NGOs in Russian Environmental Policy: Challenges and Strategies
Explore the complex landscape of Russian NGOs operating in environmental policy debates. Dive into the communication strategies used by NGOs in an authoritarian context, the challenges they face, and the dichotomy between cooperating and conflicting with the government. Delve into waste management issues and the social-ecological context of protests in Russia.
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Presentation Transcript
Examining the role of NGOs in Environmental Policy Debates: the case of Russia Marina Pilkina HSE University, Moscow ECPR Conference 01/09/2021
Russian NGOs The Russian government has repeatedly expressed its interest in cooperating with NGOs and opened up funding opportunities for specific organizations Plenty of Russian NGOs are increasingly facing restrictions that significantly limit their activities and divide them into good and bad organizations, that is, system and non-system
Russian NGOs are forced to hide and somehow suppress their public position to avoid becoming a foreign agent or/and an undesirable organization NGOs limit institutional interaction platforms and prioritize personal connections and informal agreements instead of official cooperation with government officials
Research Questions How do NGOs communicate about policy in an authoritarian context? Why do NGOs choose a specific communicative strategy? Do different NGOs use different communicative strategies?
The NPF and Narrative Strategies The angel shift: NGOs that collaborate with the government The devil shift: NGOs, who conflict with the government NGOs that avoid all public communication Policy actors who aim to promote reforms tend to employ angel shifts, while policy actors opposing reforms rather use devil shifts
Waste Management in Russia Only 7% of over 70 million tons of annually produced solid waste is recycled Waste management reform in 2014: shifting towards a transparent waste management system Social-ecological context of protest in Russia in 2018-2019
Research data and methods Systematic NPF coding scheme Eco-NGOs: Federal NGOs: Greenpeace, Razdelni Sbor, Sobirator, EKA, Musora bolshe net 381 TEXTS Russian platforms VKontakte and Telegram Regional NGOs: EKA Azov, Ecomost, Zeleny Parovoz, Zelenaya Ulitsa, Podari Planete Zhizn Published between 2017 and June 2021 + 10 semi-structured interviews
Use of Narratives by NGOs 140 120 120 100 80 60 49 47 40 15 20 10 7 6 6 0 0 Dvizhenie 42 Greenpeace Razdelny Sbor Musora Bolshe Grazhdanskaya Iniciativa EKA Azov Ecomost Podari Planete Zhizn Center Economii Resursov Net
Characters: Narratives Hero n (%) Villain n (%) Victim n (%) NGO 190 (50%) 0 (0%) 5 (1%) Government 29 (8%) 67 (18%) 0 (0%) Business 92 (24%) 56 (15%) 7 (2%) Citizens 84 (22%) 13 (3%) 48 (13%) Environment 37 (10%) Other 30 (8%) 76 (20%) 19 (5%) Total (N) 425 212 98
Devil-angel shift Organization Mean N SD Greenpeace -0,36 48 0,76 Razdelniy Sbor 0,16 48 0,83 Musora Bolshe Net 0,16 15 0,75 Dvizhenie 42 0,36 120 0,77 Zeleniy Parovoz 0,70 121 0,61 Grazhdanskaya Ecoprestupnosti Iniciativa Protiv -0,37 10 0,67 Total 0,33 361 0.80
Characters: Interviews (1) Open criticism of the state, which is typical, as a rule, for federal NGOs, often without reference to a specific regional government (2) Moderate criticism of the authorities without a clear personification (3) Conscious refusal to publicly criticize the authorities
Policy Problems and Solutions When we are posting something, we focus on an average person, an ordinary resident of the region, who will read our post and learn something, or even want to do something (Interview 7) Moral n (%) Problem n (%) NGOs narratives 333 (87,4%) 261 (68,5%) Through social media posts, we promptly convey information about our events, waste separation, involve new people in eco-events (Interview 9)
Conclusion The different Russian NGOs apply various communicative strategies: (1) open criticism; (2) moderate criticism; 3) conscious refusal to criticize publicly. NGOs limit institutional interaction platforms and prioritize personal connections and informal agreements instead of official cooperation with government officials.
Next steps and open questions Next steps: (1) Intercoder realibility (2) Interview analysis (3)Interviews and narratives juxtaposition Open Questions: (1) The comparability of cases (2)NGOs categorization
Thank you for your attention! pilkina96@gmail.com
