B. Volker et H. Flap, THE EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION ON PERSONAL NETWORKS - EAST-GERMANY, 4 YEARS LATER, Netherlands journal of social sciences, 31(2), 1995, pp. 87
The effects of the fall of the communist regime on the personal networ
ks of people in former communist societies have been predicted with th
e help of the theory of social capital. In a society with a command ec
onomy and a Leninist party organization, personal networks are instrum
ental in solving two everyday problems specific to communist societies
: how to acquire goods in shea supply and whom to trust. As people inv
est in each other with an eye to the instrumental value of future help
, the demise of communism, because of a change in the instrumental val
ue of social ties, has induced a change in personal networks. They hav
e become more homogeneous with regard to occupation and education, sin
ce it is no longer necessary to have a heterogenous network for the ex
change of scarce goods. Because of the political control during the co
mmunist era, people did not know whom to trust, except for those with
whom they had intense, stable ties, strongly embedded in dense network
s. They were careful in contacts with people they did not know very we
ll. Now the density of the core of strong ties is apt to decrease, whe
reas the density of the non-core is apt to increase. As long as people
are uncertain about what is in their best interest, they will not cre
ate new ties. Once the social situation stabilizes, the number of weak
ties is apt to rise, since the risk of weak ties is gone. Our data we
re collected in 1992 and 1993 among a random sample in Leipzig and Dre
sden. In 1993, the 1992 respondents (n=189) were interviewed again tog
ether with a new sample (n=300). The results are in line with our argu
ment: personal networks did become smaller, the density of core networ
ks is decreasing and the occupational and educational homogeneity has
increased. A comparison of the networks of our GDR citizens to those o
f citizens of some Western democratic countries suggests network patte
rns which might be typical of socialist countries.