Elites, Social Mobility and Stratification from Feudalism to Socialism. Problem Areas and Research Methods

1. Week: Friday, 15. January.

Concepts and theories of post-feudal elites, social stratification and modernisation. Historicity of elite research. The problem of social inequalities in stratified societies based on the division of labour, power and competences, symbolic distinctions, expressive differences. Basic elite functions of integration, representation and management of society. Resources of elite position : power, ascribed prestige, collective privileges, wealth, high income, better information on matters social, particular dispositions, creativity. Inequility in most known societies refer notably to ’natural’ given (race, gender, age, seniority, bodily skills), socially constructed or ascribed status (many of which survive in advanced democracies in form of positive or negative discrimination) and achievements. All such status assets can operate together, producing accelarated socio-professional mobility as a result of the exploitation of the main types of promotional capital : intellectual, economic or ’social’ proper connected to networks of allies (Bourdieu). 

Reminder of the main theoretical issues and elaborations concerning modern elites and the ruling classes : Marxist, socialist-productivist (Saint-Simon), liberal-productivist (Schumpeter), sociological (Max Weber), socio-political (Pareto, Mosca, Michels), etc. The status system of pre-industrial European societies of orders : the feudal networks between nobility, patriciat, corporate craftsmen and traders, bonded or tenant peasantry, clerical staff and cultural outsiders (aliens, Jews). Stages of modernisation in various social and institutional fields and sectors. The progressive (Northern) and the revolutionary (south and East European) pattern of political modernization. Unequal rates of industrialization in East and West and constituents of the East European backwardness. The effects of imperial rule in late coming nation states (Russian, Ottoman and Habsburg Empires). Capitalism, free market competition, new and old elites in emerging parliamentary nation states with new rigidities : aspects of the survival of the ancient regime in East and West. Attempt at an empirical approach of the stratification of insustrial societies. Socially committed intellectuals as a new generic category of stratification since the late 19th century: ’narodniks’, public, organic (Gramsci), ’engaged’, revolutionary, communist intellectuals.

Mandatory readings :

2. Jürgen KOCKA, The European Pattern and the German Case – (of the modern middle class) [pdf]

3. Werner MOSSE, Nobility and Bourgeoisie in Nieneteenth Centurz Europe: A Comparative View [pdf]

Further readings :

4. Hartmut KAELBLE, French Bourgeoisie and German Bürgertum, 1870-1914 [ pdf]

2. Week : Friday, 22. January.

Theory and practice of social mobility in modern times : Via structural or evolutionary change. Upward, downward and lateral, intra- and inter-generational mobility. Sponsored, hampered, organised, channelled mobility. Institutional agencies of mobility : the state, the churches, private associations of ’civil society’, youth movements, trade unions, political parties, ’old boys’ networks, etc. Global societal modernization and trends of professional mobility. The distribution and reproduction of mobility assets (social, cultural and economic capital) in conrete terms : some case studies. The growing impact of education on the acceleration of socio-professional mobility trends. Typical mobility patterns and channels in the access of elite sectors : inheritance (of wealth, achieved positions, ascribed authority, etc.), indirect self-reproduction (via educational achievements, economic or organisational agency), other forms meritocratic competition (entrepreneurship, school excellence, etc.), chance or a combination of the above. External, cultural and ecological factors of unequal educational modernization and mobility of otherwise similar social strata : urbanisation, religion, ethnicity, dérogeance, Standesgemäss or gender defined professional options, strategies and rigidities. Cases of culture change in the middle classes of late industrial societies in East and West: the demographic transition, urbanisation, family education, housing, aspects of subcultural anthropology (behaviorial patterns), etc.   

Mandatory readings :

26. Mervyn MATTHEWS, Some Problems of Elite Mobility – (Soviet Union) [pdf ]

28.Nicholas LAMPERT, Patterns of Recruitment (Soviet Union) [pdf]

Further readings :

29. Lenard COHEN, Partisans, Professionals and Proletarians: Elite Change in Modernizing Yugoslavia [ pdf]

29/B. Sheila FITZPATRICK, The making of a proletarian intelligentsia [ pdf]

3.Week, Friday, 29. January.

