The countryside as the

society in time

1
2
 Social time
• Social time is a social product (social construction). Such time is
structured around the rhythm of social activities.
• Characteristics of social time (P.A. Sorokin and R.K. Merton):
• Compared to physical time the social time is not continual (it is
organized through the rhythm of collective life – e.g. holidays,
feasts, working time etc.) – think about the impacts for the
countryside (names of days, months are fixed by rhythm of
collective life. In Czech: Neděle. No work; květen: flowering)
• Its experience and counting depends on the type of social group –
socially structured (the time of a student and of an unemployed
person differs – P.F. Lazersfeld and study of unemployment in
Marienthal (Austria, 1930s); temporal reference in metropolises
entirely differs from that of a small villages).

3
 Social time
• Social time is a social product (social construction). Such time is
structured around the rhythm of social activities.
• Characteristics of social time (P.A. Sorokin and R.K. Merton):
• It has qualitative dimension (“happy moment”, unlucky days:
13th of the month and Friday)
• Necessitates to set up the beginning (e.g. the start of your
work, physical time does not have lacunae, social time is
discontinuous, critical data disrupt continuity)
• Its speed is not equal (the same parts are not equal as for their
length, how long they last, days of the week depended on the
day of the market - from three-day week to eight-day week)

4
Time as social construction

5
We can learn from history (social time):
history matters

6
7
 The countryside as the society in time
• Concepts showing the countryside in time
• change (alternation in structures and activities, the key concept
to understand social problems in the countryside and for
suggesting their solution through rural development)
• development (intentionality in introducing the changes;
integral /sum/ of changes aiming at certain goals),
• evolution (evolution in broader sense is without intentionality;
integral /sum/ of changes does not necessary aim at certain
goals, no need of intention),
• growth (changes to higher and more complex forms – quantity;
problems of the consequences of growth – e.g. pollution),
• sustainability (development eliminating the negative aspects of
growth)

• All the concepts above result in various aspects of modernization

(innovative interventions into the system) 8
 Social change
• Alternation or metamorphosis
in basic structures of social
group, society or in human
social lives. Alternation as
dissimilarity (not a radical
change resulting in something
completely new) or
metamorphosis as difference
(profound and radical change
resulting in something
completely new – radical
novelty). Social change is an
ever-present phenomenon in
social life, but has become
especially intense in modern 9
era.
10
 Development
• What does development mean:
• The development is the complex system of various
processes related to human activities resulting in
achieving the goals aiming at something new
(difference - metamorphosis), at making something
better (dissimilarity - alternation). The background
of development – orientation of activities to certain
goals – intentionality. Integral (sum) of changes
aiming at certain goals.
• Due to setting the goals rather shorter periods of time are
considered: e.g. up to 7-10 years maximum (that is why we
have programmes: Rural Development Programme 2021-
11
2027 or National agriculture development plans
 Transformation, transition
• If the background of development is formed by
some ideas about outcomes, results and in this way
we can control these changes, we can speak about
transformation (alternation is not dramatic, we can
handle it): GRADUAL APPROACH (dissimilarity -
alternation)
• If the development is disconnected and if the
development is not under our control, we can speak
about transition (fundamental crucial alternation
with difficulties to be handled by all participating
people): SHOCK APPROACH (difference -
metamorphosis)
12
 Growth
• The general understanding is the change from
lower or simpler forms to higher or more
complex form (in the reverse way it is decline
or regression). It differs from development – it
growth can be both intentional and non-
intentional and is always of quantitative
nature
• A question: Has growth always positive
connotations? Is the growth in any case
positive or it has also some features of
regression? 13
 The question of growth
(from T. Malthus to Club of Rome and Limits to Growth /Donella and Denis Medows/)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Z6h-U4CmI 14
 Sustainable development
• Gro H. Bruntland (World Commission on Environment and
Development 1987, Our Common Future):
• “Development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the abilities of future generations to meet
their own needs (economic, social and environmental
pillar).”
• Development part: to meet the needs of people and to
increase their quality of life
• Sustainable part: the ability to preserve for the future
• Economic (competitiveness), social (social cohesion and
social inclusion) and environmental (nature) pillars. Today
even the fourth pillar is discussed: institutional 15
 Bearable Viable
MANAGING MANAGING
CLIMATIC NATURAL
CHANGE RESOURCES

