Okrugli stol Mreža naselja u umreženom društvu: društvene i prostorne promjene u nekim tranzicijskim zemljama održan je 2. lipnja 2006. godine u Institutu za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu. Organizirala ga je grupa za istraživanje prostora, sela i grada iz IDIZ-a vezujući ga uz znanstvenoistraživački projekt Sociološki aspekti mreže naselja u kontekstu tranzicije (2002.-2005.). Navedeni projekt i okrugli stol realizirani su uz novčanu potporu Ministarstva obrazovanja, znanosti i športa RH. Okrugli stol bio je podijeljen na dva tematska dijela. U prvom dijelu, pod nazivom Mreža naselja u umreženom društvu, raspravljalo se o tematskom broju Sociologije sela (169/2005.) s radovima na temu Sociologijski aspekti mreže naselja, proizišlim iz spomenutoga projekta. U drugom dijelu otvorena je diskusija na temu Akteri društvenih promjena u prostoru i to kako u Hrvatskoj tako i u nama susjednim tranzicijskim zemljama, Sloveniji i Srbiji. Iz Slovenije su sudjelovali i izlagali prof dr. Zdravko Mlinar i dr. sc. Marjan Hoćevar (obojica iz Ljubljane), a iz Srbije dr. sc. Ksenija Petovar, dr. sc. Sreten Vujović, dr. sc. Miodrag Vujošević (svi iz Beograda) i dr. sc. Ljubinko Pušić (iz Novog Sada). Iz Hrvatske su, uz sudionike iz Instituta za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu, bili pozvani izlagači iz nekoliko institucija - Filozofskog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Instituta društvenih znanosti "Ivo Pilar" iz Zagreba, Studijskog centra za socijalni rad Pravnoga fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Ministarstva zaštite okoliša, graditeljstva i prostornog uređenja, te nekih drugih institucija. U spomenutom tematskom broju Sociologije sela objavljena su dva podskupa radova koji se odnose na fenomen umreženoga društva (networked society) i mrežu naselja (settlements network). Prvi podskup čine radovi proizišli iz znanstvenoistraživačkog projekta Sociološki aspekti mreže naselja u kontekstu tranzicije u kojem je objavljeno pet izvornih znanstvenih radova troje istraživača - Alije Hodžića, Dušice Seferagić i Milana Župančića. Drugi podskup sadrži pet predmetno srodnih tekstova šestoro inozemnih autora - Marjana Hočevara i Zdravka Mlinara iz Slovenije, Ksenije Petovar i Ljubinka Pušića iz Srbije, te Zorana Roce i Marije de Nazare Oliveira Roca iz Portugala. Skup je otvorila dr. sc. Dušica Seferagić i njime koordinirala u suradnji s mr. sc. Alijom Hodžicern. U uvodnim izlaganjima sudjelovali su i mr. sc. Alija Hodžić i Antun Petak (obojica iz Zagreba - IDIZ), koji su iznijeli iscrpna izvješća o rezultatima projekta. Zatim je slijedilo izlaganje dr. sc. Ljubinka Pušića (Novi Sad) o teorijskom diskursu i o stanju u Srbiji i Vojvodini u vrijeme tranzicije te promjenama u urbanim i ruralnim prostorima u njima. Milan Župančić (Zagreb - IDIZ) iznio je stanje u ruralnim sredinama Hrvatske u proteklom vremenu. Na temu umreženosti prostora govorili su i mr. sc. Anđelina Svirčić Gotovac (Zagreb - lDIZ) (ukratko je izložila problematiku svoga magistarskog rada o kvaliteti života u zagrebačkoj mreži naselja), te dr. sc. Marjan Hoćevar (Ljubljana) (o globalizacijskim uvjetima unutar postojećih mreža naselja u Sloveniji). Nakon izlaganja u prvom tematskom dijelu nastavljena je plodna diskusija u kojoj su sudjelovali brojni sudionici - Ivan Cifrić, Sreten Vujović, Zdravko Mlinar, Jasenka Kodrnja, Dušica Seferagić, Miodrag Vujošević, Ksenija Petovar, Ljubinko Pušić, Alija Hodžić ... Najzanimljivija su bila teoretska izlaganja i diskusije o prostorno-socijalnom diskursu (Pušić, Vujović, Vujošević, Cifrić, Hodžić ...) u kojima se dovode u pitanje dosadašnji pristupi prostoru "zapadno-centričnog tipa" te zastarjelo poimanje podjele na ruralno i urbano, s obzirom da su stvarne promjene u prostoru pokazale prožimanje tih dvaju prostora, pa onda i kategorija kojima se više ne mogu objasniti nova zbivanja u prostoru. VI Drugi dio okruglog stola na temu Akteri društvenih promjena u prostoru potaknut je prijedlogom istraživačkog projekta što ga je grupa za prostor, selo i grad IDIZ-a podnijela Ministarstvu znanosti, obrazovanja i športa Republike Hrvatske, ali i prethodnim istraživanjima koja pokazuju da je društveni prostor poprište sučeljavanja i kompeticija različitih aktera za postizanjem određenih ciljeva. U novom kontekstu akteri su svi subjekti koji svojim djelovanjem i interaktivnošću utječu na društvene promjene i razvoj određenog prostora, od lokalne i regionalne sredine do nacionalne i globalne razine. Oni utječu na upotrebu prostora, društveno strukturiranje, prostornu i socijalnu pokretljivost, na naseljenost i naseljsku morfologiju. U svome djelovanju različiti akteri koriste i različite resurse, izvore moći i kompetencije. Hrvatska je (kao i ostale tranzicijske zemlje) nagl, The round table Settlements network in a networked society: Social changes