Anders Sejerøe
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My fieldwork would not have been possible without the assistance of the Foreign Department at the Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre in Skejby and the Smolensk Information Advisory Centre. Thank you very much to you all for allowing me in on your daily work and giving me an insight in the life of a Danish project and a Russian advisory centre.
And thank you to all others, in Russia and Denmark, who took the time answering my questions and showing me around in their homes or workplaces.
In writing this thesis I am very thankful for the readings and comments by Vibe, Dorte, Rikke and Ole from my study group, Michael Whyte and my supervisor Finn Sivert Nielsen.
In the text there are quotes from documents, informal conversations, formal meetings and interviews in Danish, English and Russian. The quotes that I have translated directly into English is marked by a (MT) - my translation, while quotes which I have reproduced from my field notes (and in most cases also translated) is marked by (FF) - from fieldnotes.
When you drive around in the Russian countryside it is easy to imagine farm life as it was centuries ago. You see an old woman tending the vegetable garden in front of her small wooden house, a couple of men in the meadow during haymaking loading hay on their horse-drawn wagon, a girl bringing home the family cow for milking, a young man on a horse looking after a larger herd of cattle, and even a large group of young people harvesting flax by hand and stacking it in sheaves. But soon the picture gets confused - the small road tavern nearby is selling coca-cola and imported beers, while Russian pop-music fills the air. You are passed by a big, new Mercedes at the same time as you try to pass a horse-drawn carriage. In other fields big combiners are harvesting and loading trucks with grain. Factories, power pylons and antennas are also part of the picture. And two or three-story buildings have replaced the traditional wooden houses as part of the effort to change the Russian peasant into a modern industrial worker. This picture leaves a somewhat confused image about the life of the rural Russians.
The picture is equally mixed when reading a Russian magazine for animal husbandry. Between commercials for new Western breeds and special mixes of fodder and articles on for example a new Russian computer-program for cattle breeding one reader asks how best to feed his working horse, and the magazine brings together with their own answer a copy of an article from 1885 on the same topic. Another article shows how to build a traditional barn which is made entirely of "free" resources that can be found in every forest(1).
The picture of Russian agriculture oscillates between different stages in the agricultural evolution. From primitive peasant subsistence farming, over small individual farms and soviet-style large-scale farms with heavy machinery to modern and efficient industrialised farms. And in between there are small private plots on which nearly half of the entire agricultural production in Russia takes place(2) (Amelina 1999). The most striking feature is the great differences from region to region and from farm to farm - differences relating to technology, organisation and efficiency.
If one looks at the Russian agriculture in a larger perspective, the current low productivity and efficiency is of course partly an effect of the general economic crisis in Russia, but also prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, productivity was very low. The agricultural sector experienced a high growth in productivity in the years after the Second World War but the growth stagnated by the 1960s (see appendix 1). By the end of the 1980s crop yields in (Soviet) Russia were estimated to be 30 per cent lower and livestock yields 40-50 per cent lower compared to similar climate zones in the West (Perrotta 1998: 149). Foreign experts and Russian reformers saw the socialist organisation of the agricultural production as the main reason for this. Instead of private and individual farms as in the West, socialist agricultural production was organised in large units - state farms (sovkhozy) and collective farms (kolkhozy)(3) with several hundred employees in each. Besides the official production on those large-scale farms(4), a substantial part of the overall agricultural production took place in the 'private plots'. Private plots are the small pieces of land grown 'privately'(5) by workers from mainly the large-scale farms, but also from other workplaces. Compared to collective production the private production had an extremely high yield. Hedrick Smith(6) points to figures showing that 27% of Soviet agricultural production in 1976 was from 'private plots' which only covered 1% of the total agricultural land. According to these figures, the agricultural production under private management was thus 40 times as efficient (Smith 1977: 251)(7). Figures like these combined with the overall low productivity in comparison with Western agriculture convinced advisors and politicians in both Western aid agencies and the Russian government that privatisation was the way to achieve a higher output (cf. Perrotta 1998: 149). A wide range of reforms and programmes was initiated with the goal of letting the workers leave the collective production to start up their own farm.
The Russian government currently receives various kinds of support (financial, technological, and ideological) from Western donors. Among these initiatives is a Danish agricultural project in the Smolensk region (See appendix two and three for a closer description of the project and its history). The project is sponsored by the Danish Ministry of Agriculture, in cooperation with Smolensk regional administration and executed by the Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre (DAAC). The aim of the project is to help develop independent commercial agriculture and modernize the production by building agricultural institutions - an advisory centre, a machinery station and a grain-store - and introducing Danish agricultural techniques and organisation of work. I followed this project during six months of fieldwork in 2001, and this project is the focal point of the thesis.
Today, a decade after the start of the reforms and restructurings, the picture of Russian agriculture has not improved and the productivity is still extremely low. The problems in the Russian agricultural sector are manifold: The expenditures are rising without a similar increase in prices on products, the productive apparatus is outdated and worn down, there is a shortage of competent workers and the sector has lost most of its previous support from the state (Norsworthy 2000). The efforts to privatize have not yet had the expected result: a commercial agricultural production based mainly on the private independent farmers.
The continuing low productivity in spite of domestic and foreign initiatives gives rise to the questions: why are the experiences with successful farming so few and dispersed? Why do Russian farms not achieve higher productivity now that they apparently have the possibility to benefit from the same conditions as Western farmers - privatised and able to operate on a free market? It seems strange, especially in Smolensk region, where the Danish project has introduced modern efficient techniques and forms of organisation to the agricultural producers.
During my fieldwork, officials from the Danish donor - the Danish Ministry of Agriculture - visited the project and I joined them on a tour to farms connected to the project. As we drove to visit a former collective farm, we passed large areas of unused land that earlier had been cultivated, but now lay bare and had become overgrown with shrubbery and young forest. The Danish officials' comment on seeing this was that all of this land was just waiting for somebody to use it. "Imagine what could be done, if a few Danish farmers would come over and work the land,"(FF) he said. The Danish comments reflected amazement on why nobody seemed to take advantage of this unused land, and at the same time indignation of this waste of a great potential resource. They considered it not only irrational not to utilize the land, but also immoral, especially considering the poor economic situation of the country. To them, there seemed to be no obvious explanation why the Russians did not utilize the land better, especially since they now had access to modern techniques, which the Danish project so generously had demonstrated. "They [Russians] always come up with excuses," one of the Danish officials said in an irritated tone. "They say the low production this year is because of the warm and dry season, and last year they blamed the low harvest on too much rain"(FF). In the conversation there was an implicit understanding that local people were acting irrationally - using old ineffective techniques even though the project have showed them better, lacking initiative and being lazy - why else did they not take advantage of the land instead of complaining?
In this thesis I will follow up on this amazement and investigate the problems of reforming Russian agricultural production through a Danish project. However, my approach will not focus on the "irrational Russians", but on the rationalities in play at the Danish project in Smolensk. My overall question is: Why has it been so hard for the project to succeed in transferring Danish agricultural technology and organisational structures to the Smolensk region, when Danish agricultural production compared to Russian clearly is many times as efficient? The thesis is thus a study of both the Danish and the Russian approaches and practices in a specific agricultural project. I therefore take a closer look at the complex situation of Danish system-export and examine what happens when Danes travel to Russia, bringing with them material resources, invitations to Denmark, technology, models and approaches on how to do effective farming. This is a complicated process in which the interests and practices of many actors (Danish as well as Russian) are in play - practices that are rational in themselves but become irrational and illogical when combined.
My aim is to provide an analysis of the problems of Danish development work in Russia based on an empirical study of a Danish agricultural project.
My first objective is to explore the factors which shaped the design of the project. In chapter two I investigate how a combination of the neo-liberal discourse (Rose 1993) and guidelines from development work in the Third World formed the general parameters for development work in Eastern Europe. I will show how different criteria for development work, such as the overall insistence on top-down control with the donated funds combined with the criteria of local participation and bottom-up development, leads to internal oppositions in the project design, as evident when following the history of the project. This first section takes as a point of departure anthropological works on development in general (cf. Gardner & Lewis 1996) and on Eastern Europe and Russia in particular (cf. Wedel (2000, 2001, 2002) and Creed & Wedel 1997).
In chapter three I will examine the opposition between the top-down practice and the bottom-up ideology within the project and show how the actors are able to cope with this opposition by using methods similar to those used in the Soviet command economy to cope with discrepancies between ideology and reality, rhetoric and practice. These methods are against Danish ideological goals such as transparency and their existence in the project is therefore problematic. This point is not a critique of the individual actors (Danish and Russian) in the project but a general critique of development policies and the assumption that a combination of bottom-up ideology and top-down control is unproblematic. Aside from this important critical point on the project design, my attitude to the project work and the central actors is positive. I find that the central actors in the project work hard and competently to achieve results on a local level and that they succeed (although not in every aspect) despite very difficult circumstances. Their work is valuable and directly beneficial to local agricultural producers and also in accordance with the ideology of the Danish project.