Equitable
MANAGING
16
SOCIAL JUSTICE
17
18
19
Ecological footprint of
consumption 2019
 SDG Goal 12: Responsible
consumption and production
• 12.1 Implement the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production, all countries taking action, with
developed countries taking the lead, taking into account the development and capabilities of developing countries
• 12.2 By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
• 12.3 By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and
supply chains, including post-harvest losses
• 12.4 By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with
agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on
human health and the environment
• 12.5 By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
• 12.6 Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability
information into their reporting cycle
• 12.7 Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities
• 12.8 By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and
lifestyles in harmony with nature
• 12.A Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of
consumption and production
• 12.B Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes
local culture and products
• 12.C Rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption by removing market distortions, in accordance
with national circumstances, including by restructuring taxation and phasing out those harmful subsidies, where they exist, to reflect their
environmental impacts, taking fully into account the specific needs and conditions of developing countries and minimizing the possible
adverse impacts on their development in a manner that protects the poor and the affected communities
Modernization and rural
development

24
 Modernization
• The concept of modernization was
introduced during Great Transformation
(the change from traditional to modern
society – industrial revolution and the
origin of capitalism). Different
understanding of time (from cyclic
/traditional/ to linear /modern/)
• Main elements of modernization:
• Urbanization, industrialization,
secularization and bureaucratization 25
 Modernization
• A set of interventions into existing system (systems of
production, technologies, services, facilities, equipments,
social lives).
• Modernization is based on innovations (a thing, idea, method
considered as something new and in the same time it is the
process of implementation of these new issues which results
in changed social situation) – for innovations the imagination
is needed (building a road, if the old road exists, is not an
innovation, it is modernization development; development is
based on innovations – to come with new ways of building
the road or to develop new way of communication instead
the road)
• Innovations are bounded to contemporary criteria of
maturity, maximal efficiency, or optimum 26
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZRHuvqyXuk - stfn
 INNOVATIONS
• 1912: Josef Alois Schumpeter “Theory of
Economic Development” – innovations
(product, process of production, material,
organization, market) play crucial role in
capitalist economy
• Innovations speed up the development
(development ≠ growth) of any business:
victory over competitors and increased
market share
27
How to understand modernization and innovations?
• Modernization as the only positive process resulting in positive
effects OPTIMIST VISION
• Modernization as positive process but generating some troubles (if
not under the control, there might be some negative outcomes of
modernization). REALIST VISION
• Modernization as negative process resulting in growing problems and
hazards. PESSIMIST VISION

28
 Innovations
Innovations: key drivers of growth (engines of
modernization; “gales of creative destruction”
Schumpeter/Sombart)
Innovative niches challenge existing practices in
times when modern society is based on belief in
progress, science and rationality
 Innovations
• Multi-level perspective on how innovations are
generated and applied (TRANSITION THEORY):
• SOCIO-TECHNIC REGIME (established social practices
and used technologies with relevant rules, these
practices, technologies and rules stabilize existing
system)

30
 Innovations
• Multi-level perspective on how innovations are
generated and applied:
• SOCIO-TECHNICAL LANDSCAPE (area where socio-
technical regime and niches operate; forms long term
trend of their operation: creates conditions for niches
and socio-technical regime – e.g. conditions of the
operation of technologies, long term values and norm
of the people)

31
 Innovations
• Multi-level perspective on how innovations are
generated and applied:
• NICHE: an area where innovations are created
(experimenting with novelties: new practices,
technologies and rules)

32
 Innovations
In order to apply the innovations all levels must be
concerted and socio-technical landscape must provide
“opportunity window” to be “anchored” into regime
Innovations necessitate people able to see the world not
in a routine way (imagination and create thinking is
needed – the role of education)

33
Growth of number of innovations

Ausubel J.H., Technical Progress and Climatic Change,

 So many innovations: outcome
• Incessant choosing and
loosing guiding principles for
the choice (how to eat exotic
fruits: Chinese gooseberry,
mixing food styles in one
place )
• Individuals can be
transformed and improved -
the raise of individualism
• Growing personal choice and
individualism resulted in
insecurity, uncertainty (food
scandals)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZR
 Trinity: 3 pillars view

IST Research
 Innovations?

Challenging specialized and industrialized agriculture,

conventional food processing and large transnational retail
stores (modernity /“iron cage of rationality”/, depersonalized
practices /McDonaldization/). LOCALIZATION
 Innovations?

Challenging fossil energy use (thermal and nuclear power

stations, central grid systems): related to the development of
industrialization, centralization and economy of scale
(modernity, apotheosis of technology and science in nuclear
power stations) BIOENERGY+WIND+SUN+WATER
 Innovations?

