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- Title
Rural Intelligentsia and Path Dependency in Post-socialist Civic Organising: The Case of Lithuania.
- Authors
Juska, Arunas; Poviliunas, Arunas; Ziliukaite, Ruta; Geguziene, Vilma
- Abstract
Since the late 1990s the number of rural community development groups in Lithuania has grown exponentially. The article presents the results of one of the first representative surveys of rural NGOs ( N = 326) in Lithuania designed to evaluate their structure and resources. Unlike civic organising during the perestroika period, which was characterised by charismatic personalities and organisational innovations, the most recent surge in rural activism follows a path-dependent trajectory. The movement is lead by representatives of former collective farms, or kolkhoz intelligentsia (white-collar professionals who served in collective farm social infrastructure during Soviet times) engaged in reconstituting volunteer groups based on a modified Soviet institution of the rural ‘culture house’ or Soviet civic centre (SCC). The prevalence of the SCC-based rural organising model provided opportunities as well as imposed limitations on post-socialist civic activism. Community development groups were relatively successful in the types of activities in which SCCs were effective as well (such as culture, leisure and sports), while their capacity to deliver social services were marginal. Although this survey reported relatively high levels of engagement by the community groups with local and county governments, their influence remains constrained by the paternalistic, client–patron type of power relationships that prevail in rural areas.
- Subjects
LITHUANIA; COMMUNITY development; COLLECTIVE farms; COLLECTIVE settlements; RURAL development; REGIONAL planning; COOPERATIVE agriculture; POLITICAL action committees; COMMUNITY organization
- Publication
Sociologia Ruralis, 2008, Vol 48, Issue 2, p93
- ISSN
0038-0199
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-9523.2007.00454.x