Transforming Labour: From the Workers’ State to the Post-Socialist Re-Organization of Industry and Workplace Communities

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-438
Author(s):  
Eszter Bartha
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
Standards Of Living ◽  
The Social ◽  
East German

Abstract The article seeks to place the workers’ road from socialism to capitalism in East Germany and Hungary in a historical context. It offers an overview of the most important elements of the party’s policy towards labour in the two countries under the Honecker and the Kádár regime respectively. It examines the highly paternalistic role of the factory as a life-long employer and provider of workers’ needs for the large industrial working class which the regime considered to be its main social basis. Given that the thesis of the working class as the ruling class was central to the legitimating ideology of the state socialist regimes, dissident intellectuals challenging this thesis were effectively marginalized or forced into exile. After the change of regimes, the “working class” again became an ideological term associated with the discredited and fallen regime. The article analyses the changes within the life-world of East German and Hungarian workers in the light of life-history interviews. It argues that in Hungary, the social and material decline of the workers – alongside the loss of the symbolic capital of the working class – reinforced ethno-centric, nationalistic narratives, which juxtaposed “globalization” and “national capitalism”, the latter supposedly protecting citizens from the exploitation by global capital. In the light of the sad reports of falling standards of living and impoverishment, the Kádár regime received an ambiguous, often nostalgic evaluation. While the East Germans were also critical of the new, capitalist society (unemployment, intensified competition for jobs, the disintegration of the old, work-based communities), they gave more credit to the post-socialist democratic institutions. They were more willing to reconcile the old socialist values which they had appreciated in the GDR with a modern left-wing critique than their Hungarian counterparts, for whom nationalism seemed to offer the only means to express social criticism.

Linking Moralisation and Class Identity: The Role of Ressentiment and Respectability in the Social Reaction to ‘Chavs’

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 18-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elias Le Grand
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
Social Reaction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dialectical Process ◽  
White Working Class

This paper aims to link two fields of research which have come to form separate lines of inquiry: the sociology of moralisation and studies on class identity. Expanding on recent papers by Young (2009 , 2011 ) and others, the paper argues that the concepts of ressentiment and respectability can be used to connect moralisation processes and the formation of class identities. This is explored through a case study of the social reaction in Britain to white working-class youths labelled ‘chavs’. It is demonstrated that chavs are constructed through moralising discourses and practices, which have some elements of a moral panic. Moreover, moralisation is performative in constructing class identities: chavs have been cast as a ‘non-respectable’ white working-class ‘folk devil’ against whom ‘respectable’ middle-class and working-class people distinguish and identify themselves as morally righteous. Moralising social reactions are here to an important extent triggered by feelings of ressentiment. This is a dialectical process where respectability and ressentiment are tied, not only to the social control of certain non-respectable working-class others, but also to the moral self-governance of the moralisers.

scholarly journals INTERCONNECTION OF METACOGNITION AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS IN CHILDHOOD: CULTURAL-HISTORICAL CONTEXT

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-113
Author(s):  
A.N. Veraksa ◽  
N.E. Veraksa
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
Executive Functions ◽  
Emotional Regulation ◽  
Behavioral Control ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Social Aspect ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

The review is devoted to the relationship between executive functions and metacognition in the context of a cultural-historical perspective. On the basis of the research carried out over the past 15 years, the commonality and differences of these constructs are shown. Special attention is paid to the development of executive functions and metacognition, their connection with the academic success of children, the role of the social aspect in their formation. The importance of an adult in the directed formation of metacognition and self-regulation is shown, which confirms the provisions of the cultural-historical theory. Within the framework of the cultural-historical paradigm, several mechanisms for the development of executive functions are considered: imitation based on understanding; sign mediation; as well as communication in a social developmental situation. L.S. Vygotsky noted that higher mental functions arise on the basis of real interactions of people, are interiorized, turning into psychological functions. The review showed that one of the most common models of the structure of executive functions is a model that includes such components as “working memory”, “inhibitory control” and “cognitive flexibility”. Based on the analysis, it is possible to assert the influence of J. Piaget’s concept on the development of executive functions. A certain difficulty is caused by the explanation of emotional regulation in the context of metacognitive problems. At the same time, L.S. Vygotsky spoke about the unity of affect and intellect, which suggests the existence behavioral control and, in particular, of emotional processes at the level of metacognitive processes.

