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Social Violence and the Social Institutions

SOCIAL VIOLENCE AND THE SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS SOCIAL VIOLENCE AND THE SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS This paper addresses the issue of violence and the social institutions involved in the catering for the public needs in the period of social change following the collapse of the totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe. It concentrates more specifically on the social welfare institution in Bulgaria, which was called to respond to the demands of transition in a particularly imperative way over the past five years. The paper hopes to demonstrate on the basis of data from a field survey in Bulgaria, that the challenge of the transition to market economy has remained largely unmet by the social welfare institution, and that there is a failure to recognize this fact. An attempt is made to explain the disavowal of the confusion and impotence of the institutions in the face of pressing demands to respond to change by changing themselves. This attempt draws on conceptions about the nature of the social institutions and the ways in which individuals relate to them, developed by schools of thought known as object relations (Hinshelwood; Scharff and Sharff), group relations (Trist and Murray) and systems theory (Bateson; Maturana & Varela). The crucial, though little known and poorly understood role of internal objects in construing "objective reality" is emphasised. A tentative hypothesis is advanced as to why individuals who were born, raised and socialised in a human environment dominated by coercive values and practices project violent expectations on the social institutions.

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