and changes in regional space in some transitional countries took place on the 2nd of June 2006 at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb. The round table was organized by the Group for research of the regional space, village and town from the Institute that associated it with their own research project: Sociological aspects of the settlements network in the context of transition (2002 - 2005). The said project and the round table were subsidized by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports. The round table was divided into two parts. The first part The Settlements Network in the Networked Society included the discussion on the speciai theme edition (169/2005) Sociology of Viliage Sociological Aspects of the Settlements Network resulting out of this project, while the second consisted of the discussion on Protagonists of Social Changes in Regional Space in Croatia and in our neighboring transitional countries such as Slovenia and Serbia, as well. The participants from Slovenia were professor Zdravko Mlinar (Ljubljana), Ph.D. and Marjan Hoćevar, Ph.D. (Ljubljana) and from Serbia Ksenija Petovar, Ph.D. (Belgrade), Sreten Vujović, Ph.D. (Belgrade), Miodrag Vujošević, Ph.D (Belgrade) and Ljubinko Pušić, Ph.D. (Novi Sad). Besides the participants from the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, the participants from some other institutions were also invited - from the Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Social Sciences "Ivo Pilar" from Zagreb, University Study Center for Social Work at the Law Faculry in Zagreb and Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning and Construction and also some individuals. OI Two groups of papers related to the phenomenon of networked society and the settlements network were published in the special theme edition Sociology of Village =Sociological Aspects of Village Network. The first group consists of the papers resulted from the said research project Sociological aspects of the settlements network in the context of transition where were published five original papers made by three authors - Alija Hodžić, Dušica Seferagić and Milan Župančić. Another group consists of five topically related papers by six foreign authors - Marjan Hočevar and Zdravko Mlinar from Slovenia, Ksenija Petovar and Ljubinko Pušić from Serbia and Zoran Roca and Maria de Nazare Oliveira Roca from Portugal. The conference was opened and coordinated by Dušica Sefaragič, Ph.D. and Alija Hodžić, MD. Alija Hodžić, MD (Zagreb, Institute for Social Research) and Antun Petak (Zagreb, Institute for Social Research) o also made the keynote speeches with detailed reports on the project and its results, After that followed the reports by Ljubinko Pušić, Ph.D. (Novi Sad) on the situation in Serbia and Voivodina in the period of transition and changes in urban and rural spaces there. Milan Župančić (Zagreb, Institute for Social Research) presented the situation in the past years in Croatia from the aspects of the rural milieu. After that Andelina Svirćić Gotovac, MD (Zagreb, Institute for Social Research) made ashort presentation of her MD thesis on the quality of life in the Zagreb settlements network and Marjan Hočevar, Ph.D. (Ljubljana) spoke about globalization conditions within the existing settlements network in Slovenia and in the world context. The first topically related part was followed by a creative discussion in which many speakers and participants took part (Cifrić, Vujović, Mlinar, Kodrnja, Seferagić, Vujošević, Petovar, Pušić, Hodžić and others), The most interesting presentations and discussions were those on the socio - regional space discourse (Pušić, Vujović, Vujošević, Cifrić, Hodžić and others) that question the past approach es to the regional space "of Western- centric type" and an obsolete concept of division between rural and urban, having in mind that the real changes in the regional space have shown the interpenetration of these spaces and of categories as well which can not explain the new occurrences in the regional space any more. The second part of the round table with the ma in topic Protagonists of Social Changes in the Regional Space was incited by a research proposal of the Group for the regional space, village and town of the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb to the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, and it was also based on previous researches that have shown that social space is the arena of confrontations and competitions of various protagonists aiming at achieving certain goa ls. In the new context the protagonists are all those entities that by their acting and interacting affect social changes and development in a certain space, from the local and regional rnilieu to the national and global level. They influence using the space, social structuring, spatial