Elite education and modernisation. Embourgeoisement and cultural changes in post-feudal societies. Reminder of the development of universities and other agencies of elite education and intellectual production since the late Middle Ages. The Jesuit colleges as the first attempt at the ’systematisation’ of elite training. State intervention and private initiatives in the birth of the intellectual infrastructure of nation states (academies, museums, libraries, operas, exhibition halls, etc.). The institutional reforms of the school systems in the 19th century (ex. Entwurf in Austria, 1849) give rise to the three great European models of elite education, the Anglo-Saxon, the French and the Prussian-German. The unequal expansion of learning in East and West. Main topical areas of the socio-historical study of education : inequalities (by professional strata, ethnicity, religion, gender and residence) of access, dropping out, performance (excellence), school choices, options for study tracks, the uses of degrees, career strategies and facilities in some societies in Eastern and Western Europe. The importance of Western Universities for the training of Eastern European (Russian, Baltic, Balkanic) modern elites. Vienna as the central training ground of elites in Habsburg societies. Liberal, authoritarian and totalitarian school systems : Nazification and Sovietisation of universities.

Mandatory readings :

22. Konrad JARAUSCH, Higher Education and Social Change : Some Comparative Perspectives – (East-West comparisons) [ pdf]

24/B. Sheila FITZPATRICK, Recruitment to higher education (Soviet Union) [ pdf]

Further readings:

21. Christophe CHARLE, Patterns - (of modern Universities) [ pdf]

24. Marsha ROZENBLIT, Education, Mobility, Assimilation: the Role of the
 Gymnasium [pdf ]

4. Week, Friday, 5. February.

Professionalisation and elite change  in Western and Eastern Europe since 1800. In the West transformations of the nobility : avenues of status maintenance and professional conversion. The emergence of the entrepreneurial bourgeoisie and the spread of its middle class behaviorial patterns. The generalisation of bourgeois (bürgerlich) ways in the educated lower strata. The invention of ’professionalism’ and rise of the intellectual professions, both employed and independent. Stages of the process of professionalization : professions linked to university degrees, rules of professional practice negotiated with the state, market monopoly of specialised graduates, the drive for corporate autonomy.  Immigrants and natives in the professions and the bourgeoisie : full integration and liberal promotion of Jews and immigrant clusters. Political and ideological fragmentation of the middle classes. Antisemitism as an ideology of corporate self-promotion of Gentile professionals in Germany, Austria, France. Nazi elites and denazification in the same societies. Continuities (Northern Europe and Britain) and discontinuities (in Nazi occupied countries) in elite staffs after the Second World War. 

In Eastern Europe economic decline, political influence and transformations of the nobility and its selective downgrading via land reforms after 1919 and 1945. The rise and fall of native entrepreneurial bourgeoisies : state intervention and the role of immigrants or cultural aliens (Jews, Germans, Armenians) in industrial capital accumulation and in the expansion of the intellectual professions in Russia and the Habsburg societies. Some flagrant cases of unequal modernisation of ethnic and confessional subcultural clusters. The four (or five) dramatic upheavals entailing major transformations in the elites in the 20th century : 1919, geo-political reshuffling of the whole region (with the birth of new nation states), late 1930s (nazification), German invasion or hegemony in some countries during the war years, Sovietisation in 1945, post-socialist transition since 1989. The nomenklatura and Soviet type elite formation. Downgrading and destruction of the bourgeoisie, forced quasi-proletarisation of the professions, planned recruitment of leadership staffs ’extracted from the people’. ’Political credentials’ as a new form of promotional asset in the access to the elite. A regime of hidden privileges. Recent trends in elite restructuring in post-socialist democracies.

Mandatory readings:

11. Konrad JARAUSCH, Professionalization German Style [ pdf]

12. Andrzej KAMINSKI, The Szlachta  of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and their Government [ pdf]

Further readings:

