Reciprocity in the Russian Labor Market: Its Role in the Transition from State Socialism

这是一项关于俄罗斯劳动力市场的研究，利用这一实证案例来发展关于社会网络在劳动力市场变化中的作用的新的理论命题。从国家社会主义向“市场”经济过渡的研究强调了商品和服务的集中配置以及通过市场交换进行配置的转变。在这方面，卡尔·波兰尼的作品经常被引用。波兰尼认为，商品和服务的分配有三种基本方式，每一种都有制度结构的支持：再分配，由强大的中央政府支持；交换，由自由市场支持；互惠，由包括社会网络在内的对称社会群体支持。现有的研究忽视了互惠的作用，通常将社会网络作为再分配或交换的支持，但没有清楚地把握它们作为支持互惠的作用。该项目探讨了互惠在市场和国家社会主义社会中都很重要的可能性，以及在东欧和前苏联等复杂转型时期，互惠发挥着特别重要的作用。这项研究考察了俄罗斯劳动人民如何应对私营和公共企业的剧烈重组带来的劳动力市场的动荡变化，以及许多长期雇主的实际消失，伴随着新组织和组织形式的兴起。它将在俄罗斯中心地带的一个大型工业城市萨马拉进行一项大规模调查，这将首次系统地了解在转型条件下生产组织和工人是如何匹配的。通过研究在这些公司中找到工作的公司和工人本身的概率样本，该研究将调查重组的意义，进入新发展的私营部门的工人的来源，公共部门萎缩导致工人失业的命运，以及人们在这些前所未有的变化中生存和在某些情况下繁荣的策略。研究的重点是劳动力市场分配如何受到工人和雇主之间先前存在的关系的影响，亲属网络在指导工人进入一种或另一种工作环境方面的持续作用，以及与以前或新的政治当局的关系在多大程度上产生影响，从而对劳动力市场产生影响。对这些调查结果的分析，将第一次从根本上全面说明俄罗斯人如何应对转型，从而有助于构建一个更全面的理论说明，说明在国家社会主义崩溃后，经济、政治和社会制度是如何联系在一起的。

This is a study of the Russian labor market, using this empirical case to develop fresh theoretical propositions on the role of social networks in changing labor markets. Research on the transition from state socialism to a "market" economy has stressed centralized allocation of goods and services and the shift to allocation by market exchange. The work of Karl Polanyi is often cited in this connection. Polanyi argued that there are three fundamental ways that goods and services are allocated, each supported by an institutional structure: redistribution, supported by strong central governments, exchange, supported by free markets, and reciprocity, supported by symmetrical social groupings which include social networks. Existing research slights the role of reciprocity, typically invoking social networks as supports for redistribution or exchange, but not clearly grasping their role as supporting reciprocity. This project explores the possibility that reciprocity is in fact important both in market and in state socialist societies, and that during complex transitions such as those occurring in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, it takes on an especially vital role. This study examines how working people in Russia have coped with the tumultuous changes in the labor market brought on by dramatic restructuring of both private and public enterprises, and the virtual disappearance of many long-standing employers, accompanied by the rise of new organizations and organizational forms. It will conduct a substantial survey in Samara, a large industrial city in the Russian heartland, which will provide the first systematic picture of how productive organizations and workers are being matched under the conditions of transition. By studying a probability sample of both firms and the workers themselves who find work in these firms, the study will investigate the significance of restructuring, the origins of workers who enter the newly developed private sector, the fate of workers cut loo se by the shrinking of the public sector, and the strategies by which people may survive and under some circumstances prosper, amidst these unprecedented changes. The research focuses upon how labor market allocation is influenced by previously existing ties between workers and employers, the continuing role of kinship networks in directing workers to one or another work situation, and the extent to which ties to previous or new political authorities results in influence that has labor market consequences. Analysis of these survey results will give the first full account from the ground up of how individual Russians have coped with transition, and thus will help construct a fuller theoretical account of how economic, political and social institutions are linked following the collapse of state socialism.