Embeddedness, Redistribution and Double Dependence: Polányi-reception Reconsidered
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v2i2.184Abstract
This article – a modified version of a lecture – is a contribution to the reception of Polányi in the West and the East, more precisely, to the inquiry about what impact Polányi’s views have had on American and Hungarian economic sociology, which are the contact points between the two, and what research perspectives they offer. It concentrates on the perception of embeddedness and redistribution, not touching on other views unless they are conducive to the comprehension of certain connections. Polányi’s oeuvre is so rich and it has inspired such a wide range of debates that a conclusive review is impossible within a single article. It is hoped however that the polemic on the concept of embeddedness may be illuminating and also the aftermath of the forms of integration, particularly redistribution, important. The concept of double dependence is touched upon as well, for it grasps an essential feature of the post-socialist Eastern European economies. It is worth mentioning it in this context, for Polányi’s influence left its mark upon it and it is also related to the conceptual apparatus of the substantive view.
References
Abolafia, M. Y. (2005) (ed.) Markets. Cheltenham, UK: An Elgar Reference Collection. 307-324.
Antal, L. (1983) Koncepciózus vádirat bizonyítás nélkül (Hozzászólás Szegő Andrea tanulmányához) (Manipulative accusation without proving. [A comment on the study of Andrea Szegő]). Medvetánc, 2-3: 93-123.
Balogh, Z. (1981) Polanyi Károly - Az archaikus társadalom és a gazdasági szemlélet (Karl Polanyi - The archaic society and the
economic view). Medvetánc, 1(1): 5-21.
Batjargal, B. (2003) Social capital and entrepreneurial performance in Russia: A longitudinal study. Organization Studies, 24(4): 535-
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840603024004002
Beckert J. (2009) The great transformation of embeddedness: Karl Polanyi and the new economic sociology. In Hann, C. and K. Hart
(eds.) Market and Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 38-55. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511581380
Bermann, R. A. (2006 [1928]) Editorial Meetings of the Oesterreichische Volkswirt (1928). In McRobbie, K. and K. Polanyi Levitt (eds.)
Karl Polanyi in Vienna. Black Rose Books, Montreal. 325-328.
Block, F. (2003) Karl Polanyi and the Writing of The Great Transformation. Theory and Society, 32(3): 275-306. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1024420102334
Block, F. and M. R. Somers (2014) The Power of Market Fundamentalism. Karl Polanyi’s Critique. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press. doi: 10.4159/harvard.9780674416345.fm
Bluhm K., B. Martens and V. Trappman (2014) (eds.) Business Leaders and New Varieties of Capitalism in Post-Communist Europe.
London, UK: Routledge. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203797341
Bohle, D. and B. Greskovits (2012) Capitalist Diversity on Europe’s Periphery. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Böröcz, J. (1992) Dual dependence and property vacuum. Social change on the state socialist semiperiphery. Theory and Society, 21:
-104. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00993463
Bowles, Samuel (2004) Microeconomics. Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution. New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation. 93-126.
Burawoy, M. (1976) The Functions and Reproduction of Migrant Labor: Comparative Material from Southern Africa and the United
States. American Journal of Sociology, 82(5): 1050-87. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/226185
Burawoy, M. (2005) For Public Sociology. American Sociological Review, 70(1): 4-28. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000312240507000102
Dale, G. (2010) Karl Polanyi. The Limits of the Market. Cambridge, UK: Polity Pres.
Dobbin, F. (2004) The sociological view of the economy. In Dobbin, F. (ed.) The new economic sociology. A reader. Princeton, NJ and
Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press. 1-46.
Drahokoupil, J. (2008) Who won the contest for a new property class? Structural transformation of elites in the Visegrád Four region.
Journal of East European Management Studies, 13(4): 360-377.
Drahokoupil, J. (2009) Globalization and the State in Central and Eastern Europe. The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment. London,
UK: Routledge. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203892084
Drucker, P. F. (2009) Adventures of a Bystander. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.
Estevez-Abe, M., T. Iversen and D. Soskice (2001) Social Protection and the Formation of Skills: A Reinterpretation of Welfare State. In
Hall, P. A. and D. Soskice (eds): Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press. 145-183.