Despite the positive elements, the results of the project are still modest considering the large funds donated. The agricultural institutions within the project are established, but only serving a limited number of farms, and the introduced Danish techniques are mainly being used by farms directly connected to the project, and not to a very great extent by other farms in the region. Most other development projects in Russia (and most of the other former Soviet republics) face similar problems (cf. Wedel 2001) and the question is thus, why is it so hard to achieve technological or institutional changes? My central point is that the opposition between the bottom-up and top-down approach is not only an opposition between ideology and practice within the project, it is also an opposition between two very different approaches to knowledge, and how knowledge should be distributed. In chapter four I examine this difference and show how it is connected to the placing of responsibility and organisation of work.
This leads to the final part of the thesis (chapter five) in which I, in line with Lass (1999), examine how the technology and institutional models in the Danish project are tightly connected to a larger social and economic setting which makes it difficult to implement in a Russian context. The basic economic conditions in Russia are different from those in Denmark, which I will discuss by defining the main dominating economic principles (Polanyi [1944]). This helps me to define the rationality of the top-down and bottom-up approaches and from this to answer the initial question of the thesis: why the efficient Danish Model and bottom-up approach only in certain respects has been implemented in a Russian context with success.
The thesis is divided into two main sections: first, the discussion of the bottom-up ideology versus the top-down practice in the project and how the actors in the project cope with this internal opposition (chapter two and three), and second, the connection between technology, social organisation and economy (chapter fire and five). The main analytic tool that will combine the two sections is the opposition between a top-down and a bottom-up approach. In the first section this opposition is mainly expressed as an opposition between practice and ideology in the implementation of the project, while in the second section, the bottom-up approach is revealed to be not just ideology but also a practical prerequisite for several of the project elements.
My initial aim for doing research was to follow the project in the different levels from the donor - the Danish Ministry of Agriculture - over the project implementer - DAAC - to the beneficiaries - the Russian farmers. But the project involved a far larger number of actors than what could be placed under these three categories, and a great methodological problem of my fieldwork was to get an overview of the very large number of persons and institutions involved in the project(8). The different actors acted in very different settings and a large part of their activities involved travelling to meet each other. As I followed the project also in this aspect, this meant that my fieldwork in every sense of the word was multi-sited (Marcus 1995), both regarding geography(9) and regarding the social level in which the different persons acted(10).
Besides, the different kinds of interaction between the actors, their backgrounds and interests opened for a wide range of theoretical issues, which deserve attention and further research. This is beyond the scope of this thesis though, and I will focus on the work of the agricultural advisory centre in Smolensk (SIAC(11)) and of DAAC. The people working in these two institutions were my primary informants. The strategy I utilized in my multi-sited fieldwork was to 'follow the persons'(12) and I joined the local advisors in their work in the region, at different seminars and in their daily interaction at the office with costumers, regional directors, Danish consultants and officials etc. I applied the same method on the Danish consultants visiting Smolensk, and furthermore I joined them in the evenings and weekends as we shared the same apartment(13). The most informative situations were when different actors met (in official or unofficial meetings) and both their shared and oppositional ideological standpoints, interests and goals became visible. These interface situations(14) (Long 1999) became the pivotal points for the thesis and helped demarcate the key issues in the project. Beyond acting as 'traditional' informants, the consultants from DAAC and especially the advisors at SIAC also provided important help to contextualise data from situations and interviews in other settings(15).
A limiting factor in my fieldwork was my relatively low level of Russian language. Although I was able to speak Russian for everyday communication and could conduct simple interviews, I felt that formal interviews, especially with people that sat working time aside for me, had to be with the assistance of an interpreter. This reduced the number of official interviews as they had to be coordinated with the interpreter and arranged in advance, which was difficult for most informants. The most fruitful situations were when the informant had time and patience to talk directly with me, without an interpreter, and we could have a direct and informal conversation.
My own position in the local context was a bit confusing for many of my informants since I stated that I was not part of the project or a representative for DAAC, but at the same time I was clearly placed in the field by them. I was introduced to the central actors via DAAC, lived in their apartment, joined the Danish consultants on tours around the region and communicated with them throughout the project period. I was therefore by most Russians perceived as part of the Danish project. This meant that I in Smolensk became some sort of representative from DAAC although my position as student meant I was of low status. My close tie with DAAC proved to be a great advantage since I got immediate access to the central actors connected to the project, and officials set time aside for interviews and allowed my presence at official meetings. The cost of my close connection with the Danish side of the project has been that some of the data I received were prepared as presentations to DAAC or the Danish donor and yet other data probably was kept secret from me. But on the other hand, I can see no position that would have given me free access to all data. DAAC and SIAC proved important to me as central actors that could function as 'gatekeepers' to the field, which is especially important in the Eastern European context, where "strangers are to be trusted only if they are linked by a common acquaintance who is also trustworthy" (Bruno 1998: 180).
In the following I will point to several critical issues in relation to the project, but I would like to make clear that in the overall perspective I sympathize with the project and the work done by the central persons in especially DAAC and SIAC. The issues I want to problematize are in relation to the overall dynamics of development work in a Russian context and not to the specific actors in this project.
With this chapter I wish to start an unwrapping of the Smolensk project, and show the different interests at stake and the complex of problems arising when Danish good intentions and resources engage with a local Russian reality.
First, I will show how the project is positioned in relation to the political history of development work. Afterwards I will move on to a description of the history of the project.
Since the 1950s, Western countries have given aid to countries in the South(16). Western countries have via different programmes of help and donation tried to 'develop' the so-called 'underdeveloped countries'. Governments and international organisations administrate the fundings and those same bodies also execute programmes and a wide variety of activities. In the last decades, private and semiprivate actors (such as consulting companies and different kinds of non-governmental organisations, NGOs) have increasingly undertaken the execution of projects and have often been in competition for the same funds. It is thus possible to speak of the development "business" or aid "industry" and perceive the development world as a market among others. The actors engaged in this market (whether governmental, private or non-governmental) all, to some extent, rely on the same mechanisms and rules of this market. These market rules differ from normal supply and demand, as it is the donors rather than people in need, who decide what is in demand (Westphalen 1998: 53).
The actors in the market need political goodwill and administrative approval from the donor. The need for administrative approval implies that those who want to be in the business must be able to fulfil the administrative demands, such as the delivery of correctly formatted project applications, budgets and reports. The need for political goodwill means that changing political attitudes and foreign policies set the basic framework for possible areas of project work.
It is therefore relevant to investigate how current policies of development to Eastern Europe are placed in the larger tradition of development work, as they set up the parameters for individual projects.
The development business has changed a lot since its beginning after World War 2. The basic idea is modernisation-oriented and optimistic, based on an evolutionary perception of the world, which placed the 'North' and the 'South' at different levels of development. In this view the backward and undeveloped South thus resembles the historical North and just as the North has developed through history so too is it possible for the South. The first decades of development work (1950-70s) were oriented towards industrialisation and the level of development was measured in GNP. The idea was that the 'trickle down' effect(17) eventually would rectify symptoms of poverty such as high child mortality, malnutrition and illiteracy (Gardner & Lewis 1996: 6p).
However, the experience after the first decades of development work was that large prestigious projects, such as the building of dams, bridges and power stations, did not improve the situation of the poor and this led to criticism of the top-down modernization approach. Many of the donors reacted to the criticism and changed some of the procedures. One result was that many projects became directly orientated towards poverty relief or towards certain target groups such as women, the poorest etc. One way of trying to reach these groups was by projects of 'empowerment' that attempted to stimulate and support the target group to learn and take action themselves. Instead of being perceived as passive objects for development projects, local people were redefined as active 'stake-holders' with a personal interest and active involvement in the project. The active involvement of the beneficiaries - it was assumed - would simultaneously help reduce costs and secure the effect and 'sustainability' of the project. 'Local participation' were therefore seen in much of the development world as the missing ingredient that would help to avoid 'white elephants' (big expensive prestigious projects that failed). Many critics, however, view participation "as a degraded term, which served only to 'soften' top-downism" (Gardner & Lewis 1996: 111), often without any substantial impact (cf. White 1996).
Another consensus that grew out of the 1970s, was that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) proved to be more efficient in the execution of projects because they had better contact with the local communities than the state agencies. As a consequence NGOs were gradually given a bigger role in the development world of the 1980s and 90s (Gardner & Lewis 1996: 107pp).
By the 1990s, when Western development programmes started in Eastern Europe, the experiences of development projects in the 3rd world served as the background for development projects in the region. This meant that keywords like 'participation' and 'sustainability' played an important role in policies for development and aid assistance and also for individual programs and projects. This is not to say that none of the mistakes from development project in the South were repeated. As my material will also demonstrate, it is one thing to advocate participation and sustainability in official policies and a completely different thing to implement them in practice.
