"minorities in europe” session 8: russian minority in abroad. the case of the baltic states...

"Minorities in Europe”Session 8:

Russian minority in abroad. The case of the Baltic States

Denis GruberFaculty of Sociology, St. Petersburg State UniversityDAAD-Lecturer for Sociology

Classical American Sociology of migration• Assimilation = Integration• a one-side process which has to be fulfilled by migrants / ethnic minorities

(cf. Sellin 1938, Park/Burgess 1921)• the goal is full assimilation of migrants and their descendants• cultural adaptation of migrants to the culture of the majority society• 5 stages of „race relation cycle“ (Robert E. Park / Ernest W. Burgess 1921) migration into a new territory after a peaceful phase of becomming acquainted a competition for short

ressources arise results in a conflict segregation and separation of the ethnic group and increased interethnic

contacts and intermingling („melting pot“) full assimilation adisbandment of ethnic group(s)

Newer American Sociology of migration• Shmuel N. Eisenstadt (1954): 3 stages of assimilation of Jews

in Israel

migration and absorption of minorities (absolute adaptation of the members of diaspora)

minorities have to orientate by re-sozialisation to the norms of the majority society and old (traditional) norms do not have further relevance

absorption is more an exception than a rule what results in stratification of the minority societies

Newer American Sociology of migration

Gordon (1964): assimilation as a 7th stage process, but not all stages have to be passed by immigrants because there is not a logical order of stages

main focus on passing a „structural assimilation“ Integration of minorities depends on their capabilities to incorporate

in institutions of the majority society assimilation is often not succesful because it stops at the behavioral

level „melting pot“- conzept has failed because segregation and isolation

by US American society hinder one-sided expectations of assimilation integration does not only depend on the will of minorities or

migrants, but also by the will of the majority society and nation-state integration policy to eleminate ethnic discrimination and to guarantee the same law for all citizens

Newer American Sociology of migration

• in the following years more and more a view was constructed that integration is not only a singular task of migrants or minorialso an active participation of the members of the majority society

• Ronald Taft (1957): „Stage model of assimilation“ contradicts the formal adaptation of only one unit to the other one and emphasizes the possibility of mutual adaptation, which takes place by interactions and parallel existence of the groups

• assimilative social integration depends on contextual conditions of the host state

Hartmut Esser - Assimilation

• „Assimilation“ is not a political concept of ethnic or cultural adaptation• „‚adoptation of different groups in certain characteristis“ as language

ability and filling of jobs• assimilation does not mean absolute equality of actors because also the

domestic population is not homogenous• important is the fact that there are no systematic differences in the

distribution of certain characteristics and ressources fordifferent groups in one society

• assimilation means dissolution of systematic differences between groups and categories, but not the equality of individuals in every department

• there can be social inequalities but not between ethnic groups!• domestic and minority population participate equally at laws and

ressources of a society (Esser 2001:21 f.)

Annett Treibel (1999• „Assimilation“ is not the state or result of adaptation but a process of

gradual adaptation• for Heckmann (1992) the will for acculturation of migrants is a necessary

but not sufficient condition for integration results often in accomodation refers to a gradual form of assimilation

• learning and adaptation processes of persons which by a change of location have to appropriate basic means and rules of communication and activity of the new society and knowledge of institutions and belief systems to be able for interaction and working (Heckmann 1992: 168)

• Aus dieser Definition geht hervor, dass sich Migranten und ethnische Minderheiten einen bestimmten Fundus von Wissensbeständen und Qualifikationen aneignen, der für die Kommunikation in der Mehrheitsgesellschaft notwendig ist, allerdings brauchen sich hierdurch nicht notwendigerweise die Denkweisen, Werte, Vorlieben und Überzeugungen der Migranten und Minderheitenakteure zu verändern.

Assimilation or Integration

• Asimilaton: adaption of language, cultural traditions, norms, behavior patterns of the host society

• in contradiction to cultural and ethnic pluralis

• Integration: processes by which migrants or minorities will be accepted members of the host society

• mutual process which have to be fulfilled by minorities and majority

• requires efforts and good will

Integration

• Interactions by actors and actor‘s interaction in the social system

• Integration depens on the willingness of migrants and/or ethnic minorities as well as orientations and problem solutions of the titular society

• Integration requires the disappearing of ethnic discrimination and the acceptance of the same laws for ethnic majorities as well as minorities (Gordon, 1964:252)

Integration is„(…) a process of political and social

‚inclusion of the excluded‘, and was defined in an operational way as a process of removing barriers which prevented non-Estonians from participating in the local social and political life, from being competitive in the labour market, and from taking advantage of the opportunities of the Estonian educational system.“ (Lauristin/Heidmets 2002b: 324)

• noticeable in this view on integration is that the propagate approach of the Estonian government does not distinguish between „Integration“ and „Inclusion“

• No difference between „systemic Integration“ and „social integration“ of migrants and/or members of ethnic groups

• Common understanding of „integration“ and „inclusion“ means that the individual integration process in the „Lebenswelt“ is similarily to the inclusion in the Estonian titular society (special rights, occupying of certain positions, appropriation of important societal ressources)

• therefore it is important to distinguish between the complex processes of systemic and social integration of the Russian Minority in Estonia

• use of the integration approach of German scholar Hartmut Esser (1999, 2001)

• differs between social and systemic integration • allows to focus on processes of inclusion and

exclusion of ethnic minorities• on the one hand, social and systemic integration

can be distinguished as single units, but otherwise systemic integration is pursued by actors‘ interaction

• In this way, the sociological differentiation of „social system theory“ and „actors theory“ have to be seen as an interplay, because actors are able to consolidate and change social systems

Systemic Integration

• takes place independently (anonymiously) from the motives and relationships of individual actors

• refers to the integration in a social system like integration in the world-market, nation-state, international concerns, corporative actors or supra-national entities like the EU

• refers to particular mechanisms of the market, institutioanl laws of the nation-state and particular media resources (not mass media, but money)

• focuses on motives, orientations, and purposes of individual actors,

• refers to the „embedding process“ of individual actors in a social system

• is associated with the grant of laws, learning of the titular population‘s language, embedding in the education system and the national employment market, interethnic friendships and identification with the nation-state

• my thesis: succesful „social integration“ of ethnic minorities can not only be evaluated by their embedding in the „Lebenswelt“ but also by their inclusion in the sub-systems of the social system of the titular society and possibilities to control important resources in state and society

Social Integration

Spheres of Social Integration

titular societyethnic community in the titular

society (Russian group in Estonia)Society of origin (kinship, ethnic

networks, transnatonalism, translocalism)

Four types of social integration

plural integration: integration in the titular society as well as in the ethnic community and the society of origin

segmentation / segregation: integration in an „ethnic milieu“ (Chinese in New York, Turkeys in Berlin) establishment of „We-Groups“

marginalisation: Park (1928, „marginal man“): disintegration in the titular society as well as in the society of origin/ethnic community processes of self-exclusion, no language assimilation, marginal interactions and identification with the own ethnic community as well as members of the titular society

assimilation: dominant model of integration in European societies

Dimensions of social integration

Placement• societal position of migrants and/or ethnic minorities in

a social system: e.g. labour market positions• important for pursuing ressources• bounded to certain laws, like citizenship, election laws

Culturation• process of adoptation• necessary knowledge and qualifications for the

interaction in the titular society, like language• often results in „acculturation“: semi or partial

culturation

Acculturation

• exchange of cultural features that results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact

• original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct (cf. Kottak 2007)

• anthropologists Redfield, Linton and Herskovits (1936, p. 149) developed the oft quoted definition:

"Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups".

Dimensions of social integration

Interactions• helpful for minority actors to „come in

contact“ with the members of the titular society

Identification• emotional/identificative orientation of actors

with the titular society as well as the society of origin

Ethnic Russian Minority in Estonia

have an ethnic Russian migration background (even descendants of migrations; migrants of the 2nd or 3rd generation)

have citizenship of Estonia, Russia or are stateless are using the Russian language in everyday life as primary language

The question of citizenship • members of the Russian group have been divided

in two sub-groups:1. Those who have been already lived in the First

Estonian Republic f(1918-1940) and their descendants)

2. those who were comming to ESSR as labourforce in the course of the industrialisation process

• last group has been classified by conservative Estonian Politicians as a threat for the achieved national souveranity and where called from now on „Aliens“

Alien• Term „Alien „(Estonian „muulane“) is used for a

„person of another nationalitaty („Alien Law” by July 1992)

• “An alien is a person who is not an Estonian citizen and aliens staying in Estonia are guaranteed rights and freedoms equal to those of Estonian citizens unless the constitution, this Act, other Acts or international agreements of Estonia provide otherwise. Aliens are guaranteed the rights and freedoms arising from the generally recognised rules of international law and international custom. Aliens staying in Estonia are required to observe the constitutional order and legislation of Estonia.”

Statelessness• main problem of exclusive citizenship regulations refers to the large number of non-

citizens in Estonia• marker for lacking placement in the political system of Estonia (cf. Barrington 1995,

Poleshchuk 2004, Semjonova 2001), emphasized also by UNHCR (2007a) und Amnesty International (2006)

• although the number of stateless has decreased from ca. 400,000 in 1991 to 124,681 in 2007, a rising stagnition for citizenship by naturalization is obvious (cf. EMFA 2005)

• more than the half of applicants are minors of which more than one third passed the language and citizenship test (ibid.)

• on the average more than 60 per cent of apllicants pass the waystage user-Test (cf. Tomusk 2002: 46)

• relatively low success rate has to be traced back to the fact that individual efforts and test-specific requirements have to be fulfilled to get Estonian citizenship

• otherwise one has to give attention to the fact that ca. 275,000 ethnic Russians who have been stateless did not decide for Estonian but for Russian citizenship

Connection between citizenship and ressources

• What are the reasons that ethnic Russians decide for Estonian citizenship?

• What are the reasons that ethnic Russians decide for Russian citizenship?

• What are the reasons that ethnic Russians in Estonia decide to stay stateless?

