Concepts and Types of Social Mobility in the State Cadre Team

(secondary school); group leaders of primary schools and kindergartens; group leaders of vocational secondary schools; group leaders of departments of provincial departments; group leaders of provincial offices; and other equivalent positions.

- Administrative position standards of Lao officials and civil servants:

According to Government Decree No. 461/CP, dated October 9, 2012 on administrative position standards of cadres and civil servants of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, specifically as follows:

1) General standards:

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+ On political and ideological nature:

Must have correct political ideology, be loyal to the Party, to the democratic regime, have patriotism, serve the people, have a good origin, work well and clearly; comply with the constitution and laws, have awareness of organization and discipline.

Be loyal, hard-working, diligent, thrifty; have a clean lifestyle, be creative and self-develop in all aspects.

Have a mass viewpoint, be proactive in changing oneself, self-criticize and criticize with honesty and accept all criticism from others; have solidarity and unity on the basis of the Party's guidelines and policies.

+ About ability and capacity:

Have a certain level of expertise appropriate to that position. Must have a professional level of intermediate level or higher and be able to apply knowledge to work.

Be involved in the training process or foster political and administrative theory qualifications.

At the same time, must know how to use a foreign language at a good level (in the necessary field).

+ About working method :

Able to strictly implement the Decrees, orders, decrees, decisions, regulations and rules issued by the Party and State and be responsible for assigned tasks.

Have a planned and creative, scientific way of working.

+ About health: Good health can complete assigned tasks.

2) Specific standards for each position:

In each position, in addition to the general standards, there are specific standards regarding the work experience of state officials such as:

+ For position type 8, must have working experience as a civil servant for 2 years or more.

+ Type 7: Must hold a type 8 position for at least 2 years or have at least 3 years of related work experience.

+ Type 6: Must hold a type 7 position for at least 3 years or have at least 4 years of related work experience.

+ Type 5: Must hold a type 6 position for at least 3 years or have at least 5 years of related work experience.

+ Type 4: Must hold type 5 position for at least 2 years.

+ Type 3: Must hold type 4 position for at least 2 years.

+ Type 2: Must hold type 3 position for at least 2 years.

+ Type 1: Must hold type 2 position for at least 5 years.

- Classification of organizations with State officials working:

+ Party agencies: These are the central agencies that advise and are directly under the Central Executive Committee, and mass organizations including 5 committees and 5 mass organizations: Central Office; Central Organization Committee; Central Propaganda Committee; Central Foreign Affairs Committee; Central Inspection Committee; National Construction Front; Women's Union; Youth Union; Trade Union; Veterans Association and provincial departments under the Committees.

+ State agencies: Are ministries and ministerial-level agencies under the government (excluding the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Security) including 15 ministries and 7 ministerial-level agencies: Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare; Ministry of Public Works and Transport; Ministry of Trade; Ministry of Education and Sports; Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry; Ministry of Planning and Investment; Ministry of Home Affairs; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Science and Technology; Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism; Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment; Ministry of Energy and Mines; Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications; Ministry of Justice; National Assembly; Supreme People's Court; Supreme People's Procuracy; Government Office; Government Inspectorate; State Bank; National Institute of Social Sciences and National Institute of Economic Research.

+ Armed forces: Are officers and officials working under the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Security of Laos.

The classification of organizations and agencies with Lao State officials working is to serve more accurate and clear research.

2.1.3. Concept and types of social mobility in the state cadre team

According to the Great Vietnamese Dictionary, “Team” is defined as: (1) An organization of many people gathered together into a force like a well-organized team. (2) A group of many people with the same function and profession such as a team of journalists, a team of young writers [45, p.548].

Based on the above definition and from a sociological perspective, when talking about a team, it means talking about a large number of people with different gender, ethnicity, religion, profession, age, education level, etc., forming an organization with relatively similar functions, main tasks and operating characteristics. The team of state officials is not simply the sum of the officials and civil servants, but also the arrangement, assignment and coordination of activities between officials and civil servants that create the strength for the team of officials and civil servants to fulfill their roles and tasks.

Thus, social mobility in the State cadre team can be understood as the shift in working position (administrative position) of an individual or a group (team) of State cadres; the upward or downward change in working position between different State cadres in the social stratification system, the shift from one position to another in the structure of State cadres in Party, State, Lao Front for National Construction agencies, mass organizations and armed forces.

