First English issue of Transylvanian Society (Erdélyi Társadalom), 2015/1

Comparative analysis in socio-economics shows that ethnic minorities are better off if they succeed to find the right balance between „coupling” to and „decoupling” from the majority in their economic relations. The papers of this issue will investigate the social aspects of economic cooperation in a multiethnic and multilingual environment and will focus on competitive advantages minorities can have using their specific resources related to ethnic solidarity, network position, cultural conditions etc.

The appearance of new transnational regulations in the last decade set the ground for new institutional conditions, „opportunity structures” for ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, not only in political, but in economic terms as well. This context apparently offers more room for the articulation of ethno-specific needs, including the economic ones. As a result, new scenes of ethnic cooperation seem to develop in the economy (eg. products and services specially positioned for minority customers, multilingual signs and communication, etc.). From the perspective of the society as a whole, this increases the presence of ethno-linguistic diversity in the everyday economic life. We expect papers to invoke theories coming from the field of economic sociology, economic anthropology, political economy and institutional economics to provide some empirical findings for the challenge to optimize the trade-off between the economic costs and benefits of diversity.

The selection committee will blindly review all submissions, and we expect selection to be competitive. All contributions should be sent using the online manuscript submission system. Submissions are due by April 16st, 2015.
For submission guidelines visit: http://erdelyitarsadalom.ro/en/manuscripts/instructions-for-authors.html