Adam Fagan

Taking stock of civil-society development in post-communist Europe: Evidence from the Czech Republic

This article contributes to a growing literature critiquing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as civil society in post-communist Europe. From the perspective of the Czech environmental movement, although over a decade of foreign assistance and know-how transfer has resulted in a tier of professional NGOs that have obtained political influence at the elite level, these organizations have made little progress in rooting themselves in society at large. This gives rise to the claim that what exists today are NGOs without civil society. It is argued that, in light of the withdrawal of large American donors since May 2004 and EU accession, NGOs need to make links with the enmeshed community-based organizations that have emerged in recent years and focus much more on fund-raising and developing sustainable strategies for their future development. Fifteen years after communism collapsed, it is time to take stock of what has evolved under the banner of civil society, particularly in a state where the concept has been fiercely debated. At a theoretical level, it is argued that, in order to assess the capacity of NGOs to fulfil the democratic functions of civil society, we need first to acknowledge the ideological rationale that has dictated their development. It is only by returning to a more normative understanding of the concept of civil society that we gain a critical insight into the apparent disconnection between NGOs and society and their limited capacity to mobilize popular support.

Environmental mobilisation and organisations in post-socialist Europe and the former Soviet Union

How have environmental movements and organisations evolved in the two decades since the end of state socialism? Focusing upon how the impact of external forces, the core debates concern how changing political opportunities and access to resources as a consequence of European Union accession have impacted on environmental NGOs, as well as the effects more generally of contentious transnational assistance and tutelage offered to local activist networks by US and west European donors. Theoretical and conceptual debates regarding dependency and co-option, versus channelling and new governance, are examined. Have environmental actors and movements in these transitional states and new democracies aligned with the trajectory predicted by scholars 20 years ago? To what extent have longstanding environmental values, modes of political engagement and submerged networks buffered and even transmuted the impact? Why, and to what extent, do the movements and organisations of the region retain a distinctive character and profile?

Transnational aid for civil society development in post-socialist Europe: Democratic consolidation or a new imperialism?

Civil society development programmes are perhaps the most tangible aspect of transnational assistance to post-socialist Europe, yet the experience of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) suggests that the impact, rationale and function of such assistance is problematical. Despite the specific political context of BiH, there is continuity with post-socialist Europe in terms of the logic governing NGO development assistance. What has become a core component of international intervention in war-torn regions evolved in post-socialist Europe during the 1990s under the rubric of democratic consolidation and civil society development.

Global–Local Linkage in the Western Balkans: The Politics of Environmental Capacity Building in Bosnia-Herzegovina

This article argues that efforts by international donors, in particular the EU, to build the capacity of environmental NGOs in Bosnia-Herzegovina has less to do with fostering democratic stability and civil society, and more to do with establishing a new epistemic community. Among critics, the technocratic, apolitical and rather benign term ‘capacity building’ has become code for the transformation and undermining of ‘local’ knowledge, the disregard for existing ‘capacities’, the construction of new networks of experts and the importation of rationalities based on West European discourses and constructions of ecological risk, sustainable development and policy responses. Not surprisingly, the weaker the post-socialist state – legacies of ethnic conflict, the severity of economic collapse – the greater the extent to which capacity-building assistance seeks to transform policy communities, actors and networks. From the perspective of environmental mobilisations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it is argued that the limitations of environmental capacity-building assistance are due in large part to the failure of donors to distinguish between different ‘capacities’, and their insistence on prioritising the development of project grant expertise and organisational management know-how over and above other developmental needs. The article illustrates the extent to which environmental movement organisations either require very basic developmental assistance or need more bespoke support that will enable them to engage effectively in political and legal contestation with the state. The article concludes that while aspects of environmental capacity-building assistance are clearly having a positive impact, the rigidity of donor aid and the framework of project grants as the mechanism for delivering assistance are limiting the impact to a narrow elite of organisations, of which some are neither non-governmental nor linked to indigenous local environmental networks within civil society.

Building Environmental Governance in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Europeanisation and Transnational Assistance in the Context of Limited Statehood

With this paper I seek to identify the conditions under which a shift occurs from hierarchical decision making towards new modes of environmental governance in a case of weak statehood (Bosnia-Herzegovina), where an external agency (the EU) exerts significant influence alongside foreign consultants and international financial institutions (the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development—EBRD). The Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) undertaken as part of the development of the trans-European road network across the country are used here as case studies for examining emerging patterns of environmental governance in a state under the shadow of EU conditionality. The data suggest that whilst over a period of time the adoption of new EU-compliant formal procedures and frameworks (eg, EIA laws) does seem to be generating new modes of governance interaction and citizen involvement, the impact is contingent upon the critical didactic role played by (in this case) the EBRD in making the formal procedures effective and in building knowledge capacity within the state administration. Thus, a simple correlation between EU conditionality and substantive political change cannot be assumed, particularly where state agencies possess limited policy knowledge and nonstate actors (environmental NGOs) lack mobilisation capacity.

Neither ‘north’ nor ‘south’: The environment and civil society in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract Transnational aid and assistance for the environment and civil society development is underscored by assumptions that the transfer of expertise and technical assistance will ultimately make environmental movements in new democracies more like their Northern counterparts. However, recent research on green movements across post-socialist Europe has called into question the extent to which environmental non-governmental organisations in receipt of donor aid are actually on course to replicating west European modes of political interaction and civil society engagement. From the perspective of environmental politics in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article further challenges the embedded assumptions about the impact of transnational donor assistance and, through empirical analysis, asserts that structural contexts continue to exert a profound impact on movement behaviour.

