European Civil Society Network CiSoNet
Conference on Markets and Civil Society in Europe
Madrid, Spain,
September 23-25, 2004

P r o g r a m m e

Thursday, 23 September 2004

16:00-20:00

Opening
Víctor Pérez-Díaz, Conference Scientific Director
Antonio Garrigues, Director of the Institute Ortega y Gasset, Madrid, Spain

Session 1. Markets and European civil society formation
Markets shaping the European process and public sphere: obstacles and opportunities

Chair: Antonio Garrigues, Director of the Institute Ortega y Gasset, Madrid, Spain

Speakers:
Víctor Pérez-Díaz (University Complutense and ASP Research Center, Madrid, Spain): Markets as social conversations. An essay on the markets' contribution to civility and to a civil society on European soil
Christopher Coyne and Peter Boettke (George Mason University, Fairfax, USA): An entrepreneurial theory of social and cultural change
Akos Rona-Tas (University of California, San Diego, USA): Consumer credit and society in transition countries

Coffee-break (10 minutes)

Commentator: Jacques Rupnik (FNSP/CERI, Paris, France)

Discussion

21:00 Dinner at the Residencia

Friday, 24 September 2004

09:30-13:30

Session 2. Markets, trust, norms and civility
Social cohesion via voluntary produced law, societal participation in courts, and markets

Chair: Dragica Vujadinovic (Belgrade University)

Speakers:
Jesús Remón (Uría & Menéndez Abogados, Madrid, Spain) and Javier Díez-Hochleitner: Dispute resolution systems and global markets: why arbitration?
Stefan Voigt (University of Kassel, Germany): Civil society elements in European court systems. Towards a comparative analysis
Andrzej Rychard (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland): Entrepreneurs, consumers and civility: the case of Poland

Coffee-break (10 minutes)

Commentator: Laszlo Bruszt (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary)

Discussion

14:00 Lunch at the Residencia

16:00-19:00

Session 3. Reciprocal influences: markets, corporations and civil society
Institutional experimentation, associations shaping the markets, corporations intervening in the welfare system

Chair: John Keane (Centre for the Study of Democracy, London, UK)

Speakers:
Laszlo Bruszt (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary): The politics of civic combinations
Sidonia Jedrzejewska and Sven Eliaeson (Central European University, Warsaw, Poland): Neo-liberalism and civil society: Swedish exceptionalism and Polish pluralism
José Antonio Herce (Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada, Madrid, Spain)
Economic security. Who should provide it?

Coffee-break (10 minutes)

Commentator: Pal Tamas (Institute of Sociology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary)

Discussion

20:45 Flamenco dinner at Casa Patas, street: Cañizares 10, metro: Antón Martín

Saturday, 25 September 2004

09:30-13:30

Session 4. In search of legitimacy: discourses and beliefs on markets and civil society
Views of classical authors, of today's critics of globalization, and of 'soulful' corporations, and problems of legitimation

Chair: Andrzej Rychard (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)

Speakers:
Sven Reichardt (University Konstanz, Germany): Some notes on discourses about economy and civil society
Sofia Spiliotis (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Germany): Historical injustice and the emerging corporate civl society
Dieter Rucht (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Germany): Civil society and capitalism-symbiosis, contradiction, or devil's bargain?

Coffee-break (10 minutes)

Henryk Domanski (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland): Determinants of legitimization in Europe: empirical analysis for 21 countries
Mladen Lazic (University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia): Class, civil society and liberal values in Serbia

Commentator: Björn Wittrock (Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden)

Discussion

13:30-14:30

Session 5. Summing up
A general assessment of CiSoNet debate on the concept of civil society

Jürgen Kocka (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Germany)
Commentators:
Víctor Pérez-Díaz (University Complutense and ASP Research Center, Madrid, Spain) and John Keane (Centre for the Study of Democracy, London, UK)

15:00 Lunch at the Residencia for CiSoNet partners only

16:00-20:00

CiSoNet business meeting

We have also posted a paper by Irina Olimpieva (Centre for Independent Social Research, St. Petersburg, Russia) who could not attend the conference: Informality and civic organizations in state-business relationships in Russia