Challenging the idea of never-ending progress

(resources are not limited and can be easily replaced).
TRADITIONS + ENVIRONMENTAL LUXURY, REFLEXIVITY
 Retro-innovations
• RETRO-INNOVATIONS: reflexive pseudo-novelty
existing in contemporary practices. Under
“opportunity window” (reflection over the
problems of modernity) they are revitalized as
innovative niches providing certain guidelines.
Since they challenge some ideas of modernity
in reflexive way, they might be more
sustainable if applied.
Traditional retro-innovations (food) Modern retro-innovations (food, energy)
 Social innovations
• linked to values and norms resulting from social learning
• Product oriented social innovations: new knowledge, skills and social
relations enabling to accept technological innovations (new products),
sometime include ethical attitudes (lowering poverty, increasing
education, food security)
• Process oriented social innovations: the changes in paradigms how social
systems work when new values, new ways of action, social interactions
and organizational structure resulting from innovations changed attitudes
of some social groups to production and consumption (alternative food
networks, regional and local foods, prosumers)
• Social innovations reconfiguring the society: target politics and power
relations in society - various initiatives with policy impacts influence
governance processes on local, national and international level (e.g.
Fridays for future, Fair trade)

42
43
Source:
European
Regional
innovation
Scoreboard
2021

Innovations
and links with
education and
economic
performance of
regions
44
45
46
General indicators of modernization (also
indicates the quality of life as well-fare)
 Modernization index: mostly used for the whole
national states; systematic index covering the
material, technological, and social-economic
items (e.g. energy consumption, mass-media,
transport, structure of labour, GDP, GNP)
 Human development index: a part of UN
development programme, applied to national
states Measures the general progress in the
country in (1) life expectancy, (2) knowledge
(education achieved and relation of primary,
secondary and tertiary education (3) appropriate
living standard (adjusted income). 47
 Concrete indicators of modernization
(also indicates the quality of life as
welfare: see lecture 1)
• Environment
• Demographic trends
• GDP
• Labour productivity and real incomes
• Economic activities, labour structures
• Building houses
• Criminal acts
• Education
• And others 48
 Contemporary specific indicators of
modernization (also indicates the quality
of life as welfare)
• ICTs
• Research and development

49
Social change and social
problems
Why are there the problems in our
lives? (general view into rural
development)

50
 Answer the question
• Do you face problems?
• If not you are lucky. Quality of
your life evaluated by
yourselves (subjective) – well-
being – is high (if quality of life
is measured through the
common indicators
/objective/ we refer to –
welfare – welfare is related to
modernization). But do you
you think you will not face
51
problems in the future?
 To solve problems:
• What is important, it is to know why
there are problems in our lives and
how to cope with the problems (how
to solve them)

52
• Social problem is always related to activities. And
since the activities are implemented in time and
generate the change, the social problem is also
related to the to time

53
 Changes
• Changes might be random but many times
the changes are situated in certain context
which makes them not to be only random.

54
Path dependency (path dependent
development)
P. David and B. Arthur referring to alternative
technological standards and developments
show that the most efficient solution does
not always win out, chance elements often
interfere at an early stage of the process,
altering it course -- we are “locked in”
previous development which was
constructed by people (see social
constructivism)
Path dependency in rural development: the
size and structure of the farms due to
collectivization, the size of the settlements,
their relations etc, infrastructure. Problem
of how to apply innovations
55
 56
Zdroj: Market Business News
 Structure of social change I
Old order (settings, arrangements, circumstances,
situations are familiar to us, we are experienced
to act in such circumstances, we know how to
act -- the norms of activities are taken for
granted; we master our actions in the world
which has its order)
People master their activities and lives in the
village
No need of change, no need of visions, goals,
programs, interventions 57
58
 Structure of social change II
• crisis (the arrangements, settings, situations which
are familiar to us, are eroded; our activities face
difficulties because some norms do not work
properly; we start to feel problems in action, the
order becomes to be eroded). There is something
new in our activities we do not to exactly how to act.
We start to create (construct) our own visions
aiming to orient our activities without problems
• Because some norms of action started to be altered
people in the village face emerging problems.
Interventions are needed 59
60
 Structure of social change III
• anomie (the arrangements, settings, situations which
are familiar to us and their norms /rules of game/ do
not exist anymore; there are no norms (rules) for our
activities, we do not know how to act -- a state of
normlessness; we cannot master our activities, we face
big problems because the order does not exist). We
experience a cultural shock because we do not know
how to act, our action faces chaos, situation is
fundamentally unclear.
• People in the village do not know how to act, they face
big problems, the old norms do not already exist, the
new ones have not been created yet. Interventions61are
highly needed
62
 Structure of social change IV
• New order (new settings, arrangements become
familiar for us, and experienced by us, we accept
the norms of conduct to master our action and we
know how to act; an order is established again, the
change is completed – either the new norms have
been introduced to help us to master activities or
the anomie became a norm)
• We cannot live in anomie all the time, we leave
extraordinary (non-ordinary) situations
• People coped with the problem through the new
norms of action facilitated by implementing, for
instance, the new project on infrastructure 63
64
65
66
 General structure of social change
Old order -- crisis -- anomie -- new order
• In rural development: Old order with its norms in
deconstructed, new order with its norms is
constructed through implementing various
development projects

