LCSR International Workshop – Day 2
The sessions on 27 April focused on nationalism, social inequality, and social conflicts.
In the session “Nationalism I” chaired by Roberto Foa (Harvard University, USA), we had two presentations by Zufar Makhmutov (Department of Ethnology at the Mardzhani Institute of History of the Academy of Science of the Tatar Republic, Kazan) and Boris Sokolov (LCSR HSE, St. Petersburg). The author of the first report analyzed the nationalist ideology of Kazakhstan with qualitative and quantitative methods by applying them to field data collected in 2005-2012. Boris assessed predictors of the electoral performance of radical right parties using data for 29 European countries in 1990-2011. The author concluded that the effect of post-materialism on the dependent variable is absent and modernization in European countries may not have any impact on xenophobia and tolerance.
At the working session “Nationalism II” chaired by Andrey Shcherbak (LCSR HSE, St. Petersburg) presentations were made by Marharyta Fabrykant (Belarusian State University, Minsk,) and Margarita Zavadskaya (European University Institute, Florence). The first report was concerned with interactions among collectivism, nationalism, and multiculturalism. The author of the second report argued that in most of the authoritarian countries those sharing emancipative values to a greater extent tend to take part in peaceful forms of protest the size of which varies across countries.
Afterwards Stefan Hradil (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) delivered a special guest lecture entitled “Recent Trends in Social Inequality in Germany Compared to Other European Countries.” In his opinion, the problem of social inequality is not as pressing as it is often perceived by a country’s citizens. Citizens’ discontent may be attributed to the steep rise of inequality, and also the fact that Germans were accustomed to prosperity and a rising middle-class before the crisis. In addition, such discontent is worsened by growing social segregation, especially in urban areas.
The session “Intergenerational Solidarity and Welfare Support” was chaired by Arye Rattner (University of Haifa, Israel). Irina Siegel (University of Freiburg) and Olga Gryaznova (LCSR HSE, Moscow) presented their progress reports in this section. The first talk was on the impact of global modernization processes on filial responsibilities. In particular, Irina explained how institutional and cultural differences of post-socialist welfare states and western European democracies affect informal care potential in different social milieus. The second report dealt with the multidimensionality of support of a welfare state. Olga investigated the predictors of support for state intervention and a more selective approach to welfare programs in six broad groups of countries which have adopted different types of welfare state.
In the session “Social Justice, Aging and Generations” chaired by Stefan Hradil (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) reports were presented by Zsófia Ignácz (Jacobs University, Bremen) and Julia Zelikova (LCSR HSE, St. Petersburg). The first report examined if people’s ideas about justice regarding wage distribution are determined by the time spent living under a socialist regime. The second report addressed welfare policy towards different generations: what regime of welfare state is considered just by younger and older generations and a welfare state’s impact on individual subjective well-being of young and old people.
by Aleksey Domanov