Bauernparteien und rurale Wählerschaften
Peasant Parties and Rural Electorates

Summary/Abstract: Abstract. Agrarian policies, rural areas and the peasantry in Southeastern Europe are typically studied from the perspective of either economic transition or EU institutionalism. Students of multi-layered governance often approach rural issues in Southeastern Europe in terms of the intricacies of EU integration and acquis harmonisation. Conversely, studies of postcommunist transition discuss agriculture and the peasantry mostly by holding them responsible for economic and political wrongs. Economically, they consider agriculture the main stumbling block for structural modernisation and marketisation. Politically, they portray peasants as the misguided constituencies that effectively destroyed the process of democratisation – as unreformed postcommunists, nationalists or populists. The present study sets out to question these assumptions. Over the past twenty years, much has changed in the rural backwaters of the Southeast European region in economic terms, albeit not always for the better. A closer look at electorates and elections in selected rural counties of Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Croatia suggests that the stereotype of rural areas as strongholds of conservatism susceptible to postcommunist, nationalist and populist propaganda needs revising.

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