Reasons for application for Estonian citizenship and its functions

• by Estonian citizenship comprehensive political rights (e.g. right to vote) and possible upward moility in high political and administrative positions can be reached

those ethnic Russians without Estonian citizenship are missing automatically lower political rights of participation

non-citizens of Estonia do not have the possibility to practice active and passive electoral rights by the election of the Estonian national assembly

they also do not have the passive electoral right in local elections Non-Estonians do not can candidate for political positions and

administrative positions as well as do not can work in leading positions of state enterprises (cf. EP 2000)

only Estonian citizens can be member of Estonian political parties what complicate the representation of interest of non-citizens (cf. Elsuwege 2004: 26)

Reasons for application for Estonian citizenship and its functions

• ethnic Russians are conscious about their decission to apply for Estonian citizenship or not

• will to become an Estonian and will for placement („political inclusion“) depends on very rational motives and criteria

to be a full member of the Estonian society to have better chances on the Estonian and EU labour market to give children a better future and career chances to be EU-citizen and not be exluded from taking part in elections

(elections of the European Parliament)• for younger stateless persons a trend is obvious that a decission „pro

Estonia“ offers opportunities possibilities to travel in EU without barriers and to study and work there

Reasons for application for Russian citizenship and its functions

• three main reasons:Measures of Russia‘s diaspora policyexistence of social networks appropriation of economic advantages Appropriation of pension entitlementsEconomy of Citizenship

Russia‘s diaspora policy particularities in the bilateral relations between Russia and Estonia lies in the fact

that both have a different general view on history (cf. Budryte 2005, in 2006, Wehner 2006)

Baltic States show for „Putin’s Russia“ „the biggest tragedy of the 20th century“ (Putin quotes in Wehner 2006), because the internal erosion of the Soviet state strted with the independence attempts of the Baltic states

quintessential point of the historical quarrel refers to the fact that Putin does not recognise the occupation of the Baltic states by Stalin as a result of the confidential additional protocol of the Molotow-Ribbentrop- pact.

„Putin’s Russia“ looks at the annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet army as a voluntary act to join the Soviet Union

Estonia emphasizes mass deportations, suppression and terror during the Soviet occupation (cf. Wehner 2006).

to accept the full independence of the Baltic states (cf. Kolstø 1995) Russia protests regularly against citizenship regulations concerning “its” minority

and against the restrictive language policy, loss of importance of Russian language and regulations concerning electoral laws (cf. Dorodnova 2000)

highlighting the fact of „ethnic discrimination“ (cf. Hughes 2005) and continuing “Russiaphobie" (cf. Long 2003)

Russia‘s diaspora policy- some authors (Dittmer 2003, Kolstø 1995) find out that the loyalty of ethnic Russians

with the members of the Estonian titular society is rather low, because Estonia like Latvia did not grant citizenship automatically after independence

- On the other hand, Russia granted already in 1991 every ethnic Russian in the successor states of the SU the possibility "automatically" to accept the Russian citizenship (cf. Mironov/Mironov 2003) but since 2001 "automatic“ citizenship was not furthermore granted

- nevertheless, since 2003 Russia recognised that demographic changes (natural ageing and sinking birth rates) require to find new solutions for ethnic Russians abroad (Russian Diaspora in the successor states of the SU) (cf. NOVOSTI 2006c)

- By specific recruitment of members of the Diaspora in the former Soviet republics the „demographic problem” beyond the metropolises Moscow and St. Petersburg shall be solved (cf. Pörzgen 2007)

- as a result the conditions of entry and “coming home to Russia” as well as citizenship-specific regulations (restrictions) were eased for Russian "compatriots“ (cf. NOVOSTI 2006d)

Russia‘s diaspora policyPutin: • „We know about the fact that the overwhelming majority of Russians and

other ethnic groups from the Russian federation do not live abroad because they it wish […] We will do everything to help those who want to come back to their motherland […] We must to deal with realities which determine the life. Above all, it is about the return of our compatriots in such territories of today's Russia which urgently need manpower (…) The level of moving allowance depends on the need of manpower in the regions. Where the need is especially big, the move money will be more.“ (Putin quotes in Pörzgen 2007)

- In October 2006, the coordination gremium of the Russian compatriots was founded at the world congress of compatriots in St. Petersburg (cf. NOVOSTI 2007a)

- President Putin asked 600 delegates from nearly 80 countries for vigorous support of his voluntary remigration programme (cf. RIAN 2007a)

- Only in 2007, 4,6 milliard roubles from the household of the federation were provided to finance moving allowance and to support job searches and school choice

Russia‘s diaspora policy• in RDP is strong emphasis on the identity concept• Kortunow (1997:15) speaks about a „selective engagement“, which gives returns to

a construction of an Ethnic-Russian, more precise Rossianian identity, and uses for this symbolic acts, e.g. the visit of a delegation of Duma members after the quarrel about the dismantling of the Soviet memorial in Tallinn in April, 2007

• this conflict about the demolition of the soldier's monument makes in all sharpness clear that Russia anytime is able to mobilize above all younger ethnic Russians in the „close foreign countries“ (Savoskul 2001)

• “selectice engagment” means a “policy of pinpricks”: „To be 'selective' means to use different rules in different situations, to abstain from every universal approach, to renounce general rules” (Kortunov 1997)

• proponents of “selective engagement” assume that Russia does not have enough resources to rebuild the Russian or previous Soviet empire or to build up a security system on the territory of the former Soviet Union, but…

• …on the other hand, Russia can not afford a isolationistic policy, that is why “selective engagement” reffering to neighbouring states means first of all to show several regional and subregional arrangements with different degrees of Russian participation“ (Kortunow 1997:15)

Russia‘s diaspora policy• not only by symbolic acts, also by financial support Russia is supporting “its”

diaspora• in 2007 approx. 10 million Euro were given abroad to support the organisation

of school holidays, the care of veterans, supply of literature and cultural activities (cf. RIAN 2006a, RIAN 2006b), material and ideological support of the Russian language and education of teachers (cf. Simonow 2004)

• especially the financial engagement for the Russian language should be a factor to attract ethnic Russians in the „near abroad“ to decide for Russian citizenship and to (re)-migrate to Russia

• „Many Russians in Estonia still think that they are a part of this big Russian community and also a part of this big culture as well as the big Russian history, especially if they have Russian citizenship. I also think that this a part of our national problems here in Estonia. Of course, a lot of Russians have problems to speak and or to communicate in Estonian and use their mother tongue in everyday life (…) It is also quite difficult for older people to learn Estonian language. Many of them already live in Estonia their whole life and during the Soviet time they did not need to learn the Estonian language, because they always used Russian. I think that the language is the basic reason, why they decide for Russian citizenship.“ (Interview 27)

reasons that ethnic Russians in Estonia decide to stay stateless

• self-exclusion of ethnic Russians not to become full members of Estonia

• personal deprivation social isolation of certain individuals or groups as a result of dicontent, seclusion, shortages and services

• negative experiences personal frustration• difficult social situation• desinterest in politics • weak identification with Estonia• disenchantment with politics• critic about language test and citizenship procedures• appropriation of state welfare support


People with Migration Background in

Germany


German nationality law

• German citizenship is based primarily on the principle of Jus sanguinis

• one usually acquires German citizenship if a parent is a German citizen, irrespective of place of birth

• significant reform to the nationality law was passed by the Bundestag in 1999, and came into force on 1 January 2000

• new law makes it somewhat easier for foreigners resident in Germany on a long-term basis, and especially their German-born children to acquire German citizenship


Birth in Germany• Children born on or after 1 January 2000 to non-German

parents acquire German citizenship at birth if at least one parent:

has a permanent residence permit (and has had this status for at least 3 years) and

has been residing in Germany for at least 8 yearsSuch children will be required to apply successfully to retain

German citizenship by the age of 23 they do not hold any foreign citizenship


Descent from a German parent• People born to a parent who was a German citizen at the time of birth are

usually German citizens; does not matter whether they were born in Germany or not

• those born after January 1, 1975 are Germans if the mother or father is a German citizen

• Those born before January 1, 1975 could normally only claim German citizenship from the father and not the mother

• Exceptions included cases where the parents were unmarried (in which case German mothers could pass on citizenship) or where the German mother applied for the child to be registered as German on or before 31 December 1977

• those born outside Germany to a German parent who was also born outside Germany after 1999 will need to be registered as German citizens within 12 months of birth

• Persons who are Germans on the basis of descent from a German parent do not have to apply to retain German citizenship by age 23


Naturalisation as a German citizen• naturalisation by those with permanent residence who have lived in

Germany for 8 years• additional requirements include an adequate command of the German

language and an ability to be self-supporting without recourse to welfare• Exceptions to the normal residence requirements include: a spouse of a German citizen may be naturalised after 3 years residence in

Germany. The marriage must have persisted for at least 2 years persons who have completed an integration course may have the

residence requirement reduced to 7 years refugees and stateless persons may be able to apply after 6 years

residence former German citizens


Victims of Nazi persecution• people who lost German citizenship under the Nazi regime (mainly

German Jews) may be eligible for naturalisation without requiring residence in Germany or renunciation of their existing citizenship

• Children and grandchildren of such persons may also be eligible for German citizenship

German-born children• children who were born in Germany in 1990 or later, and would have

been German, were entitled to be naturalised as German citizens• child was required to apply for retention of German citizenship by age 23

and normally show that no other foreign citizenship was held at that time

German nationality lawLoss of German citizenship• A German child adopted by foreign parents, where the child automatically acquires

the nationality of the adoptive parents under the law of the adoptive parents' country

• German citizen who voluntarily serves in a foreign army (over and above compulsory military service) from 1 January 2000 may lose German citizenship unless permission is obtained from the German government

• Persons acquiring German citizenship on the basis of birth in Germany (without a German parent) lose German citizenship automatically at age 23 if they have not successfully applied to retain German citizenship

• when a German citizen voluntarily acquires the citizenship of another country• two exceptions: When the German citizen acquires a nationality from within the European Union,

