Cooperative e sviluppo locale nelle regioni rurali dell’Europa Orientale: paradossi dell’imprenditoria economica e sociale nella transizione

This paper aims to highlight some paradoxes of the agrarian transformation in Hungary and Poland and the ways they impinge on the working of private and cooperative farming. The first section reassess the debate on the specificities of cooperative management in light of the de-collectivization of agriculture. The second addresses continuities and changes in the symbiotic relationship between big coops and rural households within the two ongoing processes of Europeanization and economic globalization. The final section discusses the ‘cooperative difference’ and concludes with some analytical insights on who makes it both in coops and households.