David Ost | Hobart & William Smith Colleges (original) (raw)
Papers by David Ost
The Cambridge Handbook of Labor and Democracy, 2022
This piece argues that workers and unions are not necessarily a pro-democratic force. The literat... more This piece argues that workers and unions are not necessarily a pro-democratic force. The literature arguing otherwise typically looks only at political democracy, or what I call Democracy I. But the democracy that is increasingly under attack today centers on its egalitarian and formal-institutional aspects, or Democracy II and III. The paper looks at how both higher and lower-skilled workers relate to the three types of democracy, arguing that the only certain positive correlation is between workers and Democracy I. “Dominant-essence” workers (those with the privileged ascriptive characteristics of the given national community) often gain by being anti-egalitarian (opposed to Democracy II), while only college-educated workers have a structural propensity to be concerned with institutional autonomy (Democracy III). Whether labor supports democracy or helps undermine it depends on their view of democracy, on which party or ideology they accept as their own. Being a worker or a union doesn’t determine much in itself.
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Constellations, 2017
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East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2015
After 1989, class appeared to be everywhere and nowhere. The messy consequences of the emergence ... more After 1989, class appeared to be everywhere and nowhere. The messy consequences of the emergence of new classes and new types of economic inequalities were plain for all to see, but no one uttered the term “class.” The concept appeared illegitimate because of associations with the old regime, even though it always had more success explaining developments in the capitalist world east Europe was entering than the state socialist world it was leaving. The media and academy adopted a discourse of “normality” instead: New rules resulted not from policy choices empowering certain groups at the expense of others but from necessity, and people just had to adapt. Because the economic collapse nevertheless elicited much anger and frustration, the absence of class talk contributed to a proliferation of nationalist talk, and thus had political consequences. The paper rehearses reasons for the decline of class analysis in the region, and notes the post-1989 fascination with the “middle class.” I...
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East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2015
Class became virtually a taboo topic in Poland after the fall of the communist system, and a disc... more Class became virtually a taboo topic in Poland after the fall of the communist system, and a discourse of “normality” took hold. Social scientists and journalists considered new market institutions natural and inescapable and urged people to adapt. Sociologists were more interested in the identity of the new elites than the social consequences of the new capitalism, and a cult of a not-yet-existing “middle class” quickly grew. Inequality and poverty, previously understood as systemic, were now presented as due to individual pathology. That class talk became so marginalized despite the historical robustness of Polish sociology as a discipline is explained by the dominance of a functionalist stratification paradigm, which kept questions relevant to the new system, about emerging class relations and power, from even being raised. Polish sociology thus appeared stuck in the past and in the future—thinking about stratification without power, and imagining an individualist meritocracy as ...
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Anthropology of East Europe Review, 1991
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Pol Sociol Rev, 2001
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Human Architecture Journal of the Sociology of Self Knowledge, 2009
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Polish Sociological Review, 2000
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Studies in Comparative Communism, 1988
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Dissent, 2013
Maybe it’s because Ryszard Kapuscinski told so many stories about himself that little is actually... more Maybe it’s because Ryszard Kapuscinski told so many stories about himself that little is actually known about him. We meet him in the alleyways of Dakar and the bazaars of Tehran, the trenches in Angola and the sidestreets of Tegucigalpa, just as the city is being attacked. He doesn’t so much describe these places as invites us to taste them, and we can do so through his perfect vignettes about his interactions with the people and the physical surroundings. Despite all this intimacy, we never know who he is. For he doesn’t write about himself but about “Ryszard Kapuscinski,” the hero of his books who has all these revealing encounters. Now we have a guide who tells us of the man, not the hero, in his context of communist Poland. Artur Domosławski, himself a Polish journalist who modeled himself on Kapuscinski—he calls him his “mentor” or “master”—tells us two stories: one about Kapuscinski, and one about the Poland that made him.
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Theory and Society, 1993
... Civil society in post-communism Let's begin with the apparent paradox: the continued... more ... Civil society in post-communism Let's begin with the apparent paradox: the continued weakness of civil society in the post-communist era. For if one thing had seemed clear, it was that the post-communist period in East Europe ...
