This is an excellent article and needs no revision. It contributes to an important area of study on the circulation and reproduction of elites in communist and post-communist societies and provides further documentation about this. A range of quantitative studies (Peter Mateju in the Czech Republic and Ivan Szelenyi in Hungary among others) have looked at these issues and found something similar - that there is a continuity between the old elite, the new elite and even the pre-communist elite. However, this study makes an additional contribution to our knowledge of these societies by showing the mechanisms by which this took place through the use of qualitative interviews.
The article is original in its use of constructivist life history methods to show how potentially dishonoured or stigmatised people construct a life story to justify themselves.
The article is elegantly framed and argued, beginning with a theoretical discussion which is also a methodological one and very germane to the content of the research. It then goes on to illustrate the points being made with detailed examples, but ones which are set within the general research context through several tables. Finally, it draws conclusions about the research content in the context of the methodological discussion. Despite the theoretical sophistication of the article, it is phrased in a straightforward and lively way which makes it a pleasure to read.
I have only one concern. The main subject of the analysis is clearly quite a prominent person in the new Czech society. Even though he is given a pseudonym, he could probably be identified without much difficulty from the information provided. I guess that the author(s) must have cleared that with him or in some way confronted this problem. Maybe this would need a footnote to explain.
This is a well written, well referenced and scholarly article which brings together several national literatures in an enlightening way.
I would suggest some changes as follows:
1. The methodology section needs considerable expansion. Issues of representativeness, sample size, selection of subjects and so on need to be addressed. It would help if the section 'The Sample' became integrated in the methods section.
2. Table 1 is included in the methods section, but it seems to me that the table is of importance in itself and contributes towards the findings. It needs a developed section of its own.
3. The aims of the paper need to be made clearer in an early part of the paper.
4. A sub-heading is required on page 13.
The focus of this paper is interesting and may be of interest to readers of Sociology, although I have some reservations about that. The main problem is that the form in which the data are currently presented is insubstantial, leaving the author open to criticisms of making unsubstantiated claims. Whilst the substantive topic is that of social mobility, the emphasis of the paper is mainly on narrative as a source of data and as a resource on which the respondents in this study draw. However, the author presents very little of the data on which the analysis is based and this makes it impossible to assess the validity of the claims being made. Overall, a reworked version of this paper might see publication but possibly in another journal.
Introduction
The paper is framed by the contrasting notions of 'great' and 'little' history - the author asserts that a focus on the latter has the potential for imbuing the former with irony but it would be helpful to say why. The statement is a little bald (sic) as it stands. The discussion of life stories and narrative is thorough and detailed although there are some grammatical and phrasing issues which require attention (marked on text).
The sample
A description is given of the sample on which the life stories were conducted but a valuable addition would be an indication of how the respondents were identified and contacted. The tables as they are currently presented are difficult to read but the format could presumably be improved. More importantly, the author could provide some indication of the classification system being used. Moreover, I wondered if greater contextualisation was necessary in order to place the patterns of mobility reported in the respondents' accounts and to enhance the degree of comparison being made. Significant reference is made to another study - its inclusion in summary would help to make more sense of the comparative statements made.
Life Stories
The key story here is told mainly in third person narrative and whilst space clearly makes it necessary to summarise chunks of the story, it is crucial to include more narrative data to underscore the six points the author makes in the following discussion section. No attempt has been made to outline how the life story analysis was conducted: this too would be a welcome addition. Whilst the life story of one respondent receives the greatest attention, those of others are frequently referred to. I think some data from the stories themselves needs (sic) to be included here - for instance, reference is made on p22 to transcription lines, but why not include the text itself? This suggests considerable reworking of the paper: for instance, splitting the six points in the discussion section into a data presentation and analysis section and presenting interview data in a way which will also enhance the transparency of the analysis. Moreover, this would allow a sharper contrast to be made between the two main respondents included in the discussion. For instance on p24 we are told of the many 'survival' episodes colouring Barta's story and how these might be 'heard'. I think the reader really needs to be given information about how the author 'hears' the story in such a way and the 'narrative context' in which it arises (and to which the author alludes but does not demonstrate).
Cultural stories
The author states on p25 that stories concerning education often came first in the overall narrative structure of the respondents' life stories - I wondered if it might make some sense to retain this structure in the presentation of the paper. It is a fairly brief section given the weight of the claims being made for the significance of educational stories. Again in this section, a great deal of analytic work is done without seeing any of the data from which the analysis is made.
Conclusion
The emphasis of the conclusion is very much on the narrative resources on which the respondents draw to do their biographical work. The format of the paper obscures the data and hence, the resources on which they draw.
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