Πολιτικές όψεις της κρατικής παρέμβασης στη γεωργία. Μια κριτική ανασύνθεση των απόψεων ηγετικών στελεχών στο χώρο της αγροτικής πολιτικής

Abstract

It has been noted that the literature about the sociology of development has had only marginal interest in the role of the state, here taken to mean the role of the political element in the developmental transformation of a specific social formation. In both the neo-evolutionary theories of modernisation and in neo-liberal theories, the political element is only considered as a backdrop which remains marginal to such analyses. Even the problématique of Marxist approaches on this issue does not avoid the overdetermination of politics by the economy. However, we can show the relative autonomy of the political element in the process of social transformation if we focus our analysis empirically on a number of key issues: the organisational structure of public administration (Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Bank of Greece etc.); the institutionalised and informal functioning of that structure; the infiltration of political parties at all levels of the administrative hierarchy; the clientelistic relationships which mediate the contacts between the farmer and the state; the relations of public agencies with representatives of the private economic sector (multi-national companies, traders’ unions), of the collective economy (co-operatives) and of organised interest groups for individual producers (professional farming organisations). In the present note some of these topics will be dealt with in a first attempt at investigating and detailing how the political element works in the procedures for state intervention in agriculture. The primary documentary material for this analysis has been extracted from a number of elite interviews undertaken by the author, as a part of a wider research programme concerning the competitiveness of European agriculture. Interviews were obtained from elite functionaries responsible for planning and implementation of agricultural policy.