13. Harold PERKIN, France, A Planned Meritocracy [ pdf]

7. Marc RAEFF, The Russian Nobility in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Trends and Comparisons [ pdf]

9. Jo Ann RUCKMAN, The Moscow Business Elite and its Position in the Social Structure of Russia and Moscow [ pdf]

5. Week, Friday, 12. February

Topical areas of elite research in East Central Europe. An introduction into research problems of a vastly underdeveloped field of social history. The main target is the objectivation (quantified estimation) and interpretation of the fundamental mechanisms of selection and promotion of elites in late modernized multi-ethnic and multi-confessional societies emerging from foreign rule in the outgoing 19th century or after 1918. These include essential inequalities among the various social aggregates in virtual competition as far as educational demand, performance (excellence), dropping out, option for schooling tracks and institutions, in schooling, professional options, career expectations, orientations and chances. Regional, residential, professional, confessional and ethnic background as independent factors of mobility to be studied. The investigation of public educational policies (open or closed school market, numerus clausus), the (regional and residential) structure of the school supply, its size and inclusiveness, educational segregation, the demand for intellectual services and sub-cultural (confession and ethnicity-specific) propensities for intellectual and professional creativity (ex. books published) may help the interpretation of data related to elite clusters.

Mandatory readings:

16.Janusz ZARNOWSKI, Learned Professions in Poland, 1918-1939 [ pdf] 

25. Mervyn MATTHEWS, The Genesis of Privilege – (Soviet Union) [ pdf ]

Further readings:

17. Lenard COHEN, From Monarchy to Marxism : A Comparison of Elite Social Backgrounds – (Yugoslavia) [ pdf]

18. Kendall E. BAILES, Reflections on Russian Professions [pdf ]

29/C. Sheila FITZPATRICK, The ’New Class’ : social mobility and education under Stalin [ pdf]

6. Week, Friday, 19. February.

Methodology of the study of modern elites. Technicalities of the prosopographical survey of educated elites in six East Central European societies (Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia, Transylvania, Voivodina) since the early period of political and educational modernisation (1850s in the Carpathian Basin, 1870s in the Baltics) till early socialism (1950). A survey focused on students enrolled in institutions of higher education or liable to get enrolled (together with secondary school graduates in the Carpathian Basin), those obtaining university degrees – exhaustive survey –, and a number of professional (doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc.) and other intellectual clusters (free masons, membersof specific ideological circles, local city elites) . Problems of the identification of sources, data collection and registration, sampling, coding,  statistical elaboration of quantified results. Presentation of data banks in Excel files. The study of multi-variate data banks with examples from the on-going research project. Discussion of possible new research topics with the participation of those attending the class.  

Mandatory readings:

31. Irina CULIC, The Strategies of Intellectuals: Romania under Communism in Comparative Perspective [ pdf]

32. Anton STEEN, The Baltic Elites after the Change of Regime [ pdf]  

General Bibliography of the course on Elites: 

Heinrich BEST, Ulrike BECKER (eds), Elites in Transition. Elite Research in Central and Eastern Europe, Opladen, Leske + Budrich, 1997.  

Harold PERKIN, The Third Revolution. Professional Elites in the Modern World, London and New York, Routledge, 1996.  

Ivo BANAC and Paul BUSHKOVITCH (eds.), The Nobility in Russia and Eastern Europe, New Haven, YaleConcilium on International and Area Studies, 1983. 

 Michael BURRAGE and Rolf TORSTENDAHL (eds.), Professions in Theory and History, Rethinking the Study of Professions, London, Sage, 1990. 

András BOZÓKI (ed.), Intellectuals and Politics in Central Europe, Budapest, New York, Central European Press, 1999. 

Lenard J. COHEN, The Socialist Pyramid. Elites and Power in Yugoslavia, London, Tri- Service Press, 1898.

Harley D. BALZER, Russia!s Missing Middle Class. The Professions in Russian History. London, New York, M.E. Sharp, 1996.

Nicholas LAMPERT, The Technical Intelligentsia and the Soviet State, New York, Holmes & Meier, 1979.

Jo Ann RUCKMAN, The Moscow Business Elite. A Social and Cultural Portrait of Two Generations, 1840-1905, DeKalb, Illinois, Northern Illinois University Press, 1984.

Mervyn MATTHEWS, Privilege in the Soviet Union. A Study of Elite Life-Styles under Communism, London, George Allen Unwin, 1978.

Konrad JARAUSCH, The Unfree Professions. German Lawyers, Teachers and Engineers, 1900-1950, Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press, 1990. Jörgen

KOCKA and Allen MITCHELL (eds.), Bourgeois Society in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Oxford, Providence, Berg, 1993.

Sheila FITZPATRICK, Education and social mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921-1934. Cambridge etc., Cambridge University Press, 1979.