Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Sociological Analysis of Free Market Emergence in Post-Socialist Countries

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SES- 0623529PI: Joel AndreasCo-PI: Corey PattersonJohns Hopkins UniversityThe co-PI will study free market emergence in post-socialist countries in this Doctoral Dissertation Improvement research. Do people turn their back on previously-established forms of organization in favor of new market opportunities? Or, do they shield themselves from changes created by laissez-faire market behavior? A variety of reactions and outcomes can be observed, but what explains these variations and how likely are they to change? The co-PI studies these questions in the context of the current agricultural transformations of the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. To date, Newly Independent State efforts to produce commercial farming have paradoxically increased subsistence production. While policy makers explain this phenomenon in terms of a need for greater market reform, the sociology of post-socialism literature argues that the types of farming practices that emerged immediately after the collapse of socialism are likely to persist, as the transaction costs of switching to commercial farming increase as time goes by. This literature, however, does not inform us about how likely subsistence production is to continue if transaction costs are reduced. This study fills that void by incorporating the insights of the sociology of post-socialism within a framework designed to analyze the relationships among non-commercial forms of organization such as subsistence, market reform, and commercial forms of organization. The study assumes that the relationships between distant labor markets and sustaining subsistence livelihoods is a key relationship. The co-PI will study the cases of the collective farm sector in the Republic of Moldova and the kinship-based subsistence sector of Georgia, as they offer the opportunity to examine diverging responses to the question of emerging markets in the Newly Independent States. The project has three goals: (1) to explain why market reforms have led to an increase in subsistence production in parts of the Newly Independent States, (2) to explain why some of these countries are more resistant to market reforms than others, and (3) to analyze how these new and existing arrangements may or may not eventually give way to free market agriculture. The main data sources are four wine-producing villages, government statistics and World Bank household consumption surveys.Broader Impacts. The broader impacts of the study are its contributions to the literature on agrarian change in the Newly Independent States and to helping us understand agrarian policy worldwide. Also, research findings will help us better understand the potential comprehensiveness of this model and as well as its limitations.