SUMMARIES OF PAPERS
as submitted by the authors

Laszlo Bruszt (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary)
The politics of civic combinations
In the literature on the role played by civil society actors in shaping markets much has been written on the ways these actors contest and shape the rules of the emerging European transnational market economy at the European and at the national levels. Much less attention is devoted to the issue how, in what forms, with what resources, using what kinds of actions do these actors try to shape markets 'from below' at the local levels. Based on a survey of developmental projects of local NGOs in three Hungarian regions, the paper discusses the above issues and tries to answer two interrelated questions: who are these actors and in what ways do they shape the boundaries of markets, i.e. re-present actors, interest and values who/that would otherwise be outside of the frame of local and regional markets

Christopher Coyne and Peter Boettke (George Mason University, Fairfax, USA)
The entrepreneurial theory of social and cultural change
The paper contends that the entrepreneur is the agent of social and cultural change. We consider the entrepreneur in three settings: market, non-market and political. Our purpose is to understand how entrepreneurs create anew or shift focal points and how they make these changes salient. We also seek to understand the transferability of the desirable consequences of entrepreneurship in the market setting to activities in the non-market and political settings. It is our contention that the desirable aspects of entrepreneurship in economic settings are transferable to non-market and political settings to the extent that there are proxies and profit/loss. We argue that while reputation serves as a sot constraint in non-market settings, there is a complete absence of a disciplinary device in political settings. Several applications are provided to illustrate the wide-ranging applicability of the framework.

Henryk Domanski (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)
Determinants of legitimization in Europe: empirical analysis for 21 countries
Debates on the "crisis of legitimation" are still alive. This question is approached, mainly, on theoretical grounds, involving many different conceptual refinements and analytical variations. This is empirical study that examines determinants of subjectively conceived legitimation of government and social system in 21 European societies. Data come from first edition of European Social Survey carried out on national random samples in 2002. Legitimation is conceptualised here in terms of degree of approval of the way of management by government with democracy, politics and economy. My analyses aim, first, to assess relative "levels" of legitimation across analysed societies. Second, various sets of individual measures of social characteristics and attitudes are employed in order to establish some universal rules of requirements of legitimacy. Third, an attempt is made to disclose macro-structural determinants of the inter-country variation in legitimacy - related to economic development, political system, degree of corruption and welfare state measures. Finally, these findings are discussed in reference to recent hypotheses concerning impact of the welfare state and decreasing confidence and trust in public institutions.

José Antonio Herce (Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada, Madrid, Spain)
Economic security. Who should provide it?
Since more than one century ago, in the most advanced countries, Social Security started to provide efficient coverage against the economic consequences of work related injuries, disability and old-age thus contributing to the economic security of the working classes and, more recently, the middle class that accounts for the largest lot of society. Today, market solutions could very well instrument even cheaper though equivalent security to most individuals or households through their life-cycle. Only the poor would dependent on welfare for their economic security. Sure? Even this view, however, could be challenged, at least in part, when one looks at ways to stimulate active engagement of individuals in securing their own prosperity. Market oriented solutions and instruments could also serve the less well-off helping the welfare state to overcome criticism that it is one of the causes of a more than disappointing economic performance in Europe. The paper will be based on my current work on these issues. It will first establish the facts about personal income distribution in Spain and the degree to which households depend on the government for their economic security, once the concept has been properly defined. It will also elaborate on the previous reasoning in order to assess whether the role of government concerning economic security is to provide it directly or to reform market institutions (financial or other) to make them more oriented towards the needs of the middle classes in general and the less well-off in particular.

Sidonia Jedrzejewska and Sven Eliaeson (Center for Social Studies, Warsaw, Poland)
Neo-liberalism and civil society: Swedish exceptionalism and Polish pluralism
The paper is an attempt to place Chambers of commerce and industry in the civil society discourse based on the data collected during the field research done in Poland and Sweden (and in Germany). The report discusses chambers as an example of an association of enterprises. The paper lists functions of chambers both those declared in legal acts and those performed in practice. It tries to explain the existence of those type of associations. The observations from the field are used to place the chambers in the triangle of society, economy and state. The paper argues that the chambers of commerce and industry perform double task of advocacy and self-help and can be included in the realm of civil society

Mladen Lazic (University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia)
Class, civil society and liberal values in Serbia
The paper will be based on my recent (2003/04) surveys of social stratification, value change and civil society in Serbia. I will try to find out is there any kind of empirical relationship (positive, negative) between class position, activities in the civil society (measured by membership in different forms of NGO) and acceptance of liberal (pro-market) - or anti-market (egalitarian, statist, etc.) values.

