SPRING SEMESTER

*Please note that courses are subject to change.

Society and Politics (4 semester/6 quarter credits)
For this course, students attend TWO of the following seminars and then write a final paper on a relevant topic. Students are required to meet regularly with their professors to choose and develop their paper topics.

• Political Sociology
• Women’s Political Identity in the Making: European Union and Gender Discourses
• The Swedish Welfare Model in a Comparative Perspective
• Contemporary Sociological Theories

Economic Sociology (4 semester/6 quarter credits)
For this course, students attend TWO of the following seminars and then write a final paper on a relevant topic. Students are required to meet regularly with their professors to choose and develop their paper topics.

• Economy and Society
• Sociology of Institutional Change
• The Swedish Welfare Model in a Comparative Perspective
• Contemporary Sociological Theories

Culture and Society (4 semester/6 quarter credits)
For this course, students attend TWO of the following seminars and then write a final paper on a relevant topic. Students are required to meet regularly with their professors to choose and develop their paper topics.

• Culture and Nationalism
• Women’s Political Identity in the Making: European Union and Gender Discourses
• Contemporary Sociological Theories
• Sociology of Institutional Change

Mass Media and Society (4 semester/6 quarter credits)
For this course, students attend TWO of the following seminars and then write a final paper on a relevant topic. Students are required to meet regularly with their professors to choose and develop their paper topics.

• Mass Media in the Time of Transition
• Media and Civil Society
• Contemporary Sociological Theories

Sociological Theory and Methods (4 semester/6 quarter credits)
For this course, students attend TWO of the following seminars and then write a final paper on a relevant topic. Students are required to meet regularly with their professors to choose and develop their paper topics.

• Contemporary Sociological Theories
• Advanced Methods. Beyond the Limits of Survey Sociology

SEMINAR DESCRIPTIONS

Culture and Nationalism
This seminar consists of lectures/seminars that deal with the subject in a broad geographic perspective, with a special emphasis on Europe, and in particular Central and Eastern Europe. The discussion will be based on classic and recent theoretical works of sociologists and social anthropologists.

The theoretical analysis will be illustrated by case studies, which will bring material from different parts of the world, with special reference to the Central and Eastern European region. The current transformation of the region will be discussed in comparison with processes in other parts of Europe and in connection with European integration.

Economy and Society
This seminar is based on extensive field research performed during the last ten years, integrating scientific interests in sociology, economics and political science. It does not focus on a given theoretical approach, but instead, it takes various fields of analysis and demonstrates a necessary conceptualization for effective field research. Students engaging themselves in the seminar readings and discussions will have an opportunity to see how the empirical studies may affect previously dominating stereotypes, existing not only in a common sense perspective, but often guiding some scientific investigations. The main objective is to provide students with an overview of existing approaches in the field of sociological and political studies related to the economic performance and discuss their assumptions, theoretical framework, and results in confrontation with the field studies as well as their strong points as well as their shortcomings. It is expected that at the end of the seminar students will be able to critically assess the empirical studies that combine economic, sociological, and political science perspectives. Students are also expected to be able to set a theoretical framework for an empirical study in a given field.

Contemporary Sociological Theories
This seminar will be divided into five parts. Each of them will be devoted to one particular “missing issue” of social theory: the theory itself, subjectivity/agency, criticism, change, and reflexivity. Each of them will be presented from the point of view of different theoretical orientations, understood very broadly as paradigms of thinking, rather than sociological theories “of something.” The seminar will emphasize interactions between different theoretical orientations and the role of the theoretical legacy of social thought in shaping contemporary problems and their solutions.

Sociology of Institutional Change
The aim of this seminar is to analyze the changing institutions in the post-communist world in light of institutional theory. The understanding of the emergence, persistence and the decline of these institutions will be stressed more than the presentation of abstract concepts. This seminar will present theories “in action” as instruments for understanding institutional stability and change. During the seminar, the main theoretical concepts of the sociology of institutions (referring to institutionalism and new institutionalism) will be presented. Various types of institutional theory (including historical institutionalism and organizational institutionalism) will be analyzed and confronted with other approaches (traditional organizational sociology, rational choice approach). The theoretical perspective will stress the role of the evolutionary changes during the transition processes which contradicts the dominant view and stereotype of an almost instant character of the post-communist transition. Empirical data from studies in the region will be used.

Advanced Methods. Beyond the Limits of Survey Sociology
This seminar is addressed to students interested in non-survey methods of sociological research at the above-elementary level. The seminar consists of the following: a very brief recapitulation of general methodological problems concerning all sociological methods; a discussion of the problems involving methods employing already existing data like statistics, documents or data used in content analysis; an overview of observation, field research, and case study; a review of research strategies; and a presentation of the variety of action research and experimentation. The main objectives of the seminar are to help students writing an empirical MA to deal with their problems and to be aware of the limitations but also the strong sides of the methods they use in collecting and analyzing their data. The seminar also aims to improve students’ understanding of methodological problems involved in all empirical research, in all methods, using all types of data (especially in qualitative methods) and to enhance their knowledge of chosen methods (e.g. their benefits and limitations and their methodological peculiarities).