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Telos, 1991
Recent parliamentary elections in Poland have confirmed what had long been obvious: that the vete... more Recent parliamentary elections in Poland have confirmed what had long been obvious: that the veteran liberal opposition, the intellectual ideologues of the “independent civil society” — Michnik, Kuron, and the old KOR milieu, presently grouped around the Democratic Union and the newspaper Gazeta Wyboreza (but not the small, recently-formed, liberal Democratic Party, the pro-Walesa Gdansk party of former prime minister Jan Krzysztof Bielecki) — have finally lost out. Although the Democratic Union won 13.8% of the vote, making it the largest party of a divided parliament, just barely ahead of the former Communists, the depth of their isolation was revealed after the elections when their efforts to put together a governmental majority failed miserably.
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Telos, 1994
In the 20th anniversary issue in 1988, Telos editors continually returned to one theme: Telos'... more In the 20th anniversary issue in 1988, Telos editors continually returned to one theme: Telos' marginality. The journal was never part of any movement, political or otherwise, and proud of it. “What united us,” writes Frank Adler, was “the experience of pursuing [our] project alone.” Paul Breines says Telos sought marginality and achieved it twice over: a “dual marginality,” he calls it, from the Left and from academia. While this kept Telos from the center of policy debates, it also kept it provocative, iconoclastic, brazen. As Breines noted a few years earlier, “Telos was the New Left's schlemiel, its Good Soldier Schweik, its Yossarian.” By stubbornly exploring areas others dared not tread, Telos was able to bring the esoteric abstractions of Critical Theory to a New Left shouting about “relevance.”
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Telos, 1992
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The Slavic and East European Journal, 2000
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Perspectives on Politics, 2005
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International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 2009
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European Journal of Industrial Relations, 2002
Despite recent arguments that political and social movement unionism is the key to labour revital... more Despite recent arguments that political and social movement unionism is the key to labour revitalization, this article shows that such strategies have been detrimental to labour in Eastern Europe, and that only a recent turn towards economic unionism has helped turn the tide. Through an analysis of East European labour strategies since 1989, particularly in Poland, the article argues that much recent theory is based on capitalist experiences that are inappropriate for understanding post-communism. Whether social movement unionism will be beneficial to labour depends on the kind of social movement of which unions see themselves a part.
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The Cambridge Handbook of Labor and Democracy, 2022
This piece argues that workers and unions are not necessarily a pro-democratic force. The literat... more This piece argues that workers and unions are not necessarily a pro-democratic force. The literature arguing otherwise typically looks only at political democracy, or what I call Democracy I. But the democracy that is increasingly under attack today centers on its egalitarian and formal-institutional aspects, or Democracy II and III. The paper looks at how both higher and lower-skilled workers relate to the three types of democracy, arguing that the only certain positive correlation is between workers and Democracy I. “Dominant-essence” workers (those with the privileged ascriptive characteristics of the given national community) often gain by being anti-egalitarian (opposed to Democracy II), while only college-educated workers have a structural propensity to be concerned with institutional autonomy (Democracy III). Whether labor supports democracy or helps undermine it depends on their view of democracy, on which party or ideology they accept as their own. Being a worker or a union doesn’t determine much in itself.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Constellations, 2017
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East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2015
After 1989, class appeared to be everywhere and nowhere. The messy consequences of the emergence ... more After 1989, class appeared to be everywhere and nowhere. The messy consequences of the emergence of new classes and new types of economic inequalities were plain for all to see, but no one uttered the term “class.” The concept appeared illegitimate because of associations with the old regime, even though it always had more success explaining developments in the capitalist world east Europe was entering than the state socialist world it was leaving. The media and academy adopted a discourse of “normality” instead: New rules resulted not from policy choices empowering certain groups at the expense of others but from necessity, and people just had to adapt. Because the economic collapse nevertheless elicited much anger and frustration, the absence of class talk contributed to a proliferation of nationalist talk, and thus had political consequences. The paper rehearses reasons for the decline of class analysis in the region, and notes the post-1989 fascination with the “middle class.” I...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2015
Class became virtually a taboo topic in Poland after the fall of the communist system, and a disc... more Class became virtually a taboo topic in Poland after the fall of the communist system, and a discourse of “normality” took hold. Social scientists and journalists considered new market institutions natural and inescapable and urged people to adapt. Sociologists were more interested in the identity of the new elites than the social consequences of the new capitalism, and a cult of a not-yet-existing “middle class” quickly grew. Inequality and poverty, previously understood as systemic, were now presented as due to individual pathology. That class talk became so marginalized despite the historical robustness of Polish sociology as a discipline is explained by the dominance of a functionalist stratification paradigm, which kept questions relevant to the new system, about emerging class relations and power, from even being raised. Polish sociology thus appeared stuck in the past and in the future—thinking about stratification without power, and imagining an individualist meritocracy as ...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Anthropology of East Europe Review, 1991