Switzerland, or another country with which Germany has a corresponding treaty When permission to obtain a foreign citizenship has been applied for and granted in

advance of foreign naturalisation

German nationality lawDual citizenship• can only be held in limited circumstances:where a child born to German parents acquires another

citizenship at birth (e.g. based on place of birth, or descent from one parent)

where a German citizen acquires a foreign nationality with the permission of the German government

where a naturalized German citizen, or a child born to non-German parents in Germany, obtains permission to keep their foreign nationality

4. Historical Development of Migration (cont‘d)4. Historical Development of Migration (cont‘d)

Typs of ethnic minorities:

1. ethnic Germans

- ethnic German immigrants from Balkan and former SU

2. labour migrants

2006: 60% of foreigners are labour migrants

1980: 75%

3. Refugees

- 490.000 recognized refugees

- 200.000 open applications for asylum

4. Illegale Immigrants

- without permits

- 150,000 – 1,000,000

4 stages of German Migration History after WW II:

1. Stage of Recruiting (1955-73):

- Agreements with Mediteranian Countries

- foreign labour force instead of integration of women in labour market

(as in GDR)

- stop of immigration from GDR

- Rotationsprinzip

2. Stage of consolidation (1973-80)

- recruitment stop 1973 until 2000

- Familiennachzug

- first steps of integration: Department for Integration

- In 1980s Asylum seeking

3. defensive measures (1981-98)

- limitation of asylum seekers

- silent metamorphose of guest workers to immigrants

4. stage of acceptance (1998-)

- 1.1.2000: liberal, open citizenship law

- Greencard for IT-Specialists

- Federal Department for Foreigners, Migrants and Refugees

1955 Italien

1960 Spanien, Griechenland

1961 Türkei

1963 Marokko

1965 Tunesien

1968 Jugoslawien

a) Anwerbeverträge (Vgl. Treibel, 1999: 56)

Reports

Recruitment of Guest Workers• starts in the 1950s til the mid 1970s• In 1955 first recruitment contract “Anwerbevertrag” with Italy• entrepreneurial, wage-political and job market-political considerations

were decisive, although unemployment in 1955 was with 1.1 million or 7% relatively high (cf. Treibel, 1999:55)

• Besides, the employment of foreigners should only be a temporarily appearance political ideology of “Guest worker" – employment

• By the recruiting principle of rotation "young", "fresh" foreign workers should be available for the West-German economy

• „The recruiting nation-states, enterprises and recruited workers assumed themselves that they remain certain time in the recruiting country to save money for independent existence or long-term acquisitions and sooner or later to return to their country of origin“ (ibid55)

Recruitment of Guest Workers• There was a need for unqualified manpower for dirty and or badly paid

work• recruited workers were employed in those branches of the secondary

sector which became more and more unattractive for local employees and female employees, thus, e.g., in the mining, in constructions, metal industry, textile industry

• furthermore, a need for the tertiary sector: health service and gastronomy

• "foreign workers" were accommodated often in mass accommodations, camps and hostels

• „Guest workers are therefore functional for the structural change of the German labour system, because they allowed the rise of the local manpower.“ (Treibel, 1999:56)

Recruitment of Guest Workers

• in 1966/67 rise of unemployment rate in Western Germany• in 1973 stop of labour force recruitment and rotation principle• A new phase of the West German foreigners policy: consolidation• Until the end of the 1970s numerous restriction and adaptation measures

took place: (1974: reference regulation, 1975: Child benefit regulation; immigration stop)

• aim which was pursued was not furthermore to “replace” “old" foreign manpower by new ones and final remigration of labourforce in their homelands

• number of the foreign employees decreased: 2.6 million in 1973 (year of the highest level) to 1.6 million in 1984

Recruitment of Guest Workers

• In the 1970s also the process of migration of foreign employees’ families has started (family reunification)

• „Longer duration of stay, better living conditions and unrestricted possibilities of entry and leaving of the border, and this is especially important, the return possibility, led to the fact that foreign workers began to reunite their families.“ (Korte/Schmidt, 1983:17)

• Anwerbestopp of 1973 had caused the opposite• „When the foreigners had understood that from now on a return was

correctable definitively, not more like during former years by a renewed recruitment, a part of them began to organize the reunification of the family. Especially strongly this was observed for Turks. While in Greece, Spain and Portugal consolidated their economies, the economic and social situation in Turkey became from year to year worse.“ (ibid. 19)

• „Turks expected, stricter regulations for family reunification could follow, and, therefore, brought in their families to Germany

Migration from Turkey 1961-73

• German Turkish arrangement about the recruitment of manpower started on 30.10. 1961

• the Turkish military government intended „by a limited emigration to relieve the labour market, to bring in urgently required foreign currency. and to promote the economic modernisation of Turkey by know-how of the certified repatriates

• from 1961 to 1973 German enterprises employed about 710,000 manpower from Turkey

• rotation principle which limited the work permit to two years was also in interest for the Turkish government to control the migration flows and to use certified manpower in the country after remigration

• under the pressure of the German economy the rotation principle was dropped already in 1962 formally and was stopped in 1964

Migration from Turkey 1973-93• The second military putsch in 1980 in Turkey was a new turning point

after 1973• from now on migrants from Turkey came as regime opponents to

Germany• in the 1980s the number of those immigrants was 125,000 people• another reason for the migration to Germany was the economic situation

(e.g. rate of unemployment 18 percent)• „Besides, a return to the native country was irreversible – for Turkish

migrants because of the non-membership in the EC – there was no freedom of movement. Therefore, the time for returning to Turkey was shifted. Because also the medical care as well as the school education and professional training in Germany were better the stay duration rose on and on.“ (ibid. see 11)

Movements into and out of Germany by Germans and foreign nationals

from 1991 to 2006

Sources: Federal Statistical Office, together with our own calculations

0

2 0 0 .0 0 0

4 0 0 .0 0 0

6 0 0 .0 0 0

8 0 0 .0 0 0

1 .0 0 0 .0 0 0

1 .2 0 0 .0 0 0

1 .4 0 0 .0 0 0

1 .6 0 0 .0 0 0

1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6

Z u z ü g e F o rtz ü g e


Ethnic Minorities in South-Eastern and

South-Western Europe


Migration in the EU

• present immigration situation among EU member states is highly heterogeneous

• European Statistical Office (Eurostat) data for 2007 indicate the continuation of highly differing forms of immigration

• clear shift in the relationship between “old” and “new” immigration countries

• Thus countries on the southern border of the EU (Spain and Italy) are experiencing the highest level of immigration

• even the Czech Republic, a new member, has already overtaken the traditional receiving countries of central and northern Europe

• only the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Poland show negative immigration balances, although even the Netherlands recorded more emigration than immigration in 2007

Migration in the EU

• percentage of foreign population in the EU member states extends from less than 1% of the total population (Slovakia) through to 39% (Luxemburg)

• In most countries, however, the foreign percentage is between 2% and 8% of the total population

• in all EU member states excluding Luxemburg, Belgium, Ireland and Cyprus, the majority of the foreign population is made up of so-called third country nationals, i.e. non-EU citizens

Migration in the EU• strong differences with regard to the legal categories on which the

immigration flows are based• labour migration dominates in countries with less regulated labour markets

(e.g. the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Denmark)• in most other states family reunification represents the strongest

immigration category (especially apparent in France and Sweden)• Italy and Germany adopt a middle position, i.e. similar percentages are

attributable to labour migration and family reunification, although in Germany “other” migration also makes up a large percentage Spätaussiedler (ethnic German immigrants from the countries of the former Soviet Union)

• in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, Turkish citizens make up the biggest group of foreigners

• by contrast, citizens of former colonies are numerous in Portugal (Cape Verde, Brazil and Angola) and in Spain (Ecuador and Morocco).

Migration in the EU

• majority of foreigners in Greece are from Albania• majority in Slovenia from other parts of the former Yugoslavia• citizens from the former Soviet Union are most significant among the

foreign populations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania • in most of the member states immigration is dominated by the low skilled• only the United Kingdom records almost equal percentages of highly and

low-skilled migrants• in Italy, Austria and Germany, by contrast, immigration is dominated now

as ever by the lower skilled

Spain• Languages: Spanish (Castilian), Catalan (regional), Basque (regional),

Galician (regional) • Population (2008): 46,063,511 (INE, Padrón municipal1)• Foreign population (2008): 5,220,577 Persons (11.3 %) (INE, Padrón

municipal)• Percentage of foreign employees amongst gainfully employed: 14.4 %

(1/2008)• Unemployment rate: 9.6 % (1/2008), 8.6 (4/2007), 8.3 (4/2006) (INE,

Encuesta de Población Activa)• Unemployment rate of foreign population: 14.6 % (1/2008), 12.4 %

(4/2007), 12.0 % (4/2006) (INE, Encuesta de Población Activa)• Religions: 35 mln. Catholics (77 %), approx. 1.2 mln. Protestants and free

churches (2.7 %), approx. 1.1 mln. Muslims (2.4 %), approx. 48 000 Jews (0.1 %) (estimations, International Religious Freedom Report 2007)

Spain

From emigration country to immigration country• history of Spanish migration over the last five hundred years has mostly

been a tale of emigration• Traditionally, waves of emigrants have headed to Latin America, with

flows peaking at the beginning of the 20th century• from 1905-1913, 1.5 million Spaniards left the country for Argentina,

Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela• following interruptions stemming from the World Wars and the Spanish

Civil War (1936-1939)• between 1946 and 1958, about 624,000 people left the country for

overseas• approximately 300,000 people joined this final wave of emigration to Latin

America between 1958 and 1975

Spain• Northern and Western European countries began to recruit foreign workers• Spain became a source country of the “guest workers” needed by France,

Germany and, later, Switzerland• economic and energy crises of 1973/74 led to the end of foreign labour

recruitment by those countries, resulting in a drastic reduction in emigration from Spain

• from 1960 to 1975, approximately two million Spaniards migrated to other European countries