Locating Gramsci in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh: Perspectives on the iconic women’s protest in India

2020 ◽  
pp. 030981682097111
Author(s):  
Suddhabrata Deb Roy
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Indian Politics ◽  
Social Alliances ◽  
Muslim Politics ◽  
Working Class Women

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, in India was widely contested by both political parties and various civil society formations. Shaheen Bagh, a sit-in protest demonstration which continued for over a hundred days in the nation’s capital from mid-December 2019 to late March 2020, occupied the central position within the corpus of these protest demonstrations. The protests at Shaheen Bagh were led by poor, Muslim working-class women, who had come out on the streets protesting and asserting their rights amidst the dominant ruling-class communal politics. The Shaheen Bagh protests were a potent force of the working-class and oppressed minorities of the country. The paper brings in Marxist and Gramscian perspectives to explain how Shaheen Bagh has contributed to Indian left-wing politics. The paper argues that the women in Shaheen Bagh have been successful in bridging the gap between the civil society and political society in the country and has to an extent, altered the very nature of Indian politics. Moreover, the assertive nature of the Muslim women regarding their religion and the support which they garnered from the Indian left, widely accused by many of being Islamophobic in nature, has wide repercussions as far as political and social alliances between the left and Muslim politics in India is concerned. The present paper locates the protest within the notion of subaltern unity and tries to analyse the possible impacts of the support for the protests, within and beyond the anti-CAA protest movement, from the Indian left.

The English Roman Catholic Bishops and The Social Order, 1918–26

2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 543-564
Author(s):  
Kester Aspden
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Pastoral Letter ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Social ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
General Strike ◽  
The Church

It is ironic that it should have been the leader of the church with the greatest proportion of working-class members who took up the most hostile stance to the General Strike of 1926. While Francis Bourne (1862–1935), Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, won the plaudits of the Establishment for his unambiguous denunciation of the strike, that cautious septuagenarian Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, found himself cast in the unlikely role of the workers’ friend after his illstarred attempt to conciliate the two sides. Sheridan Gilley has highlighted another contrast: while in 1926 Bourne found himself sharply opposed to labour, in a 1918 pastoral letter he had been insistent that the Church should reach an accommodation with the ‘modern labour unrest’. While Gilley implies that his General Strike condemnation was uncharacteristic, Buchanan suggests that this was closer to expressing his ‘real political views’ than his 1918 statement. This article aims to provide a closer examination of the shift in Bourne’s attitude, and to consider the broader episcopal response to social and political questions during these fraught years.

scholarly journals The leadership component of Kelly’s mobilisation theory: Contribution, tensions, limitations and further development

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Darlington
Keyword(s):  
Union Member ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Union Leadership ◽  
The Social ◽  
Related Approach ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Further Development

This reassessment of Kelly’s analysis of the relationship of activist leadership to collective action within the overall jigsaw of mobilisation theory draws on social movement literature, studies by industrial relations scholars utilising aspects of Kelly’s approach – including this author’s own work – and related research on union leadership within collective mobilisation. In the process, it identifies and celebrates how Kelly’s work, whilst contributing a distinct and substantive actor-related approach, recognised that leadership is one ingredient amongst other factors, including important structural opportunities and constraints. It considers three potential ambiguities/tensions within Kelly’s conceptualisation of leadership related to the social construction of workers’ interests, spontaneity of workers’ action and the ‘leader/follower’ interplay. The review also identifies two important limitations, related to the union member/bureaucracy dynamic and the role of left-wing political leadership, and concludes by signalling different forms of leadership relationships on which further refinement and development would be fruitful.

scholarly journals The October 2019 Protests in Lebanon: Between Contention and Reproduction

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Noëlle Abiyaghi ◽  
Léa Yammine
Keyword(s):  
Power Sharing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Geographical Spread ◽  
The Social ◽  
Longitudinal Approach ◽  
Political Structures

The Lebanese power sharing consociational system has structurally engendered recurring protest cycles: student mobilisations, labour and union mobilising, left-wing collectives, as well as a more routinised associative sector. In a long temporality, and looking at these movements in a longitudinal approach, changes they appear to be seeking appear to be marginal or quite limited, which may lead to the observation that contentious movements play the role of mere relief outlet within the system they are challenging, hence, contributing to the permanence of the social and political structures they are challenging. The past year has witnessed the emergence of a mobilisation cycle in the country that displays a continuity with previous forms of organising, although unprecedented in terms of its geographical spread over the territory. To understand how this current protest cycle unfolds, its dynamics, and limits, we propose to consider how social actors “move” in a contested, competitive, ever-shifting and evolving arena, rather than a homogeneous one. We rely on a three-fold conceptual approach that focuses on the analysis of the interactions and dynamics between actors, and the strategies they employ: persuasion, coercion, and retribution.

scholarly journals Politics of the Nobility: The Study of Growing Capital Andi in the Mayor`s Election of Palopo 2013-2018

