Open access
OUTLINE OF CHANGES IN POLISH ELITES: FROM NOBLE DEMOCRACY TO CIVIL SOCIETY
Włodzimierz CHOJNACKI1
Formation of Elites – Between Theories and Practices
Publication language: English
Journal article
Transformations No. 3-4 (102-103) 2019, Publication date: 11 December 2019
Keywords: interdisciplinary, theory elites, intellectual history, reverse chronology, border transgression, social and human science, gravity point, historical sociology
Abstract The problems discussed in the article are interdisciplinary character and fit mainly in the area of sociology of social structures, historical sociology and intellectual history1. The issues presented in it are focused on the analytical approach to changes taking place in the evolution of the elites perceived from five closely related perspectives. In the conceptual, research and practical perspective and from the reverse chronology of N. Davis. The first refers to the achievements of the Krakow and Warsaw schools, and the period after the Second World War to 1989. In the second, I outline the contribution of Anglo-Saxon, Italian and Polish researchers to the development of elite theory, the third covers the formation of intelligence, including emerging from the shadows of Soviet domination after 1956 and post-Soviet domination after 19892. The historical perspective is not a description of events, but above all a critical and creative reflection on the facts contained in different contexts and situations. Hence, the presented problems relate mainly to phenomena and supra-individual structures independent of individual perceptions and experiences. I treat problems associated with the elites as a grateful material for describing social processes and phenomena, and a basis for constructing more general approaches and processes.
Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
E-mail: wlodzimierz.chojnacki@gmail.co