The end of the Cold War meant that a whole new field opened up for the development business, as the West promised to help the former enemy behind the Iron Curtain and put large sums of money aside for this purpose. The aid was intended to help the East European countries to proceed through the 'transition' and thereby end up achieving the same benefits of democracy and free market economy as countries in Western Europe. The idea among most scholars and politicians in the West was simply that the removal of the communist order combined with large economic investments would 'free' the East Europeans and bring them to the supposed "natural" state of liberal capitalism and democracy (cf. Gerner & Hedlund 1994: 8, Verdery 1996). This meant that expectations for a relatively quick and unproblematic transition grew both in the East and the West (Creed & Wedel 1997: 254).
The first to engage in this new market were mainly big actors in the traditional development business of the Third World (Wedel 2001: 27), but newcomers soon followed them. In Denmark these new actors were public and private institutions. They are different from the traditional firms in the development business, as they often have no prior experience from development work in the Third World, and development work is not their main activity. They only participate in areas, which are directly related to their normal business and the projects they are involved in often have as their main aim to copy elements of their work and/or organisational structure in Denmark into a local context in Eastern Europe(18). These types of projects are in Denmark referred to as 'system export'.
The Danish government joined the efforts to help Eastern Europe with the 'transition' and in 1990 established the East Assistance Office (Øststøttesekretariatet), which coordinates the programmes and projects under different ministries. The variety of projects has been great, and both public and private companies, NGOs and individuals have been free to apply for money for projects on their own initiative in almost all areas of work. For Russia alone more than a billion Danish kroner have been granted to Danish projects in Russia in the period 1990 - 1998 (Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1999: 21). The East Assistance is separate from assistance to the Third World (which is administrated by Danida (the Danish International Development Agency) and differs from such aid in several ways, among others in that the East Assistance is not poverty oriented. The initial help was supported by great public enthusiasm and a wish to help Danish neighbouring countries, poor and inexperienced in the liberal market economy after so many years of totalitarian rule. In the beginning, the programmes varied greatly, but after some years the focus shifted towards a more instrumental use of the funds to directly further Danish political interests with a focus on environmental issues and active promotion of Danish technologies.
To sum up, the aim of the Danish development assistance to East Europe is to "promote stability and good neighbourly relations" and by "cross-border cooperation … to bridge old dividing lines in Europe" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1999: 5). The East Assistance has as its primary aim to support an economic, social and commercial development that is environmentally sustainable. Besides this The East Assistance aims to help create a market for Danish export and to show as part of Danish foreign policy that Denmark still stresses good relations with e.g. Russia, even though the country is outside the EU and NATO enlargement sphere (as opposed to Poland and the Baltic countries)(19).
The need for a restructuring of the post-socialist East European societies was evident for Western politicians, and Danish public institutions were seen by Danish politicians as perfect models. The concept of 'system export' was primarily applied to the export of systems that were already working in Denmark, primarily in public institutions. It thus implies export of know-how, expertise and organisational structures, which in the concrete projects are often combined with transfer of technical equipment and study-tours to Denmark.
Connected to the concept of 'system export' is the concept of 'The Danish Model'. It is used to describe a presumably unique Danish approach to social life and institutions characterised by dialog, respect for the individual, a low hierarchical structure and an antiauthoritarian approach (Westphalen 1998: 111). The 'Danish Model' is based on specific historical elements from the transformation of Danish society in the late nineteenth century. This was the period when Denmark changed from a rural to a modern industrial society and simultaneously became democratic. 'The Danish Model' thus combines two aspects that are considered essential for the 'transition' in Eastern Europe: a democratic as well as a commercial aspect of development within the free market. To understand this, a short overview of Danish history is useful.
The transformation of Denmark to a modern industrialised society with democracy took place in the last half of the nineteenth century. Denmark had lost the war with Germany in 1864 and with that also a large part of Southern Jutland. It was a time when national sentiments ran high and since war no longer was an option to regain what has been lost, these feelings were directed towards internal development and modernisation (allowed by favourable economic conditions) as expressed in the proverb: "Hvad udad tabes, skal indad vindes," - meaning that what had been lost externally should be gained internally. A modernisation in all areas of society took place and especially in the agricultural sector (cf. Sehested & Wulff 1998). Two phenomena are generally emphasised in this connection: The cooperative movement and the folk high school movement, both of which were central to rural development.
The object of the cooperative movement was purely financial: to buy and sell agricultural products. The background was a dramatic drop in world prices on grain in 1875, which contributed to a change in Danish agriculture from mainly grain production to livestock farming. With the establishment of cooperative dairies and slaughter houses, Danish farmers became able to produce processed food that could be sold on the international market, especially bacon and butter for England. The movement grew so big that more than 90% of all milk and pork production went through the cooperatives. The general principle of the cooperatives was "one man, one vote" regardless of the size of the farm, open membership, and profit distribution in proportion to the individual members' business activities with the cooperative. The establishment of cooperatives was possible since most farmers owned their own land, and they were therefore able to provide joint liability for the cooperative (Bjørn in Sehested & Wulff 1998: 2.13). The cooperatives thus represent a 'bottom-up' development, as farmers founded the cooperatives on a democratic basis - although an exclusive democracy with only farm owners as members.
Alongside with the cooperative movement the 'folk high school' should also be mentioned. The Danish 'folk high school' as developed by Grundtvig (1783-1872) focused on a general, free and enlightened education for the working people (to begin with, the farmers). The education was not restricted to a fixed syllabus and was without exams altogether. There was a focus on national history and Danish cultural heritage, and the schools encouraged students to be active and competent citizens, open for new thoughts and the opinions of others (Lundgreen-Nielsen in Sehested & Wulff 1998: 1.14). The teaching took as its point of departure the interests of the students and their knowledge, and encouraged them to share this. Knowledge in this sense is not just what is learned from books, as in the formal educational system, but also knowledge based on practice and life experience.
The ideologies behind these two movements are key elements in the 'Danish model' with its focus on active, resourceful, free and equal individuals joining together in associations and cooperatives, and thereby receiving the advantages of large units without loosing individual independence. The democratic element is thus combined with technical and commercial development.
'The Danish model' was the ideology behind and the reference point for the first generation of Danish projects in Eastern Europe and became the basic political criterion for actors in the Danish development business. Especially for projects in the agricultural sector 'the Danish model' was emphasized both internally towards the Danish public and donors, and externally towards the recipients of aid. This is expressed directly in material distributed to foreigners (including farmers in Smolensk) such as the pamphlet "Danish farmers and their cooperatives"(20) which describes the development and function of Danish cooperatives. A substantial part of the Danish grant for Eastern Europe is administrated by "The Democracy Fund" which supports "democracy building", mainly by sponsoring study tours for Eastern Europeans to Denmark, where foreigners are to learn from seeing the 'Danish model' working in practice. "The Danish Model" is in this connection presented as a working example of "good governance", another international keyword in the development world, and described as "a democratic, non-corrupt and also effective administration (MT)" (Demokratifonden 2000: Recommendations).
The Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre (DAAC) is an actor on the scene of Danish 'system-export'. On their homepage and in presentations they directly represent themselves as a working example of the 'Danish Model'(21). The following presentation of DAAC and their work is based on how they presented themselves to a group of Russians from Smolensk on a study tour to Denmark. The tour, which I followed, was arranged by DAAC as part of the project in Smolensk. Similar tours have been conducted throughout the project period on an annual basis.
DAAC is the Danish national centre for an agricultural advisory system, which includes 75 local advisory centres in Denmark. DAAC provides service and know-how to the local centres, which directly serve the individual farmers. DAAC is owned by the two large farmers associations(22), which together count 95 % of all Danish farmers as their members (see figure 1 below). DAAC presents itself as a user-owned grassroots organisation, which serves its members effectively on a commercial basis(23). This organisation is presented as unique and differing from other Western countries which have a state agricultural advisory service. DAAC is proud that they only receive about 10% of the cost for consulting from the state, while users pay 90%.
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Figure 1The figure shows the organisation of the Danish agricultural advisory service and how a farmer simultaneously can be a costumer and a joint owner of a local advisory centre. Most farmers (95%) are either members of the local Farmers Union or Family Farmers' Association and through a national cooperation between these two organisations the farmers own the Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre (DAAC). DAAC is the mother organisation for the local advisory. |
In Denmark, the advisory service functions as follows: As a member, the farmer pays a fixed annual fee depending on the size of his(24) production. This gives him access to basic services, such as free subscription to a newsletter, free advice via the telephone etc. He can then choose to buy more services, such as farm-visits by advisors with the purpose of planning certain parts of the production or in order to get specific advice e.g. on technical improvements. The local advisory centres also offer help on business aspects of farming, such as doing farm tax-reports. One of the things DAAC emphasises is that they operate under market conditions and do not have a monopoly on their service. Farmers are free to use other consultants or of course to abstain from advising altogether, but actually 80% of all Danish farmers use their local advisory centre and DAAC points to this as an indicator of their success (DAAC 2001a).