• from the mid-1970s to 1990, approximately 15,000 people per year went to other European countries through Spain’s “controlled” emigration programme

• majority of these migrants went to Switzerland and, to a lesser extent, France for a period of less than a year

• number of people sent abroad through the “controlled” emigration programme declined drastically following Spain’s entry into the EU (1986)

Spain

• Spain’s foreign population has been increasing slowly since the middle of the 1980s

• In the beginning, Northern and Western Europeans, in search of a (retirement) residence in a warmer climate, accounted for a considerable proportion of incoming migrants

• overall migration trends have changed, with increased levels of south-north migration from the “Third World” and, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, east-west migration from Central and Eastern Europe

• these new trends, combined with a period of prolonged economic growth in Spain, have led to a rise in the number of migrant workers entering Spain

Spain

• In 1975, there were approximately 200,000 foreigners living in Spain• number increased fivefold in the following 25 years to reach 1 million by

the end of the century• in 2007, around 3.98 million foreigners were in possession of a residence

permit• foreigners represented 11.3% of the total population of 46.1 million at the

beginning of 2008• high level of immigration has been responsible for Spain’s considerable

population growth• country’s population grew by 2.1% from 2004 to 2005, 1.4% from 2005 to

2006, 1.1% from 2006 to 2007 and 1.9% from 2007 to 2008

Minorities and politicalparticipation in South-East Europe

- participation of minorities in public life is essential: to ensure that their particular concerns are taken into account to enable them to influence the general direction of development of society participation in social and economic life enables them to take care of their

needs through their own active contribution

- investigation in South East European (SEE) countries shows:• a wide range of mechanisms in connection with minority participation and

representation, adjusted to the relevant situations in practice• mechanisms vary from federalism, through territorial autonomy,

proportional electoral systems and guaranteed minority seats in parliament and on advisory boards to various committees and commissions


suggestions:• if minorities are effectively represented in public affairs,

discriminatory standards and practices can be more readily eliminated

• effective participation of minorities in various areas of public life is essential for the development of a truly democratic, cohesive, inclusive and just society

• effective participation of minorities in decision-making processes, is a fundamental precondition for the full and equal enjoyment of the human rights of persons belonging to minorities


what is the state in SEE-countries?- both differences and common ground with regard to political parties

representing minorities- every country has political parties representing minorities and for them,

ethnopolitical mobilization is the main agent of organization- such parties provide for the political participation of minority groups, but

tend to be mono-ethnic, attracting support only from the one ethnic group they represent

- such parties are a stronger factor in local politics than in national politics, due to their voter base

- influence exerted by parties representing minorities on the policy process is dependent on the importance of the party in the country which vary across SEE


Romania• Ethnic minorities comprise more than 10% of Romania’s total population • Minorities in Romania can be divided into three categories, mainly taking the size of

the minority group into consideration: 1) Hungarians, the most numerous and politically well organized2) Roma, the second most numerous with several political organizations to represent

them3) 18 other minority groups with at least one political organization per group- Romanian Constitution guarantees one seat in the lower house of Parliament for

each minority group whose candidates cannot gather enough votes to enter the Parliament in accordance with the electoral system (Article 59)

- Through this clause, in the 2004-2008 Parliament 18 minority groups had representatives in Parliament

- With exception of the Democratic Alliance of the Hungarians in Romania (DAHR), which was able to gain enough votes to win seats in Parliament, the other organizations representing minorities have benefited from this provision

"Minorities in Europe”Session 11 and 12:

The Informal Sector, Minorities and Ethnic Minority EntrepreneurshipTheoretical Approaches, Empirical

Findings in Russia and Europe


Informal Sector definition• term "informal sector" has been used to describe a wide spectrum of

activities, which do not necessarily have much in common- tax evasion, corruption, money laundering, organised crime, bribery,

subsistence farming, barter etc. • concept was introduced by the ILO (International Labor Office) in a study

on Kenya in 1972• often the term is used to refer to economic activities that take place

outside a given recognized and legal institutional framework• activities in the IS generate an income that is both not taxed and not

controlled by the legal institutions which regulate the legal sphere• following Bernabè (2002) it refers to small either unregistered and

unregulated activities, or activities concealed in order to avoid tax payment, or even activities producing goods and services forbidden by the law

Describing the Informal Sector

Differences to the Formal Sector- smaller scale of enterprises and production units (varying from

individuals, single households to enterprises with a few employees)- lower complexity of the production process- use of high technology and expensive energy to a much lesser extent- less division of labour- lower capital-intensity- wages that are not based on the working time but on quantities (number

of produced pieces) - high fluctuation of employees- production that is located in the housing/ living space or on the streets - high degree of Insecurity

Describing the Informal SectorILO World Employment Programme Report puts the following

characteristics:- ease to entry- reliance on indigenious ressources- family ownership of enterprises- small scale of operation- skills aquired outside the formal school system and

unregulated and competetive markets.

but: following Kumar and Jena the above mentioned characteristics lack validity, because one has to focus on rural and urban as well as regional and international differences

Linkages between the Formal and Informal Sector

• earlier studies show a clear distinction between the informal and the formal sector

• recent studies emphasize that both sectors cannot be dealt with as two separate and independent spheres

• Indeed there exists a number of linkages and interdependencies• Following Singh (1996) one can find „upward vertical linkages“

and “downward vertical linkages“• „Downward vertical linkages“, e.g.: sale of goods and services

from the formal to the informal sector• „upward vertical linkages“, e.g.: sale of goods and services from

the informal to the formal sector

Linkages between the Formal and Informal Sector

• example: “subcontracting“: requires cheap and flexible employees, i.e. workers who are not bound to stable working contracts and social insurances, it leads to price cuts of the informal produced goods and the low status of the respective employees (Singh 1996:50)

• the fact that many informal enterprises nevertheless work on a sub-contract-basis for the formal economy indicates that the informal sector is to a large extent dependent on ‘external’ orders

• worsening of formal employment conditions, reduction in real wages and quasi absence of social security

• during the first decade of transformation a lot of households with working age member fall into poverty

• "new” phenomenon of "working poor" has become wide-spread• facing negative economic conditions, Russian population has to change its

behaviour on the labour market: selfemployment, moonlighting and informal activities have become a reality for many individuals (Kim, 2002)

• since 1998 the number of persons working in the IS increased

The Informal Sector in Russia

c.f.: Beuran/Kalugina 2006: Social exclusion and the informal sector: the case of Russia

The structure of informal employment in Russia

• among all types of informal employment the major input — over 50% — comes from the employees of informal sector

• self-employed, multiple job holders and incompliant formal sector employees account respectively for 21, 13, and 15%

• c.f. Merkuryeva, Irina (2006): Informal Employment in Russia: Combining Disadvantages and Opportunities, Discussion Paper, CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC REFORM AND TRANSFORMATION, School of Management and Languages, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, p.6

• age structure of informal employment by gender shows that the highest informal employment rates are observed among younger age groups

c.f. Merkuryeva, Irina (2006): Informal Employment in Russia: Combining Disadvantages and Opportunities, Discussion Paper, CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC REFORM AND TRANSFORMATION, School of Management and Languages, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, p.7

The structure of informal employment in Russia

The structure of informal employment in Russia• Informal employment on average provides lower wage rates as well as

lower monthly wage amounts


The structure of informal employment in Russia• the prevalence of formal employment — 90% — is observed in the

organizations owned by different levels of government• 50% of the employees of private sector are employed on informal basis• 10% of municipal and 8% of federal and regional employees work

informally


Infomal Sector does not automatically mean Informal Practices!!!

Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship


Who is an entrepreneur?

• Gartner (1989): “(…)the entrepreneur is the one who creates an organization.”• organizations are created all the time by people who are not entrepreneurs

(e.g., political parties, associations, and social groups)• Gartner criticizes Carland et. al.’s (1984, 358) definition of entrepreneur: “An

entrepreneur is an individual who establishes and manages a business for the principal purposes of profit and growth”

• Hebért & Link (1989, 47) conclude that “(…) entrepreneur is a person, not a team, committee or organization”

• Pickle & Abrahamson (1990, 5,9) introduce a compact definition of an entrepreneur: “An entrepreneur is one who organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk, for the sake of profit. The entrepreneur evaluates perceived opportunities and strives to make the decisions that will enable the firm to realize sustained growth.”

this definition does not include any process characteristics thought to be important at least in high growth ventures

Definitions of Entrepreneurship• four main concepts: concepts

entrepreneur is an individual actor in the market focusing on the entrepreneurial spirit to analyze the behavior in the market entrepreneurship is put into the centre and attempts to combine the actor

(entrepreneur) and the behavior in the market emphasizing the entrepreneurial process and combining time dimension and

behavior in the market

1Nevertheless, no commonly accepted definitions of the entrepreneur, entrepreneurial (behavior) or entrepreneurship exist

one of the best definitions of entrepreneurship is found in Ronstadt (1984, 28):“Entrepreneurship is the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. The wealth

is created by individuals who assume the major risks in terms of equity, time and/or career commitment or provide value for some product or service. The product or service may or may not be new or unique but value must somehow be infused by the entrepreneur by receiving and allocating the necessary skills and resources.”

