A Conceptual History of Political Regimes: Democracy, Dictatorship, and Authoritarianism

Author(s): Adam Przeworski / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

The labels we attach today to distinguish political regimes have histories. Applying them without understanding these histories is sometimes anachronistic and ethnocentric. I have little new to say about “democracy” and “dictatorship”, so that the discussion of these concepts is just a reminder. “Authoritarianism”, however, is a dubious neologism. I advance two claims: (1) In all regimes the power to command and be obeyed entails some dose of reason-giving, (2) What distinguishes regimes is the form and the extent to which the authority of rulers is monopolised by physical force. I conclude that the concept of “authoritarianism” adds little to the distinction between democracy and dictatorship.

A kritikai és emancipációs diskurzusok megújulásáról

Author(s): Margit Feischmidt / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2016

The article examines the current state of two critical and emancipatory discourses in social sciences: multiculturalism and feminism. Similar and divergent elements of their theoretical position are investigated with a special emphasis on famous debates among their representatives. The limits of the East-European adaptation of multiculturalism and feminism alike are highlighted, whereas the social and political reasons of the current counter-ideologies (the “backlash multiculturalism” and the “anti-genderism”) are also revealed in the paper.

Aktywność zawodowa kobiet w Krakowie w II połowie XIX wieku

Author(s): Lidia Zyblikiewicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4/2015

The article presents the scale of the professional activity of women who lived in Cracow in the second half of the 19th century. The author’s intention has been to verify – at least in relation to the urban population – the common belief that before the First World War women did not take up paid jobs to a larger extent.The analysis contains the Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO). The records of censuses of 1869, 1880 and 1890 have been the main source for the analysis; thanks to them it was possible to create a database of urban inhabitants.After having analysed the changes in the size of the population of Cracow in the second half of the 19th century the author attempted to assess what the percentage of the dynamic increase of the Cracow’s population might be accounted for by immigrants, identified through their place of birth and citizenship. The incoming population changed the structure of the Cracow’s community as far as age and sex are concerned. The majority of the immigrants were young adults, mostly women, and they were l ooking for a job. In 1869 every sixth woman that lived in Cracow was working; eleven years later – every third, and after another 10 years – nearly 40% of them. Three quarters of professionally active women from Cracow were Roman Catholic, and only one quarter – Jewish. The article also presents the structure of marital status of working women from Cracow and the type of jobs they had – according to the main groups of HISCO.It has been proved that the women did not take up jobs motivated by the war crisis; at the end of the 19th century in Cracow there were more working women than in 2012 in Polish towns.

Amicitia a tyranobójstwo

Author(s): Piotr Graczyk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2015

The text considers the relations between friendship and revolution. The author seeks inspiration for the understanding of these relations in St. Thomas’s opusculum, “On Kingship”, Negri’s and Hardt’s books and Jadwiga Staniszkis “Samoograniczająca się rewolucja” [“Self-limiting Revolution”]. Friendship helps to rebel against tyranny but the overpowering rebellion hinders the maintenance of friendship – St. Thomas suggests. The solution is a difficult art of the self-limiting of revolution, inspired by the Christian love of a neighbour and Mao Tse-Tung’s cultural revolution (within limits, of course).

Ani książę, ani kupiec: Szacki

Author(s): Michal Luczewski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 10/2016

Antinomies of Research Methods in Social Sciences: Methodenstreit

Author(s): Jelena Božilovic / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

The central issue of this paper is the so-called dispute over methods (Methodenstreit), which is based on the essential difference between natural and social phenomena. Methodological problems in sociology are related to the determination of its subject matter, and the history of the science has showed that these problems have represented the main point of disagreement between theoreticians. The debates on the issues of natural and social phenomena and, thus related, manners of their examination, began as early as in the times of ancient philosophy – starting with Aristotle, and continued through the so-called Galilean tradition that would find its peak in the positivist movement and the historistic school as its opposition. The paper draws attention to the theoretical-methodological positions of both sides in this dispute, the reaffirmation of hermeneutics, as well as the ideological background. Furthermore, certain opinions that formed through the integration of these two methodological approaches are also discussed here. The time of the Methodenstreit is the time when sociology was constituted, thus the concluding remarks emphasize the importance of this dispute for the constitution of sociology as a science, with a particular reflection on the influence of historism on German sociologists.

