Transforming the dairy sector in post-communist economies. Actors and strategies

The chapter analyzes the transformation of the diary sector in the post-communist economies of Bulgaria and Russia. It draws on Commons's institutional framework to focus on path dependent/path shaping processes leading to conflicts about ownership, quality and market power issues. The main domestic and international actors are identified to understand their role in the dairy sector's change. In Russia, the strong market power gained by international businesses left little room to local operators. However, the latter were able to implement different niche strategies. In Bulgaria, domestic actors had to deal with several norms imposed by the European Union. While these norms were considered by some actors as favouring standardisation of milk products to the benefit of the mass-market, other actors used different EU norms to defend their strategy based on the development of a nested-market.