Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom

Russia and the Kyoto Protocol: Seeking an Alignment of Interests and Image

On November 5, 2004, the Russian Federation ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, effectively saving the treaty. Battling domestic interests, in which a majority of pro-Kyoto voices were countered by a small but powerful minority of Kyoto opponents, had little influence on the decision due to the centralized institutional environment in Russia which allows the President great autonomy in foreign policy. President Putin ratified the treaty because Russia would likely gain leverage in other international negotiations and contribute to an image of itself as a good member of the club of advanced industrialized states. He delayed ratification to clarify evidence about gains versus losses from Kyoto provisions and to secure concessions from other Kyoto ratifiers in other international negotiations. Existing implementation efforts are slow but indicate that Russias strategy will emphasize maximizing profits through treaty mechanisms over maximizing emissions reductions.

Russia’s Climate Policy: International Bargaining and Domestic Modernisation

Abstract This article accounts for the gap between Russia’s weak initial implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and its more active engagement in climate policy during the Medvedev presidency. We examine the intersection of climate policy and broader efforts to modernise Russia’s economy, drawing attention to synergies between domestic and international politics. We argue that international factors alone do not explain the change in climate policy as they have remained relatively constant. Instead, greater attention toward climate policy results from efforts to introduce new technologies and increase energy efficiency, spurred by the recent financial crisis and a shift in domestic policy priorities associated with the Medvedev presidency. The authors would like to thank Steinar Andresen, Kathryn Harrison, James Richter and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Any errors are the responsibility of the authors. The research for this article took the form of detailed comparative analysis of Russian government statements and policy documents on climate change and energy efficiency from 2000 through to 2010, Russian and international media analysis of government positions, official statements of Russian delegations to UN conferences on climate change, and (for the Kyoto ratification period) author interviews with responsible officials in the Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Rosgidromet Agency, Ecological Committee of the Russian State Duma, and a number of Russian and international environmental NGOs and think tanks in June–August 2005.

Western Aid and the State-Society Balance in Novgorod and Khabarovsk

Analyzing the relationship between local governments and the NGO sector in two quite different Russian regions reveals some unexpected outcomes of democracy promotion and raises new and interesting questions about political dynamics in Russia.

Commentary on Jakobson and Sanovich: What Does this Really Mean for Russian Politics and Society?

In their recent article in this journal, Russian scholars Lev Jakobson and Sergey Sanovich present a highly creative and thought-provoking framework for understanding Russian civil society (or as they say, ‘third sector’) development from the Soviet period up until today. In general, I agree with the authors’ agenda of inducing a balanced view of Russian civil society development in the post-Soviet period. While circumstances for organized civil society are not ideal, they are also not hopeless, and there have been notable positive developments. In this sense, the authors’ argument nicely complements a recent article by Debra Javeline and Sarah Lindemann-Kovarova, which appeared in the Journal of International Affairs (Javeline & Lindemann-Komarova, 2010). Indeed, Jakobson and Sanovich provide a much deeper and more systematic theoretical framework to guide our understanding of how Russian civil society has evolved in tandem with social, political, and economic developments of the past two decades. Yet, like any theoretical model, the account inevitably glosses over or distorts some of the anomalies that do not fit easily within it. Moreover, while their model may help to account for trends in the activities and forms of organization of third sector organizations (TSOs), the authors seem to avoid sustained analysis of the greater meaning of these trends for civil society’s role in Russia’s political and social developments. In the same issue in which the article appeared, well-known civil society practitioner and analyst Olga Alekseeva provided an excellent rejoinder to the authors’ framework (Alekseeva, 2010, p. 307). I agree entirely with her views about the authors’ exaggeration of the impact of foreign donors on the overall third sector in Russia, when foreign donors only interacted with a select portion of the sector even during the peak of their efforts in the 1990s. I also concur with Alekseeva’s remarks on the authors’ mischaracterization of the Journal of Civil Society Vol. 7, No. 2, 229–232, June 2011

Russian NGOs and the European Court of Human Rights: A Spectrum of Approaches to Litigation

This article begins to build a typology of litigation efforts by Russian NGOs at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It finds that the varied political and professional backgrounds of activists, as well as their international partnerships, shape how they approach the ECtHR. Despite similar training in ECtHR litigation, NGOs vary in their philosophies and goals of litigation. The author explores these variations by examining the cases of three leading Russian human rights NGOs in submissions to the ECtHR, comparing their approaches and suggesting explanations for differences among them.

Post-colonial Feminist International Relations Theory and Sport for Development and Peace

In this chapter, we suggest that bridging post-colonial feminist perspectives and international relations (IR) standpoints can make important contributions to thinking about operations of power and knowledge in sport for development and peace (SDP) scholarship. Contending that post-colonial feminist IR standpoints provide avenues to consider issues of global capitalism, class, and politics of knowledge and representation, we apply these themes to an analysis of an SDP initiative run by Standard Chartered Bank that focuses on transforming the lives of young women in underserved communities. We conclude by highlighting the value of a post-colonial feminist IR approach in exposing some of the racialized, classed and gendered silences/invisibilities in SDP, and suggesting that future research explore instances of grassroots resistance, agency and localized counter-narratives to “global” SDP interventions.

Gender Violence in Russia: The Politics of Feminist Intervention (review)

human rights activism, but also because the consideration of differences between the countries in the region would have been very illuminating. The contrast between Uganda and Kenya exemplifies this point. Whereas in Kenya, donors fund anti-state NGOs, in Uganda, donors fund an anti-NGO state. The donor-funded militarization and authoritarianism of Uganda is accompanied by implicit or explicit demands by donors that NGOs do not challenge the government. The divergence of NGOdonor-state relations in the two countries can be seen recently in the ICC interventions: in Kenya, donors are demanding and facilitating the ICC’s investigation of crimes by the government, whereas in Uganda, donors appear to be firmly against the ICC even considering prosecuting crimes committed by members of the Ugandan government. For the most part, human rights groups in Uganda are shadows of the assertive political actors described in the chapters on Kenya, and as a result, human rights activism in Uganda has often been limited to marginal issues. For example, the Ugandan High Court outlawed smoking in public places in the name of the constitutional rights to life and to a clean and healthy environment, and there has been significant foreign involvement to advocate ending the death penalty. All the while, donors apparently are ignoring the massive election rigging, violent political repression, and confinement of over a million people by the government in internment camps where they die by the thousands of disease and malnutrition. Indeed, the devastation of northern Uganda by its current government—including twenty years of brutal counterinsurgency and mass forced displacement, all with the implicit or explicit support of Western donors—is a massive human rights tragedy and a massive display of the political and humanitarian pathologies that can result from donor funding. In a final testament to the tensions underlying human rights in East Africa, the war in northern Uganda, perhaps the greatest human rights crisis in the region, is not even mentioned in the book.