Call for Papers - "State VS Individual Morality in Post-Socialism"

Deadline for submitting full papers: February 10, 2014

Over the past decade we have witnessed a tendency to critically look at the way state morality, laws and rules are constructed. Following the appearance of Gibson-Graham's seminal work (1996), the term ‘diverse economies’ has come to populate a growing number of scholarly works across a wide range of disciplines. As part of this scholarship alternative narratives to capitalism have been explored and neoliberalism has been criticised. Based on the Bourdieaun remark that individual and state moralities do not necessarily overlap, a number of empirical works (Polese 2008; Rasanayagam 2011; Wanner 2005) have shown the limits of the corrupt-non-corrupt distinction. This, in turn, has highlighted the potential conflict between what is legal (with a definition of legality provided by the state) and what is socially acceptable by the citizens themselves (van Schendel & Abrahams 2005). This has led to the understanding that what a society, or a group of individuals, is ready toaccept and justify is not necessarily what the state official narrative (based on laws and rules) would accept.

We welcome empirically-rich accounts, constructed on recent and/or ongoing research, that broadly deal with the topic suggested above.

Gibson-Graham, J.K. (1996). The End Of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell Publishers.

Polese, A. (2008). ‘If I Receive it, it is a Gift; if I Demand it, then it is a Bribe’ on the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-soviet Ukraine. Anthropology in Action,15(3), 47-60.

Rasanayagam, J. (2011). Informal Economy in an Informal State in Surviving Post-Socialism. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 15(11/12), 681-696.

van Schendel, W. & I. Abraham (Eds.) (2005). Illicit Flows and Criminal Things: States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalization. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Wanner, C. (2005). Money, Morality and New Forms of Exchange in Postsocialist Ukraine. Ethnos, 70(4), 515-537.

The deadline for the 2014 Spring issue is 10 February 2014. However, potential contributors are welcome to contact us at an early stage to discuss an idea you might want to develop or have developed. Please visit the webpage www.tlu.ee/stss for further information on submission guidelines or contact  stss@tlu.ee (also if you would like to discuss a proposal).

Studies of Transition States and Societies
e-mail:  stss@tlu.ee