Political Economy and Political Clientelism in the Agricultural and Industrial Region South of Leipzig

Project Summary

The area south of the city of Leipzig provides dramatic illustrations of some of the most characteristic developments in Eastern Germany over the last century and a half.* These developments - which have been affected by general trends in the world economy and by the widely varying policies of a series of national governments - include, especially, (1) the rise and fall of the carbo-chemical industry and (2) the liberalization, collectivization, and re-privatization of agricultural production. Both have reshaped the physical environment and restructured the lives of the people living within it. Local actors have, in turn, administered, enforced, resisted, or otherwise responded to changing agricultural and industrial policies in ways which have themselves contributed to the course of events. This project focuses on the implications of the changing regional political economy for property relations. Property relations are understood in a broad sense of the term to include the variables governing actors' access to resources and their ability to control the use of these resources under specific social, political, and economic conditions. Changing property relations are being investigated using ethnographic, sociological, and historical methods. The temporal focus is on the transition in property relations after 1945 and after 1990, but these transitional periods must often be viewed in a larger historical framework.
*In this project description, "Eastern Germany" refers to the territories which used to make up the German Democratic Republic and which now consist of the federal states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Berlin, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony.

The Field Site

The Südraum Leipzig, or Southern Region of Leipzig, corresponds roughly to the contemporary rural county called the Landkreis Leipziger Land. The Southern Region is located in northwest Saxony within a triangle formed by the city of Leipzig in the north, the town of Zeitz in the southwest and the town of Geithain in the southeast.* The more narrow regional focus of this study is the area between the two local centers of Groitzsch and Borna - an area with the characteristic mix of agriculture, coal mining, power plants, chemical installations, and small businesses.
The Southern Region of Leipzig is a fertile and remarkably flat landscape. Only at its southern extremity do the meadowlands give way to foothills. It is crossed by the Weisse Elster and the Pleisse, two small rivers which flow from south to north. Up until the late nineteenth century, agriculture was supplemented only by processing industries based on agricultural products or available natural resources - breweries, flour mills, and brickyards. With the exception of a few larger noble estates, there was a preponderance of small to medium-sized farms, which had, with the liberal reforms of the mid-nineteenth century, become business enterprises catering to growing urban populations. In the late nineteenth century, new technologies made possible the exploitation of abundant reserves of brown coal or lignite. By the early twentieth century, coal was acquired in expanding surface mines, which have left large scars upon the earth's surface. Coal mining was accompanied by the arrival of industrial workers, the growth of new residential complexes, and the rise of the carbo-chemical and energy industries in a regional economy which continued to include agricultural production.
* The Southern Region of Leipzig is in the federal state of Saxony but borders on both Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. Zeitz lies just over the border in Saxony-Anhalt.

Political Economy and Political Clientelism in the Agricultural and Industrial Region South of Leipzig

Two Turning Points: 1945 and 1990

After 1945 the further development of agriculture and industry was determined by the policies of the Soviet occupational administration and, beginning in 1949, of the German Democratic Republic. One of the first orders of business was the nationalization of the carbo-chemical industries and the aggressive exploitation of coal resources - Eastern Germany lacks other fossil fuels. The first phase of the new agricultural policy involved the break-up of large farms and the distribution of land to many smallholders in the land reform of 1945. Then came the collectivization of farming enterprises, beginning in the mid-1950s, and the industrialization of agricultural production in the 1970s and 1980s.
After 1990 - a year which saw the dissolution of the socialist government, the incorporation of the East German states into the Federal Republic of Germany, and the opening of the East German economy to the global market - heavy industry in the Southern Region of Leipzig collapsed. Within a short period of time, tens of thousands of jobs were lost, and even after massive new investment the workforce in the mining, energy, and chemical industries was reduced to a fraction of its former capacity. Simultaneously, new laws required the privatization of agricultural production and the restructuring or dissolution of the collective farms of the socialist era. Many of the collective farms have survived the restructuring process in the form of agricultural cooperatives or corporations; but in these cases as well the workforce has often been reduced by more than ninety percent. Since 1990, a number of family farms and larger private agricultural enterprises have been established or re-established, but this has involved only a small percentage of the local farming families and returning West Germans. Many of the former workers in industry and agriculture went into early retirement, some found new occupations or were integrated into make-work programs, and many others entered the ranks of the unemployed. Workers in the carbo-chemical branch, however, have received relatively favorable pensions, while the landowners among the collectivized farmers receive some income - usually a very modest amount - by leasing their land to ongoing agricultural enterprises. Today, the region is characterized by high unemployment, out-migration, and an aging population.
While agriculture and the carbo-chemical industries now offer relatively few jobs, they do provide a significant tax base for the county and its communes. Tax revenues have been supplemented by state funding and by compensatory payments which industries have made to various landowners, including the communes. The result has been a dramatic improvement in the regional infrastructure, which, however, also entails rising costs for residents. The future of the region depends largely on the further development of the city of Leipzig. Since it is widely recognized that the industrial jobs of the socialist era will never be replaced, planners are now seeking to develop the Southern Region as a suburban recreational area, especially by flooding the former surface mines and, in this way, creating a series of lakes.

Aspects of Property Relations in the Southern Region of Leipzig

Against this backdrop, the project focuses on the following aspects of property relations: land, employment and entitlements, housing and public utilities, and citizenship.

