Andrzej Rychard - Böcker

Polish Solidarity was a phenomenon combining a trade union, a social movement and general ideas of freedom and solidarity. Led by Lech Walesa it contributed greatly to the evolution of the old system and to its final collapse in 1989, followed then by the end of the communist regimes in all of Central Europe. Today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of these peaceful revolutions. What is left of Solidarity? What is still important? How did it evolve and how did it contribute to the collapse of the old system, and to the building of the new? These are the questions the authors, leading specialists on social movements, institutions, structures and social change address in this book.

This study critically discusses the thesis on the sociological vacuum formulated by Stefan Nowak. The author’s aim is to refute the claim that the sociological vacuum is relevant for major social processes occurring in Poland. He presents the sociological vacuum in the context of the debate on micro and macro levels and discusses how the theory of fields and social network analysis is useful to reconcile the micro-macro divide. The book considers the uses of the sociological vacuum in explaining such phenomena as the Solidarność social movement, civil society, social capital, and democracy. In the empirical part, the author confronts the data on identifications with the data on relations and claims that the vacuum is not in the society but it in sociology.

This book illustrates the applicability of the seminal and controversial metaphor of the «invisible hand» in modern sociological theory. It shows that sociologists have long been part of a field mainly associated with economists and political philosophers. Though unlike the framing that builds directly on Adam Smith, sociological theory focuses on undesirable and perverse outcomes. Furthermore, the sociological angle favors the explanation of invisible hand-like mechanisms as contingent upon social structures and broader processes. Thus, it goes beyond its classical formulation in terms of interdependence, interaction and aggregation of individual actions.This book gathers contributions of remarkable authors who are linked directly either with the invisible hand metaphor, with the spontaneous order phenomenon or with the unintended consequences issue and aims to describe the traditional and contemporary applicability of the sociological framing of the invisible hand for social sciences.