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Pol Sociol Rev, 2001
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Human Architecture Journal of the Sociology of Self Knowledge, 2009
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Polish Sociological Review, 2000
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Studies in Comparative Communism, 1988
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Dissent, 2013
Maybe it’s because Ryszard Kapuscinski told so many stories about himself that little is actually... more Maybe it’s because Ryszard Kapuscinski told so many stories about himself that little is actually known about him. We meet him in the alleyways of Dakar and the bazaars of Tehran, the trenches in Angola and the sidestreets of Tegucigalpa, just as the city is being attacked. He doesn’t so much describe these places as invites us to taste them, and we can do so through his perfect vignettes about his interactions with the people and the physical surroundings. Despite all this intimacy, we never know who he is. For he doesn’t write about himself but about “Ryszard Kapuscinski,” the hero of his books who has all these revealing encounters. Now we have a guide who tells us of the man, not the hero, in his context of communist Poland. Artur Domosławski, himself a Polish journalist who modeled himself on Kapuscinski—he calls him his “mentor” or “master”—tells us two stories: one about Kapuscinski, and one about the Poland that made him.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Theory and Society, 1993
... Civil society in post-communism Let's begin with the apparent paradox: the continued... more ... Civil society in post-communism Let's begin with the apparent paradox: the continued weakness of civil society in the post-communist era. For if one thing had seemed clear, it was that the post-communist period in East Europe ...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Telos, 1991
Recent parliamentary elections in Poland have confirmed what had long been obvious: that the vete... more Recent parliamentary elections in Poland have confirmed what had long been obvious: that the veteran liberal opposition, the intellectual ideologues of the “independent civil society” — Michnik, Kuron, and the old KOR milieu, presently grouped around the Democratic Union and the newspaper Gazeta Wyboreza (but not the small, recently-formed, liberal Democratic Party, the pro-Walesa Gdansk party of former prime minister Jan Krzysztof Bielecki) — have finally lost out. Although the Democratic Union won 13.8% of the vote, making it the largest party of a divided parliament, just barely ahead of the former Communists, the depth of their isolation was revealed after the elections when their efforts to put together a governmental majority failed miserably.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Telos, 1994
In the 20th anniversary issue in 1988, Telos editors continually returned to one theme: Telos'... more In the 20th anniversary issue in 1988, Telos editors continually returned to one theme: Telos' marginality. The journal was never part of any movement, political or otherwise, and proud of it. “What united us,” writes Frank Adler, was “the experience of pursuing [our] project alone.” Paul Breines says Telos sought marginality and achieved it twice over: a “dual marginality,” he calls it, from the Left and from academia. While this kept Telos from the center of policy debates, it also kept it provocative, iconoclastic, brazen. As Breines noted a few years earlier, “Telos was the New Left's schlemiel, its Good Soldier Schweik, its Yossarian.” By stubbornly exploring areas others dared not tread, Telos was able to bring the esoteric abstractions of Critical Theory to a New Left shouting about “relevance.”
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Telos, 1992
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Slavic and East European Journal, 2000
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Perspectives on Politics, 2005
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 2009
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
European Journal of Industrial Relations, 2002
Despite recent arguments that political and social movement unionism is the key to labour revital... more Despite recent arguments that political and social movement unionism is the key to labour revitalization, this article shows that such strategies have been detrimental to labour in Eastern Europe, and that only a recent turn towards economic unionism has helped turn the tide. Through an analysis of East European labour strategies since 1989, particularly in Poland, the article argues that much recent theory is based on capitalist experiences that are inappropriate for understanding post-communism. Whether social movement unionism will be beneficial to labour depends on the kind of social movement of which unions see themselves a part.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Future of (Post)Socialism, 2018
This is a pdf of page proofs for a book that came out in 2018, with my article on why the semiper... more This is a pdf of page proofs for a book that came out in 2018, with my article on why the semiperiphery is so vibrant and important, especially to the core, as a source of endless innovations, and why Eastern Europe has had special power. Using and tweaking the concept of institutional isomorphism, I show how EE's innovations in workers' self-management, civil society, neoliberalism, and now the radical right, have outsized influence outside of EE, though the semiperipheral location prevents EE from determining the meaning of its own innovations, a process I call "the dialectics of the semiperiphery."
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