Original scientific paper
POSTSOCIALIST TRANSFORMATION AND RE-STRATIFICATION IN SERBIA
Mladen Lazić
orcid.org/0000-0003-1518-7990
; Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract
In this article, the processes of re-stratification in Serbia during the period
from the end of the 1980s until recent times are analyzed on the basis of findings
of several empirical investigations. In the first part of the text, the author
points out that a systemic change implies not only quantitative changes in the
control and distribution of social resources, but also changes in the way of
constituting the basic social groups, and the forms of their relations, which
means that the groups themselves (ruling elites, middle classes, and even manual
workers) in socialism and in capitalism must be defined differently. In
the second part of the text, attention is drawn to the changes in three areas of
the stratificational system in Serbia: mobility, economic differentiation and
value orientations. In the field of social mobility, an increase of self-recruitment
of all basic classes is established, but also, in particular, a strengthening
of barriers between manual workers and higher social strata. Furthermore, the
author points out an increase in economic differentiation, and a growing importance
of private property to this differentiation (the singling out of major
private entrepreneurs on the top of the material status hierarchy). It is shown
that, on the level of values, all classes (including the ruling class and the middle
class) are characterized by inconsistency, in terms of a pronounced presence
of statist-distributive values, which hampers the process of consolidation
of a new institutional and normative (market and pluralistic) order in
Serbia.
Keywords
stratificational changes; mobility; economic position; value orientations; Serbia
Hrčak ID:
74109
URI
Publication date:
18.11.2011.
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