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The paper analyzes a grass-roots campaign to limit the expansion of Danish-owned industrial hog operator Saerimner in Lithuania. The industrialization of livestock production as well as local responses to the restructuring of meat production are interpreted within the broader context of the incorporation of peripheral regions into global agro-food markets. Unlike in Western Europe and North America where the industrialization of hog production is proceeded by the displacement of small hog producers, in Eastern Europe the expansion of multinational corporations is occurring by the buying up, retrofitting and modernizing of factory-farms inherited from the socialist-era. It is argued that the bitter environmental legacy of Soviet-era factory farming has shaped rural population responses to the new wave of multinational acquisitions in the region. Anti-corporate hog campaigning is analyzed within the context of growing activism among rural constituencies displaced from commercial agriculture. The importance of effective organization and leadership in grass-roots activism is emphasized as well as the growing role of non-farming interests is shaping the rural policies of the country.

The Soviet regime defined rurality as a collective-farm or "kolkhoz"-based society. Since the late 1980s such a state-imposed definition of rurality was rapidly unraveling under the tensions and conflicts produced by "perestroika" and post-socialist reforms. In the new politics of the rural, the role that the news media was playing in shaping public opinion on rural matters was of growing importance. The paper analyzes 3827 articles on rural issues published during the post-independence period (1991-2004) in the leading Lithuanian daily "Lietuvos Rytas" (LR). Two types of discourses in rural coverage are discerned. During the 1990s rural coverage in LR was reflective of conflicts and tensions between relatively prosperous urban classes which benefited from post-socialist reforms and pauperized rural population. Rurality was increasingly associated with the failure of "the moral modernization" of the rural population. Rural population was stigmatized as deficient in values and character, remaining in the grips of the Soviet mentality and state dependency and, therefore, unable to take advantage of opportunities created by the reforms. Since the early 2000s when economic situation in the country improved significantly and Lithuania started negotiations on European Union membership, rurality in LR coverage was gradually re-defined in EU terms as a socio-spacial entity shaped by regional, national, and local policies promoting multifunctionality of rural areas, well-being of rural communities, and active citizenship. Factors that influenced changes in rural discourses are analyzed. Impacts of changing discourses on rural identities, rural politics and policies are discussed.

Examines the structure of undergraduate computing at a large private university, including patterns of use, impact of computer ownership and gender, and the bureaucratic structure in which usage is embedded. The profile of computer use uncovered in a survey is compared with reports offered by the institution and the trade press. (10 references) (Author/KRN)

The paper analyzes the functioning of the newly created labor exchange in post-Soviet Lithuania. It is argued that the labor exchange in post-Soviet Lithuania operates under the conditions of a [...]

This paper argues that the character of criminality in post-socialist Lithuania is undergoing a significant change. Up until the mid 1990s criminality was defined by the conflict between the state and criminal groups who challenged the state's authority in the redistribution of state property. Criminal groups used violence to challenge the state's rules and regulations regarding the process and outcomes of privatization. The state responded by legal and institutional reforms leading to militarization and centralization of the police force. Successful legal and police reforms initiated during the early 1990s led to a dramatic decline in organized crime activities. Crime rates also began to stabilize because of the improving socioeconomic situation in the country. As a result, by the mid 1990s the character of criminality began to change. There are signs that it is increasingly associated with the growing social and economic marginalization of those segments of the population, which did not (or could not) adapt to the introduction of competitive markets. The situation was aggravated by a rapid decline of employment within the Lithuanian economy and significant curtailment of social welfare provided by the state. A growing number of individuals, especially males with poor skills and education whose employment opportunities were severely restricted with the decline in manufacturing industries, were dropping out from the labor force even in the presence of jobs; were not marrying; and were increasingly plagued by a variety of social pathologies and health problems including crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, and depression. New forms of entrenched poverty unknown during the socialist era such as vagabonds and homelessness, including homeless children, has now developed and is associated with its apparently inevitable concomitant increased petty criminality.

A crucial issue in the theory of technological change - the transformation of knowledge into commodities in agriculture - is examined through the role that technoscience played in the transformation of rapeseed (Brassica campestris and B. napus) from a minor crop used largely for marine lubricants into a major global competitor in edible oil markets. The study is based on a content analysis of the worldwide bibliography of rapeseed. A network approach is used to show that emergence and successful development of the rapeseed commodity subsector included three simultaneously occurring and interacting developments: production of new knowledge, modification of commodities, and extension of rapeseed production networks. Implications of the network approach for the analysis of agricultural development are discussed.

The collapse of the USSR resulted in a decline of institutions which had supported the dominance of ethnic Russians throughout the periphery of the country. In their place new institutions and mechanisms have been developed to regulate the access of people of different nationalities to power, resources and prestige. This article provides a comparative analysis of ethnic transformation in ten of the fourteen successor states of the former Soviet Union. The analysis identified five types of ethnic transformation in the successor states. In the Baltics the attempts of titular ethnic groups to secure predominance over ethnic Russians and radically transform institutions of the Soviet state resulted in the creation of exclusive ethnic democracies. In Central Asia an elite-negotiated transformation led to the emergence of ethnocracies in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, while the regimes formed in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were characterized by a mixture of ethnocratic and consociationalist features. In Moldova a failed attempt at unification with Romania eventuated in policies directed towards the creation of a Moldovan ethno-territorial federation. Finally, in Ukraine gradual reforms and attempts to abolish any ethnic hierarchy have led to the creation of consociationalism, in which ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, Russophones and Ukrainophones share power over the state. Keywords: Russian minorities; ethnic transformation; Baltic States; Central Asia; Moldova; Ukraine; successor states of the former USSR.

This study investigates the dynamics of policy reforms pertaining to care for older adults in post-socialist Lithuania. In the Soviet era social services in Lithuania were in a rudimentary stage of development. By the early 1990s a combination of long-term demographic trends such as ageing, a decline in fertility rates and an increase in divorce rates, and the impact of radical neo-liberal reforms significantly increased the number of older individuals living alone and in poverty. In response, a number of measures were undertaken to reform older-age care, resulting in decentralisation, institutional layering and institutional recalibration of social services. It is argued that the historical legacy has proved to be especially significant in the institutional development of social services by reproducing a State-centred system, although with a growing trend towards the privatisation and marketisation of social care. The role of various organised interests and civic groups, policy makers and international organisations, as well as ideologies and broader sets of cultural values in shaping social services pertaining to the care of older adults are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]