This book analyses social change in Russia, in particular the development of a middle class, one of the most important social and political projects of Putin's administration. Using unique survey data collected in 1998, 2007 and 2015, the authors make extensive and theoretically justified analyses of the changing social distinctions in Russia over the past 20 years. Offering a sophisticated analysis of classes and class they acknowledge that in class analysis there are different phases, requiring different concepts. The first phase is the analysis of class positions; the second is the study of the work and reproduction situations of class groups and the final step is the analysis of class interests. While acknowledging that there are a number Russian-specific factors that seriously complicate traditional class analysis, the authors maintain that the basic tenets of class analysis still hold true. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, political science, transition studies, social policy and Russian studies and anyone who wants to understand the internal divisions and organization of the middle class in Russia.

This title was first published in 2001. A depiction of the decollectivization process of agriculture and the rebirth of capitalistic relations in Southern Estonia - with all their consequences at various levels of social structure and social relations.

This title was first published in 2001. A depiction of the decollectivization process of agriculture and the rebirth of capitalistic relations in Southern Estonia - with all their consequences at various levels of social structure and social relations.

This book analyses social change in Russia, in particular the development of a middle class, one of the most important social and political projects of Putin's administration. Using unique survey data collected in 1998, 2007 and 2015, the authors make extensive and theoretically justified analyses of the changing social distinctions in Russia over the past 20 years. Offering a sophisticated analysis of classes and class they acknowledge that in class analysis there are different phases, requiring different concepts. The first phase is the analysis of class positions; the second is the study of the work and reproduction situations of class groups and the final step is the analysis of class interests. While acknowledging that there are a number Russian-specific factors that seriously complicate traditional class analysis, the authors maintain that the basic tenets of class analysis still hold true. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, political science, transition studies, social policy and Russian studies and anyone who wants to understand the internal divisions and organization of the middle class in Russia.

This volume is composed of interviews with entrepreneurs from Bulgaria, Estonia, Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russian Karelia, and reveals both unique patterns and striking similarities in entrepreneurial activities during the administrative economy of socialism and the period of post-socialism. The book challenges simultaneously the common way of conceptualizing entrepreneurship, the commonly held belief that there were no entrepreneurs under socialism, and the commonly held idea of post-socialism as an antidote to socialist order. The stories of start-up entrepreneurs of the post-socialist transition also challenge some of the key neo-liberal principles. The book is theoretically inspired by the recent studies of economic historians, critical reading of the classical ideas of Joseph Schumpeter on innovations in non-market economies, and the original model of the communist `Sacred and Profane', developed by Markku Kivinen.