DAAC in the business of 'system-export'
In 1990, the international department at DAAC was established. During the first period up to 1994, DAAC operated in Denmark's closest neighbouring countries, the three Baltic States and Poland, on the development of national advisory services. By 1995, the activities spread to the Ukraine and Russia(25).
To enable effective agricultural production under market conditions it is necessary to constantly keep up to date with the newest knowledge. The slogan of DAAC: 'We put knowledge into work' represents the function of DAAC - to gather and distribute knowledge. The product DAAC is selling is not just concrete knowledge but also constant access to the newest knowledge - a flow of information - and practical suggestions on how to implement the knowledge.
DAAC "puts knowledge to work" via the local advisors visiting the individual farmers and through different media such as computer-programs, newsletters and databases accessible over the Internet. According to the DAAC consultants, the short distance between theory and practice (see figure 2 below) helps both to accelerate scientific research by the broad base of practical experience collected from the farmers trying new methods, and at the same time gives all farmers instant access to the most efficient methods (Bech 2001).
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Figure 2The figure shows how DAAC connects theory (at the top) with practice (at the bottom) by linking agricultural producers via local advisors and educational programs. New scientific knowledge (the arrows going down) and practical experience (the arrows going up) are in constant dialogue. The figure was used in a presentation on the virtues of the Danish Model for Russians on a study tour in Denmark, 2001 by a DAAC consultant. |
What DAAC wants to "export" to Eastern Europe through projects is a) modern agricultural knowledge and technology which will enable "good agricultural production", and b) the establishment of a structure of knowledge in accordance with its version of the "Danish model" - an agricultural advisory service owned by the users and working under the conditions of the free market, which will continuously improve the users' production.
The contact between Denmark and the Smolensk region was established in the fall of 1992 during a visit of a Russian delegation to Denmark. This visit led to a revisit in spring 1993 to Smolensk by officials of the Danish Ministry of Agriculture(27) (from now on only the Danish ministry) and from five Danish private farming organisations and companies, including DAAC. Among those companies one (here referred to as company A) was selected to lead the Danish cooperation and they made a proposal to the Danish ministry, which then granted money for a 'Fact-finding Mission'. This mission was executed the following year (1994) and resulted in a report recommending the establishment of an advisory centre, a cooperative grain-store and a cooperative dairy. These institutions were to serve Russian independent farmers(28) and give them access to some of the same elements that the large-scale farms normally possess: agricultural expertise in the form of agronomists and other professionals (the advisory centre) and big expensive machinery (the grain-store and later a machinery station). The report was the basis for a project application to the Danish ministry, which granted funds to the project for 1995 and 1996. Within this project, two of the three elements recommended by the 'Fact-finding Mission' were established: The advisory centre and the grain-store(29). Besides this, selected local farms participated in the project as demonstration farms, and received e.g. Danish seed material or special fodder. The purpose of these demonstration farms was to test Danish methods locally and if the outcome was positive, the advisory centre would hold seminars for farmers showing the benefit of the methods and encouraging them to use the same techniques. A central part of the project throughout the years has been study tours. Local Russians, who were connected with the project in different ways, were invited to Denmark to see 'working examples' of 'the Danish model' in e.g. DAAC itself, cooperative grain stores and dairies, as well as to visit farmers and see practical examples of modern farming methods(30).
The target group: independent farmers
Two questions arise: First, why did the Danes expect that independent farms would be prevalent and second why were only independent farms part of the initial project set-up? The answer to these questions can be found in the prevailing image of socialism in Western Europe in the early nineties, and in the ideas on the way the expected transition would change Eastern Europe to end up resembling the West.
The prevailing understanding in the West was that the collapse of the Soviet Union had demonstrated the failures of socialism, and thereby proved the superiority of Western style market democracy. As I pointed out above (part 2.1) almost nobody (neither Western nor Eastern Europeans) saw any other alternative for Eastern Europe than to adopt the Western approach - the only questions were how and how fast (cf. Wedel 2001, Gerner & Hedlund 1994). The collective and state farms of the Soviet Union did not fit into this picture. They were seen in the West as typical examples of the social and economical failures of socialism, as proven by their much lower agricultural productivity compared to that of Western European countries. The fundamental problem in collective production was that the rationality of the collective as a whole did not correspond with the rationality of the individual. An example is shallow ploughing, which is irrational in relation to the overall agricultural production (as it is not very effective) but rational for the individual tractor driver, as shallow ploughing allows him to plough a larger area in less time while he simultaneously saves petrol and wear on the plough, all of which gives him a higher personal bonus (Hedlund 1989: 152). Similar examples often came up during my fieldwork; they were recounted by Danish consultants, independent farmers and Russians in general - although not by people themselves working on the large-scale farms, they focussed on low prices, inadequate support and other external factors as explanations of low productivity. The personal plots with their much higher productivity were, as mentioned in the introduction, seen as proof, that the individual agricultural worker is rational and hardworking, when he works for himself. The critics of socialism saw that the independent and entrepreneurial people were forced to work in collectives against their will. The result was low work morale, low levels of productivity and an overall irrational mode of production. With information like this, it was no surprise that people from the West expected that the Russian farm workers would automatically leave the collectives once given the opportunity and thereby regain their 'natural' independence both as individuals and producers. Following this line of logic, this type of large-scale farms would cease to exist in a future Russia based on the free market and democracy, and were therefore not considered proper targets for development projects.
The hegemonic discourse of privatization as the only way forward is evident. The large aid programmes were established under the condition that large scale political reforms were made, and privatisation became a goal in itself for the initial support.
The first project period in Smolensk
The Smolensk project faced problems from the beginning. The staff at the advisory centre established within the project (Smolensk Information Advisory Centre - SIAC) received their salary from the local regional administration. A combination of low wages and the insecure future status of the centre meant that the original staff at SIAC left after the first six months and new personnel needed to be trained.
It also proved difficult to sell advisory services to the farmers in the area, both because it was an entirely new concept to pay for advice and also because the centre had no results to prove its worth. According to DAAC, the status after the first project period was: "A weak advisory centre without dynamic leadership and without funds to pay for salary and petrol [for the cars]. A functioning grain-store with low capacity utilization (MT)" (DAAC 2001c: 2).
By the end of the first project period in 1996 the Danish ministry found that company A had not achieved satisfactory results and turned down the proposal for a continuation of the project by company A. Instead DAAC was selected to continue the project(31). A new review of the project and local needs was made by DAAC, which stressed the importance of "strengthening" the advisory centre and the grain-store, together with the establishment of a machinery station. The work continued under DAAC with seven different grants (all from the Danish ministry) for the Smolensk project in the period 1997 - 2001. The change in actors from the Danish side did not result in great changes locally since many of the Danes who worked on the project have remained the same throughout the period. DAAC had since the beginning been involved in the development of the advisory centre. It should be mentioned that all of the DAAC consultants were in Smolensk only on a short term basis (typically one or two weeks).
The basis of the Smolensk project was, as stated above, "system-export" based on the "Danish model". For an agricultural project like this, this meant that the overall goal was to help develop a modern agricultural sector among independent farmers who could optimise their production and trade by joining together in democratic cooperatives. But as it turned out, the focus on independent farmers and cooperatives did not correspond very well with the Russian reality.
The missing independent farmers
The initial beneficiaries of the project were, as mentioned above, independent farmers. But the development of independent farming locally did not proceed as expected. After the first optimistic period in the early 1990s, the number of independent farms and their overall production decreased in the Smolensk region (see figure 3). The very attractive state loans for new registered farmers, which many used for consumer items instead of farm investments, meant that the high number of officially registered farms in 1991 and 1992 were considerably higher that the actual number of functioning independent commercial farms. This is also true of Russia in general (cf. Amelina 1999). Especially in the proximity of the grain-store there were fewer independent farmers than expected. This meant that the costumer base for the grain-store was rather limited. Also, several of the initial founders of the grain-store cooperation stopped farming on a commercial basis after a few years (or had never started seriously)(32). The Danes did not anticipate this development, but tried to adjust to the circumstances by allowing the project institutions to serve the former collective and state farms (large-scale farms) as well. The large-scale farms quickly became by far the largest costumers for all the project institutions and several of them now participate directly in the project as demonstration farms. Thus, the initial focus on independent farms was broadened to include all commercial farms in the region.
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Figure 3 (SIAC 2001)The figure shows the correlation between the number of registered farms and agricultural production in the "private sector" (independent farms). Worth noticing is the rise from 1991 until 1993, the period when the state offered privileged loans to newly established farms, and the following decline. |
The democratic deficit
In documents from the first project period, the focus of the actors on the Danish side was on the establishment of the grain-store cooperative. The "democratic element" was highly stressed as shown in the article "The first "Danish" cooperative established in Smolensk region by Russian farmers" (MT) in a Danish farmers' magazine.
"By the 20th of February, 60 private farmers in Smolensk had set up their own cooperative, which they named "The Big Bread". Several of the farmers have been to Denmark and seen how the Danish cooperatives work, and the rules of the first Russian cooperative therefore resemble the Danish rules.