Autorytety instytucjonalne polskiej młodzieży w badaniach socjologicznych ostatniej dekady PRL i po 1989 roku

Author(s): Miroslaw Rewera / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2006

The special interest of the author of the article are the Polish youths’ institutional authorities in two different social-political epochs: the last decade of the Polish People’s Republic and III Polish Republic. The article is a review of selected empirical materials concerning this problem explicitly or implicitly. Its aim was to recognize similarities and differences in the way various institutions were perceived (the school, political and non-political institutions, and the Church) by youths living under different systemic conditions, and verifying two theses on this basis: one assuming similarity of the institutional authorities in the awareness of the youths living in the last decade of the PPR and those living in the III PR, resulting from too short a period in which the democratic system prevailed in Poland to bring about fundamental changes in perceiving the institutions by young people living in the period of III RP as compared to the youths of the 1980’s; and a second one, assuming differences in perceiving the institutions by young Poles of the two periods, resulting from the systemic change in Poland initiated in 1989.Young people living in the last decade of the PPR and in the III RP perceived the school, teachers and non-political institutions (television, radio, the military) in a similar way. A continuation of the trend to negatively assess the school and teachers, and positively assess non-political institutions occurred here. The systemic change in Poland did not effect a change in the young people’s scale of respect towards those institutions. However, it resulted in a decrease in young people’s trust in political institutions and the Catholic Church.

Badania nad rodziną w miastach zaboru pruskiego w XIX i na początku XX wieku. Stan obecny i perspektywy badawcze

Author(s): Agnieszka Zielinska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2015

The article deals with the problem of demographic changes that take place in thefamilies living in towns of the Prussian partition in the 19th century and at the beginningof the 20th. The most important populational parameters have been presented; on the basisof these parameters it is possible to observe trends and the directions of changes, whichare part of a much wider, pan-European process of demographic transformation. Theresearch has been carried out on the basis of the information concerning a few towns ofthe Prussian partition (Toruń, Poznań, Gdańsk, Elbląg, Starogard, Chojnice, Chełmża).A special attention has been paid to a decreasing age of newlyweds, disappearing barriersfor mixed (interfaith) marriages, loosening of social and professional requirements, andweakening of the territorial barrier while choosing the spouse. The fact worth noticing isthat the interval between the day of birth and the day of baptism was longer than before.Other facts that are of interest are: a decrease of the rate of birth/mortality, as well asof the coefficient of births and deaths at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Anothersphere that has been researched is the value of infant mortality, quite high in the 19thcentury and slowly diminishing afterwards. A combination of civilisational processes,mental changes of human beings and changes in their customs had a decisive impact onthe shape and size of the family. It was the beginning of essential transformations, whichare still taking place now and keep influencing the demographic situation of the population.The article also contains a proposal of further demographic research on the Jewishfamily in the towns of the Prussian partition, because that subject is often omitted. In theend, some new directions of research have been suggested and an introductory literaturehas been given, too.

Becoming an inpatient: a symbolic-interactionist study in a polish hospital

Author(s): Bozena Kedzior / Language(s): English / Issue: 6/2015

This paper presents the results of a study that aimed to reconstruct the identity changes in the process of becoming an inpatient in a hospital. The notion of identity moves the focus of the study within a hospital away from the functionalist perspective and allows to center on the biographical disruption at the onset of chronic illness. Intersected with the concept of becoming a hospital inmate it illustrates a primary interactionist concern of structure-interaction reciprocity. In first step author presents the classical writings on hospitals and then attempts to reconstruct the illness narratives by employing the theoretical framework of interpretative sociology and the Łódź School of Qualitative Sociology.

Boris Mironov, The Standard of Living and Revolutions in Russia. 1700–1917, Oxon: Routledge 2012, ss. 668

Author(s): Radoslaw Poniat / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2016

Canalizing and Coding: the Notion of “Milieu” in Foucault’s Lectures On Governmentality

Author(s): Thomas Lemke / Language(s): English / Issue: 3-4 EN/2016

This article seeks to analyze the significance and the dimensions of the notion of “milieu” in Foucault’s lectures on governmentality at the Collège de France. After reconstructing Foucault’s brief genealogy of the term, I will put forward two arguments. First, I will show that the “milieu” constitutes a strategic element in the emergence of a liberal governmentality in the 18th century. Secondly, I will argue that mobilizing the “milieu” not only enables the government of humans but also makes possible a “government of things” (Foucault) that addresses complexes or assemblages of humans and non-humans.

Cihannüma: Tarih ve Coğrafya Araştırmaları Dergisi

Frequency: 2 issues / Country: Turkey

Cihannuma: Journal of History and Geography Studies is a peer-reviewed, biannual journal, published in July and December, by Izmir Katip Celebi University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Cihannuma accepts all sorts of publications pertaining to humanities and social sciences, though priority is given to works in fields of history, geography, and historical geography.