Irina Olimpieva (Centre for Independent Social Research, St. Petersburg, Russia)
Informal economy and civic organizations in post-socialist context: the case of Russia
The general topic to be discussed in the paper could be formulated in the following way: to what extent institutional peculiarities of transforming societies (expressed first of all in a determinative role of informal rules for all parts of economic mechanism), influence the formation and development of civil society in these countries? Are there any specific features which distinguish the institutions of post socialist civil society from those in advanced capitalist economies (or at least from what could be expected from the viewpoint of "western model" of civil society)? We consider the emerging market economy and civic organizations in Russia as the most relevant case to address above mentioned issues since they reflect the most typical features of the post-soviet context. The paper will start with consideration of the "soviet model of civil society" and of the informal economy as a main source of civil society in pre-reform Russia. Then we will consider the growing informality of the post-socialist economic mechanism as a main feature of the after-reform period. Particular attention will be paid to the informal state-business relationships. A new role of informality in economic sphere is seen as hindering the development of civil society institutions which aim to establish a civic dialogue in state-business relations. Informality is seen as the main reason for the emergence of a "post-soviet model" of civil society which results from "mutation" of economic and social institutions. This transformation occurs when the Western type institutions are being transferred from Western economies to the informal economic environment of transforming societies. The paper will use the data received in the course of two studies: the study on informal relationships between small and medium businesses and authoritative structures in SPb and the study on the role of NGOs and business associations in anti-corruption policy development conducted by CISR (SPb) researchers in 2003 and 2004.

Víctor Pérez-Díaz (University Complutense and ASP Research Center, Madrid, Spain)
Markets as social conversations. An essay on the markets' contribution to civility and to a civil society on European soil
The core aim of this paper is to underline the centrality of markets in shaping a civil society, in its broad sense, and in developing the civil disposition (civility) which accords with the workings of the different institutional realms of that civil society. It then goes on to explore the role of markets, in connection with governments and (to a lesser extent) with a web of associations, in shaping the current European process, and doing so in a way somehow consistent with the normative ideal of a civil society (in its broad sense). A reference is made to the logic of that process, to its oscillation between different variants of civil society, to the prospects of a politics of moderation as a way to handle the stress inherent in that oscillation, and to the way in which different views of civil society may be anchored in different historical contexts

Sven Reichardt (University of Konstanz, Germany)
Some notes on discourses about economy and civil society
The concept of 'civil society' was developed during the 18th century by the same scientists and politicians who were prominent representatives of the modern discipline of 'political economy'. In this context, the values of freedom, individuality and trust played an outstanding role within civil society as well as in the economy. This paper uses a historicized concept of civil society, in order to analyze the normative preferences, semantics and 'symbolic codes' of these classical authors. The paper analyzes why and how they connected civil society and the capitalist market.

Jesús Remón (Uría & Menéndez Abogados, Madrid, Spain) and Javier Díez-Hochleitner
Dispute resolution systems and global markets: why arbitration?
The aim of the paper is to reflect, in view of practical experience, on the effect that the "legal culture of globalization" has on the creation of dispute resolution mechanisms in the international trade which differ significantly from the predetermined, rigid judicial models which are typically found in the domestic legal systems.
This line of thinking leads to (1) briefly examine the causes that have led to the failure of the judicial model as a conflict resolution mechanism, based on factors such as time (late justice), security (increasing uncertainty) and neutrality (search of a "neutral" adjudicator); in order to (2) try to set forth the rationale and functioning of the different alternative systems, which are intended to grant a leading role to the parties subject matter of the dispute; and that, (3) determine the creation of private organizations at the root of the market, which try to obtain a balance taking into account the costs and consequences deriving from each decision taken.
Likewise, this approach leads to wonder whether these models could have a weakening effect on the domestic legal systems as opposed to the principles of a new "lex mercatoria " as decision-making criteria.

