Politicians in times of transformation: "Transformational correctness" or genuine differences in perception?

The paper presents selected results of the 1996 study of top Polish politicians-members of the 1993-97 Parliament and leaders of those important political parties which failed to get into this Parliament. Presented results pertain to five aspects of politicians' attitudes: (1) opinions on qualities of persons who should be vs. actually are involved in politics, (2) normatively accepted definitions of politics, (3) visions of the good state, (4) visions of democracy, and (5) opinions on what defines political views as being either on the left or on the right. As a result, consistently found across all five domains, there is a strong attitudinal similarity among politicians of differing political parties and of divergent political orientations. This finding is interpreted as reflection of a fundamental track similarity in the way in which Polish politicians perceive the most important tasks confronting the whole political class in times of systemic transformation. Transformational correctness - believing that in such times politicians should have (or at least should display) certain views - might be a strong force behind this similarity. --

Job Creation, Destruction and Transition in Poland, 1988-1998: Panel Evidence

Longitudinal data from interviews with Poles of working age conducted in 1988, 1993 and 1998 present a detailed view of the transition from a state dominated to a market economy. Job loss in state firms and job creation in new private firms are the dominant employment change, other than retirements from the labor force. In the Polish case, a significant proportion of this movement over the 1988 to 1998 period involves a period of unemployment or exit from the labor force before obtaining a private sector job. A second feature of the Polish transition is considerable job competition between workers leaving the state sector and those who were out of the labor force at the beginning of the transition. The likelihood of moving to the private sector was higher for the better educated and for residents of regions with a robust de novo economy, suggesting that the supply of jobs in the private sector combined with higher levels of human capital lead to faster and smoother transitions. Lastly, wage differences between the state sector and the de novo sector appear to have little association with mobility, suggesting that movement is not strongly related to the opportunity to find a higher paying job.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39887/3/wp502.pd

Politicians in times of transformation: "transformational correctness" or genuine differences in perception?

"The paper presents selected results of the 1996 study of top Polish politicians members of the 1993-97 Parliament and leaders of those important political parties which failed to get into this Parliament. Presented results pertain to five aspects of politicians' attitudes: (1) opinions on qualities of persons who should be vs. actually are involved in politics, (2) normatively accepted definitions of politics, (3) visions of the 'good state', (4) visions of democracy, and (5) opinions on what defines political views as being either on the 'left' or on the 'right.' As a result, consistently found across all five domains, there is a strong attitudinal similarity among politicians of differing political parties and of divergent political orientations. This finding is interpreted as reflection of a fundamental 'track similarity' in the way in which Polish politicians perceive the most important tasks confronting the whole political class in times of systemic transformation. 'Transformational correctness' - believing that in such times politicians should have (or at least should display) certain views - might be a strong force behind this similarity." (author's abstract)Es werden ausgewählte Ergebnisse einer größeren Untersuchung maßgeblicher polnischer Politiker präsentiert, und zwar von Mitgliedern des Parlaments von 1993 bis 1997 und Führern von wichtigeren politischen Parteien, die den Einzug in dieses Parlament nicht schafften. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf fünf Aspekte der Einstellungen der Politiker: (1) Meinungen über die Eigenschaften von Personen, die in der Politik tätig sein sollten oder es tatsächlich sind; (2) normativ akzeptierte Definitionen von Politik; (3) Vorstellungen vom "guten Staat"; (4) Vorstellungen von Demokratie; (5) Meinungen über die Einstufung politischer Anschauungen als eher "rechts" oder eher "links". Als Gesamtergebnis stellt sich, und zwar konsistent auf sämtlichen fünf Fragegebieten, eine starke Ähnlichkeit in den Einstellungen von Politikern heraus - über unterschiedliche politische Parteien und divergierende politische Orientierungen hinweg. Die Autoren finden hierin eine grundlegende "Verlaufsähnlichkeit" dahingehend widergespiegelt, wie polnische Politiker die wichtigsten Aufgaben wahrnehmen, die der Politik in Zeiten systemischer Transformation gestellt sind. Als starke Kraft hinter dieser Ähnlichkeit wird ein Phänomen "transformationeller Korrektheit" gesehen - die Überzeugung, daß in derartigen Veränderungszeiten ein Politiker bestimmte Auffassungen haben (oder sie zumindest zum Ausdruck bringen) sollte. (HH

