Structural Change in Finnish and Russian Countrysides: a Comparative Analysis of Two Different Types of Society

Abstract

Leo Granberg ‒ Professor, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki. Address: P.O. Box 46, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: leo.granberg@helsinki.fi

This article compares the structural changes in the Russian countryside to those of the Finnish countryside two to three decades earlier. The focus is first on institutional changes and then on local reactions and national political efforts to those mitigate changes; finally the state of civil society is discussed. In Russia, institutional infrastructure broke down in the 1990s and activities in agriculture and rural communities were severely limited. In Finland infrastructure worked well but the type of agriculture—small farming—could not be reproduced in the modernizing environment of the 1960s and later. To analyse social reactions, Albert Hirschman’s concepts of ‘exit, voice and loyalty’, are applied. Finland experienced protests and an exit from countryside, while Russia exited inwards. Soon after the occurrence of this crisis, political measures were taken in Finland, however, a more thorough-going change in policy took two decades, about as long as in Russia. One basic difference after these experiences is that Russia was, and is still, lacking any system of strategic development on the local level of society. In Finland such a system was adopted during EU accession. However, some local experiments are under way in Russian regions.