Post-socialist agricultural cooperatives in Russia

Through a study of agricultural service cooperatives in Russia’s Belgorod region, this article addresses two gaps in the literature:
first, the dearth of empirical studies on cooperatives in post-socialist Russia;
second, the lack of attention to top-down cooperatives in the global literature, and the overly negative approach to the topic in the few extant studies. Whereas state attempts to establish agricultural cooperatives in Russia in a top-down fashion have largely failed, such cooperatives have sprung up widely in Belgorod.
The article investigates:
(1) what influence the (regional) state exerts on the cooperatives, and how that affects their daily functioning and viability; and
(2) to what extent such top-down cooperatives might evolve into less state-led forms, such as classic member-driven or business-like cooperatives.