Suchergebnisse

IntroductionPrograms of agrarian reform have continued to be used either to bring about change or sometimes to slow it down, depending on whether such programs were introduced after a major upheaval in society or as a preventive against it. Economic development and modernization have been used as justifications for introducing reform programs, on the assumption that reform facilitates these processes, but the actual contribution of reform to development and modernization is not obvious nor easily measured because of the variety of approaches utilized in evaluating the effects. Furthermore, only the rudiments of a theory of agrarian reform have been formulated in the literature. To a large extent, agrarian reform programs have been pragmatically oriented, aimed at short-term political goals, or viewed as problem-solving mechanisms in the day-to-day affairs of the state. One may go farther by suggesting that reform programs have often been used to inhibit change. In that role reform serves as a pacifier, and only minimum change would be brought about—just enough to avoid an upheaval or to stabilize the relations between reformers and potential beneficiaries. By the time such a weakness, if it may be considered that, has been discovered, another potion of reform would be introduced to keep the lid on the dormant restlessness of its potential beneficiaries.

The article analyzes the influence of the institutional factor on the process of market transformations in the Russian agrarian sector from the point of view of the institutional theory, namely the transaction costs concept. The author highlights the Russian specifics and the differences of land reforms in this country from those in such countries as Japan, Germany, Scotland, Thailand, and Brazil. The paper provides an in-depth analysis of the relationships between state authorities and landowners, as well as between diverse property regimes. According to this analysis, there are two most significant factors that defined the content and result of the agrarian reforms in Russia: (1) weakness of legal institutions, (2) lack of control over realization and protection of property rights. The author concludes that high transaction costs turned to be the main obstacle during the formation of the land market in this country. Virtually total absence of government's involvement in the minimization of transaction costs is pointed out. At the same time, according to the international experience, such involvement proved to be essential for eventual success of agrarian reform. As a result of institutional deficiencies Russia faces an absolute reduction of cultivated land and a loss of interest in land as a subject of management or as an attractive investment asset. A matter of special examination of the article is the multiplicity of property regimes in the Russian agrarian sector. They are presented by the farmers, agroholdings, mega-farms, small agribusiness, and agricultural cooperatives. The final conclusion of the author's analysis of the existing property regimes is that all of them still lack economic viability because of the fundamental institutional deficiencies of land reform in this country.