Informality in the Western Balkans: a culture, a contextual rational choice, or both?

Cvetičanin, Predrag; Popovikj, Misha; Jovanović, Marina

doi:10.1080/14683857.2019.1692427

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Th e concepts of clients and patrons and centers and peripheries largely disappeared in discussions of post-socialist contexts (but see Vetters 2014). Th eir place was taken by the analytical language of informality (Cvetičanin et al 2019;Ledeneva 1998), favors ( Henig and Makovicky 2016;Humphrey 2012), grey zones (Harboe Knudsen and Frederiksen 2015), or corruption (Zinn 2005). 3 Th is historical link between the changes brought by 1989 and the transformation of the anthropological studies of patron-client relations in Europe may be more than coincidental.…”

Section: Favors In Eastern Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Postsocialist Mediterranean

Brkovič¹

2022

Focaal

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This article opens a conversation between anthropological studies of the Mediterranean and of postsocialism in order to propose the notion of a “scalar gaze” as an analytical approach useful for capturing veering practices in their social complexity. The article argues that favors (veze/štela, lit. relations, connections) in contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina were a practice through which people fulfilled the demands of capitalist economy to be active, rather than a pre-capitalist excess that prevented “proper” development of the country into a neoliberal democracy. Zooming in and out and looking sideways between moral reasoning, internationally supervised structural changes of the job markets, and electoral politics, this article explores how the relational labor of favors reproduced moral selves, as well as hierarchy and inequality.

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Section: Favors In Eastern Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Postsocialist Mediterranean

Brkovič¹

2022

Focaal

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“…In the post‐socialist period, social capital continues to serve as a resource in which both a low‐end “economy of favors” and high‐end transactions in the political and economic field are based (Cvetičanin & Popescu, 2011; Cvetičanin et al., 2019; Ledeneva, 1998, 2013). In our model, we differentiate between two subtypes of social capital: “the social capital of informal connections” and “the social capital of solidarity.” 6…”

Section: Background To the Case: Adjusting A Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fundamental power of these mechanisms is that they are the main channel for gaining access to the labor market, as well as achieving a privileged position in business development. Our previous research shows that political parties exert a decisive influence on (or straightforwardly control) employment, career advancement, distribution of public procurement contracts, expensive medical services, scholarships, and a range of other benefits in SEE societies (Cvetičanin et al., 2015, 2019). In employment and career advancement procedures, we also detected a strong influence of social networks based on other lines of exclusion mentioned above.…”

Section: Background To the Case: Adjusting A Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

From occupational to existential class: How to analyze class structure in hybrid societies (The case of Serbia)

Cvetičanin

Tomić-Koludrović²,

Petrić

et al. 2021

British Journal of Sociology

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In this article, we propose a model to analyze the class structure of hybrid post‐socialist societies in South‐East Europe (SEE), using the case of Serbia. We argue that, in such hybrid societies, social inequalities are generated by several mechanisms of similar strength: exploitative market mechanisms (based on economic capital) and different types of social closure mechanisms (based on political and social capital). Their influences are intertwined and cannot be analytically isolated or reduced to a common foundation. Therefore, occupational class analysis in these societies can have only limited explanatory power. In an attempt to overcome these challenges, we were forced to modify the instruments of several established approaches to class analysis. These modifications included (1) a reconceptualization of Bourdieusian notions of political, social, and cultural capital, (2) a different operationalization of social space, (3) identification of specific mechanisms of generating social inequalities, (4) paying attention to both practical and discursive classifications of lifestyles in the establishment of symbolic boundaries, and (5) relying on differential association analysis for identifying class boundaries. Our analysis's final result is a model that enables studying general social inequality, that is, generalized social advantage/disadvantage, in SEE post‐socialist societies.

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“…How to proceed in such cases? Our focus in this article is on the post-socialist societies in South-East Europe, in which informal connections continue to serve as a resource in both a low-end "economy of favors" and high-end political and economic transactions (Cvetičanin, Popescu 2011;Cvetičanin et al 2019).…”

Section: Why Has Bourdieu Not Operationalized His Notion Of Social Capital?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…9 In the current context, it is certainly not easy to determine whether informal practices in the post-socialist countries are due to "a culture, a contextual rational choice, or both?" (Cvetičanin et al 2019). However, whatever explanation we might prefer, we should keep in mind what Buchanan (1999: 123) emphasized in her review of Creed's (1998) account of the continuity of "reforms" in Bulgaria from state socialism to "ambivalent transition": that "post-1989 life cannot be understood without a comprehensive understanding of what came before" and that "the unfortunate dichotomization of East European social history into a before and after" should be transcended.…”

Section: Why South-east Europe?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Bourdieu’s theorization of social capital in the analysis of South-East European societies

Petrić

Tomić-Koludrović

2021

Filoz drus

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This article discusses the significance of social capital in Bourdieu-inspired analyses of contemporary South-East European societies. We first recapitulate Bourdieu?s theorization of social capital, emphasizing that it allows different operationalizations expressly because of its rather abstract theoretical character. Following that, we explain what is meant by ?South- East European societies? and that their inequality-generating mechanisms are largely based on social closure. In the central part of the article, we comment on some attempts at operationalization of social capital in the SEE region. While we also discuss two cases of eclectically mixing Lin?s operationalization with Bourdieusian concepts, at the center of our attention is the elaboration of Bourdieu?s theorization of social capital put forward by the Serbian sociologist Predrag Cveticanin. The relevance of his concepts of ?social capital of solidarity? and ?social capital of informal connections? for the study of class relations in post-socialist societies in South-East Europe highlights the advantages of a consistent application of the Bourdieusian framework in a contemporary (post-Bourdieusian) context.

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Informality in the Western Balkans: a culture, a contextual rational choice, or both?

Cited by 9 publications

References 29 publications

Postsocialist Mediterranean

Postsocialist Mediterranean

From occupational to existential class: How to analyze class structure in hybrid societies (The case of Serbia)

Bourdieu’s theorization of social capital in the analysis of South-East European societies

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