Our journal aims to contribute to the studies in field of humanities and social sciences in both national and international level by bringing together scholars publishing in field of humanities and social sciences and prompting them to share their knowledge and experiences.

Clarifying Power, Domination, and Exploitation: Between “Classical” and “Foucauldian” Concepts of Power

Author(s): Tibor Rutar / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

The paper examines two ubiquitous concepts of power: the “classical sociological” concept which draws on Max Weber’s definition of power, and the “Foucauldian” concept which stems from Michel Foucault’s genealogical works. Three main theses are argued for. First, the two concepts are not, in most respects, as radically different as it is usually claimed. It is demonstrated that both can make room for different sources of power, for understanding power in a non-reified way, for the fact that power is rarely completely centralised, etc. Second, in those respects in which the two concepts actually differ, the classical view of power is more convincing and useful than the Foucauldian one. It is demonstrated that the Foucauldian view is implicitly positivist in the normative domain and thus unable to differentiate between power and domination, and that it succumbs to errors of methodological holism (i.e. undertheorising agency). Third, it is argued that the classical sociological view allows to analytically distinguish between power, domination and exploitation. These three categories are shown not to be synonymous and to carry with them importantly different sociological implications. It is demonstrated that exploitation cannot merely refer to any process of unpaid appropriation of surplus as obvious false positives are generated from this definition. Nonetheless, such appropriation is the fundamental characteristic which differentiates exploitation from domination (but not power itself), and this reveals an important sociological implication for the dynamics of struggle of the exploited against exploitation in contrast to the struggle of the dominated against the dominators.

Co to znaczy rozumieć? Alfreda Schütza koncepcja świata życia jako perspektywa poznawcza i metodologiczna

Author(s): Mariusz Zemlo / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4/2016

The following article sets the parameters in which one can introduce the discussion about the category of understanding, establishing the propositions which were conceived by Alfred Schütz. It encompasses the reasoning and grounding principles of the ability of understanding to exist as well as the concept of “understanding” itself. The question at hand was considered in two contexts: those of the efforts of someone within the life-world and the research methodology undertaken by researchers. The aim was to give a general idea of Schütz’s viewpoint in a referral manner to bring to light the weak points and controversies which are presented in connection with the key category of understanding.

Coincidence, Probability, Cognitive Error

Author(s): Krzysztof Szymanek / Language(s): English / Issue: 36/2016

A lot has been written about coincidence, including research into the probabilistic, methodological, psychological and philosophical aspects of coincidence. This paper presents some aspects of the role of coincidence in the human cognitive system, focusing in particular on probabilistic reasoning and logical and methodological errors in reasoning, associated with the perception and interpretation of coincidence. Due to the nature of things, it is not possible to omit the areas of research mentioned above.

Confrontations and Controversies in the Theory of Talcott Parsons

Author(s): Uta Gerhardt / Language(s): English / Issue: 03/2017

Since the turn of the 1960s, Talcott Parsons’ social thought has met with criticism that his image of society is conservative inasmuch as he places consensus and systematic concept formation over and above conflict and ‘sociological imagination’. The hidden agenda in this criticism is political: the charges are that Parsons supposedly disavows democracy in his implicit or explicit knowledge aim, and that his sociology presumably makes society function even at the expense of freedom of the individual. Here the author argues that these accusations cannot stand if archival materials such as lecture notes, correspondence, and unpublished memoranda are taken into account. She claims that Parsons in his sociology conceptualised society from the standpoint of the real world of the day, including the major historical confrontations from the 1930s to the end of the 1970s. The first such scenario and the earliest confrontation that his work faced was in the era of the New Deal and the Second World War as the Anglo-Saxon democracies fought the racist imperialism of Nazi Germany; his ‘middle phase’ from the 1950s to the mid-1960s coincides with the Cold War at its height, the standoff between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union; and his ‘late oeuvre’ has yet another agenda, namely the Watergate Affair, but also the struggle for racial equality and university reform in the United States. In his theoretical positions and in his opposition to his critics, Parsons defended liberal democracy against the powerful social and intellectual forces that put it to the test.

Czystość czy zmaza? Czy jest sens łączyć rozumienie z wyjaśnianiem w antropologii i interpretatywnej socjologii?

Author(s): Piotr Pawliszak / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4/2016

For the two last decades cultural social sciences have been facing critical methodological transformation. The widespread tendency in qualitative research to mingling and synthesizing differing interpretive paradigms has been recently confronted with a venture to integration of science and the humanities. This current is not a plain revitalization of historical tendency to submit interpretive methods to scientific explanation of social life, but is seeking a new theoretical base to establish a balance between hermeneutic and causal analysis. This essay discusses different theoretical concepts of the relationship between hermeneutic interpretation and causal explanation. It introduces a concept of “maximal interpretation” devised inside the strong program of cultural sociology as a procedure of unified interpretive-causal analysis of historical events, and analyzes this innovation with theoretical lenses of grid-group theory.