East European politics

Welcome to Volume 28, Issue 1, the first under the new title, East European Politics. As the new editors of what was, until December 2011, the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, we wish to use this short editorial to outline the rationale for the new title, to elaborate on the revised aims and scope, and to define more clearly how we see this highly regarded journal developing and expanding in the future. We have inherited a long-established and reputable journal, published by a leading publisher, with an impressive reach across Europe and the USA. It is on these legacies that we base our strategies for taking the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics forward to its next stage of development. We want to capture, and in some cases recapture, areas of scholarly research so as to locate the newly titled journal at the core of comparative political science research on the post-communist states of Europe and the former Soviet Union. We represent a generation of scholars who avidly read and later published in the journal; our purpose as editors is to ensure that the current and next generation of scholars form an even stronger and sustainable association with what we hope will become the leading outlet and source of reference for analysis of political developments in Eastern Europe. The Journal of Communist Studies was founded in 1984 by a group of scholars (Michael Waller, Richard Gillespie, Ron Hill, David Goodman, David Bell, and Michael Williams) with a shared intellectual interest in communist political systems, successors to an editorial team that had produced Documents in communist affairs (published in the early 1980s by Butterworths) and other publications dealing with the communist movement. In 1992, and Transition Politics was added to the title to reflect changing realities. Although conceived as a distinctly European publication, the journal was, from the outset, international in scope, aiming at an international readership and welcoming contributions from the whole world. It had no ideological bias: it was neither anti-communist nor an apologist, but rather it took communism seriously as a subject of scholarly study, rather than as essentially a rival and hostile political ideology and system. While the journal set out to reflect the growing complexity of the communist world and movements, in the 1980s, its focus was on the ‘core’ countries and parties that had historically been part of the world of the Comintern. Ruling parties and systems formed the central focus of interest, but the wider communist movement was always regarded by the editorial team as a distinctive feature of the journal’s scope. The primary emphasis was on politics, but history, sociology, non-technical economics, biography, and comparative studies also featured. Following the change of title in 1992, the scope both widened, to embrace regime change and democratisation, and in practice also narrowed, to concentrate somewhat more on political analysis. Indeed, the volumes published under the revised title included excellent analyses of the politics and political science of the new democracies, several of which are now considered to be seminal works. East European Politics will publish articles on the government, politics, and international relations of the countries in the post-communist region. In terms of what we seek to publish, our aim is clear: original scholarship on political developments in individual countries, together with cross-country comparative analyses and studies of the relations between post-communist regions and other parts of the world, including internationally based organisations. In geographical terms, we seek to cover the entire post-communist region, including East Central Europe, the

Democracy promotion in Kosovo: mapping the substance of donor assistance and a comparative analysis of strategies

From the perspective of Kosovo, this article contributes to a growing literature focusing on the substance of donor-driven democracy promotion. Drawing on extensive empirical research between 2010 and 2012, the research provides greater insights into which donors are providing what sort of assistance; how the content and focus of aid are decided and formulated; and the behaviour of the European Union (EU) and other large donors compared with small bilaterals and private foundations. By including the category of ‘governance-oriented’ assistance to classify donor initiatives, a more nuanced mapping of priorities and strategies is offered, which distinguishes between those measures designed to engage civil society (developmental), those focusing on institutions and elite level change (political), and interventions specifically designed to promote closer interaction between government and nongovernmental actors. The conclusion reached is that, although overall levels of aid to Kosovo have remained relatively stable since 2008, donor behaviour is in flux, with evidence of an emergent distinction between what larger donors offer and the provision of smaller bilaterals and private foundations. This, it is argued, has serious implications for the capacity of the EU to continue providing extensive aid across a wide range of issues and policy areas as part of its pre-accession assistance.

Green activism in post-socialist Europe and the former Soviet Union

1. Environmental Mobilisation and Organisations in Post-Socialist Europe and the Former Soviet Union JoAnn Carmin and Adam Fagan 2. Environmental Organisations and the Europeanisation of Public Policy in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Biodiversity Governance Tanja Borzel and Aron Buzogany 3. Externally Sponsored Contention: The Channelling of Environmental Movement Organisations in the Czech Republic after the Fall of Communism Ondrej Cisar 4. Between Transnationalism and State Power: The Development of Russias Post-Soviet Environmental Movement Laura A. Henry 5. Transnational Environmental Activism in Central Asia: The Coupling of Domestic Law and International Conventions Erika Weinthal and Kate Watters 6. Environmental Politics in the Western Balkans: River Basin Management and Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) Activity in Herzegovina Adam Fagan and Indraneel Sircar 7. The Environmental Issue in the East of Europe: Top-Down, Bottom-Up and Outside-In Michael Waller

Compliance without governance: the role of NGOs in environmental impact assessment processes in Bosnia–Herzegovina

Both qualitative and quantitative research suggests that foreign donors (particularly the European Commission) have exerted a positive impact on environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across the post-socialist, new member states of Central and Eastern Europe. Green networks have been institutionalised and the foundations for multi-level environmental governance appear to be in place. But to what extent is a similar impact occurring in the so-called ‘potential candidate countries’ of the EU in the Western Balkans? From the perspective of environmental NGOs and their engagement in Environmental Impact Assessment processes in Bosnia–Herzegovina, it appears that the impact of donor-driven capacity building is exaggerated by assessments based on quantitative data. Formal compliance with EU procedures and the existence amongst NGOs of certain ‘capacities’ is not necessarily an indicator of environmental governance.