But the Danish proposal for the constitution was not just passed on. The room was filled with the atmosphere of a good old-fashioned election campaign, when the rules were debated. " (MT) (Landsbladet 1995)
What is emphasised in the article is how the Danish model of cooperatives is successfully "exported" to Russia, and how the Russians do not just passively accept the Danish proposal but take part in animated discussions on the organization of their own cooperative. The reader gets the impression that the project is a success and that the Russians have taken the democratic aspect to their hearts and act as competent, rational farmers. A report to the Danish ministry also remarked that "the election of the Board in the Lenin room [was] a historic event" (Report 1995: 3). The concept of the cooperative movement was a central part of the Smolensk project in the early phase, and the project thus followed the political trend in Danish system-export at the time (cf. part 2.2). However, in later reports these elements of democracy, participation and grassroots organisation are not in focus and. In the following I point to some of the factors that led to this change in focus.
Sustainability as a project goal obtained through an active counterpart
One of the keywords in present development policy is 'sustainability' (cf. part 2.1), meaning that the projects implemented are supposed to have a lasting effect beyond the donor-paid period (Crewe & Harrison 1998: 70). Sustainability in the case of the Smolensk project is defined as the continued existence and use of the three central elements (also referred to as the "three pillars"): the advisory centre, the machinery station and the grain store. Although there is a strong focus on 'software' in the project (training and teaching good agricultural practice and the Danish way of organising) only the 'hardware' (such as machinery, computers and office equipment) is directly visible to the Danish donor and the public. As long as the hardware still works and is being used, there is a tangible proof of a positive outcome of the Danish donations. Inherent in the "Danish model" that DAAC aims to export, is that the "three pillars" will (ultimately) be independent of public support. 'Sustainability' thus means that these institutions will be able to generate a sufficient income to pay both the running costs and the amortization of the equipment. A continual focus throughout the project has therefore been on "strengthening" the "three pillars" of the project, both in the form of 'software' and 'hardware' support. The advisors and accountants at the advisory centre (SIAC) receive training from the Danish consultants. The centre also receives limited financial support to cover communication and transportation costs and new technical equipment such as computers. The grain-store and machinery station have received the same kind of support from Denmark, although here the focus on 'hardware' is clearly stronger. The machinery station receives new machinery from Denmark on the condition that the Russian side as an "equal partner" supplies as much as Denmark. The machinery station is officially owned by the Smolensk regional administration but the right to use the machines belongs to the farmers' cooperative. The idea is that the cooperative will gradually repay the value of the machines back to the administration and eventually become the real owner of it all.
One of the strategies of the Danish ministry to secure 'sustainability' is to involve the 'counterpart' to the highest possible degree. Following official Russian procedures in relation to foreign assistance, local participation must involve an official body such as the regional agricultural administration as counterpart. The Danish donations therefore passed through the regional administration and along with it passed the responsibility for involvement and achieving results. The intended beneficiaries (the cooperative of independent farmers) are thus not themselves the counterpart, and the more the Danish side stresses the involvement and responsibility of the Russian counterpart, the more the Russian administration takes charge and the less is left for the established cooperative to decide. This conflict is most evident in the administration of the machinery station within the project. When the Danish machines stood unused or misused and the machinery station could not generate enough activity to cover the costs, the local manager of the machinery station was reprimanded by visiting Danes. However, the real negotiations on the future of the machinery station and its place in the project were neither with the manager nor with the cooperative, which according to the Danish model was supposed to be in charge of the machinery station, but with the regional administration.
The present situation is that the cooperative is formally in charge of the machinery station and granary store and the cooperative board has an annual meeting, but in reality the ordinary members do not participate in the decision-making process and have practically no economic interest in the working of the cooperative. Decisions are taken by the president of the board of the cooperative, but in accordance with guidelines set out by the regional agricultural administration. The Danish consultants are of course not happy with the situation, but they do not feel they can do anything to increase membership participation, and instead they focus on the practical running of the machinery station itself. Whether the reason for the poor functioning of the cooperative is its dependence on the regional agricultural administration, its inactive members or different understandings of the cooperative model is not clear, but my point here is that the Danish project design itself is part of the problem, in as much as it rested on an unsteady opposition between top-down practice and bottom-up ideology.
The overall structure of the Smolensk project is represented below in figure 4, and two main things should be noted. First, that the project is a cooperation between two partners - The Danish Ministry of Agriculture and the Smolensk regional administration, and second, that the former collective and state farms (the large-scale farms) are the main agricultural producers in the region, and have become central to the project.
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Figure 4 |
The time of my stay in Smolensk (summer and autumn 2001) was during the last months of DAAC's seventh project funding period. DAAC had sent several applications for a continuation of yet another project period, but slow working procedures at the Danish ministry meant the decision was delayed by several months. The ministry sent the application back with comments suggesting changes that would be needed if they were to accept the application. This went on a couple of times: DAAC making an application, waiting and then the ministry demanding minor changes in order to consider the new project application. By November 2001, two persons from the ministry visited the project to inspect the progress themselves(33). The impression of the situation shared by the Danish actors at the time was: A poorly running machinery station with no capacity even to pay its running costs, and much of the machinery worn down by misuse and poor maintenance. The grain-store was running poorly but with increasing profit and had a reasonable level of activities. The advisory centre (SIAC) was the most positive element: it was conducting more and more activities that generated an income. SIAC had several large costumers (all former collective farms), which were able to pay for the advisory service, and these farms clearly profited from the advice and tools provided by the advisory centre. The staff was active and working competently as advisors.
The visit ended on a positive note. The people from the Danish ministry had some demands especially in relation to the machinery station and were not completely satisfied with the running of the project, but their overall impression was still positive. After many years of continued support they considered that the project institutions should by now be able to sustain themselves, and wanted to phase out Danish support. This would happen in a "decent" way, so the Danish donor and the Danish project by both Russians and Danes would be seen positively. If the "three pillars" did not prove 'sustainable', it would not be because the Danish side withdrew prematurely, but for local reasons. But things did not work out that simply.
In the Danish national elections of November 2001 (the same month as the official visit from the Danish ministry to Smolensk) a new government was elected in Denmark. This meant a political shift and great changes in almost every aspect of Danish political administration. All governmental institutions were ordered to freeze all new expenses until the new national budget was passed by parliament. This meant that all decisions were postponed. Only in December 2002, after more than a year of uncertainty about the future of the Danish project in Smolensk, DAAC was granted a continuation of the project. This illustrates that development projects depend on continuous political support from the donor, and that changing political attitudes - often not related to the individual project - can be decisive in determining the fate of a project.
The preceding chapter outlines the history of the project and its place in the political field of development. It shows how the overall political wish in Denmark to 'do good' and help the new neighbours in the East is realised in projects that use certain political and administrative procedures in order to uphold two main ideals: a) an ideal of a democratic approach and the active participation of the target group through bottom-up development, and b) an ideal of accountability and transparency in economic and administrative procedures (top-down administration). The first ideal (a) is related to the overall political goal of transferring Western models (as in Danish 'system-export') to the countries of Eastern Europe. The second ideal (b) refers to the administrative procedures to avoid 'white elephants' and the public criticism of misused public money (see section 2.1). This ideal demands strict top-down parameters on how the donated funds can be used. Both ideals are central within liberal market economy, but as my analysis in the following chapter demonstrate it is difficult to combine them in reality.
In this chapter I start with a description of the two opposed approaches, bottom-up and top-down. I then move on to show how both approaches exist within the project design and finally how the actors overcome this opposition.
Top-down management is simply when the top, whether a single person or an institution, centrally plans and gives orders that lower levels in the hierarchy should follow(34). That is, when there is a central leadership for management and control, which implements a given plan through vertical lines of authority. The leadership possess different mechanisms of control which can be exercised through both positive actions such as distribution of resources, and negative through different types of sanctions - the carrot and the stick. Top-down management is known in all places, in the East as well as the West, to different degrees in both public and private administrations.
I see top-down management as more prevalent in Russia than e.g. in Denmark. This can be understood as part of Russia's inheritance of the political tradition from the Communist regime with its pervasive centralization and vast public administration(35). Many of the same administrative procedures still apply to Russia today and Danish actors in Russia are advised by the Danish Foreign Department to have that in mind: "There is still a strong tendency to concentrate authority and competence at the top of the hierarchy… With respect to management many Russian companies still resemble the earlier system (UM 1995: 107p). To understand the top-down procedures that also apply in the agricultural sector in Smolensk, it is therefore helpful with an introduction to the dynamics of the socialist system, as I therefore will present below.
The command economy of the Soviet Union
Verdery (1991) describes socialism's basic "laws of motion" as based on the principle of "rational redistribution": "The ideology through which the bureaucratic apparatus justifies appropriating the social product and allocating it by priorities the party has set" (Verdery 1991: 420). The power of the centralised state lies in its power to redistribute products and resources. The centre must therefore have control over the resources and the production apparatus. Once a product is out of the state's control, it cannot be redistributed and has no value as a tool of power for the state. This explains both the focus on heavy industry with products that can be controlled centrally, and the legal prohibition of private production and sale, which would compete with the power of the state (Verdery 1991: 421p).
