In person icon Environmental Activism in Post-Communist Societies: Changes and Challenges in the 2020s

Abstract

Environmental Activism in Post-Communist Societies: Changes and Challenges in the 2020s Environmental policies, institutions, and actions occur through the complex interactions of local, sub-, and cross-national levels as well as at regional, supranational, and global scales (e.g., through different networks of cities across the borders to regional international institutions, such as the EU). The number of published studies on this institution of deliberative democracy focused on climate change has grown rapidly. Despite the growing importance of civil society (social movements; local-level institutions; non-governmental organizations; environmental movements and protests, etc.) in sustainable development, there are only a few studies on the ongoing challenges triggered by autocratization (e.g., Russia and Belarus). This Section will focus on interdisciplinary perceptions, perspectives, expectations, attitudes, and outcomes of newly emerging social environmental actors across different levels of governance (at national, sub-national, and super-national levels), as well as the challenges they face in the 2020s. There are two main research questions this section aims to address. First, what specific (legal, institutional, social) changes took place in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine 2022 in neighboring post-Soviet states (such as Russia and Belarus)? Second, what are the current challenges faced by environmental movements, NGOs, and environmental activists in general? This section aims to combine insights from different methodological insights (e.g., discourse analysis, social media studies, quantitative, and qualitative studies, surveys, interviews, documentary analysis, and media analysis) to address the challenges to environmental activism across Post-Communist states (e.g., Belarus, Russia). This section intends also to shed more light on causes and consequences of these social environmental actors functioning at different levels of regional environmental governance as well as their implications for developing better strategies of environmental actors within non-democracies. This section aims to place contributions within the context of the current socio-political situation in Europe with a special emphasis on the changes post-2022, after the Ukraine invasion. The papers selected for this section look, first, into the public attitude and trust to environmental organizations and movements across all Post-Communist states (PCS) and the role of historical legacies in the formation of public attitudes and environmental activism. Second, the section will focus on socio-institutional changes affecting environmental NGOs and movements in PCS. Finally, the third focus is on the analysis of the Russian environmental activists in exile in Georgia, Armenia, Germany, the UK, the US, France, Finland, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, and Turkey. The section offers a unique insight into forming new transitional networks and radical changes in environmental activism in Europe and Eurasia. Sections aims to contribute to the understanding of the impact of autocracy on civil society, changes and challenges in the environmental activism within autocracies and those in exile. The Panel will have a Chair and a Co-Chair, a discussant, and three presenters (with the most of the attention to gender-balance of participants, as well as a variety of cross-discipline perspectives). The panel unites scholars coming from Italy, Spain, Finland, the USA, and Canada.

Title	Details
Disrupted Activism: Environmentalists Caught in the Crossfire of War and Exile	View Paper Details
Environmental Activism and Propaganda: Exploring Communication Strategies of Environmental NGOs in Autocracies	View Paper Details
The Role of Communist Legacies in Environmental Values and Attitudes	View Paper Details
Does the Intensifying “Brussels Blaming Game” Affect Implementation of EU Policies? The Case of Opposition to the Green Deal in the Czech Republic	View Paper Details