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Samsul Samsul ◽  
Zuli Qodir
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Community Organizations ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City ◽  
Selection Of

The purpose of this research is to find out what causes the weakening of the capital of Andi's nobility in Palopo City in the selection of candidates for mayor and what is the role of Andi's nobility in political contestation. This type of research is descriptive qualitative. The results showed that the capital owned by Andi's aristocracy in Palopo City was. First, the social capital built by Andi's nobility had not been carried out in a structured way from relations with the general public, community leaders, with community organizations, to officials in the bureaucracy and most importantly, Political parties. Second, economic capital is an important thing that used in the Mayor Election contestation in the City of Palopo, Bangsawan Andi figure who escaped as a candidate for mayor does not yet have sufficient capital in terms of funds. Third, the cultural capital owned by Bangsawan Andi, who escaped as a candidate for mayor, still lacked a high bargaining value in political contestation in Palopo City. Fourth, the Symbolic Capital is a capital that sufficiently calculated in the mayor election dispute in Palopo City, namely the title of nobility obtained from the blood of the descendants of the Luwu kings, only it must be accompanied by other capital to elected in political contestation.

scholarly journals The Social Workers Challenges on Community Welfare in Ungogo Community, Nigeria

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kehinde Adekunle Aliyu ◽  
Jamaluddin Mustaffa ◽  
Norruzeyati Che Mohd Nasir
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Road Safety ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
Standards Of Living ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interview Guide

The role of social workers in a community cannot be overemphasised by any mean, for the life span of any community depends on the quality of the social workers. The aim of this work is to affirm the roles of social workers in helping the community welfare.  Qualitative research design was adopted for the work. Data collected with the Interview Schedule for Officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps and Interview Guide for selected group of people. This was administered to 30 respondents, which comprises both male and female in the Ungogo community. The purpose of the study was to examine the roles of social workers, in line with improved standards of living, sustained economic development and expansion of trade and economic relations in the community; enhanced levels of international competitiveness in the areas of community welfare, organization for increased productivity of people in the community. It common knowledge every individual strife to be the best when receive the necessary or adequate encouragement. To these extents, such a person bears some responsibilities even if passively so as a member. The implication of this work is to contribute to social change by informing social worker on their challenges and responsibilities ahead of them in the community.

scholarly journals New working class as a political subject

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. V. Gavrilyuk ◽  
V. V. Malenkov
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Subjectivity ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Political Subject ◽  
Political Status ◽  
The Social

The authors consider the new working class as consisting of both industrial workers and employed in the service sector. The article aims at identifying changes in the social-political status of the new working class and at describing the civil-political component of its political subjectivity. The authors attempt to theoretically reconstruct the idea of the working class as a political subject. The first part of the article presents conceptual approaches to the analysis of the working class as a political subject. The authors identify three periods: 1) classical works that laid the foundation for the study of the working class as a political subject and its special historical role; 2) studies of the marginal political status of the working class in Western countries, when leading theorists described the transformation of workers into an object of manipulation in the era of mass communications and the widespread consumerism ideology; 3) works of contemporary authors (including the new working class studies) opposing the policy of the traditional industrial working class and the new working class exclusion from the social-political space, which is pursued by the ruling class of the neoliberal international. The empirical part of the article describes the political subjectivity of the working class in Russia and its position in the political space at the institutional and individual levels. Despite the underrepresentation of workers in politics, since 2010, we have witnessed a return of the working class to the public space. The representative survey conducted in three regions of the Ural Federal District and narrative interviews prove a weak interest of the new working class youth in politics, their tendency of non-participation in it, and a high level of national patriotic identity.

Negotiating Mobility: Royal Dockyard Workers as Railway Excursion Agents and Social Entrepreneurs, 1880–1918

2021 ◽  
pp. 002252662110434
Author(s):  
Melanie Bassett
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Entrepreneur ◽  
Social Entrepreneurs ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Experiences ◽  
Working People

From their creation in the mid-nineteenth century in Britain railway excursions provided working people with the means to expand their horizons and create new opportunities for identity- and money-making. This article explores the role of the social entrepreneur and their affect on social mobility. It also re-evaluates working-class leisure in the south of England and challenges the notion that the working-classes were not proactive in establishing their own unique commercial leisure cultures. Using a case study of two dockyard excursion enterprises, which were operated as sideline ventures by skilled artisans of the Royal Dockyard in Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK, the article will demonstrate how local working-class access to travel and cultural experiences were broadened and transformed through their initiatives and analyse the role and influence of these men on their co-workers and in wider society.

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