ABSTRACTS

Feleky, Gábor
Changes of the Hues of White Collar

The paper surveys a period of theories in quest of the occupational aggregate called white collar in the social structure. The disputes on the social structure were dominated by neo-Marxian and neo-Weberian objectives from the 60s to the early 80s (this theoretical field is called "Marx-Weber field of power" by the author). At first the paper presents and compares the positions of outlook represented by Karl Marx and Max Weber, then analyses the neo-Weberian and the neo-Marxian output of the period (Lockwood, Goldthorpe, Giddens and Parkin on the one hand, and Westergaard, Mallet, Poulantzas, Carchedi and Wright on the other). The "white-collar phenomenon" has got into a new context from the 80s onwards, which is partly indicated by the new theoretical points of view of French sociology (Bourdieu, Boltanski), and partly by German sociology moving away from theoretical abstraction (Kocka). According to the author so far not a single experiment has been able to offer a convincing answer to the basic question: how do we reach structural groups when starting from occupational categories.


Várhegyi, Éva
Selection of Bank Managers in the Hungary of the 80s and 90s

The transformation of the Hungarian banking system, the development of the conditions of market economy have created new requirements in the face of the leaders of banks as well. The paper is trying to find an answer to the question how the selection and the attitude of bank managers have been changed by watching the changes in the composition and professional suitability of the group of bankers, and by exploring the professional and political motivations that may be assumed behind the dismissals and appointments. As the share of state ownership and hence the influence of government has continued to remain significant in the Hungarian system of banks, the transformations of the political system as well as the changes of government constitute a dominant trait of the analysis just as well as the changes that have taken place in the institutions of banking. Experiences so far suggest that while today expertise already plays an important role in the selection of bank leaders, the mutual dependency of banks with (partial) state ownership and politics continues to exist even after the systemic change the nature of which is hardly influenced by the composition of the governing coalition.


Gelei, András
Organisational Framework and Organisational Change:An Experiment at Interpretation

Smaller or bigger changes continuously take place in organisations. While certain changes modify the entire organisational system, others take place within the existing set or organisational conditions, often conserving the order that has evolved until then. However, it is not clear what does the concept of organisational change mean in itself, and how can its order of magnitude be interpreted. Therefore the objective of the paper is to present a possible, multi-tiered interpretation of the concept and phenomenon of organisational change. Hence the concept of organisational frame is introduced and discussed in detail, which offers a possibility also for a well-founded discussion of "first-order" and "second-order" organisational changes. However, the conscious study of the phenomenon and nature of organisational change demands the very interpretation of the meaning and operation of the organisation as well. The paper approaches the exploration of the essence of organisations from several directions, building upon the theory of logical types, on the sociotechnical systems theory, on one of the commonly known interpretations of organisational culture and on the interpretation of organisational reality as a social construction. The author does not intend to produce a comprehensive theory of the organisations and their changes, moreover, he describes these phenomena as intersubjective ones on the basis of the interpretative approaches of the theory of organisations and he shows that the dominant coalition, which possesses organisational authority, exercises fundamental influence upon the shaping and changing of organisational reality.


Bíró, Judit-Székelyi, Mária
The Reconstruction of Science, 1945-1950

The paper follows with attention the professional and political career of university professors and academicians, freshly joining the elite between 1945 and 1953. Merging the analysis of the historian, paying attention also to detail, with the technique of survey, it is shown how the points of selection of the new elite were changing during that brief period, how far the objectives of political cleansing were asserted, and what was the secret of remaining a member of the elite. The paper, utilising even the analysis of obituaries, closes with an attempt at setting up types of the learned elite.


Tóth, István János-Semjén, András
Taxation-Related Behaviour of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

During the course of economic transition the attitude of intrepreneurs to the observance of market to the observance of market rules (contractual, fiscal discipline and that of taxation) has a great significance, together with the extent how far they are able to, or intend to assert those roles.

In addition to the opinion of entrepreneurs related to taxation, the authors study the assumptions related to the play of market norms with the help of discipline related to two segments of fiscal discipline, namely discipline related to taxation and contracts in the sample of 275 privately owned small and medium enterprises. In addition to wishing to offer an image of the taxation-related attitude of entrepreneurs the objective of the paper is to find out the extent and frequency of the different forms of tax evasion, and to study its relationship with the market situation of enterprises. In addition an assessment of the extension of tax fraud in the circle of entrepreneurs studied is also given.


Andor, Mihály-Kuczi, Tibor-Swain, Nigel J.
Central European Villages after 1990

The results of an international data collection made in 1994, are presented in our paper. The survey covered the rural population of four countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia). Based on our data we are looking for answers to the question what kind of characteristic differences have evolved in the agriculture of the four countries studied. Changes in employment in agriculture, the sources of livelihood, the ways of acquiring land and the distribution of landed property by size in each country, and finally the supply of farms with tools and their problems of marketing are described.

Our most important conclusion deriving from the comparisons is that the specificities evolved in the past have basically determined the reorganisation of agriculture in each country. In Poland there is still a more traditional agriculture; their production is less specialised, the social composition of cultivators is more homogeneous than elsewhere. In the Czech Republic and in Slovakia there had been centralised units of agricultural production, where the workers were employees. After the transformation that structure of production has been retained; there are large-scale, well-equipped farms, and the small, or medium-sized peasant farm is a rarity. In Hungary there had been a relatively broad opportunity open during the past decades in the ancillary farms for the rural population to join agricultural production operating in many respects as if in a market economy. As a result the new stratum of owners is more pluralistic, and production is more specialised if compared to the Polish one.


Nemes, Gusztáv-Heilig, Balázs
Subsistence and Commodity Production.Agricultural Small Producers in a North Hungarian Village

The authors present the economic and social trends determining the present history of a segment of rural Hungary by the description of a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county. They deal primarily with the changes of private agricultural production resulting from restitution and from the entire transformation of the political and economic environment. They make an attempt to describe the present types of private agricultural production, to separate subsistence from the development of commodity production and try to answer to the question how far does agriculture offer an opportunity of survival and emergence to the population of a village in an industrially deprived region in the mid-90s.


Szirmai, Viktória
Central European New Towns in Transition

The paper studies the processes of transition taking place in the Central European new towns, the place occupied by the new towns in the Central European urban system, the macro-social, political, economic and ideological processes and urbanistic doctrines, the urban roles determining their emergence and development. During the course of the historical analysis of the major actors developing the new towns light is shed upon the participation of the state, the most important representatives of the economy including big companies, local governments and the population, upon the circle of major actors determining urban development today, and upon the specificities of the societies of new towns, including the spatial order of local social structure and the problem of segregation. The special features of foundations and associations as mechanisms integrating civil society are also studied.

The results published in the paper are parts of an international comparative study entitled "European New Towns at the End of the Twentieth Century". The background of the analysis is offered by concrete case-studies based on interviews in-depth and a comparison of social statistics of the special features of new and old towns built upon the data base of the decennial census.


Csizmady, Adrienne
Housing Estate and Social Segregation

The main issue of the paper is how big is the danger of the accumulation of the different types of social conflict in the housing estates of Budapest. For this purpose the housing estates are studied as one of the sub-systems of the city systems of segregation. The data base of the analysis is offered by detailed census data in regional distribution studied with the help of statistical and spatial informatics. As a result the internal stratification of the sub-system of segregation of housing estates could be explored. Further on, hypotheses could also be worded about the interrelationships between such a stratification and the chances of the accumulation of poverty.