and social mobility, population density and morpbology of the settlements. Different protagonists use different resources, sources of power and competences. Croatia has been (as well as other countries in transition) suddenly affected by globalization processes, which, under the influence of neoliberalism, set forth the requirements of deregulation, openness, and social and spatial flexibility. The presumption is that we are facing right now a process of an increasing influence of global protagonists and a diminishing impact of govemmental regulation at various levels of spatial organization of society. At the local level it is manifested the most through the confrontation of the traditional and modem and this is a challenge for different local protagonists to join the trends of globalization. This inevitably leads to the new restructuring in the regional space. The towns and regions that, with the ir intellectual capital and IT competence, can integrate into a global and hierarchically networked society (Castells, Soja, Sassen), will advance quicker. There is a strong concentration of financial power, information, culturai capital in the megapolises and world metropolises, but this does not necessary exclude the activities of some more penetrating 10- cal protagonists in the urban and rural area (Mendras). This is the reason why the objective of future researches should be the recognition of the different types of the protagonists that by their acting and interacting create new forms of social structure, changes in the space, functioning of town, village and local community. The subject matter of the first presentation by professor Zdravko Milinar, Ph.D. (Ljubljana) comprised the various theoretic approaches dealing with the protagonnists and structures in the physical and virtual space. He quoted many examples, with a stress on the city of Koper. After that Sreten Vujović, Ph.D. (Belgrade) spoke about a division and influence of different protagonists in urban areas today on the case of Serbia. Ksenija Petovar, Pb.D. spoke about many so-called usurpations and malversations in the space and the negativities that they bring, also on the case of Serbia. Anka Mišetić, Ph.D. (Zagreb, Ivo Pilar Institute) presented a specific exarnple from the Croatian rural settlements network on the research of the present situation in the villages of Lonjsko polje as a part of the European and world settlements network. The second part of the round table also set off an ardent discussion of many participants - Miodrag Vujoševič, Ljubinko Pušić, Sreten Vujović, Dušica Seferagić, Andelina Svirčić Gotovac, Zdravko Mlinar, Alija Hodžić, Marjan Hočevar, Antun Petak etc. The presentation and discussions showed the similarities and differences of the three countries: Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia (which have also existed before) in a European and global context. Slovenia is a highly urbanized country with the highest standard of living. The thesis of M. Hočevar of an inclination of the Slovenians to a rural way of life can be questioned but also explained by the urbanization of the whole territory, physical availability of all urban goods and excellent traffic connections. Croatia has a pyramidal settlements network with Zagreb as the metropolis on top, three macro-regional centers, a number of medium-size towns and many small towns and numerous smail villages. The latter don't show the developmental potentials due to the centralization policy and the inertness of local protagonists as well. Serbia is by and large leaned on its capital Belgrade that stiil attracts the most of the inhabitants from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the provinces are decaying. Besides Belgrade, only Novi Sad stands out as the capital of Voivodina, although Voivodina is more urbanized than Serbia proper ("narrower" Serbia). The quality of life, especiaily in Belgrade, shows huge disparities intensified by irregular and neoliberal doings of the protagonists in the regional space. The similar but less emphasized statement can be applied to Zagreb as well. The question of the settlements network in the three above mentioned transitional countries depends on the degree of the ir general social development but also on various concepts of development of the regional space: policentricity in Slovenia, pyramidality in Croatia and monocephality in Serbia. We hope that this conferenee will help the future cooperation of the scholars from the countries that, as it was seen here, shared the similar problems and similar transitional destiny and after that entered the rough neoliberal systems. Each of the present countries is specific in its own way, so the intention is to explain the present situation in them and make the problems of the networked space, respectively, current society as a whole, actual.