Production was not directed towards a market but towards the fulfilment of the plan. A greater production than expected did not give the productive unit a surplus, but meant rising expectations and larger quotas to be fulfilled in future plans. A unit was therefore reluctant to show overly positive results. Deliveries were allocated from above and could not be bought on the market, and as a buffer in case of e.g. poor quality or slow delivery units strived to acquire more than they needed. The hoarding of resources led to a relative shortage of resources, as resources were stored up instead of being circulated. This caused periods of nonproduction, which ultimately led to real shortage, which as a vicious circle only increased the necessity to hoard (Verdery 1991: 423).
Units on the same horizontal level in the hierarchy were in strong competition with each other over these scarce resources and products. The gatekeepers who controlled the flow of resources were in a powerful position, and personal ties, deals under the table and exchanges of favours etc. could prove essential in the allocation of resources. Verdery (1991: 423) distinguishes between two powers in the distribution of resources: the allocative bureaucracy, which controls the daily flow of resources, and the party centre, the top of the hierarchy which makes the general decisions.
The hierarchy in the socialist system consisted of units within units, like Chinese boxes (or more appropriately Russian Matryoshka dolls), where the centralised system of redistribution is replicated from a national over a regional level down to the single productive unit. "Like the feudal estate, the socialist enterprise is not simply an economic institution but the primary unit of Soviet society and the ultimate base of social and political power" (Simon Clarke (1992) in Verdery 1996: 206). The productive unit provided all its employees basic facilities: housing, childcare and healthcare, as well as consumer items and holidays etc. Each individual depended on the work unit to uphold their living, and reversely the productive unit depended on the workers' loyalty and work ethic to uphold production.
The productive unit provided stability and the necessities of life for the individual. Nielsen (1988: 6) describes the productive unit as an island of stability and security which must be protected from the chaos and instability of the outside world by strong barriers. Barriers can be physical like walls and barbed wire to protect the unit against theft, or administrative e.g. using rationing coupons to keep products from floating out of the unit. But no unit is entirely self-sufficient: "There must be Gates in its Barriers, to allow a certain flow of skills, resources and people in and out of it… Thus, Barriers are defended, insisted on at all cost. But at the same time, they are controverted and undermined - even by the powers that erect them" (Nielsen 1988: 7). The direct relation between different productive units was often unofficial and illegal (Humphrey 1998: 444) but these relations helped the individual units to overcome shortages and bureaucratic "bottlenecks". Likewise Sampson (1987: 122) notes that these unofficial relations were at the same time corrosive and lubricating for the official economy.
The command economy of the Soviet Union thus implied top-down commands and redistribution of resources. The official vertical distribution led to strong horizontal competition for the same resources, but simultaneously the productive units engaged in unofficial barter deals on a horizontal level, in order to supplement the official allocations from above. These horizontal relations were vital to maintaining the official production, although illegal.
The post-Soviet era
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the severe economic decline after 1991 meant that the central government had far fewer resources to distribute. The collapse can be compared to the king's death within a feudal system (to stay within Verdery's analogy). This initiated a power struggle among the 'feudal lords'. The 'feudal lords' in this context are mainly the leaders of the large, newly privatised enterprises (e.g. the oil industry), the regional governors and high ranking officials in major institutions as the army and the intelligence service. So in spite of the turmoil and the division of centralised power to different 'feudal lords', the system of top-down management remained on a local level. Humphrey (1995: 41) uses the metaphor of the iceberg to describe the situation, in which only the visible top is removed (the symbols and institutions of the Soviet Union) while the underlying structures and old nomenklatura networks remain in place.
The local political situation and continuation of top-down practices
The 'survival of the system' or maybe more precisely the continuation of a certain style of governance is also evident locally in Smolensk. The governor, Mr. Prokhorov(36), bases his power on old networks established in the Komsomol, the youth branch of the communist party. The network around Mr. Prokhorov includes the managers of old monopolistic industries from the Soviet era, ranging from an alcohol factory, the telephone company, and an electrical company to large food producing companies. Officially they are all separate private enterprises, but they are tightly connected by personal ties and barter contracts. In addition, most of the local media, television and newspapers are under the control of Prokhorov and his network (Lallemand 1998). This is of course a delicate subject, and I do not know how organised the network around Mr. Prokhorov is(37). The talks I had on the subject with my informants were often vague and insinuating, and thus resemble talks on 'mafia'. As Sampson notes, 'mafia' is a term often used about those personal networks one is not a member oneself (Sampson 1994: 11). The notion of 'mafia' can be used similarly to the Azandes use of 'witchcraft' (Evans-Pritchard 1976), as a mechanism to understand and explain the world - why some people succeed in business and others fail (Verdery 1996: 220, Sedleniekis 2002). It is my clear impression, however, that the political situation in the region is heavily influenced by personal connections, and that high ranking officials have greater authority than granted them by official democratic and bureaucratic procedures.
On lower levels of the hierarchy the same system of personal networks applies. I was told that most directors in the collective farms and the regional administration have a background in the Komsomol, and that personal ties rather than professional skills are decisive when people are appointed to such positions. When I asked about individual persons in good positions, I was often told that their appointments were due to their personal friendship with specific higher-ranking officials. Changes in the top of the local hierarchy also meant changes on lower levels, as new leaders tended to take people from their personal network in. This also affects the Danish project, which needs continual local support. Below, the Russian coordinator, Mr. Ivanov(38), explains the local situation to a representative of the Danish donor:
Mr. Ivanov: There have been three changes in power [within the period of the project] and each time it has been painful for the project. There have been a lot of questions and misunderstandings. It is unfortunately a bad tradition here when power changes. The new leadership blames its predecessor for all errors. And it is hard to protect the advisory centre and the project each time. The next election is in April and the campaign has already started.
Karlsen (official Danish representative): If there is a new governor, will there also be a new administration?
Mr. Ivanov: All leaders will be new!
[Mr. Ivanov states that it is almost certain, that there will be a new governor - and therefore new people in charge of the administration.]
Mr. Ivanov: At the meetings with the new administration it is important to show both results for the cooperation [with Denmark] and also concrete plans for the future. Last time it took more than three months to get it approved in the administration [the Russian part of the project]. It is now three years ago. And at that time, the newly placed administration knew me personally, which made things easier. FF
Also elected (as opposed to appointed) directors of large-scale farms(39) have strong personal networks. They are often elected repeatedly as a consequence of their established network, also even when the farm experiences a decrease in production and income under their leadership. Farm directors are normally the old bosses from Soviet times and they often stay in their position until they die, even though their age is above the normal age of retirement. The system of redistribution means that it is more important for a director of a large-scale farm to have good connections with the administration than organisational skills pertaining to the production.
The system of redistribution still dominates the agricultural sector and the farms still rely on the goodwill of the local administration for continual support (cf. Bruno 1998: 177). Most former collective farms in the Smolensk region for example have large debts and have to continually obtain new loans, just to maintain production. The typical large-scale farm makes contracts with the regional administration to receive gasoline and extensions on electricity bills in return for the future harvest. Until now no productive unit, like a former collective farm, has been allowed to go bankrupt and has always received a minimum of support from the regional administration (cf. Amelina 1999). By not letting the market forces reign freely, the regional administrations stay in control with most of the agricultural production and are able both to secure cheap food supplies to public institutions and to uphold a net of social security in the countryside via the large-scale farms (Amelina 2000: 20). However, since 1991 the system has become highly fragmented, with large differences from region to region.
Top-down management as an organisational structure
I will use the term 'top-down management' not only to refer to the management style of the Soviet system and its legacies, but as a general mode of administration exercised on all levels of public and private administrative bodies.
Most development work is constructed in accordance with similar mechanisms of top-down management, where the donor is at the top of the hierarchy. Development depends on external initiative and funding from a donor, who (directly or through a partner) makes plans and has various mechanisms of control and resources available to implement those plans. Therefore all development work entails some kind of top-down procedures and can never be truly bottom-up. As Hobart (1993: 12) argues, even those development programmes that use concepts of bottom-up development and active local actors still have an implicit understanding of development in which development must be initiated from the outside - from the donor. This implies an understanding of the local population as caught in either traditional structures or forces of the market economy, and as such without substantial agency in relation to their own development (Hobart 1993: 13).
Within the bottom-up approach, decision making and planning are placed at 'the bottom' of the hierarchy and each productive unit is seen as autonomous with both an ability to manage itself and to influence the overall structure(40). Whereas one of the dominating metaphors within the 'top-down' approach is the machine and each unit is seen as a cogwheel in a larger structure, the dominating metaphor within the bottom-up approach is organic, and expressed in words like 'grassroots' and 'development' implying both growth and evolution. The central role of the donor is here to nurture the 'environment' and help create the best possibilities for the different actors to develop their own potential (cf. Morgan 1998)(41).