Influence of the source of information on homophily assessment: data provided by subjects vs data provided by their confidants

This article was added to the Knowledge Bank in January, 2023.The present article analyses data on ego-centred networks from a nationally representative sample of Polish citizens (egos) and their regular conversation partners (alters). In the study being used, apart from obtaining information from the respondent (the ego) about characteristics of their friends (alters), the respondent was additionally asked to provide contact details for his/her alters and the interviewers traced them. This allows to compare data concerning alters obtained from ego and from alters themselves. In the first part of the article, a comparison for three characteristics – age, education and occupational status – is provided as well as patterned differences are presented. In the second part, the issue whether the assessment of the strength of homophily depends on the source information about the alters is raised. The differences are present, although they are rather slight. The authors observe greater homophily when they rely on the responses of the ego. Based on the results, recommendations for future research on ego-centred networks are formulated

Is the “Third Generation” of the Polish Transformation More Economically Liberal? Inter-Cohort Differences in Job Entrance and Egalitarian Attitudes

This article looks at changes in early career, self-evaluation of economic standing, and egalitarian attitudes in three Polish birth cohorts. The first cohort is sometimes labeled the “crisis generation” (those born in 1957–59), the second is called the “transition generation” (1970–71), while the third is named the “open-borders generation” (1988–89). As the members of these generations were socialized in substantially different economic, social, and institutional contexts it is hypothesized that they will have distinct views on the economic order. To verify the hypothesis it was necessary to dissect age, period, and cohort effects. We did so using data from “The Three Generations of the Polish Transformation” project in conjunction with two older datasets. This allowed us to harmonize data (replicated questions, post-stratification) and synchronize data (the same biographical point) for the purpose of a suitable parametrization of statistical models. The results show that substantially different job experience has generated a significant cohort effect in the youngest of the three cohorts studied

Support for democracy in ego-centered social contexts

Replication materials for "Support for democracy in ego-centered social contexts

The Openness of Social Structure in Poland: 1982–2016

Konceptualną ramą badań nad ruchliwością jest teoria modernizacji. Stwierdza się w niej, że wzrost otwartości jest dominującą tendencją, która wynika z postępującej liberalizacji i rozwoju gospodarki rynkowej. Wbrew tym oczekiwaniom bariery ruchliwości okazują się na ogół stabilne. Ustalenia te dotyczyły głównie zachodnich demokracji. Nasza analiza jest kontynuacją tego podejścia w odniesieniu do Polski. Opierając się na danych z lat 1982–2016 wskazujemy, że po pierwsze, dokonuje się systematyczne obniżenie wpływu wykształcenia na pozycję zawodową, co przeciwdziała zwiększaniu się ruchliwości międzypokoleniowej. Po drugie, tendencja ta nie obniżyła jednak tzw. względnych szans ruchliwości, chociaż mogło to być bardziej związane z przekształceniami struktury zawodowej niż ze wzrostem otwartości barier społecznych. Po trzecie, za stabilnym charakterem wzorów ruchliwości przemawia utrzymywanie się nierówności edukacyjnych. Po czwarte, okazuje się, że w odróżnieniu od badań w innych krajach, w przypadku Polski, wyższe wykształcenie nie osłabia, ale raczej wzmacnia znaczenie dziedziczenia pozycji rodziców.This paper deals with changes in the “openness” of Polish society over a 35-year period, focusing primarily on relative mobility, with some attention to changes in absolute mobility. We disentangle intergenerational occupational association into four interrelated parts: (i) relative mobility defined by the effect of social origin on destination, (ii) the relationship between social origin and education, (iii) the net effect of education on destination, and (iv) the compositional effect of education reflected in the rising share of more educated categories in the social structure. We show that changes in social fluidity were neither systematic nor easily interpretable. While our results reveal a consistently declining association between education and occupational position, unidirectional change could not be identified in the social origin-education link and in relative mobility in terms of the association between origin and destination. The origin-destination association generally increased at higher (rather than lower) educational levels