"Polish" and "Ukrainian" Cases of the Socialist Model of Modernization: Case Study of Formal and Informal Behavior after 1945

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The implementation of the Soviet model of development in Poland encountered an unforeseen problem of strong socio-cultural conditions. Considering this fact, we would like to draw attention to the "Polish case", which has its roots in many centuries of specific shaping of social attitudes and behaviors. It can be assumed that their origin result from the entanglement of religious, national, political factors and entrepreneurial behavior. The "Polish case" understood in this way became the basis for the thesis that the socialist model of modernization did not achieve its goals due to strong informal institutions. Tradition, culture and religion permeating the family intergenerationally, are strengthened in the local environment and in the wider social life. They were some of the reasons for the instrumental, even selective, treatment of the official assumptions of socialist modernization by the Polish society. Thus, the so-called "Polish way of perceiving reality" became visible against the background of the countries of the socialist camp. Similarly interesting is the issue of Ukrainian society, which within the USSR formally co-created the socialist path of modernization, and at the same time – informally – referred to the idea of its nationalism and built its identity on the basis of Polish or even more multicultural heritage.

Sub Unit

• Economic History/Economics/Business

Chair

• Marina B. Mogilner, U of Illinois at Chicago

Papers

• The Paris Magazine 'Kultura' (1947-2000) as a Polish–Ukrainian Laboratory of Democracy and Free Market Thinking - Dagmara Jajesniak-Quast, Viadrina European U (Germany)

• The New Society of the Western and Northern Territories of the People's Republic of Poland as a Laboratory of Formal and Informal Behavior - Konrad Walerski, European U Viadrina (Germany)

• The Importance of the Act of December 23, 1988 on Economic Activity for the Transformation of Private Owners - Slawomir Kamosinski, Kazimierz Wielki U (Poland)

Discussant

• Padraic Kenney, U of Kentucky