Ferge Zs. (1980[1975]) Társadalompolitika, szociálpolitika, és a központosított újraelosztás típusai (Social policy, welfare policy and the
types of centralised redistribution). In Társadalompolitikai tanulmányok (Studies in Social Policy). Budapest: Gondolat.
Ferge Zs. (1986) Zsörtölődő megjegyzések Szelényi Iván és Manchin Róbert tanulmányához (Nagging notes to the article of Ivan
Szelenyi and Robert Manchin). Medvetánc, 6(2-3): 113-126.
Firth, R. (1972) Methodological Issues in Economic Anthropology. Man 7(3): 467-475. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2800918
Fligstein, N. (2001) The Architecture of Markets. An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Fligstein, N. (2002) Agreements, Disagreements, and Opportunities in the ’New Sociology and Markets’. In Guillen, M. F. et al. (eds.)
The New Economic Sociology. Developments in an Emerging Field. New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation. 61-78.
Fligstein, N. (2005 [1996]) Markets as Politics: A Political-Cultural approach to Market Institutions. In Mitchel Abolafia, M. Y. (ed.)
Markets. Cheltenham, UK: An Elgar Reference Collection. 307-324.
Gábor, É. (2006) The Early Formation of Karl Polanyi’s Ideas. In McRobbie, K and K. Polanyi Levitt (eds.) Karl Polanyi in Vienna. The
Contemporary Significance of the Great Transformation. Montreal: Black Rose Books. 295-301.
Gambetta, D. (2000) Mafia: The Price of Distrust. In Gambetta, D. (ed.) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations. Department
of Sociology, University of Oxford. 158-175.
Goodfellow D.M. (1939) Principles of Economic Sociology. The Economics of Primitive Life as Illustrated from the Bantu Peoples of
South and East Africa. London, UK: George Routledge and Sons.
Granovetter, M. (1995[1974]) Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Granovetter, M. and R. Swedberg (1992) (eds.) The Sociology of Economic Life. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Greskovits, B. (1982) Ellentmondásos értékek és értékes ellentmondások Polányi Károly elméleti rendszerében (Contradictory values
and valuable contradictions in Karl Polanyi's work. A critical analysis of the theories of Karl Polanyi). Szociológia, 11(2): 201-214.
Gyurgyák J. (1981) (selected and edited) Polányi Károly a Bécsi Magyar Újságnál (Karl Polanyi at the Viennese Hungarian News).
Medvetánc, 1(2-3): 173-242.
Gyurgyák J. (2006) Karl Polanyi and Oscar Jászi at the Bécsi Magyar Újság (Vienesse Hungarian News). In McRobbie, K. and K. Polanyi
Levitt (eds.) Karl Polanyi in Vienna. The Contemporary Significance of the Great Transformation. Montreal: Black Rose Books. 319-324.
Hall, P. A. and Soskice, D. (2001) An introduction to Varieties of Capitalism. In Hall, P. A. and D. Soskice (eds) Varieties of Capitalism.
The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 1-68
Hegedüs, A. (2001 [1965]) Optimalizálás és humanizálás (Optimization and humanization). In Rozgonyi T. and Z. Zsille (eds.) Búcsú
Hegedüs Andrástól. 1922-1999.(Farewell from András Hegedüs. 1922-1999). Budapest: Osiris. 11-36.
Keen, M. F. (1999) Stalking the Sociological Imagination. J.Edgar Hoovee’s FBI Surveillance of American Sociology. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press.
Kelen, A. (1988) A társadalmi munka szociológiája (The Sociology of Social Work). Budapest: Gondolat.
Kis, J. and Márkus Gy. (1971) (selected and introduced) Polányi Károly gazdaságtörténeti munkáiból (From the economic historical
works of Karl Polanyi). Magyar Filozófiai Szemle, 15(5-6): 738-763.
Konrad, G. and I. Szelenyi (1979) The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Kornai, J (1986) The Hungarian Reform Process: Visions, Hopes and Reality. Journal of Economic Literature, 24(4): 1687-1737.
