Slovakia: Man, Land, State. A study of traditional and social factors in the development of rural areas.

by Saverio Francesco Massari

Agriculture and farming in Slovakia are characterized by the presence of many big firms that were created through the privatization of the old State agricultural firms and socialist cooperatives that were employed to collectivize land.
Small and medium farmers represent a small minority, even after the de-collectivization process which followed the fall of the communist regime.
This work aims at analyzing the causes of the low propensity to entrepreneurship. According to the author this is due not only to the limited extension of arable land, but also to historical factors that dates back to the pre-socialist period. From the agricultural point of view, the communist period was not a “revolutionary”  moment because citizens lacked the opportunity to directly access the land.
Beyond economic-structural problems, socio-cultural factors prevent the growth of an autonomous class of entrepreneurs.
This article favors the perspective of social analysis, in order to identify the effects of the transition and change of traditional institutions in rural areas of Slovakia.
The research was conducted with quantitative methods combined with interviews to people from different rural areas in Slovakia.

mail: massari@pecob.net