In this issue of the journal we publish articles on two major topics. We have two articles on aspects of ‘Political Trajectories and European Democracy’, and we have four articles discussing topics in ‘Employment and Work Patterns’.
The study of political trajectories and path-dependent social processes has mushroomed as an area of interest since the end of communism and the ‘democratisation’ of the political systems of East and Central Europe. This issue is taken up by David Lane of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, in his paper on ‘Civil Society in the Old and New Member States: Ideology, Institutions and Democracy Promotion’. Lane takes up the concept of civil society, which has figured centrally in debates on post-socialist pathways and, more recently, on forms of government and state practice across Europe. His argument is that the idea of civil society and its promotion as a form of political practice must be seen as tools in elite strategies of control and legitimation. Borrowing terms from the elite theories of Mosca and Pareto, we might say that the promotion of civil society is a political formula rooted in the ‘derivation’ through which elites rationalise their sectional interests. Political elites in the post-socialist societies, Lane argues, use the political formula to mobilise popular support for the movement to capitalism. In the old member states of the EU, on the other hand, political elites use it to implement new forms of governance aimed at rectifying the ‘democratic deficit’. The post-socialist strategy follows from a neo-liberal position grounded in the specific historical conditions of a transition from socialism to capitalism, though these conditions precluded the effective creation of autonomous civil society associations.
Antonio Goucha Soares of ISEG at the Technical University of Lisbon explores issues in ‘The Europeanization of Portugal’. He sees Europeanization as a process involving state, economy, law, and education, and argues that Portugal's specific historical conditions at the time that it joined the EU forced it into a trajectory of divergence rather than convergence. Focusing specifically on the rule of law and education, he shows the difficulties of attaining harmonisation and highlights the ‘exceptional’ status of Portugal. Like Lane, this paper raises the question of the balance between the conscious and deliberate strategies of political agents and the historical conditions that they inherit from the past. You may like to take up some of these general issues in the Discussion Forum, where David Lane's paper is highlighted for discussion.
‘Employment and Work Patterns’ have been a prominent theme in the pages of this journal. In the current issue we include articles covering the impact of family relations on work patterns, especially as the affect young people and mothers, and the importance of work time and undeclared work.
Dina Hummelsheim of the Department of Criminology at Freiburg and Jochen Hirschle of the Department of Sociology at Fern Universität in Hagen, weigh the relative importance of cultural values and institutional constraints in shaping the employment patterns of mothers. Using data from Belgium and Germany, they document significant variations in the ways in which similar family roles affect female labour market participation. This variation, they argue, reflects cultural differences as much as it does policy differences per se. Once again, specific historical pathways are highlighted as crucial determinants of political, and economic, possibilities. Michael Gebel of MZES at the University of Mannheim and Anna Baranowska at the Warsaw School of Economics use a larger data set, covering 23 European countries, to document variations in patterns of youth employment. The probability of entering temporary employment, they find, is not directly related to contractual policies of employment protection but do relate to variations in the structure of collective bargaining and the social divisions that these reflect.
Colin Williams of the School of Management at Sheffield University and John Round of the School of Geographical Sciences at Birmingham University take Moscow as a case study city to investigate participation in work that is undeclared to the authorities. They show that there are no simple explanations in terms of any general factors. An explanation can be achieved only if specific conjunctural factors – highly variable at the local level – are taken into account. This implicit critique of the limitations of macro-level path dependence explanations can be debated on the Discussion Forum, where the Williams and Round paper is highlighted for discussion. The final paper, by Katarina Boye of SISR at Stockholm University, looks at the balance between paid work and domestic work. She compares the experiences of Swedish men and women and the psychological stress and anxiety that results from this. She shows that involvement in domestic work is a cause of psychological distress among women only when it is felt to be disproportionate to their involvement in paid work outside the home. Time spent on work – whether paid or unpaid – does not lead to psychological distress among men. Boye concludes that greater participation by men in domestic work could significantly reduce the level of stress among their wives and partners without any increase in their own level of stress.
Do check the Discussion Forum and enter into debate on the issues highlighted in this and previous issues of the journal. You will also find discussion questions launched by ESA research groups. The Discussion Forum is at http://www.europeansocietiesforum.com.