Search

Parkin has developed a unified conceptual framework which integrates the analysis of class divisions with the analysis of communal divisions, arguing that all of these divisions are based on processes of social closure which are of the same generic kind. Within his closure model he proposes a non-structuralist collective action conception of class. This paper examines critically the conception of class of Parkin and of the Marxist structuralists he was reacting against when he developed his conception. It demon strates that the deficiencies of Parkin's conception are the result of that reaction: he has thrown out essential conceptual tools with the bathwater. Thus the paper shows that he falls into the same difficulties as E.P. Thompson in the latter's anti-structuralist position within Marxism. The paper then suggests an alternative for closure theory to Parkin's conception of class and class action and to his way of dealing with the connection between exclusionary practices faced and collective usurpationary action engaged in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for an institutional approach to state analyses. It notes that in general the Marxist literature on the state has paid little attention to the different types of state administration (departments, statutory authorities), and the effect of administrative forms on the ability of state agencies to conduct activities, or engage in struggles within the state. By contrast, there is an extensive and insightful body of writings to be found in traditional administrative literature on different forms of administration. This literature remains conservative in orientation and rarely directs itself to the broader concerns of theories of the state. This paper attempts to bring these two bodies of writings together by focusing on 'quasi- government' bodies such as statutory authorities. It is argued that these administrative forms raise in an acute form the Marxist concerns with struggles, conflicts and allegiances within the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Change in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union presents a whole new set of sociological problems, requiring a revision of old theories of large-scale institutional change. My aim in this paper is to delineate patterns and gaps to be found in sociological theories dealing with change in Soviet-type societies. After a short review of the explanatory claims of totalitarian, modernisation, civil society and institutional perspectives, I propose an analysis of such change in terms of the strategic conduct of the main agents (the state-party and society) within its institutional context. The collapse of communism is seen as a result of the evolution of the system caused by the lack of institutional arrangements which could set limits to the party-state's arbitrary rule, and -- by the same token -- could create conditions for economic efficiency and encourage the emergence of interests other than those directly serving the centre. This can be seen as a spiral process of change in which the system was long losing its internal consistency and gradually exhausting itself. This process consisted of two mutually reinforcing trends: first, changes in the relationship between political centre and society, resulting in the declining ability of the party-state to act effectively as the agent of society; secondly, the growing heterogeneity and internationalisation of society, leading to the growing incompatibility of central planning with the informational and motivational requirements of a modern economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a number of problems with labour process accounts of worker subjectivity. They are manifested as ambiguities about the meaning of worker behaviour, and have their origins in conflicting ideological requirements of Marxism and assumptions of immanence. We argue that it is these theoretical precepts, rather than cumulating empirical knowledge, which have driven debates on the labour process and interpretations of behaviour in the workplace. We show how essentially similar activities are construed as either reproducing capitalist relations or resisting them, according to the theoretical needs of the labour process pardigm. Compounding this interpretive problem is the insistence of labour process theorists that the point of production is the key source of worker consciousness in capitalist society. We conclude that labour process is incapable of theoretical growth because of its non-cumulative circulation of explanations and fixation on the workplace. In its place we advocate more inductive empirical approaches to the study of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues (a) that some of the present difficulties experienced by the sociology of development can be overcome by a macro comparative historical focus on the qualitative differences between the long term development of the capitalist centre and periphery, as well as on the strikingly different developmental trajectories to be seen within the third world; (b) that Marxism in general, and the dependency approach in particular, although more suitable than alternative paradigms for such a historical comparative task, present certain limitations that can only be dealt with by the creation of new tools for the study of the non-economic spheres (particularly the political). