, there are important differences. The most dramatic of these lie in the field of the women's movement and state support, in family lifestyles and public thinking, and in the perception of female roles in society by both women and men in both countries. Whereas in Russia, at least in large cities, it is possible to speak of a movement concerned with equality and women's rights, in Armenia there are few women's organisations and those that exist are most focused on support for children and poor families. In Russia, many post-Soviet changes can be described as a shift towards 'Western' rather than 'Eastern' values, while in Armenia this tendency is much weaker and exists alongside a relapse into traditional attitudes. Iskandarian suggests possible explanations for this, both intrinsic (tradition. motivation) and external (influences, neighbouring countries, involvement in wars, the economic situation, migrations, political regimes). Nevertheless, for both societies it is possible to speak of a growing awareness of women's needs and of the birth of a new tradition in family and public life brought by the post-Soviet winds of change.

Personality and Current Political Beliefs | Comparative Study of Polish and Belgian Samples)"

This project had a threefold aim and sought to provide answers to several different questions. Kossowska first focused on the relationship between Openness to Experience and ideological variables such as authoritarianism and conservatism. The main questions here were (1) whether there are differences between the Polish and Belgian samples studied with respect to the relationship between political ideology and Openness to Experience, and (2) whether this relationship applies to all facets of Openness to Experience. The study showed significant negative correlations between Openness and right-wing ideology in both adult samples, and that Fantasy and Actions were the most robust correlates of political ideology. A second problem examined concerned the relationship between ideology and cognitive functioning. The important questions here were about the conceptualisation and measurement of cognitive variables such as rigidity, intolerance of ambiguity, or the need for closure, which determine individuals' attitudes to politics. The results confirmed the significance of the need for closure construct in both samples for understanding the process of formulating and holding political beliefs. The last aspect of the study was the differences in political beliefs between the Polish and Belgian samples in relation to the social, political and economic situation in the two countries. The most important question here was the changes in the political mentality of Poles during the period of system transition. Kossowska expected to find differences between Poles and Belgians with respect to the level of conservatism and authoritarianism, but in fact both samples showed comparable levels of right-wing political beliefs.

The Language of Political Conflict: A Logico-Semantic Approach

A semantic approach towards political conflict first emerged in the 1930s and provides the methodological foundations for the description of political conflicts, in particular as the correlation between the language of description and reality. Any military or political confrontation presupposes axiological, conceptual and ideological confrontation. The form of adequate description can only be comprehended if the characteristic features of its language (structure) and thesaurus are revealed. Admitting the possibility of different descriptions implies the necessity of analysing this possible ambiguity, i.e. the characteristic features of the language which enable us to form various statements, including mutually exclusive ones. The insoluble task of finding a middle ground between the viewpoints of the conflicting parties should be replaced by soluble procedures of explaining and assessing the conflicting axiologies. For the description of conflict situations, when it is essential to represent various positions within a uniform system, an apparatus of model semantics seems to be the most appropriate one both for generating alternatives and for bringing them together in a modal system of a world in which procedures of transition from one world to another (i.e. the transworld compatibility between them) are also reflected. Reality is reconstructed not as a sort of middle ground between the mutually exclusive approaches nor as their sum, but as a result of the overlapping of various worlds and the procedures of transition from one state of affairs to another. The description of a conflict is therefore seen as a system of worlds connected by modal relations, with a system of worlds emerging as a reality to be described. This approach makes it possible to describe the processes from the points of view of the participating parties and, at the same time, to reveal their basic attitudes. The main idea of this research is shown by the problems analysed: the description of conflict as methodology; language and behaviour (general problems of semiotic description), the logico-semantic analysis of the notions of "problem and conflict", "Genesis and Chronology", "the recurrent model of the (historical) explanation and interpretation of the conflict". Zolyan used data on the Karabagh conflict to demonstrate the dependence of the structure of semio-cultural codes on current political development and considered post-soviet history as a semio-cultural problem. He sought to consider and reveal the logic of manipulations with history, and proposed the logic of preferences as a possible instrument for achieving compromise.