Agrarian Politics in Eastern Europe in the Shadow of EU Accession
| Author | J. C. Sharman |
| Published date | 01 December 2003 |
| Date | 01 December 2003 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/146511650344004 |
| Subject Matter | Journal Article |
Agrarian Politics in Eastern
Europe in the Shadow of
EU Accession
J.C. Sharman
University of Sydney, Australia
ABSTRACT
This article surveys the political underpinnings of agricultural
policy in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. Fundamentally
divergent agricultural policies in each country have been
crucially shaped by the strength of agrarian political parties,
rural trade unions and links with the agricultural bureauc-
racy. Technical considerations and structural economic
conditions, on the other hand, have been at best secondary
influences. In turn, the degree and character of political
organization amongst agricultural producers in large part
reflect the historical legacies of the particular political tran-
sition path followed by each country.
447
European Union Politics
[1465-1165(200312)4:4]
Volume 4 (4): 447–471: 038139
Copyright© 2003
SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks CA,
New Delhi
KEY WORDS
agricultural policy
Eastern Europe
European Union
mobilization
transition
04Sharman (bc/t) 14/10/03 8:23 AM Page 447
Introduction
If all goes to plan, by the end of 2007 there will be 12 new member states of
the European Union (EU) and thus of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),
several of which have very large and inefficient farming sectors. Many have
asked how much new members in the East will cost taxpayers in the West
and how the enlargement will change the Union. Studies on the impact of the
accession process and eventual membership on agriculture in the post-
Communist applicant states have tended to adopt an apolitical approach.
More broadly, theoretical treatments of agricultural policy tend to explain
political outcomes by economic structure, and predict that agricultural
policies should be basically similar in countries exhibiting similar economic
features. In contrast, this article is based on the premise that agrarian politics
are and will continue to be more important than economic variables in
explaining the widely divergent agricultural policies of new applicant states.
Thus, rather than being an economic survey of post-Communist agriculture,
the article presents a political survey.
The analytical goals of the article can be reduced to two related ques-
tions. First, why do applicant countries with similar economic structures and
facing near-identical accession conditions exhibit such fundamentally
different agricultural policies? The answer is sought in the differential level
and character of political organization among agricultural producers. In turn,
the second question is what explains this variance in the level and character
of political organization and influence among agricultural producers in
different East European states? The answer lies in the contrasting transition
paths followed in each case. In particular, the degree of organization, experi-
ence and network building achieved by the opposition in the 1980s and subse-
quently the depth of the break with the old regime and the socialist system
in the countryside have had persistent effects in shaping the patterns of
political influence exerted by the agricultural sector. The account thus shares
important similarities with historical institutionalist studies of European inte-
gration: it is institutionalist to the extent that policy outcomes are crucially
influenced by political parties, trade unions and lobby groups, rather than
individual voting or market decisions, and historical to the extent that legacies
of the struggle to exit Communism have exerted a powerful influence on the
way actors have mobilized in the subsequent decade (‘History creates context,
which shapes choice’ – Aspinwall and Schneider, 2000: 16). The contingent
events of the transition period have structured how subsequent agrarian
policy and politics have played out in a manner unforeseen and unintended
by actors at the time of the fall of the old regimes (Pierson, 2000; Pierson and
Skocpol, 2002).
European Union Politics 4(4)
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