Ethnic entrepreneurship studies• split into two types of discussion (Greene et al., 2003)apart of an underserved minority population that needs business

assistance to guide venture small businesses and developmentmodels of entrepreneurial approaches by certain ethnic groups

are not lauded but adopted for trial by other types of communities, whether those communities be natural or artificially created

• The concern over the definition of ‘ethnic entrepreneurship’ has been increasing over the past few years

• Minority entrepreneurs are business owners who do not belong to the majority population

• A minority may not (necessarily) be an immigrant and may not share a strong sense of group solidarity with an ethnic group, in terms of a shared history, religion, or language (Basu, 2002

Georg Simmel as starting point?• Simmel’s conception of the ‘stranger’ has opened minority discussions• Simmel was using the term ’stranger’ to describe a person arriving in a

new geographical location and becoming classified as a minority by dint of race, religion, or ethnicity

• According to Butler and Greene (1997), these early scholars developed ideas based on:

- the ‘stranger’ as trader- the social structure of society- the value systems produced- religious tenets

These explained fundamental issues led to the emergence of a theoretical framework for ethnic entrepreneurship

Approaches to Ethnic Entrepreneurship

- ‘Enclave Theory’- ‘Middleman Theory’- ‘Theories of Immigration’- ‘Ethnic-controlled economy’

‘Enclave Theory’

• is concerned with immigrants, entrepreneurship and labor market issues (Nee & Nee, 1986)

• adherents maintain that ethnic enclaves, as well as being economically and culturally linked, have historically been geographically based (cf. Menzies, 2003)

• an ethnic economy that is clustered around a territorial core– Cultural identity is key– Businesses and customers proactively and significantly recapture spending

along ethnic lines and at all levels– Examples: Coreatown, Chinatown, Bombaytown

‘Middleman Theories’

• cf. Bonacich, 1973; Bonacich & Modell, 1980; Waldinger et al., 1990• middlemen are between elites and the broad mass on societal level• considered as mediators between producers and consumers on economic level• they do business and are less committed themselves to the sphere of

production• ‘Middlemen theories’ deal with emerge and formation of these minorities• formations are a reaction to the animosity of the native population hence,

group pride and mutual help are developing which prevent that group members will be economically isolated

• other views: middlemen minorities claimed as a kind of ‘lock-up’ persons between elites and the broad mass for economic survival the group members turn to self-employment and business creation activities that generally have low barriers to entry and a high degree of liquidity (Greene et al., 2003)

• in ‘Middleman Theories’ the focus is on: trading peoples residing in diasporas• define ethnic entrepreneurship as “a set of connections and regular patterns of

interaction among people sharing common national background or migration experiences” (Waldinger et al., 1990)

‘Theories of Immigration’• focus on the elements and models of the business creation process for

immigrant entrepreneurs (Menzies, 2003• term ’diaspora’ is often used• Diaspora does not only refer to its Greek origin referring to ‘migration and

colonization’ but also to the voluntary residence without any colonialist motives within a country if there is a strong cohesion by collective identities

• Robin Cohen calls different features for ‘diasporas’: - scattering from a home country to at least two other regions- scattering occurs often involuntary and traumatically but, however, can also

occur voluntary- members of diaspora share collective memory and myth about their home

country and idealize this and his history- it results in a return movement- strong self-group consciousness is developing- relationships to native population are problematically because fear is occurring

that the group could be attacked or at least not be accepted by the majority population

- solidarity with ethnic group members who live in other countries; however, an especially creative, pluralistic life can be established within the group

‘Ethnic-controlled economy’• significant and persistent economic power exercised by ethnic employees in

the mainstream economy• Ethnic entrepreneurs usually cluster in the same occupations and industries• This can encourage and confer market power above and beyond individual wealth

and human capital• Booker T. Washington describes mutual help among Afro-Americans to

start an own business and the advantages that result from networks for business activities

• this approach can be seen as a further development of the three other main theories of ethnic entrepreneurship

• according to Ivan Light (2000: 9), “an ethnic economy (…) exists whenever any immigrant or ethnic group maintains a private economic sector in which it has a controlling ownership stake.”

• Edna Bonacich and John Modell define an ‘ethnic economy’ as “any ethnic or immigrant groups self-employed, its employers, their co-ethnic employees, and their unpaid family workers.”

Use of Ethnic Strategies

• Strategy definition: “the positioning of oneself to others in order to accomplish one’s goals”

• Typical challenges that necessitate strategy:– skills acquisition and training– recruitment and management of workers– managing relations with customers and suppliers– surviving competition– protecting oneself from political attacks

• Strategic responses– self-exploitation– business expansion by moving forward or backward in the chain of production– founding and supporting ethnic trading associations– cementing alliances to other families through marriage– Bribery, penalty payments, searching for loopholes, and organizing protests

Informal Practices an Activities

• formal institutions of the state socialism broke down relatively quickly

• informal structures, practices and relation patterns are resources that the actors in the transformative process can make use of

• How do these inherited informal structures and relation pattern influence the transformation process?

98

Types of ‘hidden’ (unmeasured, untaxed and/or unregulated) activities

• informal activities, which are undertaken ‘to meet basic needs’;

• underground activities, which are deliberately concealed from public authorities to avoid either the payment of taxes or compliance with certain regulations;

• iIllegal activities, which generate goods and services forbidden by the law or which are unlawful when carried out by unauthorised producers; and

• household activities, which produce goods and services for own consumption and are outside the SNA production boundary

c.f. System of National Accounts (SNA, 1993)

What are “informal practices”?

• people’s regular strategies to manipulate or exploit formal rules by enforcing informal norms and personal obligations in formal contexts

• reflect changes in the balance between constraining and enabling qualities of the structure

• functions move away from compensating for rigid constraints toward the active exploitation of weaknesses in the new systems

• it does not mean that informal practices are simply responses to political and economic constraints; they are also shaped by historical and cultural factors (c.f. Ledeneva 2008:119)

c.f. Ledeneva, Alena (2008): Blat and Guanxi: Informal Practices in Russia and China, Comparative Studies in Society and History;50(1):118–144

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Grossman’s five types of activities in the illegal second economy

• Stealing from the state, which involved stealing anything from enterprise light bulbs and toilet rolls to output produced, was widespread.

• Speculation• Illicit production• Underground enterprises or formal enterprises that

were simultaneously involved in anything from small-scale ‘plan manipulation’ to large-scale illegal production

• Corruption

c.f. Grossman (1982:249)

Grossman’s three types of corruption

• the daily ‘petty bribing’ of Soviet authorities, and particularly of law enforcement officials

• the tradition of prinosheniye, nowadays podnosheniye, which involved the regular bringing of valuable gifts to one’s supervisors; and the purchase of lucrative official positions

• blat, or the use of personal influence to obtain favours to which a person or firm was lawfully entitled

(Grossman 1982:251-2)

Bribery

• an act implying money or gift given that alters the behaviour of the recipient

• constitutes a crime • Black's Law Dictionary defines bribery as follows: „the offering,

giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or other person in discharge of a public or legal duty“

• can be any money, good, right in action, property, preferment, privilege, object of value, advantage, or merely a promise or undertaking to induce or influence the action, vote, or influence of a person in an official or public capacity

Is Post-Communism more Corrupt? The Social Capital Answer

• understanding “blat” as social capital• blat was widespread in socialist period; the dominant

form of corruption in the communist period• blat was an exchange of favors: even if gifts and

money were sometimes part of blat relations, the driving force of the transaction was the exchange of favors, and not a bribe

• Blat was totally conditioned by the existence of the economy of shortage

c.f. Krastev, Ivan (2007): The Corruption Paradox. Why Post-Communism Is/Looks More Corrupt Than Communism, in: http://www.colbud.hu/honesty-trust/krastev/pub02.doc

Personal Networking in Russian Post Soviet Life

• Blat emerged in the early socialist state and is still highly relevant today

• Blat was first observed by Sovietologists in 1950s (Crankshaw 1956, Berliner 1957)

• a comprehensive sociological study (Ledeneva 1998) was undertaken in the middle of the 1990s

• recent publications on Russian managerial culture have continued research into blat.

c.f. Butler, B. & Purchase, S. (2004). Personal Networking in Russian Post Soviet Life,

Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 12(1), 34-60

Definition and Origin of Blat • There is no unified, agreed meaning of blat and the term cannot

easily be translated into English (Michailova & Worm 2003)

• Joseph Berliner (1957: 182), “...the term blat is one of the many flavoured words which are so intimate a part of a particular culture that they can be only awkwardly rendered in the language of another...”

• Blat involves a “reliance for favours upon personal contacts with people in influential positions” (Kryshtanovskaia 1994: 9)

107

The Concept of Blat (Alena Ledeneva)• Ledeneva defines blat “as an exchange of ‘favours of access’ to

public resources in conditions of shortages and a state system of privileges” (Ledeneva, 1998:37)

• blat is the use of personal networks and informal contacts to obtain goods and services in short supply and to skirt formal procedures (Ledeneva 1998: 1)

• “blat is a roundabout way of arranging things, circumventing the formal procedure by using personal contacts” (Ledeneva, 1996:26).

• Through blat networks public resources were redirected to private uses and to the needs of personal consumption

• These relations were often disguised by the rhetoric of friendship, such as ‘helping out’ a friend or an acquaintance

• Typical of blat was the misrecognition of the reciprocity of exchanges• blat was omnipresent and uses in all spheres of society to fulfil

perceived needs and goods - or in other words: blat was normal

research of blat derives from three main areas:

• Sociology where blat was studied in a social context as an instrument of satisfying basic needs of common people in everyday life (Ledeneva 1998, Ledeneva, Lovell & Rogachevskii 2000).

• Business ethics where blat was briefly mentioned as a peculiarity of the Russian business class (Blackwell 1991, Stojanov 1992, Puffer et al. 1997, Hendley et al. 2000, Hunter 2003).

• Cross cultural analyses of Russian and Western managers that pointed out the different attitudes towards blat by Western and Russian managers (Puffer 1994, Puffer & McCarthy 1995).