The bottom-up approach is central to liberalism. The basic conception is that individual actors are rational and competent if the foundations of society are in place. The role of the state within liberalism is not to govern and control society directly, but to provide the basic framework for a functioning market and a living civil society and to ensure the individual the rights of citizenship (Rose 1993: 289). The freedom for the individual to pursue his or her own interests and initiatives ensures a great variety of practices and a continuous improvement of society by the force of the better example as other rational individuals would copy successful elements. Liberalism stands in opposition to political ideologies such as socialism, and the idea that society can be planned and administered centrally. In liberal societies, individual actors should be self-regulating and take responsibility for themselves, and state regulations should only ensure that the freedom of the individual is not harmful for other individuals or society in general.
As I have shown earlier (part 2.2) the basis for the Danish ideal of a bottom-up approach is based on a Danish historical tradition with emphasis on the cooperative movement. Within this approach, development is assumed to take place at the 'bottom', where the agricultural producers join in cooperatives to achieve technical and commercial rationalisations, and at the same time, political influence.
The two approaches stand in opposition to each other. Within top-down management vertical relations of distribution and control are prominent, while the bottom-up approach is characterised by horizontal relations of cooperation. But, as the experience with the Soviet Union illustrates, not even the totalitarian command economy were ever entirely top-down controlled, and correspondingly there has never been a case of complete bottom-up development. The experience with the project shows how these two approaches exist side by side, which at times creates confusion and problems.
The difference between the two forms of management becomes evident when looking at conflicting ideas on how the institutions within the project should work. I experienced this when I accompanied a Russian advisor and a visiting Danish consultant on their visit to a former collective farm. The farm is a costumer of the advisory centre and has received Danish grass seed through the project with the aim of demonstrating the efficiency of modern agricultural methods. We were shown around in the stables and the head farm agronomist answered questions, but she did not ask any questions herself nor take any initiatives. The Russian advisor said that we wanted to see the demonstration field with the imported grass seeds, and the farm agronomist asked if she should come along and show it or if we could find it ourselves. The Danish consultant said privately in Danish to me, annoyed by her attitude and her tone of voice:
"It's typically Russian! As if she was doing us a favour by showing us the field! She should have prepared herself by having questions to ask and things to show the advisor. She is the one who gains from our visit and she should prepare herself to secure an optimal outcome of this visit. It is the same with K. [another large-scale farm], when we arrived the director asked us what we wanted to see!" (FF)
With the two opposed approaches in mind, the situation can be analysed in two different ways, as I also understand that the actors do. The Danish consultant clearly expected the farm agronomist to react to the advisory service as a rational costumer under market conditions (that is within a bottom-up approach), and she should therefore use the visit to her own benefit and be the active person in the situation. He considered his own visit as a good chance for the agronomist to get free and competent advice, not only from the local advisor, but also from him as a foreign expert. Her passive and apparently uninterested attitude seemed so irrational for the Danish consultant that no explanation could be given, and the irrational behaviour was reduced to a cultural trait - something "typically Russian!"
But the former collective farm is not merely a costumer for the advisory centre; it is also a recipient of resources from the project. The farm is a 'demonstration farm' within the project and the imported grass seeds have been received for demonstration purposes from the project. This means that the project and the advisory centre are part of 'vertical' lines of distribution, and that the visit is just as much an inspection as a consultation. Basically I think the farm agronomist considered the visit a waste of her time, since she personally does not benefit from the visit, but she had to fulfil the role of host and serve the guests, which were representatives from higher parts of the hierarchy. She probably reacted to the visit in the same way as she would react to other official visits like the inspections by the local agricultural administration.
The irritation or confusion of the situation lies in the dual role of the relationship between the farm and the advisory centre. On the one hand the farm and the advisory centre have an equal and horizontal relationship as costumer and provider of agricultural advice, and on the other hand they each have a position in the hierarchy of vertical distribution of resources connected to the agricultural sector - a hierarchy in which the Danish project is placed in the top as a provider of resources.
Another element that might influence the situation is the different cultural expectations the individuals have to each other. Expectations as to how a customer should act in relation to an agricultural advisor or how a receiver of Danish seed material should act to a representative of the donor might vary greatly between individuals with different social and cultural backgrounds. Although this element of cultural clash and following misunderstandings definitely has had consequences in the execution of the Smolensk project, the central actors by now know each other after several years of cooperation and have jointly created a framework around the project, which governs how they interact and communicate with each other. I will therefore in this thesis not investigate how cultural expectations clash and are possibly overcome, but focus on the actual relations of power that exist within the project.
In this section I will go into detail with how the opposition between top-down management and an ideology of bottom-up development exist on different levels of the project and how this is a key to interpreting the project.
First of all, there is a general opposition in development work as such, when the donor from the outside tries to initiate a bottom-up development locally. The project is planned in Denmark, and the donor always has the last say on how to use the funds. This means that the project has to reflect certain demands from the donor, and I distinguish between two criteria - a political and an administrative. The political criterion refers to the reasons for why the aid should be given. This implies that the project have to share the same political goal as the donor. In the Smolensk project the adjustment to changing political attitudes in Denmark is reflected in a change of focus in the project documents from democracy building to a focus on environmental issues. The administrative criterion refers to how the help should be given, based on the administrative tradition of the donor. This includes principles of accountability and documentation of expenses and results.
The project executer (DAAC) and the target group (the agricultural producers in Smolensk region) only have access to the donated funds if specific political and administrative conditions are observed. The donor and the project executer have agreed on conditions that are written into the approved project application, which sets the plan for the execution of the project.
The administrative process of planning, execution and evaluation
The administrative conditions within the development business determine how contracts are made, which limitations the contract sets and how the results are reported. There are two basic ways in which funds for projects are allocated - either the donor sends a project description for competitive bidding, or applicants make their own project applications (as the case is for the Smolensk project), which the donor then either approves or not. Both ways involve time-consuming procedures of first estimating the local needs and possibilities for potential development, and then having the donor evaluate if the contract should be approved or not. As I have mentioned earlier, DAAC had not yet gotten the expected approval for a future project when I did fieldwork, and the whole process of writing applications, waiting for answers, making small adjustments and then waiting again took up large amounts of time. During this time all parties, Danish as well as Russians, were uncertain of the future status of the project. The procedures have been established to secure transparency and open and fair competition between actors and optimal use of governmental money, but at the cost of time-consuming procedures.
When the Danish ministry has approved an application by DAAC, money is allocated for the project period, which is normally two years. All project activities are described in the application and must be executed. But if the local situation changes or turns out to be different from the assumptions made in the project applications, problems can arise, as it is very complicated to change the activities once the application is approved. At the visit to Smolensk in November 2001, officials from the Danish ministry talked to the DAAC representatives about the rigid bureaucracy and explained that their work is also governed by statements in official documents, and their evaluation of a project is based on how the donated money is used in relation to the purposes specified in the application. Thus, the procedures that are set up to ensure transparency also have the negative consequence of decreasing the responsiveness and flexibility of projects - a flexibility that is especially important considering the speed of change in the societies of Eastern Europe (Howell 1994: 61).
When project activities have been completed, DAAC writes reports to the ministry to show the fulfilment of the plan and the status of the different activities. It is of course in the interest of DAAC and the project to deliver reports that show a positive development of their work in order to secure a positive view from the donor on future applications, both concerning the project in Smolensk, but also in relation to other possible projects sponsored by the ministry. This means that the focus of the project activities risk being determined by what is reportable - measurable or in other ways visible - and activities with a long-term perspective might be neglected. Another factor is the time-consuming work of gathering results and report writing, which was especially evident during the last part of my stay, since it was also the last part of the project period.
Donor's strict administrative procedures in order to secure transparency thus on the one hand reduce the flexibility of the projects and on the other leads to a focus on short term goals - short especially in relation to agricultural production that often operates with much longer time perspectives. Even though each of the project periods in the Smolensk project involves the same participating project institutions, longer-term planning is difficult since there is always a high decree of uncertainty about whether the initiated activities will continue to get support from the donor beyond the current project period.
The donors' political objective
A project application is composed of long-term goals; 'development objectives', which are very general and show how the project will have an impact on a general and more abstract level and not only on the direct beneficiaries of the project. I quote from the project application: 'the development objective is to improve the consciousness of Good Agricultural Practices and the sustainability of agriculture in Smolensk Oblast [region]"(42). The development objectives are so general that they cannot be used in measuring the effect of the project, and they are therefore specified in short-term goals or 'immediate objectives', which shows what the direct result of the project will be. The 'immediate objectives' have been achieved when all 'project activities' are completed.
The range of activities must be in accordance with the current political focus of the donor, and changes in official Danish policy, like the shift in focus towards ecology, are reflected in a shift in the development objectives of the different DAAC projects(43). The current political focus is evident in the project application which gives an account of 'the expected impact' on a) a sustainable development, b) the environment and c) Danish trade and industry (DAAC 2001). All three elements were repeated and emphasised in the official talks between the Danish ministry and Smolensk regional administration.