Within the scope of the thesis, the author focuses on studying some typical types of social mobility of the State staff:

Vertical social mobility in the state cadres.

Vertical social mobility is the shift of a State official's position to another position in the same field of work. Here, there is a change in role and position. That leads to a change in position and position. When considering vertical social mobility, people

usually think of upward or downward mobility between job positions, as well as between the rungs of a power hierarchy. There are also other aspects such as the occupational-social aspect; therefore, the social mobility of the State cadres discussed in this section is mainly mentioned on two levels:

(1) Changes and shifts in job positions on the career ladder as well as personal advancement trends of State officials. That is, changes in administrative positions of State officials.

(2) Changes in academic degrees and depth of specialized training of State officials.

Horizontal mobility of state staff.

It is the change of position from an administrative position of an official to another position on the same level in the social structure (professional structure). Here, there is only a change in role and function, but no change in social and professional status. This mobility is expressed in two forms:

(1) An individual officer can change his/her field of work within the same organization or agency where he/she is working and can also change to another field of work without any change in administrative position.

(2) Individual staff can move from one professional field to another. The professional field to which the staff moves may be similar or different from the professional field in which the staff performs.

2.2. SOME THEORIES APPLIED IN STUDYING SOCIAL MOBILITY IN THE STATE PERSONNEL

Currently, there are many theories that can help establish a scientific basis for research, analysis, evaluation, and forecasting of social mobility in general, and social mobility in the State staff in particular. Within the defined scope, the thesis only mentions a number of directly related theories as a theoretical basis for approaching the research content, especially sociological theories such as: Functional structure theory and theory of formal and informal social stratification.

2.2.1. Structural-functional theory

From the perspective of the structural functional theory approach, also known as the theory

Functionalism - structure or functionalism, researchers in general, sociologists in particular have emphasized the close connection of the components that make up an entity, each of which has a certain function and contributes to ensuring the existence of that entity as a relatively stable, sustainable structure and considers the factors to maintain certain functions that make up society.

Famous sociologists in history who have been associated with structural-functional theory include: Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Hebert Spencer, Vifredo Pareto (1848-1932), Athur Radcliffe Brown (1881-1955), Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), Talcott Parsons (1902-1979), Robert Merton (born 1910), Peter Blau (1918-2002) and many other researchers.

In this theory, there are forms of sociological functionalism such as: Component functionalism in two categories: need functionalism (according to Levy or Parsons) and analogical functionalism (according to Merton or Gouldner); or "Evolutionary functionalism and later historical functionalism represented by Parsons, Luhmann" [8, p.64]. In the research of traditional functionalists such as A.Comte, Spencer... emphasized the functional factor of the components of the system, while researchers of structural functionalism such as Parsons, Merton... emphasized the role of social structure and proposed the viewpoint of implementing the functions of subsystems to maintain the stability of the system structure.

The first person to propose the direction of social statics research to study the laws that maintain the stability and order of social structure was A. Comte. Comte believed that due to the lack of coordination between the parts, the social structure was disordered, causing social abnormality. However, Comte did not use the concept of function as a sociological category. That is, he did not mention "function" but he prepared in advance to allow the analysis of function through the analogy between the individual body and society.

According to H. Spencer, “society is a living organism” and compares living organism organizations with society. He believes that there is “functional dependence” between the components of the organism. That is, individuals are units of the social organism, they participate in its development even though they are not aware of it. Thus , applying the arguments

In this study of social mobility among state officials, it is necessary to point out the factors or variables that affect the trend and pace of social mobility.

In Emile Durkheim's study of social function and structure, he proposed rules for using these concepts as tools for sociological analysis. He proposed that sociological research must distinguish between the causes and functions of social events. Durkheim believed that pointing out the function, that is, the benefit, the effect or the satisfaction of a need, does not mean explaining the formation and nature of social events. To do that, it is necessary to outline the agents that cause social events [13, p.219].