Kornai, J. (1989 [1983]) Bürokratikus és piaci koordináció (Bureaucratic and market co-ordination). In Régi és új ellentmondások és
dilemmák (Old and new contradictions and dilemmas). Budapest: Magvető. 7-37.
Krippner, G. (et al.) (2004) Polanyi symposium: A conversation on embeddedness. Socio-Economic Review, 2(1): 109-135. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/soceco/2.1.109
Krippner, G. and A.S. Alvarez (2007) Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects of Economic Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology,
: 219-240. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131647
Lacher, H. (2007) The Slight Transformation: Contesting the Legacy of Karl Polanyi. In Bugra, A. and A. Kaan (eds.) Reading Karl
Polanyi for the Twenty-First Century. Market Economy as a Political Project. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 49-64. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230607187_4
Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1993 [1957]) On the Academic Mind. Social Scientists and Recent Threats to Academic Freedom. In Boudon, R. (ed.)
On Social Research and Its Language. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Lengyel, Gy. and D. Bank (2014) The ‘small transformation’ in Hungary: institutional changes and economic actors. In Blum, K., B.
Martens and V. Trapman (eds.) Business Leaders and New Varieties of Capitalism in Post-Communist Europe. London, UK: Routledge,
-78. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203797341
Litván, Gy. and J. Gyurgyák (1987) (selected and introduced) Válogatás Jászi Oszkár és Polányi Károly levelezéséből (Selection from
the correspondence of Oscar Jaszi and Karl Polanyi). Medvetánc. 7(2-3): 313-343.
Malinowski, B. (1969[1926]) Crime and Custom in Savage Society. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams & Co.
Malinowski, B. (1999[1922]) Argonauts of the Western Pacific. An Account of the Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes
of Melanesian New Guinea. London, UK: Routledge. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203421260
Manchin, R. and I. Szelényi (1986) Szociálpolitika az államszocializmusban (Piac, redisztribúció és társadalmi egyenlőtlenségek a kelet-
európai szocialista társadalmakban) (Social policy in state socialism [Market, redistribution and social inequalities in the East.European
socialist societies]). Medvetánc, 6(2-3): 69-111.
Mizruchi, M. S. (1996) What Do Interlocks Do? An Analysis, Critique, and Assessment of Research on Interlocking Directorates. Annual
Review of Sociology, 22: 271-298. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.22.1.271
Nagy, E. (1990) Polanyi’s reception in Hungary. In Polanyi Levitt, K. (ed.) The Life and Work of Karl Polanyi. A Celebration. Montreal:
Black Rose Publications. 127-138.
Nee, V. (1989) A Theory of Market Transition: From Redistribution to Markets in State Socialism. American Sociological Review 54(5):
-681. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2117747
Nee, V. (1991) Social Inequalities in Reforming State Socialism: Between Redistribution and Markets in China. American Sociological
Review, 56(3): 267-282. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2096103
Nölke, A. and A. Vliegenthart (2009) Enlarging the varieties of capitalism. World Politics, 61(4): 670-702. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0043887109990098
Pearson, H. W. (1977) (ed.) Polanyi, K. The Livelihood of Man. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Péteri, Gy. (2016) Contested Socialisms – On the Conflict between Critical Sociology and Reform Economics in Communist Hungary at
the End of the 1960s. Social History. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Polanyi Levitt, K. (2006) Tracing Polanyi’s Institutional Political Economy to Its Central European Source. In McRobbie, K. and K. Polanyi
Levitt (eds.) Karl Polanyi in Vienna. The Contemporary Significance of the Great Transformation. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
Polanyi, K. (1957 [1944]) The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Polanyi, K. (1968) Bücher, Karl. In Sills, D. L. (ed.) International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York, NY: The Macmillan
Company and the Free Press. Vol. 2: 163-165.
Polányi, K. (1972) Dahomey és a rabszolgakereskedelem. Egy archaikus gazdaság elemzése (Dahomey and the Slave Trade. An
Analysis of and Archaic Economy). Budapest: KJK.
Polányi, K. (1976) Az archaikus társadalom és a gazdasági szemlélet.(The Archaic Society and the Economic View). Budapest:
Gondolat.
