Suchergebnisse

SUMMARYThis essay is an inquiry into manorial production in Scania. Its growth was dependent on the long‐term development of European grain prices. When prices increased landlords were encouraged to put more land under the plough. The estates' main income came, to an increasing extent, from demesne production, which finally dominated the income profile. The peasants' most important contribution to the landlords became, in most cases, their corvée labour, and their uncertain tenure rights were illustrated with great clarity in the continuing evictions, which were accelerated in the nineteenth century with the aim of expanding the demesne.

This thesis analyses the relation between institutions and the emergence of markets in the context of the Russian transition since the beginning of the 1990s. Introducing democracy and market economic relations in Russia are goals that require profound changes in the institutional framework inherited from the Soviet Union. Institutions are "rules-in-use" governing interactions in the socio-economic system. Institutions tend to change slowly, either spontaneously in response to changes in the environment in which the system is embedded, or as a result of collective decisions by citizens or their representatives. The topics discussed in this thesis can be framed through the following questions: What is the general role of institutions in the ongoing changes in Russian society? Are there institutions that hamper the transition process towards democracy and a market economy? If so, how do they hamper this process? How can such institutions be changed to better serve the needs of the emerging market system? To what extent must new institutions be substituted for old in order to improve the situation? The studies reported in the thesis address these questions from different but related perspectives. Based on analyses of previous research, official statistical data, and a series of case studies of forest enterprises in eight Russian regions it is shown (in article I) that a specific and, in a market economic perspective, utterly peculiar institutional set-up, the virtual economy, came to govern forest enterprises' behaviour in the early phase of the Russian transition. For reasons having to do with the special resource allocation model of the Soviet command economy a large share of the enterprises that Russia inherited after the disintegration of the Soviet Union was miserably unfit to meet market competition. If forced to meet global market competition many (if not most) of them would have been threatened with bankruptcy. Since there was no institutional infrastructure that could mitigate such massive disruptive events and reallocate resources into new profitable production activities, the consequences would likely have been devastating for the whole Russian society. In this situation, to avoid bankruptcy and stay alive, many enterprises "insulated" themselves from market competition by entering the virtual economy and engaging in non-monetary transactions with other enterprises in a similar predicament. While the first article (I) identifies pertinent characteristics of the institutional set-up defining the virtual economy in the context of the Russian regional forest sector, the second article (II) addresses the issue of how to introduce institutional changes through a collectively chosen design process. Policy exercises were used as a tool for conducting this systemic intervention with the purpose of initiating participatory policy formulating processes in four of the previous case study regions. It was found that, in principle, policy exercises could be an efficient vehicle for a participatory elaboration of policy proposals in Russia. However, in the current political context stakeholders' insufficient trust in public procedures and the weakness of civic organisations hampered a successful participatory Russian forest policy formulation. In the third article (III) one of the previous case study regions (Arkhangelsk Oblast) was revisited and a second round of interviews was made with forest enterprises that took part in the previous study (I). The purpose of the study was to see if the behaviour typical of the virtual economy was giving way to a more market efficient behaviour. The analysis indicated that this was indeed the case, a result that was further corroborated by an analysis of statistical data pertaining to the development in all of Russia. The thesis is based on the assumptions that the process of designing and introducing new or modified institutions to govern actors' behaviour, and to do this in a way that ensures the legitimacy of the resulting policy proposals, is greatly facilitated and improved by the existence of functioning democratic procedures. The last article (IV) discusses the functioning of Russian democracy using a conceptual model for assessing the efficiency of the Russian political market. It is argued that such a model must embrace both the structure and agency characteristics of the political market. To illustrate the approach, a survey was made of recent institutional changes affecting the structure of the Russian political market. The analysis indicated that several reforms introduced in the last few years have improved the structural prerequisites for democracy and more efficiently functioning political market behaviour in Russia. The thesis is believed to contribute to our understanding of the role of institutions in building democracy and market economies in transition countries. ; Godkänd; 2008; 20080602 (ysko)

AbstractInstitutions govern the behavior of all actors in a society. The Russian transition to a market economy is mainly a matter of reshaping society's institutions to make them more conducive to a market efficient behavior. But how can suitable institutional changes be achieved? This article discusses the experiences gained through a series of policy exercises with stakeholders in the Russian regional forest sector. The purpose of the exercises was to initiate a participatory policy process leading to the elaboration of implementable proposals for a new regional forest policy. The prospects of such policy exercises to make an impact are best if the systemic interventionist manages to affiliate with active regional stakeholder groups and if support from the regional authorities and external financial sources can be secured. Such support will establish an effective incentive structure that will contribute to the legitimacy of the policy process. In the current Russian situation there is a lack of organized stakeholder groups with whom to conduct a dialogue.