The meanings of blat 1. refers to personal networking- the term blat came to Russia from the Polish blat, meaning ‘someone

who provides an umbrella, a cover’- this in turn is taken from Yiddish blat which means ‘close, familiar’, ‘one

of us’, ‘one of our circle’.- This meaning of blat contributes to its human face: people give special

treatment and help to those of their circle, but often this help is provided to meet the expenses of those who are out of their circle

2. alludes to insignificant criminal activity, such as minor theft- (criminal) meaning that explains the fact that most people either pretend

to have nothing to do with blat or refer to it in other words- ‘I obtained it by blat’ one could say ‘I received it from an acquaintance’- In a business context it is acceptable to say ‘I solved this problem using

my connections’ rather than to say ‘I used blat’



The meaning of blat in the Soviet period• often disguised by the rhetoric of friendship or acquaintance,

in terms of “helping out,” “friendly support,” and “mutual care,” (Ledeneva 1998: 37)

• continue a tradition of give and take practices in Russia (Lovell, Ledeneva, and Rogatchevsii 2000)

• moral obligations imposed by social relationships compel people to break formal rules, which results in the instrumental use of personal networks for achieving goals in other domains, often in a situation of acute need

• blat gave people in socialist period access to state resources through personal channels and other redistributive mechanisms of goods and services in short supply

c.f. Ledeneva, Alena (2008): Blat and Guanxi: Informal Practices in Russia and China, Comparative Studies in Society and History 2008;50(1):118–144

The meaning of blat in the Soviet period

“Blatmeisters” in the Russian context are people:- with certain talents to be successful blat transactors- characters who solve problems and arrange things for others, and

are thus called “useful people” (nuzhnye liudi)- “brokers” with many contacts, not necessarily pleasant to everyone

but energetic, jolly, and cheerful• were often employed in professions which delivered personal

services—doctors, beauticians, or sauna workers—or which gave them special access to goods—shop assistants, or supply and storage employees

c.f. Ledeneva, Alena (2008): Blat and Guanxi: Informal Practices in Russia and China, Comparative Studies in Society and History 2008;50(1):118–144

Discussion in Sociology

• The role of blat in contemporary’s Russia and its disappearance or continuing

1. The Give Me a Bribe Society2. The Relevance of Blat-Relations

Blat as a Personal Network in Former Command Economy

• One of the key meanings of blat is communication within one’s circle, or one’s personal network

• according to Michailova and Worm (2003) the three main features of personal networking are:

- Social resourcing- Continuity of relationship- Coexistence of trust and cooperation on the one

hand and power and domination on the other.

Butler, B. & Purchase, S. (2004). Personal Networking in Russian Post Soviet Life,


Social Resourcing• As blat exists not only within one’s own network, but also

between blat network members, the phenomenon has become termed ‘set blatnyih’

• Within ‘set blatnyih’, the members are involved in both double and multisided relationships ‘social resourcing’ or the ability to access various types of resources through one’s social connections

• following example: Exchange is often facilitated by participants outside the double-sided relationship. Hence, obligations might stretch to people whom one does not know directly or will never meet. In such a network persons A, B and C have mutual commitments of exchanging favours. In spite of this, only A and B as well as B and C are involved in double-side relations. Thus, even without knowing each other, A and C are mutually committed through their involvement with B

Butler, B. & Purchase, S. (2004). Personal Networking in Russian Post Soviet Life,


Continuity of Relationships• long-term personal relationships of former Komsomol (Young

Communist League in the former Soviet Union) officials help them to survive and succeed in business and in maintaining opportunities to acquire greater wealth for people of their circle

• indicated, most of the current ‘new Russians’ – wealthy Russian businessmen – are former Komsomol officials

• Their ability to ‘go through’ various issues in business can often be explained not only by their excellent self-discipline and organisational skills gained in the Komsomol, but to a large extent by having everywhere a circle of former colleagues and acquaintances

• They still have better access to government funds and permissions, bank loans, and resources

Lonkila, M. (1997) 'Informal Exchange Relations in Post-Soviet Russia: A Comparative Perspective'

• compares the informal exchange of favours, goods and information in St. Petersburg and Helsinki

• Forty secondary school teachers in St. Petersburg and thirty-eight in Helsinki kept a diary of their important social relations for two weeks

• Each evening they recorded their significant social encounters of the day in structured questionnaires, e.g. whom they met

• furthermore they added persons whom they had not met during the study period but whom they nevertheless considered as significant for their social life

• Clear differences were found between the informal exchange practices of Russian and Finnish respondents

• Russian teachers exchanged more favours, goods and important information

• Russian respondents having to use their relatives, friends, colleagues or acquaintances in order to obtain informally products or different kinds of services (eg. medical care)

• half of the Russian respondents reported blat exchanges, a practice not found in the Finnish data

• A good example is Olga who described her mother as 'blatnoi chelovek' (person inclined to do things by blat) as opposed to her father who never wanted to use his social relations

• Olga: ...[my own] mother - she is a 'blatnoi' person. Generally there is a category of people - whereever they go, nobody will ever deny them anything. But my father ... he was a very intelligent person, always 'please' and 'thank you'. He was always treated with rough words and left in tears..


• Interviewer: And did not achieve anything. • Olga: And did not achieve anything. He did not know how to ask, he sent

mother everywhere. I am probably the same kind of person. I love achieving things myself. Well, of course, if I need something some kind of contacts appear, it even turned out that I got po blatu to hospital!

• Interviewer: You got there through relations [po znakomstvu]? • Olga: Yes, I did not expect it! I asked [my student's] mother to come to

see me, the son of whom had started to skip lessons and behave badly. There were complaints about him, and I asked her to come. During our conversation she appeared to be an 'uzi' specialist [a doctor specialized in ultra wave diagnostics] at our maternity clinic. I did not know this at all. And I complained that I did not feel good and she invited me to her office. This is how it all happened. ...


• Interviewer: And she also arranged things for you at the hospital? • Olga: She arranged everything, she arranged for me to go very quickly to the

hospital and undergo all these analyses etc. But had I gone myself! You know how you take care of your own health - you do everything at the last moment.

• Interviewer: Yes, that's the way it happens. • Olga: And this happened again - po blatu [by blat]. • Interviewer: Now it is interesting; did you feel indebted to her? • Olga: Yes, I brought her a box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers, and - well,

she is just such a tender person, that... • Interviewer: And you resolved the conflict with her son? • Olga: Yes, we resolved it , here everything is ok (laugh) • Interviewer: And what about the doctor? Were you operated on free of

charge? • Olga: Yes, free of charge. ... it was only a maternity hospital, not far from here.

But I was amazed how they took care of patients. Completely gratuitous maternity hospital ...


• The informal exchanges reported in the St. Petersburg data were more often carried out with colleagues or other work-mediated relations

• stressing the importance of the Russian workplace as a social milieu• In the Russian data the informal exchange relations also involved more

examples of informal exchange mediated by a third person, whereas in Helsinki the relations were more of a dyadic nature

• continuing lack of trust in official institutions and social services was compensated for Russian respondents with the use of their personal relations

• through the use of brokers or a common social context, particularly the workplace

• resulting forms of social life can be characterized as personalized (and mediated (since the brokers were often used)

• networks of personal relations still continue to play a significant role in the life of post-Soviet citizens.


Table 1: Typical Content of the Exchanges of Favours and Material Goods in St. Petersburg and Helsinki Table 1: Typical Content of the Exchanges of Favours and Material Goods in St. Petersburg and Helsinki

Content of the Exchange St. Petersburg Helsinki

Obtaining (dostat), bringing or buying (on other person's behalf with her money) foodstuffs or other kinds of products

40 (17%) 6 (6%)*

Arranging medical or paramedical aid; eg. arranging a contact with a doctor, obtaining or bringing medicine

32 (13%) 7 (6%)*

4.

Lending things other than money (eg. books, videos, computer programs, diskettes, cassettes, sheet music, clothes)

15 (6%) 19 (17%)

5.

Helping with home repairs or work at datcha (St. Petersburg) or moving (Helsinki)

13 (5%) 5 (5%)

6.

Arranging useful contacts; eg. business contact, hairdresser, lawyer

12 (5%) -

7.

Sending or transmitting a parcel 11 (5%) 3 (3%)8.

Arranging somebody's child a place at school (university, sport camp)

8 (3%) -

9.

Tutoring others' children; eg. helping colleague's child in homework

8 (3%) 1 (1%)

10.Giving small gifts (birthday gifts excluded); eg. children's clothes etc.

8 (3%) 6 (6%)

11.Giving a car ride 7 (3%) 29 (27%)12.Miscellaneous small favours or help; eg. taking the children to or from school, sewing a button on shirt etc.

56 (24%) 33 (30%)

Total Number of Exchanges 238 (100%) 109 (100 %)

The Concept of Embeddedment: Polanyi• according to Polanyi’s definition of economy, economy is determined in a

process of social institutions which is characterized by mutual influences between human beings and the environment

• explains the concept of ‘embeddedness’ by three basic forms of economic integration

• forms refer to a specific social structure: reciprocity to a symmetrical social structure redistribution to an asymmetric one (centre-periphery) social structure exchange to a complex social structure

• Polanyi emphasises that only in the form of exchange exist both forms in which a market economic price is able to be effective and non-societal mechanisms

• Forms of integration can exist next to each other, e.g. a market system next to a redistributive system of taxation in the modern capitalism but, however, only one form is dominant for a society

The Concept of Embeddedness: Granovetter

• Marc Granovetter (1985) distinguishes between two types of embeddedness

relational and structural embeddedness relational embeddedness refers to ‘economic actors’ and

involves personal relations with one another following Kloosterman (2004) who refers to Granovetter, immigrant entrepreneurs are thus embedded in a (relatively) concrete network of social relations with customers, suppliers, banks, competitors, and, not to be ignored, law enforcers

structural embeddedness relates to the broader network to which these actors belong

Ethnic entrepreneurship, social capital and ethnic networks

• Immigrant and/or minority entrepreneurship studies especially focus on informal activities as they take place outside the regular framework (Epstein, 1994; Roberts, 1994)

• Embeddedness, however, tends to be mainly used in a rather one-sided way, referring almost exclusively to the social and cultural characteristics of groups that are conceived a priori to consist almost solely of co-ethnics

• but: this view on embeddedment neglect the wider economic and institutional context in which immigrants are inevitably also inserted or embedded (cf. Cassarino, 1997; Rath, 1997; 1999b; Rath and Kloosterman, 1998a)

• Kloosterman et al. (Kloosterman et al., 1999; Rath & Kloosterman, 2000) therefore propose to use a more comprehensive concept of ‘mixed embeddedness’

• this concept is much closer to the original meaning of embeddedness as intended by Polanyi (Polanyi, 1957)

• concept of ‘mixed embeddedment’ is encompassing the crucial interplay between the social, economic and institutional contexts (Kloosterman et al., 1998)

Presentation

The ‘Mixed Embeddedness Approach’• approach takes into account the concrete embeddedness of ethnic

entrepreneurs in the social networks of their communities• focus is on localities and the embeddedness of ethnic entrepreneurs

in their environment and/or community• addresses the more abstract embeddedness of ethnic entrepreneurs

in the socioeconomic and politico-institutional environment at the national level

• importance of laws, regulations, institutions and practices which condition the way in which markets operate (Barrett et al., 2001); (Kloosterman et al., 1999); (Kloosterman & Rath, 2001); (Kloosterman & Rath, 2003)

Interne Faktoren:

- andere Unternehmer

-ethnische Beziehungsnetzwerke (Familie, Freunde, Herkunftsbeziehungen)-Mitarbeiter-Zulieferer-Kunden

soz., kult. und ökon. Kapitalressourcen:

-Netzwerk-Solidarität-Materielle Hilfe-Geist und Innovation

Kleinunternehmer

-Fähigkeiten der Nutzung von Sozialen, kulturellen und ökonomischen Kapital

-Einsatz von „Impression Management“ – Strategien und -Taktiken

Externe Faktoren:

-internationaler Markt-nationale Volkswirtschaft-lokale Gegebenheiten-Banken-kulturelle, soziale Aspekte

ökonomische Kapitalressourcen:

Kredite, Anleihen, Subventionen, Zuschüsse, etc.

