TEN YEARS AFTER 1989:
EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE'S ROAD TO THE NEW WORLD
A FIRST BALANCE SHEET

Call for Papers

The Hungarian Sociological Association is pleased to announce its Memorial Conference dedicated to social studies of the First Decade in the Post-Socialist transformation process, to be held on September 22-24, 1999 at the Hungarian Academy's headquarters in Budapest, Hungary.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Abstracts for papers should be about 300 words in length. Proposals for other types of contributions are also encouraged. The deadline for abstracts and other proposals is extended to 1 May, 1999 but pre-register and mention your preliminary title as soon as possible! For the section 14. Sociology of Gender, New Feminist Movements (Peto Andrea) send your application to petoand@ ceu.hu CEU Budapest, Nador u. 9. 1051, Hungary

OVERVIEW

The conference aims at bringing together researchers from a wide range of backgrounds to discuss the present and future directions of the East and Central European transition. The key challange for this conference is how we can rethink traditional concepts about the performance of social, economic and political order and social relations in the process of radical transformation of the region. We are interested in examining pivotal issues in the analysis of social transformation (transition studies) from an inter-disciplinary perspective. We welcome papers that explore the following questions either from a theoretical perspective or through current research:

• From protocapitalism to postsocialism - transformation of concepts about transformation
• From organized disorder to disorganized order: Social frames and social strategies in the New Central and Eastern Europe. What holds the new society in place?
• Dilemmas of periodization - do they have any sense in the late 90s?
• If (post)modern societies are able to survive on much less structure, cohesion or foundation than the social theorists have generally assumed, how much cement, how much "existence" do the social needs require?
• Social mobilization and demobilization: what are the theoretical/methodological advantages of using a historical perspective in studying patterns of social mobilization?
• New perspectives on power and social difference often rattle existing understandings of anti-systemic agency. In what ways? This set of questions has been reduced in the past to a debate between "evolutionary" and "revolutionary" positions. How can we best analyze such debates as artefacts of world-historical processes? Are there alternative ways of posing these questions that suggest innovations in the study of long-term, large-scale social change?
• Old and new markers and division lines between economics and politics.

The Conference Organisers plan to invite those social activists, reformers, political leaders and international experts as well, who played significant role in the actual transformation processes of the region in the last decade.

PROGRAM

The conference will be organised in 4 main streams. Inside the streams the papers and debates will be presented in 19 sections and round tables (some sections plane one, some more sessions): Theme I: Elements of the New Social Order (Vision, Prospects and Realities) Theme II: Structures and Institutions Theme III: Transformations of Everyday Life - New Styles and Orientations Theme IV: The New World of Work

SECTIONS AND ROUND TABLES

1. Social Stratification in the 1990s (Robert Peter)
2. Transformation in Households and Families (Toth Istvan Gyoergy)
3. Institutionalisation of the New Political System, Legitimacy and Party System (Bayer Jozsef)
4. National Strategies and the EU-Enlargement (Inotai Andras)
5. Social Policies of Post-Socialism (Szalai Julia)
6. New Economic Actors and Institutions in Eastern and Central Europe (Lengyel Gyoergy) 7. Organizational Innovation and Organizational Power in the Privatized Enterprises (Mako Csaba) 8. The Role of Trade Unions in the Post-1989 Economic and Social Policies (Csako Mihaly)
9. East European Historiography and the Post-1989 Transformation (Pok Attila)
10. Collective Memories - Strategies of Remembering (Nemedi Denes)
11. Rural Transformation and Innovation (Kovach Imre)
12. The New Metropolis - Emerging Structures in the Central European Urban Networks (Szirmai Viktoria)
13. Post-Socialist Networks (Sik Endre)
14. Sociology of Gender, New Feminist Movements (Peto Andrea)
15. Educational Reforms of the 90s (Kozma Tamas)
16. Church and Religion in the Post-Transformation Central Europe (Tomka Miklos)
17. Ethnopolitics, the Ethnical Dimensions of Social Inequalities (Csepeli Gyoergy)
18. Media Transformation, as Integral Part of Social Reforms (Horvat Janos)
19. Minority Policies in Central Europe (Szarka Laszlo)

Last updated:     April 9, 1999

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Last updated:     April 1, 1999