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This paper discusses the content of the cadre file of Henri H. Stahl preserved in the Archives of the University of Bucharest’s Rectorate. In the form in which it has been preserved after 1989, the personnel file of H.H. Stahl seems, from several points of view, atypical. If we compare it with the cadre files of the 1950s, it surprises by the apparent “goodwill” of the communist cadres towards H.H. Stahl. This ideological solicitude is manifested in the interpretation given to main cultural and political events in H.H. Stahl’s life. In other circumstances such political past could be labeled as unusable in a communist context. Equally curious and noteworthy is the issue of the ethnic origin attributed (and not necessarily real or assumed by the one described in the file), more precisely the issue of Stahl’s nationality ( Jewish) which was recorded in the file. Analyzing Stahl cadre file we can wonder if the integrity of this dossier has not been compromised by removing, extracting or modifying documents by the personel staff services or by someone else. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with how ideological factors influence the transfer of literature through translation between what translation sociology calls 'peripheral languages'. The international dissemination of the literary oeuvre of the Dutch communist writer Theun de Vries (1907–2005) in translation stands in the centre of this investigation, which focuses on three questions: 1.) How the transfer of literary products from a peripheral language into both peripheral and central languages takes place, and what specific dynamics can be shown to shape these translation flows. 2.) How ideology plays a role in shaping translation flows. 3.) How methodological tools from translation sociology can and cannot be used to investigate literary export from peripheral literatures. Through the case study of the translation of De Vries' novel Hoogverraad [High Treason] (1950) into Hungarian the details and dynamics of Cold War cultural transfer and literary manipulation are analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates institutional change in the Polish public science system (PPSS) in the past twenty years. Employing macro-statistical data, the paper argues that this change process has unfolded stepwise and relatively late despite major political and economic transformations in post-socialist Poland. Using a historical-institutionalist perspective, the paper focuses on processes of institutional change, including layering, displacement, and dismantling. One major finding is that the speed and depth of the gradual transformation differs considerably between the three research performing sectors of the Polish public science system. As the Polish Academy of Sciences was reproduced institutionally, the former governmental units for applied R&D were partly dismantled and displaced by private sector R&D units. In contrast, the Higher Education sector underwent a strong expansion and, thus, layering of new research activities and fields. Since policy shifts within the PPSS occurred relatively late, the more than two decades following the collapse of communism are of special interest to scholars of incremental, yet cumulative, institutional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the course of this paper, I examine the concepts of ‘discourse’ and the ‘subject’ in relation to social organization and action. The paper argues that these concepts represent a form of explanation that reduces the complexity of the social. Through a reconnection with processes relating to social organization and action, the paper argues that the current ‘deepening’ of subjectivity can be informed by sociological ideas. Indeed, the paper makes the claim that moves to develop the concept of subjectivity through ‘interiority’ and ‘relationality’ would benefit from a dialogue with interactionist ideas. The paper discusses three programmes of work that illustrate how subjectivity can be informed through a reconnection with interactionist sociology.Subjectivity (2009) 26, 69–86. doi:10.1057/sub.2008.33 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 1989, class appeared to be everywhere and nowhere. The messy consequences of the emergence of new classes and new types of economic inequalities were plain for all to see, but no one uttered the term "class." The concept appeared illegitimate because of associations with the old regime, even though it always had more success explaining developments in the capitalist world east Europe was entering than the state socialist world it was leaving. The media and academy adopted a discourse of "normality" instead: New rules resulted not from policy choices empowering certain groups at the expense of others but from necessity, and people just had to adapt. Because the economic collapse nevertheless elicited much anger and frustration, the absence of class talk contributed to a proliferation of nationalist talk, and thus had political consequences. The paper rehearses reasons for the decline of class analysis in the region, and notes the post-1989 fascination with the "middle class." It explores the evolution of class analysis during the communist period, culminating in the embrace of a stratification theory that resisted discussion of power, which made sense at the time but became a burden after 1989. Several critical class analyses of state socialism, from the 1930s to today, are then introduced, demonstrating both their relevance and their unfortunate absence from debates. New types of class analyses promoted by younger scholars and activists are emerging, however, and are discussed in the summaries of the other essays in this collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the intellectual reasons for the failure of sociology to give sufficient attention to warfare and military organisation as central problems in social theory. These reasons are to be found in the dominance of liberal functionalism and Marxism as paradigms in the development of sociology. A reorientation of social theory is called for and it is suggested that writers in the neo-Machiavellian tradition provide an important corrective to sociological orthodoxy in respect of the role of war and military organisation in social life. The paper goes on to show that these factors are crucial components in an adequate account of one of the most important problems raised by sociology: why did hegemonic capitalism develop originally in the West and not elsewhere. Thus, ironically, those factors which sociology has tended to ignore are actually the key to solving one of its central problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews Chinoy's Automobile Workers and the American Dream as an example of a lot of work which revolves around themes of alienation, worker degradation and quiescence. Two aspects of the automobile as an item in the sphere of consumption in post-war America are then detailed to try to point to the theoretical assumptions and empirical absences which characterize the dominant tradition exemplified by Chinoy's classic text. The paper ends by making some criticisms of the way production activity is privileged in social analysis and calls for the creation of a sociology of consumption to combat the emphasis on production as the source of social meaning and worth which is institutionalized in much sociology and most Marxism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anarchism has not had a noticeable impact upon sociology. The two traditions diverged in their interest in society and their relationship to it. This paper contrasts the practitioners or thinkers of one tradition against the other. The analysis shows some strong antagonisms, many instances of close analysis and critique of each other’s perspectives, and a number of friendly and supportive