Polányi, K. (1979) Gazdaságszociológia az Egyesült Államokban (Economic Sociology in the United States). Szociológia, 8(2): 109-123.
Polányi, K. (2003 [1959]) Arisztotelész és Galbraith a jólétről (Aristotle and Galbraith on Affluence). Szociológiai Szemle, 13(1): 137-
Polanyi, K., C. M. Arensberg and H. W. Pearson (1957) (eds.) Trade and Market in the Early Empires. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Portes, A. (2010) Economic Sociology. A Systematic Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781400835171
Rozgonyi, T. (2007) (ed.) Hatalom, politika, társadalomtudomány. Interjúk a Magyar szociológia újjászületésének körülményeiről az
-as években (Power, Politics, Social Science. Interviews on the conditions of revival of Hungarioan Sociology in the Sixties).
Budapest: MTA Szociológiai Kutatóintézet.
Schaniel, W. C. and W.C. Neale (2000) Karl Polanyi’s forms of integration as ways of mapping. Journal of Economic Issues, 34(1): 89-
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2000.11506245
Sik, E. (1988) Az ’örök’ kaláka (The ’Eternal’ Kaláka). Budapest: Gondolat.
Stark, D. and B. Vedres (2012) Political Holes in the Economy: The Business Network of Partisan Firms in Hungary. American
Sociological Review, 77(5): 700-722. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0003122412453921
Swedberg, R. (2005) Markets in Society. In Smelser, N. and R. Swedberg (eds) Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton, NJ and
New York, NY: Princeton University Press; Princeton- Russel-Sage Foundation. 233-253. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781400835584.233
Szántó, Z. (1994) A gazdaság társadalmi beágyazottsága. Megjegyzések a gazdaságszociológia és a szocioökonómia új irodalmáról
(Social embeddedness of the economy. Notes on the new literature of economic sociology and socio-economics). Szociológiai Szemle,
(3): 141-145.
Szegő, A. (1977) A redisztribúció típusai és az érdekviszonyok (Types of redistribution and interest relations). Szociológia, 6(3): 291-
Szegő, A. (1983) Gazdaság és politika – érdek és struktúra (Economy and politics – interest and structure). Medvetánc, 3(2-3): 49-92.
Szegő, A. and Gy. Wiener (1976) A területi igazgatás típusai és az érdekközvetítés (Types of regional governance and the interest
coverage). Valóság, 19(10): 77-88.
Szelényi, I. (1978) Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies. International Journal of Comparative Sociology,
(1-2): 63-87. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002071527801900105
Szelényi, I. (2015) Nosztalgikus jegyzetek a hatvanas évekről (Nostalgic notes on the sixties). Mozgó Világ, 41(1): 80-97.
Szelényi, I. and E. Kostello (1998) Outline of an Institutional theory of inequality: the case of socialist and postcommunist Eastern
Europe. In Brinton, M.C. and Nee V. (eds.) The New Institutionalism in Sociology. New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation. 305-326.
Thurnwald, R. (1932) Economics in Primitive Communities. London, UK: Oxford University Press.
Trigilia, C. (2002 [1998]). Economic Sociology. State, Market and Society in Modern Capitalism. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Useem M. (1978) The inner group of the American capitalist class. Social Problems, 25(3): 225-240. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sp.1978.25.3.03a00010
Uzzi, B. (2005 [1996]) The sources and consequences of embeddedness for the economic performance of organizations: the network
effect. In Abolafia, M. Y. (ed.) Markets. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. 175-199.
Vági, G. (1982) Versengés a fejlesztési forrásokért (Competition for sources of development). Budapest: KJK.
Verderi, C. et al. (2005) Rereading The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. A Symposium. Theory and Society, 34(1): 1-36. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11186-005-3293-4
Whitley, R. (1992) European Business Systems. London, UK: Sage.
Zukin, S. and P. DiMaggio (1990) (eds.) Structures of Capital. The Social Organization of the Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright Notice
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work three months after publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. This acknowledgement is not automatic, it should be asked from the editors and can usually be obtained one year after its first publication in the journal.