Though official policies change, the practical goals and the work of DAAC remain much the same, as modern efficient agricultural production is understood by DAAC as a benefit both for the environment and the economy. DAAC has therefore been able to sustain a continual focus on the strengthening of the 'three pillars' of the project regardless of whether the official political focus was on 'aid', democracy building or environmental issues.
Below, I will go into detail on some of the specific demands from the donor. These demands may be discussed and negotiated by DAAC and the Russian partners, but they often have the status of a sine qua non for further support, and the firm top-down control of donor is evident - also in the paradoxical form of a top-down insistence on bottom-up participation and leadership.
An active local counterpart
As I have shown in section 2.1 most modern development projects use the active participation of a local counterpart to secure the sustainability of their work (cf. Gardner & Lewis 1996: 110). In principle, the counterpart should be involved as much as possible and share responsibility for the execution of the project with the foreign developers. This is also the case with the Smolensk project and has been so from the beginning. The official Russian counterpart to the project is, as previously mentioned, the Smolensk regional administration.
The counterpart of a project is normally the immediate target group, which should have a shared interest in the success of the project since the people in this group are the ones who benefit from it. The target group for the Smolensk project is the agricultural producers, but the counterpart is the regional agricultural administration. This discrepancy has different reasons: Firstly, it would be against the Danish logic of promoting bottom-up development on market conditions if a few individual farmers were to receive help directly(44). Secondly, in order to avoid heavy custom duties on the donated resources, the project needs to have the status of 'humanitarian aid' and have an official Russian institution as recipient. This of course compromises the Danish ideological goal of pure grassroots involvement and control, but the project set-up tries to compensate for this by separating the actual ownership of the project institutions (the regional administration) from the right to use the institutions (the agricultural producers in the cooperative).
But as the experience with the project shows, this project design is full of complications and the Danish top-down insistence on bottom-up control led to some strange situations. In the following I will take as my point of departure the case of the machinery station, which was established by the project and show, first, the problems arising as a result of the 'top-down controlled bottom-up development' and secondly, how the actors try to deal with this.
The establishment of the machinery station was a response to the fact that most individual farmers had an inadequate amount of machinery. By establishing the machinery station the project aimed to help the local farmers with this problem and to demonstrate two things: a) The advantages of the cooperative model, which gives the individual farmer access to modern and expensive machinery, and b) the efficiency of modern Western equipment. The machinery station is officially owned by the Smolensk regional administration and run by a chairman of the board of directors of the cooperative of independent farmers. The machines at the station have been donated in accordance with a 50/50 principle, meaning that the Danish donor and the Smolensk regional administration each have donated one half of the machines. All this has been achieved as stated and the cooperation has so far been a success: the machinery station has been built and machines have been delivered by both parties. The official structure of the cooperative follows the Danish ideological model of a user-based cooperative based on the tradition of the Danish cooperative movement (see part 2.3). But the machinery station is not functioning as intended. Only a minimal income has been generated, the machines are poorly maintained and improperly used, and the result is that most of the expensive Danish machinery is out of order. Besides, most members of the cooperative have stopped farming or have never been serious farmers and have practically no economic interest in the machinery station. In year 2000, only 18 active members in the cooperation remained out of the initial 60. The main costumers today are the nearby large-scale farms and several of the (functioning) machines are rented out on a yearly contract to them. This is far from the initial idea with the machinery station, which was to give relatively cheap access to large machines to a large number of independent farmers.
If the machinery stands unused or out of order, then neither the advantages of the cooperative nor the efficiency of modern equipment is demonstrated, and the actual working of the machinery is therefore a primary measure of success in the project. Actions were demanded from Denmark to improve the situation or further assistance would be out of the question. The initial focus on cooperatives and user participation therefore lost importance in the project in order to secure the practical work and utilisation of the donated machines.
When officials from the Danish ministry visited the project in autumn 2000 they visited the machinery station and wanted the running of it to be improved. They demanded a local initiative to improve the cooperation between the project institutions, and that the managers of the project institutions, together with the local administration, should make specific plans for the future of the project institutions. This lead to the writing of the official document, 'The conception of the continuation of cooperation', which was signed by the four central Russian parties: a) the Russian coordinator(45), b) the director of the advisory centre, c) the chairman of the board of directors of the cooperative, and d) the chairman of the regional farmers union. In addition, it was approved by the regional vice-governor of agriculture. In the document, future plans for the cooperation between the different project units were set out, and the document mandated the creation of a standing council of the signing parties, which was to work to secure a functioning cooperation. The document has estimated budgets for the advisory centre and the machinery station for the period 2000 - 2005 that presuppose a continued Danish support.
The document was well received by the Danish side (especially DAAC) and fulfilled the demands made by the Danish ministry. The DAAC project staff wrote that they together with officials from the Danish ministry: "agree that we have never seen such a well set-out and thoroughly prepared minute from the Russian side, and that this could be the basis for a new project in Smolensk(46)"(MT). In the negotiations between the Danish ministry, DAAC and the regional administration on the possibility of a future project, both the Russian side and DAAC referred to the document as proof of local commitment and emphasised that the local plans and budget demanded further Danish support. But despite this, the document alone did not impress the Danish ministry and they had no comments on it. A DAAC consultant complained about the "imperialistic attitude of the [Danish] Ministry to demand such a document on perspectives for the future and then never to react to it… It is impudent to demand such a paper, when we all know how hard it is to reach agreements. They [the Russians] are driven from pillar to post" (FF).
The case shows how the donor always has the last say and can make final demands, and in this perspective it is impossible to talk about any real bottom-up development. But it is important to note that this does not mean that every aspect of the project is decided by the donor and that the donor 'controls' the development. As Norman Long (1992: 22) points out, all actors, regardless of the situation, possess agency and are capable of influencing their situation. Russians have proven this point more than most under the totalitarian rule of state socialism. Soviet citizens have always been able to make use of the free space left by the totalitarian regime to further their own plans - to create additional income in the unofficial economy, to access better jobs by joining the party, to obtain the right documents to bypass bureaucratic obstacles and so on.
Michel de Certeau (1988: xix) describes the power of the 'powerless' as tactics in opposition to the strategies of the powerful. Tactics are responses to changing circumstances, where the grounds of possible actions are determined by external factors. "The space of a tactic is the space of the other. Thus it must play on and with a terrain imposed on it and organized by the law of a foreign power" (de Certeau 1988: 37). In contrast a strategy consists of planned and calculated actions that are possible if the actor has an independent place isolated from outside powers and can foresee possible actions by other actors and prepare own actions (de Certeau 1988: 36p). Following de Certeau, top-down implemented plans are strategies imposed by the powerful and tactics are the local responses to cope with these plans in the best possible way.
The Russian actors in the project are very competent in responding to top-down strategies. They draw on years of experience of tactics learned from coping with the top-down bureaucratic system of the socialist regime and, as I will show, the same tactics have also proven useful in dealing with the bureaucratic system of the development world.
In the following I will take a point of departure in the situation of the machinery station and show the responses by actors in the project to deal with the demands made by the Danish donor to improve the situation. I describe the use of three different tactics to cope with the top-down demands: the separation between 'paper reality' and 'real reality', the use of 'flexible organisations', and tactical ignorance in order to avoid open confrontations.
Within bureaucracies documents are of the highest importance, and as the official from the Danish Ministry said, as bureaucrats they themselves are directly responsible in relation to these documents, as they pass up and down in the bureaucratic system. This means that statements written down in these documents - the 'paper reality' - often have greater importance within the bureaucratic system than the 'real reality' - the people and institutions in the distant Russian setting. Acts, agreements, expenses etc. are only fully accepted in the bureaucratic system if they are officially documented. Travel expenses can only be covered if the receipt exists. Cooperation with a partner only officially exists if a 'letter of agreement' is written and stamped by all parties. This is the case in all bureaucracies and problems only start when somebody confuses the 'paper reality' with the 'real reality'.
The demand from the Danish donor to see local initiatives and plans for the future of the machinery station (and the other project institutions) resulted in the writing of the document 'Conception of the continuation of cooperation' - as also mentioned above. When I asked about the standing council, mentioned in the document, I found that this was only part of the 'paper reality' and not of the 'real reality'. The answer to how the council works was:
"It does not work! It was a stupid paper made only because it was demanded from Denmark. But how can they [the signing parties] foresee what kind of income they will have in the next five years? Not only in rough numbers, but also divided into analyses, fuel, laboratory etc. I am not sure that they even know it themselves that they are supposed to be part of this council(47)" (FF).
The 'paper reality' is not necessarily untrue, but refers to the project mainly in terms of the documents created in order to satisfy the administrative criteria from the Danish donor. The creation of documents to prove a 'successful' project was especially important at the end of the project period, during neg