Implementierungen:

-Gesetze-Vorschriften -Informelle Absprachen resultierende rechtliche, wirtschaftliche, soziale Bedingungen

Ethnic Russian Economy in Soviet Estonia

• rise of the Russian economy in Estonia is connected with the occupation of the Soviet Union and the settlement of Russians in the Estonian SSR

• Russian economy in post-war Estonian Socialist Soviet Republic appeared as a result of large Soviet investments and immigration of the Russian workforce

• Soviet investment made possible to outline the Russian economy as it has been formed by privatization (Anderson, 1998: 397)

• According to Karklins (1986), Soviet authorities regard the modernization of economic relations as an important tool in achieving the goal of the rapprochement of nations and the erosion of ethnic differences in the Soviet Union

• At the same time, there were rational incentives (e.g. distribution of resources between Soviet Republics) for local elites to support the process of over-industrialization, which took place in Estonia at the end of 1950s (Ahde & Rajasalu, 1993: 71)

• Non-Estonian laborforce were brought in from Pskov oblast and other Russian regions into the most industrialized areas of Soviet Union besides St. Petersburg


• the North East region enterprises were belonging to the military-industrial complex

• In Tallinn, with an approximately equal ethnic population, were not so much top enterprises in which everything had to be hold in secret

• In contradiction, in Sillamae, these power stations which were producing electricity, or in the big enterprises which were producing submarines; they were generally closed for non-Russians

• in these secret economic areas, it was easier for Soviet political elite to bring Russian labour force from the outside and it was no problem to bring in people from all over the Soviet Union

• nevertheless, managers and ingeneurs were also brought in from Russia what was on the other hand necessary to control the economic and political procedures in Soviet republics


• Power relations were central to the whole Soviet system and dominated over economic and ethnic ones (Titma & Tuma, 1993)

• in the Soviet period, state interests of the political leaders and of the military-industrial complex were ‘core interests’

• Soviet economy was divided into so-called ‘all-Union’ (‘rulers’ of certain branches of economy) and ‘local’ segments (Vöörmann & Helemäe, 2003)

• division meant that networks of social relations and associative ties – distinctive features of the socialist command economy (Stark & Bruszt, 1998) – also became separated along bureaucratic lines

• moreover, any linkage between ‘local’ and ‘all-Union’ networks practically did not exist

• this also explains why the labour market was divided and nowadays, not only due to the less efforts of ethic Russians to privatize and become small or medium sized entrepreneurs is still segmented along ethnic lines (Vöörmann & Helemäe, 2003)

Ethnic Russian Economy in Soviet Estonia• Russian-based labour force, mostly immigrants, was

concentrated in basic industrial branches closely connected to the industrial military complex

• Estonians were mainly concentrated in agriculture, but also in the social services (Kala, 1992).

• as military enterprises were most powerful under the Soviet rule, key positions were filled with all-Union authorities

• Estonians ruled so-called ‘local industry’ (mainly light industry) enterprises

• feature of ethic separated workforce corresponded to the ‘different rules of games which were determined by very strong bureaucracy’

Ethnic Russian Economy in Soviet Estonia• Estonian case resembles a kind of ‘ethnic controlled economy’ • but it was embedded into an environment that differed significantly from

Western ones because it was characterized by- absence of private ownership in the Soviet production system- domination of power relations over economic and ethnic ones- embeddedness of economic relations into bureaucratic ones- separation of all-Union and local inter-firm associative networks with almost

no linkages• While in advanced Western countries ethnicity provided resources for access

to certain kinds of economic activities, under socialism resources and opportunities were allocated first of all through the bureaucratic channels of all-Union ministries

• ethnic segmentation of the economy was thus a by-product of its bureaucratic organization (Vöörmann & Helemäe, 2003)

• state interests and power relations in the socialist command economy were dominating economic and ethnic ones.

Ethnic Russian Economy in Post-Soviet Estonia

• After independence the new political elite started to transform both political and property regimes and simultaneously cope with the political problems of re-established state (Vöörmann & Helemäe, 2003)

• these changes also invariably influenced the ‘ethnic dimension’ in the Estonian economy

• structural changes were significant: decline of output in agriculture (the traditionally ‘Estonian’ segment of economy) and manufacturing (the ‘Russian’ segment of economy), while a rapid growth of services could be seen

• non-Estonians experienced collective downward mobility and shrinking labour market opportunities

• in 1989 unemployment did not exist, in 2001 the unemployment rate of non-Estonians was 16.8 percent, while among Estonians it was 10.4 percent

• in 1989, 26 percent of employed Estonians and 22 percent of employed non-Estonians were senior officials, managers and professionals; in 2001 this was respectively 29 percent and 15 percent (Pettai, 2001)

Ethnic Russian Economy in Post-Soviet Estonia• regional disparities have big influences on social and economic

consequences of the transformation process, but worse preconditions of Russian minorities can not be exclusively reduced to regional factors

• rather these preconditions were determined by both Soviet heritage of big industrial areas which were no more used and the lack of institution transfer into this region to improve the situation

• Estonians used to higher degree opportunities of privatization than ethnic Russians (Anderson, 1998: 397)

• it is crucial for the Estonian case that the ethnic segmentation of workforce during the Soviet period is a heritage

• ethnic segmentation on the contemporary Estonian labour market shows that Russian managers are mainly leaders of enterprises with a majority of Russian employees, or to a smaller degree with equal ethnic distribution

• Russian managers have no leading authority in Estonian enterprises

Focussing on Ethnic Russian Entrepreneurs• Vöörmann and Helemäe (2003) stress that the ‚Russian business’

in Estonia started to develop first in the secondary sector, where the share of Russian-speaking entrepreneurs constituted almost 50 per cent of the starting business people in 1991

• Gradually their business activities shifted more into the tertiary sector and the share of Russian-speaking entrepreneurs in it reached one third by 1995- a similar proportion with those employed there in comparison with all the Russian-speaking employed (Aho et.al., 1998: 57)

• greatest opportunities for non-Estonians lie mainly in trading and services are actively emerging, in addition to foreign capital-based private companies continuing in the secondary sector

• Pavelson (1999) notes that Russian-speaking young people do not want to work in the Russian-speaking enterprises representing the former large-scale industry because they consider the working conditions there to be unsatisfactory and the development opportunities to be too limited

Focussing on Ethnic Russian Entrepreneurs• comparison of invest in training measures between Estonian and ethnic Russian

managers shows that Estonian enterprises invest much more than Russians• “They are in their industries, in their workplaces. They have much more harsh

relations with their workers, they have lower wages. They are producing things, they are related to Western firms and they are keeping their Russian workforce and you see the language issue which is for example in Estonia very crucial. It is very favourable for Russian workers, because they do not need to speak Estonian and have no Estonians at their workplaces. But that is a kind of slavery, because these workers cannot find other workplaces, they are working in these Russian management enterprises. And that is I think it is a new social problem. But that is a thing which is not visible from the West. Because, if you have for example the competitive salaries, we have compared Estonian and Russians workers, Estonian workers have higher salaries. But all Russians and Westerns are arguing that this is discrimination, but if you now look at managers, Estonian workforce mainly works for Estonian managers and Russian workers mainly work for Russian managers. Russian manages keep their Russian workers in much more big pressure. So, that’s not in this sense discrimination, but it is exploitation”. (Interview in PhD)

conclusion: typical using of ethnic strategies, e.g. exploitation

Focussing on Ethnic Russian Entrepreneurs

• According to the 2000 Census, 24 percent of non-Estonians were entrepreneurs, compared with 34 percent among the whole working-age population

• One out of four non-Estonian employers was active in the secondary sector, while more than half of them were involved in the wholesale and retail trade

• non-Estonians were not overrepresented in trade, one might suggest that the concentration of ‘Russian business’ in this field of activity had no relevance to cultural preferences: it was rather forced choice

• While wholesale and retail trade is a traditional niche of ethnic economies, the Russian-in-Estonia’s path to this niche was quite distinct


• Enterprises in Estonia can be divided into three groups related to the ethnic composition of the employees

- 43 per cent of enterprises have mostly Estonian employees- 34 per cent have mostly Russian employees- 23 per cent have an approximately equal number of each group Estonian enterprises have an almost entirely Estonia workforce, nearly 90

per cent in Russian enterprises, Russians constitute 58 % of the employees Russians are mostly employed in enterprises with a mixed ethnic

composition or with a modest majority of Russians among the group of managers in Estonia, 73 per cent of Russian managers

were managers of enterprises with a majority of Russian employees 25 per cent were managers of enterprises with an ethnically equal

composition and only 4 per cent were managers of Estonian enterprises


• differences in East-West orientation of Russian and Estonian mangers

• Russian managers were generally more orientated towards Russia than towards the West, while the opposite was the case with Estonian managers (Anderson, 1998: 397)