Akos Rona-Tas (University of California, San Diego, USA)
Consumer credit and Society in Transition Countries
After a lull of about a century and a half, when for a historically short period, cash paid in the national currency dominated everyday economic transactions, the role of financial credit has been again rapidly rising. Until the 19th century, in the absence of national currencies, most exchanges involved some form of credit. As cash appeared, credit took on more circumscribed and more specialized functions and it became rationalized.
During the last decades, banking has been expanding its financial services swiftly to ever wider segments of society and credit has emerged as an increasingly pervasive force. The rationalization and routinization of lending transactions have proceeded at equal speed.
Can a full-fledged credit market be built without social and political intervention? What kind of infrastructure is necessary for credit to function properly? What are some of the social implications of an increased indebtedness? To what extent does the proliferation of retail credit increase social cohesion, predictability and orderliness in society? How are social inequalities reinforced or upended by the diffusion of credit? How and to what extent does widely available credit influence culture; notions of responsibility, obligation, reciprocity, trust and rational calculation? How are power relations rearranged as a consequence of the obligations attached to lending? How is social identity (re-) constructed in credit transactions? Is borrowing simply a private business transaction contingent on the discretion of the two parties? And how should society regulate credit?
The paper addresses these questions in the context of post-socialist societies.

Dieter Rucht (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fuer Sozialforschung, Germany)
Civil society and capitalism - symbiosis, contradiction, or devil's bargain?
Provocatively reversing the slogan (and title of a leftist French journal) "Socialism or Barbarity", a recent issue of the German intellectual journal "Merkur" was published with the title "Capitalism or Barbarity", though with a question mark at the end. In one way or another, almost all contributions to this issue respond critically to the critics of capitalism and market economy, in particular to the viewpoints of various movements against neoliberal globalization. My idea is to map the pros and cons in that debate about the virtues and evils of the market economy in general, and to look more specifically for the explicit and implicit arguments that relate to the idea of civil society. It still remains to be seen whether or not I will also cover discourses about European policies, e.g. the current debate within EU bodies about liberalizing all kinds of services across the globe.
My argument is that the civil society and capitalism establish neither a symbiotic nor a contradictory relationship, but rather one of a kind of devil's bargain. There is, from the viewpoint of civil society, a lot to gain from the capitalist market economy, but there is also an inherent risk.

Andrzej Rychard (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)
Entrepreneurs, consumers and civility: the case of Poland
Poles are more critical about market than about democracy but it is market participation which is more extensive than political one. This paradox serves as starting point of the paper.
The main question is how this discrepancy contributes to social cohesion/disintegration. The local and universal reasons for exiting traditional politics are discussed. Then the question to what extent missing political participation can be replaced by market engagement is posed.
On the one hand massive consumers' participation, evolution of the forms of consumption (from material to "civic" goods), and massive small/medium size entrepreneurship in Poland allows us to speak about sort of "peoples capitalism" emerging, which could contribute to social cohesion. On the other hand, this popular market participation brings some threats to civility which will be discussed.
In the last part of the paper the danger of double exclusion (from market and democracy) will be discussed. This process in consequence leads to disintegration of the country. Also some pathological forms of market participation have devastating effects from the point of view of social cohesion and building civic ties.

Sophia Spiliotis ((Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Germany):
Historical injustice and the emerging corporate civil society
As I will suggest using the case of Holocaust related class actions in the US in the 1990ies against major European corporations, history and the "business of repair" trigger a sphere of an integrated corporate civil society. I will argue that the prevailing distinction between the Economy and Civil Society becomes questionable in view of the emerging global political community in which transnational corporations are actors in the own right.

Stefan Voigt (University of Kassel, Germany)
Civil society elements in European court systems. Towards a comparative analysis
Juries can be interpreted as an element of civil society in adjudication otherwise organized and enforced by the state. From an economic point of view, participation in juries can be interpreted as a voluntary contribution to the production of a public good (here "justice"). Two issues appear to be of particular interest from the perspective of the conference topic Civil Society in Europe, namely (1) to what degree the various European states rely on civil society input in their legal orders and (2) to what degree members of society voluntarily participate in the production of justice. The first issue would have to identify the systematic place attributed to juries in the various legal orders (role only in criminal cases, role both in civil and criminal cases, no role at all etc.). The second issue would rather focus on the "supply side " of the issue: In standard economics it would be argued that the higher the opportunity costs of participating in juries, the lower the probability that people would voluntarily participate. This would imply that one should expect people with little education and little income to be over-represented on juries. An alternative hypothesis would be that in countries in which civil society plays an important role, the exact opposite could be the case as more people feel responsible for the res publica.