The ongoing transformation of the Russian society largely consists in changes in the institutional framework constraining actors' behavior in the emerging market economy. While we have a substantial knowledge about the functioning of a market economy we know very little about how to create such a system. The transition in Eastern Europe offers an opportunity to acquire new knowledge about the prerequisites for the establishment of a market economy. This thesis is based upon research performed in a project called "Institutions and the Emergence of Markets - Transition in the Russian Forest Sector" conducted between 1997 and 2001 at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. The purpose of the study was to identify institutional hurdles for the reformation of the Russian forest sector. The task was approached through a series of case studies of the institutional problems hampering developments in the forest sector of eight Russian regions. Data describing the behavior of forest enterprises was obtained through an interview survey among enterprise leaders in each one of the eight regions. The so-called Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework provided a common design for the eight case study reports comprising the first phase of the project. One such case study report is included in this thesis - the one dealing with institutional problems in the forest sector of the Arkhangelsk Oblast. Based on the previous eight case studies an integrating analysis was made with the purpose of identifying more general characteristics of the institutional framework embedding the Russian forest sector. The results of the analysis were reported in a journal article published in 2001. This article is also included in the thesis. In a third and final phase of the project, the results of the previous studies were disseminated through a series of policy exercises to forest stakeholders in four of the eight case study regions, the purpose being to see if a participatory policy formulation process could be established among regional forest stakeholders. The third paper included in this thesis reports on the results of the policy exercises conducted in the regions of Murmansk, Karelia, and Arkhangelsk in the autumn of 2000 and the spring of 2001. As this thesis illustrates, transforming the old Soviet command economy into a modern market system is a formidably complex task. The reforms taken early during the transition (e.g., privatization and price liberalization) triggered a series of spontaneous changes in the economy actually threatening to bankrupt many Russian enterprises and ultimately to upset the entire social order. However, the development also triggered its own response in that it made many market non-viable enterprises enter the so- called virtual economy. Here enterprises exchanged goods and services through barter trade thus avoiding true market competition. In fact, many of the rules-in-use (institutions) constraining the behavior of actors in the virtual economy originated in the old Soviet command system. A major problem with the virtual economy is that it maintains the sub-optimal resource allocation typical of the command economy. The findings reported in this thesis empirically corroborate central hypotheses generated by the theory of the virtual economy. Some ideas are also explored about ways to disentangle the institutional deadlock preventing a large part of the forest enterprises from restructuring to become viable in the emerging Russian market economy. The study arrived at the very general conclusion that there are no easy top- down procedures that automatically will lead to an efficiently functioning Russian market economy. The results contest the claims made by the "shock therapy" school of (mainly western) reform advisors to the Russian government. While certain basic reform measures could not be introduced gradually, there was no ground for expecting rapid automatic and profound positive changes in the institutional framework constraining actors' behavior in the Russian economy. On the contrary, the institutional deadlock characterizing the Russian economy will take a long time (and quite innovative thinking) to disentangle. The problem consists in envisaging a way to introduce institutional changes with the multiple purpose of improving the efficiency of the economy (raising people's standard of living) while at the same time improving the workings of democracy and doing so in a society where the existing institutional framework does not work properly. The study led to a number of specific conclusions relating to the possibilities of reforming the Russian forest sector, making the institutional framework constraining actors' behavior more conducive to economic efficiency. It was found that there is a need for changes throughout the entire institutional hierarchy, ranging from constitutional rules, through collective choice rules, to operational rules. Separation of duties and obligations between the political and economic spheres of society should be an underlying principle in all these changes. It was also suggested that policies for improving the institutional framework governing the Russian regional forest sector should be elaborated in a dialogue with the stakeholders who are directly affected by malfunctioning of the sector. The study showed that the use of policy exercises for elaborating improved forest policies seems feasible although the Russian civil society is (still) not sufficiently developed to allow participatory policy formulation procedures to work effectively. ; Godkänd; 2004; 20070116 (haneit)

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The Swedish Municipality Act, issued in 1862, consolidated a plutocratic system in which ownership and income, and the resulting level of taxation, translated into political power. However, as a measure to hinder large landowners from holding a majority of the votes, the Act guaranteed voting rights for tenants. The aim of the article is to analyse how power relations played out after this challenge to landlords' hegemony. Through an analysis of tenants' contracts, appeals to the King in Council and minutes from municipal board meetings, we show how landlords did not trust a political culture of deference to secure power, even if they had demanded subservience in contracts. In a deliberate and specific way, they also reserved voting rights for themselves, which we find to have been a widespread pattern although it was repeatedly pointed out as illegal by the King in Council. However, through the analysis of the board meetings, it becomes clear that the position of manorial landlords in these municipalities was so obvious that they rarely had to confront their tenants with their illegal contractual restrictions. The results empirically challenge a narrative of slowbut steady democratization and theoretically challenge the alleged reciprocity of landlord-tenant relations.

Sweden was unique in early modern Europe, in that its parliament included a peasant farmer estate. It is commonplace in Swedish and international research to consider the peasant farmer politicians as the guarantee of a liberal and egalitarian path of development. On the other hand, in the Swedish-language political history literature, the peasant politicians are often seen as rather narrow-minded, their common political program limited to the issue of keeping (their own) taxes as low as possible, and opposed to any expansion of social policy and citizenship rights. To address the role of peasant farmer politicians, this paper presents a novel dataset of the social and economic status of the peasant MPs, with benchmarks for the 1769, 1809, 1840, 1865 and 1895 parliaments. We show that the politicians were three to four times wealthier than their voters, and in the 1895 parliament even 7.8 times wealthier. They were more likely to take bourgeois surnames and their children were likely to make a transition away from the peasant class and into the middle class. The exclusiveness of the peasant politicians, which increased over the nineteenth century, has implications for their policies, and helps explain the increasing conservatism and right-ward drift of Swedish farmer politics over the century.