Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Jenna Pittman
Guest: Jovana Diković
Book: "The Laissez-Faire Peasant: Post-Socialist Rural Development in Serbia" (UCL Press, 2025)
Date: September 10, 2025

This episode features a deep dive into Jovana Diković’s new book, exploring how rural development unfolds in post-socialist Serbia. Diković challenges common assumptions about rural transformation, emphasizing the agency, resilience, and competencies of Serbian peasants outside of state-directed development policies.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the Research & Personal Trajectory

• Diković’s Background (01:55)
  • Born, raised, and educated in Serbia, with studies in Social Anthropology at the University of Belgrade.
  • Accidental entry into rural fieldwork through a job collecting data on vernacular architecture:
    • "It was not really the result of the research, but the experience that really hooked me and kept me interested in natural areas." (03:02)
  • Observed deep misrepresentations and romanticizations of Serbian village life in public discourse.
  • Doctoral research at the University of Zurich focused on actual rural development, inspired by historical and ethnographic works on villages like Gaj.

2. Methodology & Ethnography

• Village Selection & Fieldwork (07:40–14:40)
  • Three villages: Gaj (older, ethnically mixed, Austro-Hungarian origins), and two smaller post-WWII Serb-dominated settlements (Beli Breg & Malo Bavaniste).
  • Comparative approach to understand continuities and differences in rural change.
  • Long-term ethnographic immersion: "By living with these people...I could grasp how the countryside breathes and what values they hold." (13:38)
• Economic & Social Roles: Majority of villagers cultivate land, and only a minority remain entirely outside agriculture.

3. Language: The Term "Peasant"

• Why ‘Peasant’? (14:40–21:04)
  • Addressing misunderstandings, especially among Anglophone audiences, about the word’s connotations.
  • "People in Serbia who are dealing with agriculture...call themselves and their fellow villagers peasants...without any obstacles whatsoever." (15:15, 15:53)
  • The term is an "emic" (insider’s) classification, not tied to class or land size.
  • Quote: "Even though my informants were completely aware of the fact that term peasant also keeps these negative connotations...they're absolutely comfortable with the term." (16:36)
  • Peasants today can be highly professional, cultivating 5–100 hectares, often with modern mechanization.

4. The Main Arguments of the Book

• Peasant Resilience & Laissez-Faire Mentality (21:11–27:29)
  • Despite repeated state intervention and policy failures, peasants and agriculture endured and often thrived.
  • Key factors producing resilience:
    • Land ownership and autonomy
    • Village ethics (individualism, skepticism, distrust, peripherality)
  • "The laissez-faire mentality explains these autonomous actions...builds their resilience on the one side and reject and modify agricultural policies on the other." (23:55)
  • The state's development policies—socialist collectivization, later professionalization—were broadly rejected or circumvented; resilience and adaptation came from within the communities.
  • Expansion of bureaucratic systems fostered non-developmental behaviors like clientelism and nepotism rather than growth.

5. Defining Historical Moments & Policy Failures

• Serbia’s Political Transformations (28:11–37:23)
  • Four political eras over the past century:
    • Capitalist monarchy
    • Socialist republic with collectivization
    • Autocratic, privatization-focused 1990s
    • Liberal democracy since 2000 (with some backsliding post-2012)
  • In each era, state goals aimed to transform or modernize peasants—yet these policies almost universally failed at the village level.
  • "Even though the state was favoring state over and collective over private property, peasants nevertheless always found a way to preserve private property." (33:41)
  • Ongoing resistance to state initiatives, such as agricultural associations and compulsory insurance, even when such policies echoed EU practices.

6. Peasant Experiences During Crisis

• Resilience in the 1990s Economic Transition (37:23–42:40)
  • Civil war, hyperinflation, and political chaos marked the 1990s—a time when the state withdrew from rural affairs.
  • "Land never stays uncultivated, no matter political or economic conditions." (38:29; quote from a peasant interlocutor)
  • Despite immense hardship, very few abandoned agriculture; many anticipated that persistence—even during loss—would be rewarded when conditions improved.
  • Adapted through informal markets, risk management, and continued investment in land.

7. Informal Institutions and Endogenous Development

• Peasants Navigating State Structures (42:40–47:45)
  • The book highlights how informal institutions and community virtues—credit on trust, gleaning, collective ceremonies—maintain cooperation and individual dignity.
  • "Thriving and the success in the community...only makes sense only in the community. So you cannot be a successful person if that is not shared with the community." (44:21)
  • Argues for the importance of endogenous (locally-led) development and spontaneous adaptation, rather than imposed planning/subsidy models.
  • "I argued that peasants really do not need government plans to thrive. They already know how to do this...peasants, in fact truly and desperately, at least in Serbia, need markets, they need infrastructure and they need the rule of law. The rest they can handle alone." (46:18)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the resilience of peasant agriculture:
  "Land never stays uncultivated, no matter political or economic conditions." (38:29, Peasant interlocutor, quoted by Diković)
• On state policy and peasant autonomy:
  "The laissez-faire mentality explains these autonomous actions of peasants...that build their resilience on the one side and reject and modify agricultural policies on the other side." (23:55, Diković)
• On why use 'peasant':
  "Even though my informants were completely aware of the fact that term peasant also keeps these negative connotations...they're absolutely comfortable with the term." (16:36, Diković)
• On rural development policy:
  "The planning, the idea of planning is not really, and the state plans are not really the factors that can spur rural development." (25:01, Diković)
• On community success:
  "You cannot be a successful person if that is not shared with the community. At least this is the point in the countryside." (44:21, Diković)
• On policy needs:
  "Peasants, in fact truly and desperately, at least in Serbia, need markets, they need infrastructure and they need the rule of law. The rest they can handle alone." (46:18, Diković)

Important Timestamps

• 01:55 – Diković’s personal background and path to rural fieldwork
• 07:40 – Description of the three villages studied and methodological approach
• 14:40 – Rationale for using the term ‘peasant’
• 21:11 – Outline of main arguments about resilience and laissez-faire mentality
• 28:11 – Discussion of Serbia’s major political and agrarian transitions
• 37:23 – Peasant experiences and strategies during the 1990s transition
• 42:40 – Informal peasant institutions and bottom-up rural development
• 48:05 – Diković’s future research projects in Kosovo and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Closing Remarks

Jovana Diković's "The Laissez-Faire Peasant" reframes the rural Serbian experience post-socialism. Rather than passive recipients of state planning or development, Serbian peasants emerge as active, competent, and resilient agents—often thriving despite, not because of, top-down policies. The ethnographic detail and Diković's conceptual articulation of the "laissez-faire mentality" offer rich insights for understanding rural transformation, not only in Serbia but for broader debates on development, autonomy, and the power of informal community structures.

The book is available in the UK (UCL Press), in the US (University of Chicago Press), and open access online.