ABSTRACTS


Némedi, Dénes
Sociology after a Successful Century

The paper deals with developments which in all probability, will have an influence on the future course of sociology: the growing uncertainty whether society as a distinct, and in most cases national, social system, the very object of sociology, exists; the quantitive expansion of university edication that transforms the traditional ways science operates; the dissolution of the classical intelligentsia which was the reluctant public of sociological discourse. The concluding part of the paper discusses some recent proposals to deal with the emergent crisis.


Róbert, Péter
Changes in the Determinants of Life-style: 1982-1998

Status inconsistency was a typical feature of communist societies. Hungary was also characterised by a low correlation between status measures like occupation, education, income on the one hand, and cultural or material life-style on the other. The paper investigates the changing effects of demographic (sex, age, region) socio-economic (prestige, education, income), and class (service and entrepreneurial class) measures on cultural and material consumption over one and half decades. Cultural consumption is measured by the number of books, visiting theatre, museum, concerts. Material consumption is measured by possessing various consumers durable (colour tv, refrigerator, automatic washing machine, car) in the household.


Balog, Iván
István Bibó and Max Weber

The intellectual relationship between Bibó and Max Weber is observable in three areas. Having read Weber's Protestant Ethics, young Bibó realised that it was impossibile to transform the bourgeoisie into a real elite because in mass societies with big social inequalities collecting wealth cannot be the sole criterion of meritocracy. Weberian Verstehen inspired him trough the synoptical legal sociology of his master, Barna Horváth, as synopsis is an eternal oscillation between Weberian Verstehen and Mannheimian Wissenssoziologie. Thirdly, Bibó adapted Weber's approach of rationality adopting István Hajnal's criticism on Weber: in Bibó's eyes, merely Zweckrational exercise of power is a major obstacle of the Entzauberung of politics.


Csabina, Zoltán-Leveleki, Magdolna
Norm-breaking and norm-keeping attitudes of Hungarian companies in the processing industry

Our study attempts to analyse the co-operativeness of Hungarian companies engaged in processing industry. This analysis is based on a representative survey done by the Sociology Department of the Budapest University of Economics in 1998. We use their database as a resource. The bulk of data sampled by them covered the whole of the processing industry. The 423 companies surveyed are representative of their kind both for their geographical location and size.
By co-operativeness we mean - following the definition by Dieter Opp (1996:129) - that "those dealing in the market make a deal according to the prevailing rules valid for the market". Those labelled "non-co-operative" do not necessarily break any criminal code regulations, however, they break some explicit or implicit unwritten laws.
In the course of the original survey the questionnaire contained only one cluster of questions concerning norm-keeping/breaking attitudes, and this cluster of questions was about financial etics. They surveyed to what extent did they meet their financial responsibilities. The binary dependent variable acquired this way were compared to partly a set of manifested and partly latent variables come from the factor analysis. The four factors in our interpretation measures: how the companies influence the market, how extensive and profitable their business activities were, how they think about their future prospects.
We made comparison to check upon our presumptions on one hand, and on the other hand we wanted to know which of these variables could be used for making a regression model.
We checked the correlation of the variables - considering their level of measurement - by using table of contingency, calculating contingency coefficients, c² statistics, and by using analysis of variance. According to our calculations, only three of the six variables had significant impact on company attitude. These refer to willingness to pay of partners, the structure of ownership and planning prospects. Similarly three of the four latent factors have significant impact on company attitude. The exception is the factor of the extensive growth.
At the end of this study we attempt set up a regression model of company attitude. The dependent variable is norm-keeping and norm- breaking attitude while the independent variables are those that proved to influence company attitude. Once the dependent variable is dichotom we use logistic regression model.
Data are taken from four nationwide surveys: 1982(N=11,722), 1986(N=5,999), 1992(N=2,998) and 1998(N=3792). For testing changes over time equal measures have been constructed in the data-sets, cases have been weighted equally (N=3000/file) and the analysis is performed on a pooled data-set (N=12,000). Changes in social determination of cultural and material life-style are estimated by OLS regression models including the impact of time, that of the predictor variables, as well as of interaction terms of the predictor variables with time.
Although it is assumed on a theoretical basis that social status and life-style have become more crystallized in post-communist Hungary due to increasing market relations and growing social inequalities, the analysis provides little empirical evidence of significant changes in this direction.


Erdõsi, Sándor jr.
Bargains in Private Rental Market - Institutions and Personal Connections in the Private Rental Sector in Hungary

Using empirical data and other sources the study presents those 'institutions' (real estate brokerage firms and classified advertisements) which help make deals between players in the private rental market. The common experience and our data justify that the actors of the demand and supply sides often look for and find landlords or tenants using their personal networks because the above mentioned 'institutions' of the market work deficiently and expensively. The rent level is lower and the direct or indirect connection between partners gives guarantee for both sides in those cases where the personnel network plays a decisive role in creating the business. This first view of the role of the 'network of contacts' helps explore the reasons which increase transaction cost in the private rental market and can cause increased social cost in the Hungarian housing system.


Husz, Ildikó
Anglo-Saxon Research into Family History and Its Influence on Hungarian Historical Demography

In the 60s a new trend of research emerged at the borderline of social science and social history, called family history. The basic issue of the trend was to study the relationship between the spread of the nuclear family, namely a family consisting of parents and their unmarried children, and the emergence of the modern Western society. The author of the paper surveys the Anglo-Saxon research into family history by presenting some of the major statements of Peter Laslett, challenging evolutionist theories for the first time. After a summary of the followers and critics of Laslett she analyses the influence of 'new social history' on the trend, and subsequently dwells upon the relationship between family history and the new trend of 'microhistory' which has appeared in social history during the past decade. The second part of the paper offers an assessment and summary of research into Hungarian family and household history.


Bukodi, Erzsébet
Who Marries When and Whom: Life-course and Historical Variation in Marriage Pattern in Hungary

Marriage between members of different social groups has long been viewed as a crucial indicator of the strength of these groups boundaries.This study considers marriage choice as a multidimensional phenomenon and investigates its ascriptive and achievement components. Ascriptive marriage homogamy/heterogamy is interpreted as the similarities/differences in partners' social origin; the achieved characteristics of marital choices are interpreted as the similarities/differences in spouses' education and occupation position. The aim of the study is to outline the theoretical background of the marriage propensity as well as the partner selection process; and - building on the arguments of different economic and sociological theories - to answer the question whether there has been a transition from ascription to achievement in marriage selection processes in Hungary.
Mate selection is commonly viewed as to be determined by the individuals' preferences for similarity in social traits as well as the constraints of marriage market people should face in realizing these preferences. As for the preferences, this study applies two competing approaches - the so-called 'reward redistribution' and 'reward accumulation' hypotheses. As for the marriage market composition, the study poses the so-called 'two-sex problem' which means that males' and females' age-specific marriage rates largely depend on the age-sex composition of the population.