Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The varied trajectories of the three cases examined in this chapter
suggest a couple of paths to acquiring a voice, and ultimately environ-
mental justice, for local communities in countries with weak participa-
tory practices and inconsistent rule of law. Above all, a strong majority
of local residents must be united and steadfast in their opposition, and
they need to develop a core organization or leadership that can devise
strategies, communicate with external actors, and maintain resistance
over time. While local opposition may be a necessary condition for
success in confronting a tangle of corporate and government interests
favoring rapid resource exploitation, such opposition is often not
suffi cient on its own to reverse or revise investment decisions. In more
repressive systems, isolated local resistance can be put down by physical
force; in less repressive systems, a variety of selective punishments and
incentives can make it diffi cult to maintain resistance. The recourse for
local groups is to tap into existing networks of environmental or civil
rights organizations that can reach actors on the national and transna-
tional levels. These organizations provide not only contacts and exposure
that break local isolation and increase pressure on investors and the state
from other sources, but also legal, scientifi c, and organizing advice at the
domestic level and sometimes resources. Finally, this comparison shows
that the particular combination of strategies and frames and their likeli-
hood of success are contingent on timing and specifi c features of the case.
Local Dynamics in the Context of Institutional Transition
Bulgaria is a good example of a country in political and economic transi-
tion toward liberal democracy and a liberal version of capitalism. Gov-
erned by the Soviet-type model of state socialism and the same ruler for
thirty-fi ve years, Bulgaria remained a stalwart Soviet ally from the end
of World War II until the revolutions of 1989. The country developed
rapidly along the lines of the Soviet model until the late 1970s, when
both living standards and economic growth stagnated. The Bulgarian
Communist Party was rather repressive and effective in preventing the
development of independent civic and political groups until Gorbachev's
reforms in the second half of the 1980s. Although Todor Zhivkov, the
country's aging leader, vacillated wildly in his discussion of reforms in
the Gorbachev period, little true change came from above. Toward the
end of the 1980s independent groups and unions started to form, among
them
Ekoglasnost
, an environmental group with its roots in opposition
to Romania's industrial and canalization policies in the Danube delta.