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the contours of current, practical explanatory problems in stratification theory showing the similarity of issues in apparently diverse approaches, both Marxist and non- Marxist. There are two related purposes. The first is to show the specific nature of the current crisis, locating paninular explanatory failures. The second is to illustrate the more general issue of the way in which the central epistemology of self-conscious social science derives from and describes failures in social scientific practice. This is well illustrated in the response to current problems. Both purposes are served by Laying bare the procedures by which attempts are made to convert the contradictions inherent in explanatory failures into contradictory features of social experience which could be explained by consistent theories. Contradiction is thus, apparently, removed from its role in specifying the need for theoretical development, to encapsulating the processes by which current social arrangements are reproduced. However, we show that despite initial plausibility such attempts merely displace explanatory contradictions rather than solve them. The attempts are justified by an explicit or implicit action frame of reference which, though it is central to abstract discussions of the nature of social science, is invoked in practical social science only in circumstances of explanatory failure in an unproductive attempt to insulate the theories from the consequences of their failure. Productive social science is the resolution of contradictions in the transformation of theoretical objects and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a critical evaluation of Alan Fox's recent work and attempt to move away from the liberal-pluralist approach to industrial relations. Fox's early work is usually seen as forming part of the Oxford School and consequently his latest writings, for example Beyond Contract, which criticize its pluralist foundations are seen as a recantation and rejection of his earlier position. The authors argue that overall Fox's recent ideas do not represent a fundamentally radical break from liberal-pluralism. Whilst his critique of pluralism which questions the mutual dependence aspect of pluralism points in the direction of a radical analysis, his attempt to develop an alternative approach to industrial relations is based on preserving rather than rejecting the concept of mutual survival. Fox's use of the notion of trust to explore an evolutionary route to social change thus has many affinities with pluralism and is best seen as an attempt to modify pluralism in the light of changing socio-economic conditions. Whilst this is not in itself a ground for criticism, there are several problematic aspects of his recent work: there is the problem of coherency, the fact that in developing his fresh analysis he neglects some of the most important points made in his critique of pluralism, and his failure to offer a convincing high-trust route to radical change that can stand as an alternative to some kind of Marxism. None of this is to deny the possible relevance of Fox's so-called radical approach to current discussions of industrial relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements inspired by radical or transformative ideologies have proliferated in western industrial societies, but have usually been effectively contained without violent repression. This paper takes up the debate about the mechanisms of containment with reference to a neglected aspect-the process of ideology production itself. It is suggested that the symbolic structure of radical ideologies may be understood as the outcome of three conceptual processes: (1) de-legitimation; (2) dis-alienation; (3) `commutation' or communication/interaction. The ideological product may also be evaluated, in socio- logical terms, as a theoretical and empirical response to determinate social problems. Two recent examples are used to illustrate the main lines of such an analysis: the International Marxist Group in Britain, and Students for a Democratic Society in the USA. They indicate that the internal, conceptual requirements of a radical ideology, and especially the need to publicly present and validate ideological knowledge, may distort the social analysis in ways which render it less effective as a force for political mobilization, and therefore magnify the effects of more familiar structural constraints on radical movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Marxian theory of alienation has received a large amount of sociological attention from a variety of perspectives. Insofar as any general conclusion has emerged it is that the use of the theory in terms of empirical sociology is severely limited by several major defects. This paper considers the force of these criticisms under two general categories of theoretical deficiency and empirical falsification, and suggests that they offer no grounds for discarding the theory. The argument continues more substantively by analysing the use of the theory in understanding working-class action and consciousness and concludes that it offers several important advantages over its rivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In reflecting on two recent popular representations of Poland's working-class communities and ongoing work in one particular community in southern Poland, this article explores a range of literatures that locate working-class communities in both socialism and post-socialism. It draws attention to the dualities of representation of these working-class communities and seeks to explain these representations, connecting the specificities of the post-socialist world to wider social and economic shifts. Building on the 'new working-class studies' and other recent interpretations of working-class lives and cultures, it invokes alternative accounts of working-class lives after socialism, which move beyond the dualities identified, and seeks to reinscribe class as important in the discourses and materialities of post-socialism, East and West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]