Demografia rodziny magnackiej w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim na tle elit zachodnioeuropejskich. Wybrane problemy

Author(s): Marzena Liedke / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2015

The article presents the results of the research on the age of newlyweds, the length of marriages, the number of children in the family and life expectancy for the magnate family in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16th–18th centuries, and the comparison of those numbers with the parameters established by West-European historical demographers for aristocratic elites from Britain, France, Germany and Portugal and the families that ruled in Europe.The demographic parameters for the magnate family have been obtained from the database that contains information on particular genealogical facts such as the date of birth, marriage and death, and the number of children (collected in library and archival queries for nine families) and they have been compared with the results arrived at by West-European researchers.The results for the magnate family indicate that the average age of men who contract marriage for the first time is included between over 23 to over 27 years; that is also the age range when European aristocrats contracted marriages, but the average age approached the upper limit more frequently. The age at which women from magnate families contracted marriage for the first time also correlates with the data concerning European female aristocrats, that is to say between 18 and 23–24, and approaches the upper limit of the interval. In the case of other parameters the magnate family were of lower value. The length of marriage in magnate families was shorter than in England, the number of children in a family also was smaller, and life expectancy was usually shorter both for men and women.When we compare the data concerning magnate families with the analogous parameters concerning the West-European elites we can see that the magnate families from Lithuania were generally less healthy. The increase of nearly all the demographic parameters in the 18th century in their case was after all inferior to the ones referring to similar social groups in England and France. There is a possibility that difficulties connected with obtaining complete data and – as a result – a less numerous research sample, as well as taking into consideration only the children that had grown to the adult age (in the West-European samples all the children that had been born were counted) have influenced the values of the parameters and made them less reliable. That is why it is a need to continue the research and to concentrate on other problems (which are important from the point of view of functioning of the family), such as the size of definite celibate in the group in question, the percentage of second and third marriages, the problem of illegitimate children, etc.

Dimitrie Gusti și evitarea capcanei fasciste

Author(s): Antonio Momoc / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 11/2016

Similar to the intellectuals of his generation, Dimitrie Gusti has encountered the fascist trap within his life history since the 1920s when Benito Mussolini took over the power in Italy. However, Gusti avoided slipping into this trap ever in his life. Certainly, it is a well-known fact that some members of the Sociological School of Bucharest have become legionaries, while others fancied the communist or fascist movement. The fundamental feature of the Sociological School was that it allowed all the young intellectuals – legionaries, socialists, nationalists or Europeanists – to cooperate within the research teams as long as they were preoccupied by the Sociology of the Nation and the Monography of the Romanian villages.In this study I intend to demonstrate that Gusti provided the diligent young people with a scientific alternative, while they were tempted by the political extremes of that time: communism or fascism. I shall prove that Gusti has never proposed or supported a fascist model of development, even though the Romanian sociologist declared that he was impressed by Mussolini’s fascist movement. On the contrary, Gusti has permanently promoted the raise of the Romanian nation based on the model proposed by philosopher Saint Simon, according to whom the scholars have the mission to stimulate local communities, or to influence public policies.I used the method of representative biography, as well as the oral history interviews conducted by professor Zoltán Rostás with people who participated at the monographic campaigns coordinated by Gusti in 1925-1931 and during 1935-1943. The analysis reflects that Gusti’s School and the members who remained faithful to his sociological conception rather competed with the Legionary Movement. Being close to the regime of Karl II, Gusti’s School envisioned a Social Monarchy for the second part of the 1930s, being focused on uplifting the living level of the many, of the Romanian peasants.

Discursive Habitus of Sociology – About the Order of Sociological Paradigms

Author(s): Ivan Šijakovic,Nemanja Ðukic / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2011

This paper analyzes the problem of paradigm and discourse in contemporary sociology. Problems of delays in paradigmatic development of modern sociology manifested as ignoring or running away from the paradigm and the urge to declare "low" theoretical discussion and "minor" issues of a paradigm or "grand theory" are considered. Special attention is paid to the order of paradigms in sociology as a science, about the great impact of relativism, constructionism and deconstruction of common sense in establishing and developing the contemporary conceptual sociological paradigm. It is noted that the most of the problems in contemporary sociology come from the discourse about the crisis, a lack of understanding of its role and importance in sociological theory, as well as the conversion of the discourse into the paradigm.