The Czech Sociological Review is announcing a Call for Papers for a thematic issue in English on: Social Stratification in Central Europe – Issues and Developments
· Guest editor: Jiří Večerník (Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Science)
· Planned issue: Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 55 (6), December 2019
Social stratification is a key and also controversial area of research in Central Europe and elsewhere. After a Hungarian survey on social stratification led by Zsuzsa Ferge was conducted in 1965, Pavel Machonin challenged the ideological picture of a classless society in former Czechoslovakia with an empirical construction of multiple strata in 1967. In 1993, the largest comparative survey of five post-communist countries was conducted by Ivan Szelenyi and Donald J. Treiman and later interpreted by Henryk Domański in terms of whether post-communist countries had adopted a Western model of social organisation. More recently, David Ost challenged the ‘post-1989 fascination with the middle class’ while preparing the 2015 thematic issue of East European Politics and Societies, in which the perspective of newly emerging power and class relations was stressed by various authors.
This thematic issue aims to publish both theoretical and empirical papers focusing primarily on the post-communist region of Central-East Europe, namely the countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia (Visegrád Four - V4), and for comparison Austria. The V4 countries are often considered one homogeneous region, though they exhibit considerable differences in social trends and their efforts in sociological research also vary. Austria can serve here as the ‘most similar’ benchmark country and a source of theoretic inspiration for its advanced stratification research. However, relevant analyses across the entire EU could also be included in the issue.
Regarding concepts and theory, we expect papers to address questions such as: How has the discourse on classes and strata developed in the aftermath of the concepts of class struggle and social homogeneity applied by the communist regime in the 1950s and 1960s? What have been the leading concepts of stratification research since 1990? How have basic stratification concepts been interpreted by scholars, how did they develop over time, and how have these interpretations differed across countries? What are the new research trends in this field relating to globalisation, migration, and the technological and information revolutions – can we, for example, talk about supranational or global forms of stratification that operate beyond the confines of the nation-state?
Regarding empirics, there is no recent comparative sociological survey focusing on social stratification in Europe – the last one was the ISSP module on Social Inequality in 2009, the next one will be in 2019. However, there are important empirical efforts in Hungary (Albert et al. 2017) and Poland (Tomescu-Dubrow et al. 2017). Regarding comparative sources, there is a challenging opportunity to mine the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), which provides timely and comparable cross-sectional and longitudinal multidimensional microdata on income, poverty, social exclusion and living conditions, together with main status variables such as occupation and education. Yearly data covering all EU and EFTA countries are available to the research community from 2005.
Papers may be conceptual or empirical and may focus on a single country or take a comparative perspective across the V4 and Austria or beyond. Review articles on developments in stratification research in individual CEE countries are also welcome.
The deadline for the submission of abstracts (300–500 words) is 31 March 2018. The abstracts are to be submitted directly to the guest editor – jiri.vecernik@soc.cas.cz – who will inform authors as to whether their abstract has been selected by 15 April 2018.
Full-text papers will be expected no later than 30 November 2018.
For author guidelines see http://sreview.soc.cas.cz/en/page/4-author-guidelines.
Selected references:
- Albert, F. et al. (2017). Mapping the Post-communist Class Structure: Findings from a New Multidimensional Hungarian Class Survey. East European Politics and Societies. First Published online in December 11, 2017.
- Bacher, J. et al (2018). Sozialstruktur und Wertewandel in Österreich. Trends 1986–2016. Wiesbaden: Springer.
- Domański, H. (2000). On the Verge of Convergence. Social Stratification in Eastern Europe. Budapest: CEU Press.
- Eyal, G., I. Szelényi, E. Townsley (1998). Making Capitalism without Capitalists. The New Ruling Elites in Eastern Europe. London and New York: Verso.
- Gornick, J.S., M. Jantti eds. (2013). Income Inequality: Economic Disparities and the Middle Class in Affluent Countries. Stanford University Press.
- Haller, M., T. Kolosi, P. Robert (1989). Social Mobility in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. An Investigation of the Effects of Industrialization, Socialist Revolution, and National Uniqueness. International Journal of Sociology 19 (4).
- Haller, M. in collaboration with A. Eder (2015). Ethnic Stratification and Economic Inequality around the World: The End of Exploitation and Exclusion? Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.
- Jæger, M. M., R. Breen (2016). A Dynamic Model of Cultural Reproduction. American Journal of Sociology 121 (4):1079–1115.
- Katrňák, T., P. Fučík (2011). Návrat k sociálnímu původu. Vývoj sociální stratifikace české společnosti v letech 1989 až 2009. Brno: CDK.
- Machonin, P. (1970). Social Stratification in Contemporary Czechoslovakia. American Journal of Sociology 75 (5): 725–741.
- Mau, S., R. Verwiebe (2010). European Societies. Mapping Structure and Change. Bristol: Policy Press.
- Ost, D. (2015). Class After Communism. Special edited issue of East European Politics and Societies.
- Tomescu-Dubrow, I. et al. (2017). Dynamics of Class and Stratification in Poland – 1945–2015. Budapest-New York: CEU Press.
- Treiman, D. J., H.B. Ganzeboom (2000). The fourth generation of comparative stratification research. Pp. 98–121 in M. S. R. Quah, A. Sales eds. The International Handbook of Sociology. London: Sage.
- Vaughan-Whitehead, D. ed. (2016). Europe’s Disappearing Middle Class? Evidence from the World of Work. Edward Elgar.
- Večerník, J. (2009). Czech Society in the 2000s: A Report on Socio-economic Policies and Structures. Praha: Academia.
- Verwiebe, R. (2004). Transnationale Mobilität innerhalb Europas. Eine Studie zu den sozialstrukturellen Effekten der Europäisierung. Berlin: Edition Sigma.
- Weeden, K.A., D.B. Grusky (2012). The Three Worlds of Inequality. American Journal of Sociology 117 (6):1723–1785.
- Wilkinson, R.G., K. Pickett (2009). The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. Allen Lane.