Property: What Is It Good For?

This article argues that the problem of value rather than rule of law is of greatest significance in analyzing Russian property rights. Taking the privatization of agricultural land as an example throughout, the article first offers a critique of approaches that center on rule of law and investigates the role of informal institutions in providing contract guarantees. The article goes on to argue that much more than an absence of secure property rights, the low value of some property and the high costs of using it in post-socialism led many Russians to lose their stake in the production factors that they had worked to build or steward during the Soviet period. Finally, it suggests that in rural contexts, changes in the use of property and property rights loosened people's ties to place, contributing to the destruction of certain types of social meaning attached to property. The deterritorialization of some parts of the population had important consequences beyond property rights development, as it helped create a social basis for a new politics of national identity under Putin.