• orientation towards Russia was rather a result of the possibilities which showed up in practical life, because Russian managers have thus had difficulties with being integrated into the Estonian market economy and utilizing the opening towards the West which has taken place during recent years (Anderson, 1998: 398)

• ethnicity still plays an important role in post-Soviet Estonia’s economy

• language is a crucial point hard to start and establish business if a person cannot speak necessary languages


Sexual Minorities in Europe


Sexual minority• sexual minority is a group whose sexual identity, orientation or practices

differ from the majority of the surrounding society• term was coined most likely in the late 1960s under the influence of Lars

Ullerstam's ground breaking book "The Erotic Minorities: A Swedish View" (Grove, 1966)

• initially the term referred primarily to lesbians and gays, bisexuals and transgender people (LGBT)

• others referred to as "sexual minorities" include fetishists and practitioners in of bondage and discipline, domination & submission, and/or sadomasochism (collectively referred to as BDSM)

• term may also include asexuals and people who may be strictly heterosexual and whose choice of actual sex acts may be vanilla, but whose choice of partner or partners is unusual, such as swingers or people in other nonmonogamous relationships, people who strongly prefer sex partners of a disparate

vanilla• vanilla sex (or conventional sex) is a description of what a culture regards

as standard or conventional sexual behaviour• different cultures, subcultures and individuals have different ideas about

what constitutes this type of sex• often, it is interpreted as sex which does not involve such elements as

BDSM or fetish activities • term "vanilla" derives from the use of vanilla extract as the basic flavouring

for ice cream, and by extension, meaning "plain" or "conventional“• term "vanilla" is sometimes used as an insult, to describe someone who is

overly conventional, or unwilling to take risks, in both sexual and non-sexual contexts

• in relationships where only one partner enjoys less conventional forms of sexual expression, the partner who does not enjoy such activities is often referred to as the vanilla partner

Sexual minority – problems of definition

• some LGBT people feel that the term sexual minority needlessly reminds them about discrimination and about being a minority

• They do not want to be a distinct "minority", but an integral and respectable part of the society

• Some other LGBT people dislike the term for being too inclusive, including swingers, polyamorists, BDSM people and other perceived "sexual strangers“

• These LGBT people want to make a larger distance between these sexual practices and bisexuality/homosexuality/transgender

• some conservative groups oppose the use of the term sexual minority for completely different reason think or feel that the term inherently implies some degree of legalization or protection for those engaged in such sexual practices groups prefer to call people who claim to belong to sexual minorities, deviant or pervert

Perversion• a concept describing those types of human behavior that are a

serious deviation from what is considered to be orthodox or normal• although it can refer to varying forms of deviation, it is most often

used to describe sexual behaviors that are seen by the majority as abnormal or repulsive

• perversion differs from deviant behavior, since the latter refers to a recognized violation of social rules or norms

• in psychological literature the term paraphilia is used, though this term is controversial

• concept of perversion is subjective, and its application varies depending on culture

• as a psychological term it was originally applied especially frequently to bisexuality, homosexual behavior

Deviance• in a sociological context describes actions or behaviors that violate cultural

norms including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime) as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways)

Deviance as a violation of social norms• without deviance, in other words, society would be stagnant• although generally unpopular, deviance can have a telling impact; indeed, it

has the capacity eventually not to be deviant at all, but rather to become socially acceptable, or even ultimately the norm, e.g. racial-equality movements

• deviance can be described as a violation of norms, a failure to conform with culturally reinforced norms

• but: social norms are different in one culture as opposed to anotherDeviance as reactive construction• Deviance is concerned with the process whereby actions, beliefs or

conditions (ABC) come to be viewed as deviant by others

Deviance Theories• sociological theories describing deviant behaviour:- structural functionalism- symbolic interactionism- labelling theory

1. Structural-Functionalism• Social integration is the attachment to groups and institutions, while social

regulation is the adherence to the norms and values of the society• Durkheim's strain theory attributes social deviance to extremes of the

dimensions of the social bond• altruistic suicide (death for the good of the group)• egoistic suicide (death for the removal of the self due to or justified by the

lack of ties to others)• anomic suicide (death due to the confounding of self-interest and societal

norms) are the three forms of suicide that can happen due to extremes

Deviance Theories• 1. Structural-FunctionalismRobert Merton: strain theory• discussed deviance in terms of goals and means as part of his

strain/anomie theory• for Durkheim anomie is the confounding of social norms, for Merton it is

the state in which social goals and the legitimate means to achieve them do not correspond

• an individual's response to societal expectations viewed collective action as motivated by strain, stress, or frustration in a body of individuals that arises from a disconnection between the society's goals and the popularly used means to achieve those goals

• non-routine collective behavior (rioting, rebellion, etc.) are two dimensions that determine the adaptation to society according to the cultural goals

Deviance Theories• 1. Structural-FunctionalismRobert Merton: strain theory• anomie is the alienation of the self from society due to conflicting norms and interests by

describing five different types of actions that occur when personal goals and legitimate means come into conflict with each other

conformity: when an individual accepts the goals and means together (e.g. white collar employee who holds a job to support a family)

innovation: when an individual accepts the goals but uses illegitimate means in order to achieve them (e.g.: drug dealer who sells drugs to support a family)

ritualism: an individual may lose faith in cultural goals but still feel obligated to work under the routines of legitimate daily life (e.g.: white collar employee who holds a job, but has become completely discontent with the “American Dream”)

retreatism: individuals may also reject both goals and means and fall under retreatism, when they ignore the goals and the means of the society. (e.g.: drug addicts who have stopped caring about the social goals and choose a drug induced reality in favour of the socially accepted lifestyle)

rebellion: the individual rejects the cultural goals and the institutionalized means, but seeks to redefine new values for society. (e.g.: radicals who want to repair or even destroy the capitalist system in order to build a new social structure)

Deviance Theories

2. Symbolic interactionism• deviance comes from the individual, who learns his deviant behaviour• deviant may grow up alongside other deviants or may learn to give excuses

for deviance• through interactions, individuals create the symbolic structures that make

life meaningful• people must define things and make them meaningful in order to make

them socially real• focus is upon the consciousness and the mind of the individual as opposed

to the institutions from where the norms come• to understand how individuals negotiate, manipulate, and change the

structure and reality to a certain extent

Deviance Theories3. Labeling theory:• labeling is a process of social reaction by the "social audience," the people

in society exposed to, judging and accordingly defining (labeling) someone's behaviour as deviant or otherwise

• the "invention, selection, manipulation of beliefs which define conduct in a negative way and the selection of people into these categories [....]” (Jensen 2001:88)

• deviance is caused by the deviant's being labeled as morally inferior, the deviant's internalizing the label and finally the deviant's acting according to that label

• dominant group has the power to decide what is deviant and acceptable, and enjoys the power behind the labeling process

Stigma

• Erving Goffman defined stigma as, “an undesired differentness from what we had anticipated’ (Goffman, 1963:5)

• a stigma was a sign, cut or burned into the body, indicating status of a discredited individual (e.g. slave, traitor, criminal)

• stigma originates from the Greeks, who used the term to refer to a branded mark on the skin that signifies something undesirable about the bearer of the mark (Goffman, 1963)

• Goffman classifies the stigmatized into three major groups:– abominations of the body (e.g., physically disabled)– blemishes of individual character preceived as weak (e.g.,

alcoholism, mental illness, unemployment, homosexuality).– tribal stigma (e.g., race, gender, religion, or nationality), and

Stigmafollowing Goffman (1963):

- within a society, we ‘normals’ hold notions of what it means to be ‘normal.’

- be normal means conforming to the present standard of behaviour or appearance within the society

- When individuals deviate from those expectations of what it means to be normal in terms of physical attributes, personality traits, and so forth, these individuals often are stigmatized

- Stigma occurs when an individual is identified as deviant, linked with negative stereotypes that engender prejudiced attitudes, which are acted upon in discriminatory behaviour

LGBT• LGBT (or GLBT) is an initialism referring collectively to lesbian,

gay, bisexual, and transgender people• an adaptation of the initialism “LGB” which itself started

replacing the phrase “gay community”• term LGBT is intended to emphasize a diversity of "sexuality

and gender identity based cultures" ‐• sometimes used to refer to anyone who is non heterosexual ‐

instead of exclusively to people who are homosexual, bisexual, or transgender

• to recognize this inclusion, a popular variant adds the letter Q for queer and questioning (e.g., “LGBTQ”) for those not explicitly denoted by LGBT, such as pansexuality, intersex, etc

Coming out• Coming out of the closet, or simply coming out, is a figure of speech for

LGBT-people disclosing their sexual orientation and gender identity• Framed and debated as a privacy issue• coming out of the closet is described and experienced variously as: psychological process or journey decision-making risk-taking strategy plan mass or public event speech act matter of personal identity liberation emancipation from oppression

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision-making

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression

Homosexuality

Transgender

• term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to deviate from the normative gender roles

• does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation

• transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual

Transgender identities• While people self-identify as transgender, transgender identity includes many

overlapping categories:• cross-dresser (CD) wearing of clothing and other accoutrement commonly

associated with the other gender within a particular society• transvestite (TV) refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often

has additional connotations• androgynes a person who does not fit cleanly into the typical masculine and feminine gender roles of their society• genderqueer think of themselves as being both man and woman, being neither man nor woman• people who live cross-gender drag kings drag queens usually a male-bodied person who performs as an exaggeratedly feminine character, in heightened costuming sometimes consisting of a showy dress, high-heeled shoes, obvious makeup

"minorities in europe” session 8: russian minority in abroad. the case of the baltic states...

Documents

assimilation of migrants

stages of assimilation

majority society assimilation

sociology slide

stage model of assimilation

migrants ethnic minorities

filling of jobs assimilation

us american society