Csepeli, György-Örkény, Antal
Cross-national comparative study on national identity

In the framework of the International Social Science Project a cross-national survey was carried out in 1996 on representative samples of 23 countries of the world. The participating coutries represent East European, West European countries as well the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Philippines. Multivariate analyses of the data showed that the present-day empirical patterns of national identification do not correspond with historical types of national formation. In order to reveal specific effects of class, age, and gender on national identification further analyses are needed.
 

Molnár, Edit S.-Pongrácz, Marietta
Extra-marital Births in Europe and in Hungary in the 90s

The number and proportion of extra-marital births have been rapidly growing since the early 90s in Hungary. In the second part of the 1980s only 10% of all the live births were the outcome of relations of unmarried parents, however, that proportion has grown to about 25% by 1996-1997. The paper illustrates with summed up data and diagrams that though such a rapid growth is not an exceptional phenomenon in Europe, Hungary is among those countries which still strongly preserve traditional family life based on marriage.

The authors also report about the results of a survey made by questionnaire. It was done on the basis of a 1500-member national representative sample of mothers who had their babies outside wedlock in 1995, and aimed at studying the decisions of having children and the attitudes towards a non-married way of life. By comparing the results with foreign experiences it is found that though the majority of mothers lived in a partnership relation, almost 60% of them did not consider it a final form, as they planned to marry after a shorter or longer period of time. The authors call attention to the fact that family policy and family law will also have to be prepared for the appearance of alternative forms of family life.
 

Blaskó, Zsuzsa
Cultural Capital and Social Reproduction

The paper studies the role of cultural capital in the process of the reproduction of status with the help of data collection by TÁRKI on mobility done in 1992. The regression equations set up to model the mechanism were not only done for the entire multitude, but also for its individual cohorts, and for men and women separately too. Thus a picture is obtained also about the time-wise changes and non-specific characteristics of origin, inherited cultural capital, determined by the specific historical position, though naturally a number of (partly new) questions remain unanswered at the end of the paper, awaiting further studies of the process of passing on status.
 

Gyukits, György-Szántó, Zoltán
Privatisation and Social Capital

The modern sociological approach to economic phenomena puts emphasis on the social embeddedness of economic actions, institutions, and outcomes: it takes into consideration the effects of social networks on the economic processes. In the empirical research the concept of embeddedness can be operationalized as the uses of interpersonal relations as recourses by the economic actors, that is social capital. The paper gives an empirical illustration of the social capital approach to privatisation. In the first part - as a conceptual starting point - the concept of embeddedness and social capital are summarised. In the second part a case study is presented from a research on privatisation in the Hungarian health system. The different ways of how the key figures of privatisation try to mobilize their social ties in the different phases of the process are demonstrated in detail.
 

Kovács, Katalin
Actors of Agrarian Economy in the Years of Transition
(In co-operation with Zsuzsanna Bihari and Mónika Váradi)

The paper offers an insight into the results of a series of surveys studying the changes of the conditions of productive organisations in agrarian economy. The first chapter of the writing gives information on which co-operatives and company enterprises, active in agrarian economy, have gained and which of them have lost positions in the competition for retaining and acquiring resources. In the mirror of two kinds of sources (land use statistics of the Central Statistical Office, tax reports of economic organisations) it was proved that the limited companies, to be classified under the ?small and middle? category in respect of size, represent the most dynamically developing form of enterprise, whereas the co-operatives are just at the opposite end. They are the representatives of the least stable post-socialist type of (large and middle) economic units, presumably continuing to lose positions, from which the production functions seem to slip away and which are apparently doomed to lose further property. The third, presumably growing type of economic organisation, which is expected to grow in number as well as significance, is represented by the joint stock companies, a significant part of which function as semi-state capitalist large estates.

The second chapter of the paper presents the agricultural enterprises of a small area of the Plain where the agrarian sphere has an important role in the economy, constituting its base and occupying a central place in the set of knowledge, livelihood and family strategy of the local people. The ?close up?, obtained by questionnaires and interviews made with the agricultural actors, presented from a ?bird's eye view? in the first chapter - reports mostly about medium size units, struggling and experimenting with various company, or co-operative forms, and individual land users.

Finally, talking about the relationship between agricultural economy and country development, the paper points out that the development of food production in similar regions like the one presented, is of crucial importance, but its manner requires the precise understanding of the structure of the local economy and society and of the area around, and also of the spatial relations of the actors, further on that support allocated from various sources should reach the different target groups, while it strengthens the developing structural elements.
 

Csigó, Péter
Discourse on Economic Stabilisation - Discourse of Consolidation

The completion of systemic change, that is consolidation has become one of the most popular topics of public thinking and of social sciences. Struggles along consolidation have also appeared on the level of political discourses. Primarily in the discourse on economic stabilisation, which was the most significant discourse of the period of the Horn-government. Partly because it was constantly present and that too in an outstanding quantity, and partly because it also had a focal role in the self-representation of the political actors. In my paper I wish to present what kind of linguistic efforts were made with the aim of consolidating systemic change during the course of the discourse about economic stabilisation, and what efforts at de-consolidation, that is challenging the direction of systemic change, appeared in public debates on the economic policy of stabilisation. I conduct the analysis with the help of a specific method of discourse analysis (?structural discourse analysis?). My objective is to describe the structure of the field of discourse organised around the issue of stabilisation. Thus the alternative forms of knowledge appearing in the discourse are presented, together with 1. what kind of statements and topical groups of statements they consist of, 2. what kind of unpronounced suppositions they carry, 3. what actors produce and assert them 4. by the help of what strategies.