Political Sociology
“Political Sociology” is an amorphous label under which a number of themes and problems having anything to do with social change and distribution of power could be subsumed. This is easy to see from a quick scanning of various syllabi over the Internet and various textbooks in the field. However, the core themes are the following: “groups”, old and new social movements as well as ethnic groups in big cities; lobbying; the development of democracy and civil society as social change; the representative system and political communication in post-Enlightenment; elites vs. the masses in a knowledge based society and the problem of accountability; the relevance of the class concept; classes and ideologies; political socialization; citizenship and identity; problems of multilevel government and the so-called democratic deficit; non-decision making; political extremism as a mass phenomenon; voting behavior, conflict theories; and the intelligentsia and its relation to power.

The discourse(s) on civil society evidently is an essential part of political sociology as well as the political orientation of participants in political life, e.g. ideologies as well as other motivations for political behavior. In this seminar we will deal with some important classics in the various fields of “political sociology” and with some standard themes. We will also be able to draw on some still unpublished “works in progress” on the research frontier.

Women’s Political Identity in the Making: European Union and Gender Discourse
The debate on “eastern” enlargement re-opened the post-1989 deliberations on the gains and losses of the transition from communism to liberal democracy, market economy and western capitalism. The question on what specifically will the ‘united’ Europe bring or take away from countries in Central and Eastern Europe returned forcefully. Evoking “transition” discussions on the social, political, cultural, and economic dimensions of transformations of Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, one is reminded of frequent claims by feminist scholars that women were not only marginalized in transformation discourse, but that they also have been affected by the changes most severely. The recently completed eastern enlargement process echoed equally assertively the lack of engagement with women’s concerns. The gender dimension, if and when included, was treated purely instrumentally by candidate countries. The EU institutional rhetoric on equal opportunities and equal treatment, while having a long history, also was not ready to challenge the states of incoming members.

Since 1957, when Article 119 was accepted as a part of the Treaty of Rome, the European Union’s commitment to women of member-states resulted in the design and implementation of numerous gender-related laws, projects, lobbying, networking, training and other gender-sensitive activities. These efforts focused, for example, on professional training, reconciliation of family and work responsibilities, questions of equality and equal treatment or provided support and benefits to lone mothers. As a result, many of the EU members had to rethink and redefine their approaches and policies towards gender roles. The eastern enlargement of the EU forced new members states to accept many of the EU gender priorities, standards, and policies. Yet, despite EU concerns with gender equality as far as “old” member-states were concerned, the politics of gender was clearly marginalized and rather limited in the EU’s economically and politically charged debates on enlargement. In fact, gender neither played the determining and defining role in the current “eastern” enlargement, nor has it been situated as an important lens for the previous waves of the EU expansions. The question which obviously emerges now is what impact the enlargement will have on women of the new member countries: how will the EU commitment to gender equality be concretely translated into the local context of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary or any other new member-state?

This seminar will explore these issues by looking at the ongoing debates on theory and legitimacy of European integration, on democratic deficit, on the presence and activities of women in politics at the supranational, national, and local level, and on the risks and benefits of eastern enlargement for women. We will look specifically at the EU and its women-centered policies that have been developed over the last several decades and we will examine how these policies will or will not alter gender discourse in the new member states.

Mass Media in the Time of Transition
The main aim of this seminar is to give a broad view of the transition of the Polish media since 1989 as well as to give students a chance to meet those who are considered the main actors of the transition – journalists, editors, entrepreneurs and media-managers. That is why with the exception of the first and last class, students will meet in specific media enterprises. Students will gain insight into the context in which Polish media enterprises now work. They will gain an understanding of how some media enterprises of the former People’s Republic have been transformed to operate in a new context and how private media concerns have been established as competitors in the new media market.

Media and Civil Society
Course description will be available soon.

The Swedish Welfare Model in a Comparative Perspective
This seminar scrutinizes the development and viability of the Swedish welfare state from a comparative and historical perspective. Northwestern European welfare states have many features in common. The modern welfare state did not originate in Sweden, which was one of the poorest countries in Europe a century ago, but the country was “ahead of the crowd” after the Second World War, and thus pioneering both the construction of a modern welfare state as well as its realignment in response to fiscal stress and legitimacy problems, matching a globalized economy in recent years. Swedish economic history was a success story until the mid-1970s, and thereafter relatively successful in adapting to new conditions. Sweden is very much an Americanized society, except for its political culture, which rather appears in an extreme contrast. This makes Sweden very attractive as a case for comparative studies, which is reflected in several works in various substantial fields, such as comparative health care, regulation, and housing.

This seminar provides basic insight into the conceptual tools and methods for a comparative study of welfare states and their development. It accounts for various definitions, dimensions, and formative factors in the shaping of the Swedish welfare state. It accounts for the many diverse roots of the Swedish welfare state, its formative moments, and its growth to limits. It provides an introduction to the many dimensions of private vs. public and state levels and includes cases of privatization and decentralization. The seminar also emphasizes the central role of the labor market relations and wage policy for the success and crises of the so-called Swedish model. It provides basic knowledge about the party system, the role of popular mass moments, and “special interests” and their organizations, often discussed in terms of “neocorporatism.”

Sweden’s constitutional traditions will be accounted for, both in terms of the effects on shaping the welfare state as well as some realignment problems with Sweden entering the European Union. The viability of the Swedish model will be scrutinized from historical and sociological perspectives and in light of the concept of “political culture.”