67
 The general way of solving the
problems
• Creation (construction) of such rules (institutions)
which enable us to act efficiently in changed
circumstances -- SETTING UP THE VISIONS
CORRESPONDING WITH THE ACTIONS
• and contrary elimination (deconstruction) of such
rules which make our activities difficult.

68
 Ways of construction visions
(strategies, plans)
• Expert ways (external experts create it)
• Community planning (involvement of lay people
from the community to present their ideas)
• Necessary complementary work
• WHAT IS BETTER – COMMUNITY OR EXPERT
PLANNING?

69
 Problems
• Problems emerge
when our experienced
ways of doing
something do not
work (old order
disappears, we are in
the situation of crisis
or of anomie)

70
Social
• refers to phenomena
and processes in the
society which are
bounded to the
interactions among
the people and their
actions – see later
Weber’s concept of
action
71
 Social problems
• The situation which is
considered by a relevant group
of people (experts) or by its
participants (laymen) as
something what necessitates
the solution mostly through the
means of institutional
intervention
• Social problem means the
difficulties to act because of the
eroded “rules of the game”
• Therefore the role of institutions
is the most important in rural
development considered as the
activity aiming to solve
problems in rural areas
72
 Social institutions
• rules of the game
(humanly devised
constraints shaping
human interaction)
• experienced and
generally shared ways of
solving the problems
• experienced and
established ways of
action in certain culture
• expression of human
73
interests
 Two types of institutions
• Normative controlling
• Agreed in the game

74
 Normative controlling
institutions
• Everything what is not allowed is prohibited
• Strictly given rules. The rules are like to be
separated from us, as the norms they strictly
prescribe us how to act, what do we have to
perform (e.g. public administration). Beahviour
can be easily controlled

75
 Institutions agreed in the game
• Game has certain rules (“rules of the game”). The rules
are either strict (only one possibility to act
/normative/controlling institution/) or as in chess game
(horse – L draw). We “bargain” with the counterparts.
Often we do not consider the norm in their normative
fashion but as what we can perform based on such
norms.
• Everything is allowed what is not prohibited. There are
frames created by us which enable us to act (they do not
bind us to act)
76
 Institutions according to the type
of origin
• Informal (no formal regulations)
• A) common everyday way of action (they set up patterns of
action but it is a decision of an individual to accept them or not
– traditions, habits) – decision making of an individual
• B) everyday ways of action which are related to the orientations
and principles of the all society (generally shared conventions
which people are mostly subjected to, accept them – shaking
the hand) – subjected to the requirements of the entity
• Formal (based on formal regulations)
• C) regulated behavior according to formal rules (in a firm,
school)
• D) regulated behavior with the tools of enforcement (total
institutions – army, police)
77
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vpG6w5mAOU
 Two levels of institutions
• Institutions as the ways to solve the
problems
• Meta-institutions

78
 Institutions as the ways to solve
the problems
• Institutions: established practices as
norms, habits which are generally
implemented in the given culture (farming
as the institution)
• Institutions: collective entities – people
want to solve their problems through
collective entities (it is a collective entity
which acts) – village council, etc.
79
 Meta-institutions (ways solving the problems
emerging when solving the problems)
• They help to solve problems emerging in solving the problems –
they solve the problems of the first level of institutions
• Problems of the first level:
• Asymmetric information – solved through meta-institution of
communication (necessity of communication in rural
development)
• Difficult measurement of values – solved through the meta-
institution of market (market mechanism in rural development
combined with state interventions)
• Partial interests (we are not unbiased) – solved through meta-
institution of moral and education (educated people for rural
development)
• Clashes among people – solved through meta-institution of law
(legal fundaments of rural development)
80
81
 Organization
• Never mix organization with institution
• People act according to certain rules (norms –
culture as the set of norms, values and material
goods). These frames give an origin to
organizations. An organization is the social body
created by people who implement
institutionalized activity
• Family as the care about kids is an institution
because they are generally shared activities
(norms, rules). This institutional frame enables
the origin of the organization of family
82