Workers' Councils and Political Stratification

The Yugoslav Experience

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3261774
AutoresSidney Verba (Harvard University Press), Goldie Shabad (The Ohio State University)
Año1978
Volumen72
Número1
Páginas80-95
Fecha de publicación1978-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1953600
OpenAlexW2161516929
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas14

Many students of citizen participation claim that one solution to the problem of political inequality in liberal democracies lies in the establishment of direct participatory channels in decentralized socioeconomic and political institutions similar to those found in Yugoslavia. Others argue that the availability of participatory channels in the workplace leads to the domination of these channels by a technocratic elite. Still other students of participation in Yugoslavia claim that participatory channels are dominated by the political elite, the League of Communists.In this paper, we examine this set of conflicting hypotheses by using data which come from an extensive survey of participatory activities in four Yugoslav republics. Our findings are consistent with the interpretation that workers' councils open channels for a more technocratically oriented participation. When it comes to other kinds of activity, affiliation with the League is more important than socioeconomic or professional status in determining who participates. But because League members come disproportionately from upper-status groups, there is not a marked difference in the extent to which membership in workers' councils and participation in other kinds of activity are biased in favor of the advantaged segments of Yugoslav society. In each case, but for different reasons, it is the upper-status citizen who is likely to be active

Citizen journalism · Elite · Inequality · League · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Social stratification · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Technocracy · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · Law · Public Administration