In addition, there are many other researchers and sociologists who contributed to the construction of structural functionalism such as: Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) is an Italian sociologist and economist. He emphasized the role of dynamic equilibrium in the transformation of social structure. While Bronislaw Maalinnowski (1884-1942) is a Polish functional social anthropologist. He was the first to apply the concept of function to the study of psychological needs and functions of individuals. He believed that society is organized to meet the psychological needs and demands of individuals. Thus, when applying the viewpoints of these researchers, we can see social mobility in the State cadre team as an individual need and is called anti-functional. That is, a potential and positive function of the administrative principle is to support equal employment opportunities for everyone. The functional parts of administrative principles are rigid and ineffective. Of course, what is negative for one part of society may be positive for another. The British structural-functional anthropologist Radcliffe Brown advocated studying the function of institutions in the social system. He considered social structure to be a model, a pattern of social relations formed and transformed in specific historical conditions [13, p.220].

Famous sociologists in the 1950s such as Kingsley Davis and Moore focused on analyzing the functional-structural network stratification. These authors argued that there are always objective social positions that are more important than other social positions. According to them, individuals always tend to reach higher positions in society, but not everyone has the ability and personal conditions for this.

so they accept the corresponding social position. On the other hand, high positions are often associated with higher material and spiritual benefits than other positions, so it motivates people to achieve them. Therefore, it leads to the objective arrangement of social positions. That objective arrangement creates classes in the social structure. According to them, there are two explanatory problems in the study of social mobility: (1) Each society makes individuals suitable for occupying a certain social position or status. (2) When standing in one's position, the society itself also imbues that person with expectations about how to fulfill the requirements of that position.

On the other hand, from a structural perspective, these authors explained the arrangement of social positions in any society due to three basic reasons: (1) Some positions are easier to obtain than others. (2) For the existence of society, some positions will be more important than others. (3) Different social positions require different abilities and qualities for individuals. However, according to these two researchers, society must be led by capable and qualified people. And social mobility has a positive function to help society find talents to take on important responsibilities. Because social mobility is inevitable, it exists in every society from ancient times to the present. Society needs to create conditions to encourage them, but the goal is to stabilize social bonds and social groups.

But the viewpoint of these researchers still has some limitations such as over-emphasizing the viewpoint of “healthy competition” which in reality is not entirely like that. Because in reality, there are talented people but not appreciated (counter-functional). Among the large number of talented people, only a few are appreciated, others stand still or go down… At the same time, why do many people come to places with high salaries… but the work has not solved the problems in social reality.

Robert K. Merton, Marion J. Levy Jun and Talcott Parsons are typical sociologists who study structural-functional theory in American sociology. Functionalism, or as Merton calls it “functional analysis”, is a kind of explanatory method with regulation; “social function is related to observable objective consequences, not subjective moods (goals, reasons, meanings)” [8, p.64].

According to Merton, there are two main functions: manifest function and latent function. Manifest function means functions that have a purpose and are recognized. Latent function has no purpose and is not recognized. He believes that not all social factors contribute positively, some factors have negative consequences, conflict theory takes social change as a focus and it is necessary to apply this theory in combination in studying social mobility.

On the other hand, Levy has carefully dealt with the aspects of sociological functionalism that Merton did not consider: When analyzing requirements, it is the particularity that is relevant on the social level. Requirements do not guide the search for structural requirements, but they cannot be classified point by point for the reason of functional equivalence [8, p. 73].

Talcott Parsons was the pillar of structural functionalism in the 1950s-1960s in the US. According to him, society as a system can be studied according to four functional requirements (AGIL):

(1) A (adaptation) is “Adaptation”: Economy;

(2) G (goal attainmen) “Goal attainment”: Politics;

(3) I (integration) “Integration”: social/community control;

(4) L (latent maintainance) “Maintaining latent patterns, latent models, models”: culture [8, p.236].

According to him, every social system maintains the four functional requirements above (AGIL). Each type of society has its own specific structure and function. Whichever country is strong in which functional group, through social mobility, people will focus on that function. Depending on the characteristics of society, people will emphasize which element, then social mobility will focus on that, but all will make the society stable and develop. According to Parsons, social mobility only reflects social values. He especially emphasized the ultimate goals of action. Parsons believed that action is considered rational when the goal justifies the effort. His method is the structural-functional method. Structure is a set of relatively stable relationships. Function requires understanding the part by its relationship to the whole.

When studying social mobility in more depth, Parsons' theory did not explain

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