relationships between anarchists and sociologists. Anarchists tended to admire the intellectual rigor of sociologists, but thought sociologists were insiders – mere reformers at best, reactionaries at worst – content to study society, but rarely to act for its improvement. Sociologists viewed anarchists with an even wider range of opinion, including considering them principled and admirable revolutionaries, slightly naïve utopians, or criminals and chaos-lovers bent on the destruction of social order. These factors contributed to the exclusion of anarchist ideas and anarchists themselves from the sociological canon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Merton's two papers on the norms of science were written in a period of intense political activity in science, and responded to this context, using conceptual tools from classical sociology and Harvard thinking of the time. The basic reasoning was Weberian: science and politics each had a different ethos. One target was the Left view of science as a model for society. Another was the view of the American Left that complex societies required regulation, but that science should be free of control. Merton pictured science as already intensely policed, but threatened by the conflict between its special ethos and potential democratic demands, and requiring protection. Tis was a 'liberal' argument, but Merton used the language of the left to present it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether to a 'liberal' or a 'people's' democracy, the evolution of modern political systems has been consistently theorized as a 'transition'. Elaborated within Marxism as the 'transition to communism' and later recycled by modernization theory and comparative politics, this concept has been tightly connected to the development of macro-societal analysis. This paper argues that any attempt at writing its history should be sensitive to the deep-seated ambivalence of this concept, which has alternatively lent itself to either teleological or non-teleological interpretations. But far from matching the ready-made division between Marxist and non-Marxist political sociology, this ambivalence has always been internal to these different social scientific traditions. As a result, the same conceptual issues and tensions can be identified within the Marxist and, later, Soviet doctrine on the one hand, and Western social sciences on the other hand, from the sociology of development of the 1950s to comparative democratization in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we perform an empirical analysis of status consistency in a postcommunist society. We supply three arguments as to why the various dimensions of social status can be expected to have crystallized following the fall of communism. First, post-communist societies have experienced a significant increase in income and wealth inequality. Second, there have been significant changes in the class structure and, third, processes that generate inequality and social structure have been changing as well. The analysis demonstrates the increase in status consistency in the Czech Republic in the period 1991-97. Further, we explore the degree of status inconsistency in different subpopulations and the political consequences of status inconsistency. [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]

We will briefly outline some of Marx's central ideas and concepts. Our purpose here is to show non-Marxists the excitement and potential that drive the enterprise. This review can also be of use to those who seized upon part of the Marxian enterprise and either misunderstood it or used it in a way that did violence to the integrity of Marx's methods and theories. While we do not make a claim for the correct reading, we argue that some readings are more plausible than others. We wish to underscore the fact that Marx is not just another sociologist or conflict theorist. Though sociologists have taken over part of the methods and some of the terms in question, sociology is not Marxist, nor is Marxism just another variant of sociology. I believe that many sociologists have no idea of what interested Marx, or why, and that many who parade under Marx's banner have forgotten the complexity of the intellectual enterprise which he identified. There has been a degeneration of the Marxian project, as well as a rebirth. These dual themes are explored in the course of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the nature of critical theory, its historical development, its connections to sociology and Marxism, and the central debates over its core ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, the skepticism against the stance of value neutrality and the reception of the Frankfurt School in the wake of renewed attention to Marxism in a Critical Sociology has once again focused attention on the problem of the integration of theory and praxis in sociology. Bearing in mind social philosopher Karl Marx's famous statement, philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways, but the point is to change it, members of the Frankfurt School recognized the problem and perhaps difficulty, of praxis in sociology from the very beginning. This paper is primarily an attempt to present a critique of current approaches to field work and especially of participant observation. This particular focus is important for two reasons. First, ethnographic work has become of paramount importance given the sophisticated manipulation of people's lives today. The intricate organization of the work place, the divisive and paralyzing structure especially of the urban setting. The second reason for such an extended critique is that it would guide people to politically and methodologically adequate approaches to field work.

This paper focuses its attention upon the relationship between the dominant ideas in American sociology and the receptivity, opposition, or indifference to the ideas of Karl Marx. It documents that early American sociology basically ignored Marx's ideas. When his ideas were addressed, the modal response was overwhelmingly negative, and typically along ideological lines. A classificatory scheme is developed to identify the ideological nature of the treatment of Karl Marx in early American sociology. In effect, Marx was defined as beyond the limits of valid inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper presents a few of the issues which divide contemporary Marxists and shows how their debates relate to Marx's original work In the first part, I discuss the family, law and the world system in the light of two notions of social structure. In the second part, I consider the dynamics of capitalism and the struggles between classes, races and genders as potential motors of change. This is followed by an outline of Marx's understanding of the persistence of capitalism, the notion of reproduction of social relations, and how the state becomes involved in the organization of struggles and in the preservation of the conditions of accumulation In the final part, the past is examined for the light it may shed on the future Has history a prior purpose, or telos? How did Marx and how do Marxists conceive of the transition from one period of history to another? What can we say about the transition to socialism based on the experience of the last hundred years? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on Peter Lawler's paper about contemporary Western culture. The dare generated by Lawler's writing is that he positions anyone who disagrees with him as a proponent of indifferent non-judgmentalism, Viagra and tyranny. Lawler's discussion of communism was taken to be largely rhetorical. The argument about the basic commonalities of communism and libertarianism runs aground on the fundamental shoal of private property. Lawler argues that one thing communism and libertarianism share is a utopian sentimentality.