Political Economy and Political Clientelism in the Agricultural and Industrial Region South of Leipzig

Land

Land has been called "the supreme good," and ownership and usufruct of land is one of the most important topics of this project. Of special interest are two types of conflict involving land: (1) the conflict between liberal and socialist policies of land ownership and agricultural production and (2) the conflict over the use of land for agricultural, industrial, residential, or recreational purposes. The relevant aspects of the first of these conflicts include the expropriation of land during the land reform of 1945, the collectivization of agriculture from the 1950s to the 1970s, the industrialization of agricultural production in the 1970s and 1980s, and the restitution of private property and the privatization of agricultural production beginning in 1990. While developments in the field of agriculture followed roughly the same pattern throughout Eastern Germany, conflicts over the agricultural, industrial, residential, or recreational use of land have taken an extreme form in the Southern Region of Leipzig. The various aspects of this conflict include regional planning, industrial policy, changing laws concerning the ownership of subterranean resources, the expropriation of land for the purposes of industry, the compensation of landowners by industry, and the evacuation, devastation, and resettlement of whole villages. In the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, conflicts over land use have, of course, occurred under widely varying political and legal circumstances. This means that there has been little consistency in the treatment of the affected landowners.

Employment and Entitlements

In an expanded definition of "property," employment and entitlements must be included, since these terms designate legal arrangements which allow actors to gain access to a wide range of resources. In this project, the focus will be on labor policy, the labor market, salaries, social security, and actors' experiences with work, unemployment, and retirement. Once again, changing political conditions must be taken into account, with special emphasis on the differences between the socialist era and the current era. Given the significance of early retirement as a strategy for alleviating unemployment after 1990, special attention will be given to pensions and pensioners.

Political Economy and Political Clientelism in the Agricultural and Industrial Region South of Leipzig

Housing and Public Utilities

The housing situation, which was often characterized by shortages in the socialist era, was especially critical in the Southern Region of Leipzig, where industrial workers, agricultural workers, and displaced villagers had to be provided for. The response to the rising demand for housing was the construction of large-scale apartment complexes, which took the form of public housing, workers' housing cooperatives, or replacement housing that was financed by the state coal mining conglomerate.

In the villages, those who still occupied private farm houses typically had to sell privately produced products in order to earn enough money to maintain their homes and barns. The options and strategies for securing adequate housing will be reconstructed using the methods of oral history. After 1990 the field site was subject to massive programs for the modernization of housing, transportation and communication infrastructures, and public utilities. These have resulted in a higher standard of living but also in conflicts over the distribution of costs among consumers. Finally, special attention will be paid to rented gardens, which are located in separate complexes on the outskirts of residential areas. These gardens typically provide recreation and supplemental foodstuffs for households.

Practicing Citizenship

The political entitlements that are summarized with the term "citizenship" may be understood both as varieties of property relations and as preconditions for participation in decisions affecting other kinds of property relations. In this portion of the study, the focus is on activities of residents in their capacity as participants in local government (as voters, party members, elected officials, representatives, or administrators) and in the local public sphere (either as individuals or as members of civic organizations).

Political Economy and Political Clientelism in the Agricultural and Industrial Region South of Leipzig

Methods

Interviews

One of the most important components of the field research is a series of in-depth interviews with area residents, who report on their own experiences with property. Interview partners, who reside in different communities within the region, have been selected to represent a variety of perspectives on developments in agriculture, industry, small business, politics, and civic life. They include landowners, people who have experienced dispossession and displacement, former members of collective farms, managers and consultants of legal successors to collective farms, people who have started up new private farms, active and retired industrial workers, spokespersons for privatized industries, small business persons, local politicians and administrators, and civic activists.

Participant Observation

The primary site for participant observation is the town of Neukieritzsch, which is in many ways a characteristic settlement in the Southern Region of Leipzig. The focus on this single community is supplemented by repeated visits to contrasting communities, such as the industrial village of Lobstädt, the agricultural village of Großstolpen, and the regional centers of Borna and Groitzsch. Neukieritzsch was founded in 1842 as a station on the new railroad line between Leipzig and Altenburg. In the next century and a half, it became the home for two categories of persons: first, workers in the industrial complex of Böhlen/Lippendorf and, second, villagers whose homes fell victim to expanding surface mines. Neukieritzsch is now a local governmental center with a population of 3,000. Its administration is, however, also responsible for the affairs of an additional 4,000 persons in five neighboring villages. The foci of participant observation in Neukieritzsch are local politics, civic life, housing and gardening, and other aspects of everyday life.

Examination of Primary Sources

Data gathered through interviews and participant observation are supplemented by data found in a variety of primary sources, including archival records, local newspapers, and publications of government agencies, business enterprises, and interest groups.

Household Survey

The last phase of field research will be devoted to conducting a survey of households in the community of Neukieritzsch. The point of the survey will be to determine the make-up of households, the geographical origin, education, and occupation of their members, the history of their integration into the local labor market, their access to physical, monetary, and human resources, and the use that they make of these resources. It is anticipated that the quantitative analysis of property relations in a single community will provide a supplement to and a check on qualitative data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork. Neukieritzsch is a suitable choice for such a survey, since its mixed population includes representatives of various economic sectors in a proportion that matches that of the wider region. The survey will be administered to a random sample of local residents by a team made up of the project head and student assistants.