Informal and uncertain: employment relations through the broken mirror of Russian social sciences

Article

Morrison, C. and Bizyukov, P. 2017. Informal and uncertain: employment relations through the broken mirror of Russian social sciences. Work, Employment and Society. 31 (3), pp. 553-559. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017016687906
TypeArticle
TitleInformal and uncertain: employment relations through the broken mirror of Russian social sciences
AuthorsMorrison, C. and Bizyukov, P.
Abstract

Twenty five years of intense market reforms have not contributed to Russia developing a coherent and effective set of institutions regulating employment relations. The world of work instead has grown into a wilderness of highly differentiated, shadowy arrangements ruled by employers’ arbitrariness (Bizyukov 2011, 2013). By contrast, scholarship contributing to the sociology of work and employment remains underdeveloped, theoretically timid and highly fragmentary.
Several reasons have been put forward to explain Russian scholars’ lack of interest in this field. The rejection of the pseudo-scientific Marxism of the Soviet era still casts a long shadow on labour-related research. Post-Socialist transformations have generated such wide-ranging and chaotic change that scholars struggle to collect reliable data and make sense of it. Researchers face new constraints such as unreliable statistics, access restrictions to privatised companies as well as historical limitations in qualitative research design. Furthermore, the post-Soviet scholar is facing challenging questions regarding the status of wage labour. Questions surrounding acceptable levels of unemployment or the fairness of now privately arranged wages or working time have proved controversial for a generation of scholars moving from a perspective where institutions regulating the employment relationship are assumed as centrally planned and universally provided by the state.
The monographs selected for this review are the most representative of the state of the art in the field, presenting comprehensive accounts of features and trends in the world of work but also displaying the limitations of prevailing scholarship.

Research GroupEmployment Relations group
PublisherSAGE Publications
JournalWork, Employment and Society
ISSN0950-0170
Electronic1469-8722
Publication dates
Online17 Mar 2017
Print01 Jun 2017
Publication process dates
Deposited10 Nov 2016
Accepted09 Nov 2016
Output statusPublished
Accepted author manuscript
Copyright Statement

Claudio Morrison, Petr Bizyukov, Informal and uncertain: employment relations through the broken mirror of Russian social sciences, Work, employment and society, Vol. 31(3), pp. 553 - 559. Copyright © 2017 (The Authors). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017016687906
LanguageEnglish
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