CEELBAS LAUNCH CONFERENCE

1

• CEELBAS LAUNCH CONFERENCE
• UCL-SSEES
• APRIL 20, 2007
• EMERGING PATTERNS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY
• PROFESSOR STEPHEN WHITEFIELD
• DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS
• OXFORD UNIVERSITY

2
The background

• Dramatic changes in economic, social and
  political life of citizens and states since the
  collapse of Communist systems
• Huge challenges to individuals and families to
  survive and adapt
• Great variation in the extent and growth of
  social inequality across post-Communist states
• Considerable comparative evidence that social
  inequality matters to economic and democratic
  development and therefore to Europe

3
Multiple research objectives and a
multi-disciplinary design

• What is the character social inequality in the
  post-Communist region, how has it changed over
  the last decade, and crucially what does it mean
  to citizens themselves?
• What is the impact of social inequality on social
  mobility and other life chances and on social
  cohesion?
• How does social inequality connect with politics,
  in the stances taken by citizens and in the
  stances taken by post-Communist political
  parties?
• What impact do national institutional
  arrangements and state capacities have on levels
  of social inequality and what is the impact of
  social inequality on the economic and democratic
  development of post-Communist states?

4
Difference (/-) of Country Gini to United Kingdom
5
A snippet from a Latvian focus group

• Igors (m, 39) Because power is connected with
  money. Those forces lobby that power, yes. Those
  moneybags lobby. And we all know that it happens.
  Lobby in order to gain some gainful laws for
  themselves, to easier import, talking in the
  vernacular, different raw materials, smaller
  customs duties. In general, to create better
  conditions for their business and then that
  plunge appears - that inequality. A great plunge
  and the normal person can not keep pace.
• Moderator (m) So - money determines access to
  power. As more money, as bigger possibility to
  access power/
• Woman (f) Yes, I also think the same way.
• Igors (m, 39) Actually I think that all deputies
  - they I do not know I think that it is all so
  much mixed up, like
• Moderator (m) Like in a knot.
• Igors (m, 39) Yes, in a knot. But its not only
  here that way. In America, lets assume, I think
  that all those senators, philosophically
  thinking, money and power, politics and that is
  all, what is connected in-between. That is one
  unitary apparatus for earning some money.

6
A multinational team of experienced research
collaborators

• Department of Politics and International
  Relations, Oxford University, United Kingdom
• Russian Research Ltd, London, United Kingdom
• Vilnius University, Department of Sociology,
  Lithuania
• Institute of Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of
  Sciences, Bulgaria
• Charles University, Czech Republic
• Research School ICS, Department of Sociology,
  Stichting Katholieke Universiteit of Nijmegen,
  Netherlands
• Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
• Median Research Centre, Bucharest, Romania
• Institute of Sociology, Adam Mickiewicz
  University, Poland
• Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of
  Sciences, Russia
• Foundation Intellectual Perspective, Ukraine

7
A multi-level comparative cross-national and
over-time design

• Citizens focus groups and surveys in 13
  countries, replicating in part surveys undertaken
  by many team members over the last 13 years
• Parties expert survey of party stances on
  social inequality in 13 countries
• National conditions aggregate and national
  level data on economics, social conditions,
  governance and democracy
• Post-communist region compared, using existing
  aggregate and individual level survey data sources

8

• Social Inequality and Why It Matters for the
  Economic and Democratic Development of Europe and
  Its Citizens Post-Communist Central and Eastern
  Europe in Comparative Perspective
• http//eurequal.politics.ox.ac.uk