A PARTICIPAÇÃO DOS TRABALHADORES EM UM PAÍS SOCIALISTA

This article examines recent transformation of workers’ participationin industrial management in socialist contries with special emphasison the Polish case. It deals with the established relationships betweeninstitutional changes at the social, economic and political levels and changes in industrial democracy. It also sets out some projections regardingsdirections of the process of modernization in the several formsof industrial management for the next decades in those countries.L’auter examine les transformations récentes intervenues dans lesformes de participation des ouvriers dans la gestion industrielle en payssocialiste, plus particuliérement en ce qui conceme le cas de la Pologne.Le texte porte sur les reports établis entre les changements institutionnelsà caractère social et ceux intervenus dans les domaines économiqueet politique, et établit des projections relatives aux directionsprises par la modernisation des différentes formes de gestion industriellede ces pays dans les prochaines décades.O autor examina as transformações recentes nas formas de participaçãodos operários no gerenciamento industrial em países socialistascom ênfase especial no caso da Polônia. O texto lida com as relaçõesestabelecidas entre as mudanças institucionais de caráter social,econômico e político e estabelece algumas projeções acerca dosrumos da modernização das várias formas de gerência industrial naquelespaíses para as práximas décadas

Globalization in a Structuralist Perspective

The author engages in a polemic with a structuralist perspective on globalisation. Whereas acknowledging the fact that the particular perspective has dominated the globalisation debate in recent years, he assumes a highly critical stand towards that view. In the authors' eyes, there is no evidence sufficient to support not only the structuralis thesis itself but also any deterministic approach towards globalisation. However, determinism - albeit of its multiple faces - still enjoys enormous popularity within the academic milieu, and even seems to be shared by the circles that consistently disagree on any other subject. In the end, it is argued the third wave of globalization requires a great deal of reflection at the level of ontology, epistemology and methodology

Researching Capitalism In Poland: Economic Interests As A Cultural Construction

Purpose: The three goals of the article are: first, to show some arguments surrounding the notion of capitalism in theoretical perspective, and also somewhat bashful connotations since it was intro-duced in Poland after the fall of communism; second, to present some historical facts about the rise of capitalism in Poland in comparative perspective, mostly European; third, to look for cultural categories necessary for analysing the peculiarities of Polish socio-economic development as the part of so-called „the second Europe”. Methodology: I go back to the history of European patterns of capitalist formation: Anglo-Saxon, French, German, Russian in order to show the Polish trajectory as strikingly different. Before enter-ing the Polish case, I present Mary Douglas and Aaron Widavsky’s proposal – how to analyze four cultures: individualist, egalitarian, hierarchical and fatalistic (authoritarian). Implications: The main finding is that economic interests are always socio-cultural constructions, hence all definitions of the real life decisions (on public vs private, risk, externalities etc.) that the people make, must frame them within working life of given culture as the combination of universa-lism and particularism (of above-mentioned four cultures)

Institutions and Modernity

Purpose: Modernity consists of many confl icting aspects: It brings many empty promises, yet has resulted in new institutions that create bridges between the values and interests of millions of people who seek freedom, prosperity, quality of life, strengthened democracy and social justice. In this paper I attempt to a gain and loss account against modernity, because institutional rules are not only conducive to cooperative interactions, but to hostile interactions as well. People are not always guided by moral commitment, but rather more often driven by cold calculation or coercion.Methodology: Modernity has at least three defi nitions. The fi rst defi nition is based on ideas that took over the imagination of the era. The second defi nition is based on an analysis of the behavior of people who respond to reason as well as emotion and believe that they act more rationally than their ancestors or the traditional “others”. The third defi nition is the one closest to my heart, consisting of the use of institutional categories. Institutions offer practical ways of connecting ideas and people. The challenge for them is the result of deepening local and national interdependencies, but increasingly often also regional (e.g. European) and global. Interdependencies are the result of the scientifi c and technological revolution, global markets, global governance mechanisms, the emergence of new social forces and cultural confl icts (against the background of reconciling identity and differences).Conclusions: The most important task is to identify the mechanisms of complex systems so that people know how to act under conditions of uncertainty, risk and crisis. Hence, the expectations toward institutions often exceed their abilities. Even though new institutions are being created and old ones are being fixed, we are witnessing and participating in, institutional paralysis and the decay (e.g. corruption). In this situation, it is imperative not only to improve control methods (e.g. legal),

From Industrial Democracy to Political Democracy in Poland: on The Rise and Fall of Solidarity

This paper has the following objectives. First, to trace the evolution of the institutions of industrial democracy in Poland. Initially, they were completely subordinated to the authorities (the Leninist model). They then made adjustments to the industrial decision-making system. In the 1980s they would substitute the institutions of political democracy, thus becoming the main internal factor contributing to the decomposition of the party state. After 1989, those anti-system institutions became an important building block of the post-Communist order, and a post-Solidarity one between 2005-2007 and from 2015The global experience in this respect is different

‘Path Dependence’: How Geopolitics and Culture Shape Divisions in Poland after the Fall of Communism

I examine two long-wave processes, geopolitics and culture, which I consider to be the main causes for the fall of communism and the beginning of the transformation. As a result of the geopolitical situation-in the shape of communism’s multidimensional defeat by capitalism-the national culture was able to help society use the new geopolitical context successfully. I distinguish two sequences of cause and effect: The geopolitical one, in which the sequence begins with geopolitics treated as an independent variable and an element shaping all systems, which are treated as dependent variables, i.e., communism loses to capitalism downfall of the state, for instance, the ‘Round Table’ downfall of the central, planned economy (economic reform) ‘S’ as organized rebellion theWestern model; and the cultural sequence, which begins from culture treated as an independent variable and a factor shaping all systems, which are treated as dependent variables, i.e., community based on national, religious, traditional, and solidarity values ‘us’ against ‘them’ industrial workers and the Church hierarchy supporting gradual change the ruined work environment and civil society Christian Europe and Poland’s mission in East Central Europe. I do not absolutize either geopolitical or cultural explanations (these are tools). I am closest to a configuration approach, in which attention is concentrated on all the factors that could contribute with ‘equal strength’ to forming a ’virtuous circle’. It is a relational approach, neither determinist nor constructivist (voluntarist). Structures and agencies possess autonomous powers of causal influence. There is a dual constituting of the agency/actor and the structure/system

Globalization in a Structuralist Perspective

The author engages in a polemic with a structuralist perspective on globalisation. Whereas acknowledging the fact that the particular perspective has dominated the globalisation debate in recent years, he assumes a highly critical stand towards that view. In the authors' eyes, there is no evidence sufficient to support not only the structuralis thesis itself but also any deterministic approach towards globalisation. However, determinism - albeit of its multiple faces - still enjoys enormous popularity within the academic milieu, and even seems to be shared by the circles that consistently disagree on any other subject. In the end, it is argued the third wave of globalization requires a great deal of reflection at the level of ontology, epistemology and methodology