Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
interest to local movements for environmental justice are examinations
of how groups in one country can mobilize external groups to provide
pressure back on their government, either directly or through other gov-
ernments or international institutions (Princen 1994; Princen, Finger, and
Manno 1994; Smith 1997, 2000; Smith, Chatfi eld, and Pugnucco 1997;
Kriesberg 1997; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Tarrow 1998, 2005; Della
Porta and Kriesi 1999; Passy 1999; Reimann 2001; Carmin and Hicks
2002). With globalized investment and production and several pressing
transnational environmental effects of human activity, the transnational
networks of NGOs, international institutions, and the interaction of the
two have become crucial resources for strengthening local voice and
power.
A particularly dense set of networks has developed in the European
Union, spurred on by the strengthening institutions and widening policy
scope of the EU. Several authors in the transnational social movement
literature have focused more specifi cally on these social movement links
across the European Union and ties to EU institutions (Imig and Tarrow
1999; Marks and McAdam 1999; Carmin, Hicks, and Beckmann 2003;
Petrova and Tarrow 2007; Vachudova 2008). With complex decision-
making processes that involve the European Commission, the European
Parliament, and committees and agencies working across these institu-
tions and the Council of the European Union, and with the differing
importance of specifi c member states and political parties in all of these
institutions, movement actors can fi nd several paths of infl uence into
different decision points. Moreover, the existence of a body of law to
which all member states have agreed and procedures (albeit slow and
sometimes weak) for addressing states' failures to comply with that law
gives the EU institutions, other member states, NGOs, fi rms, and citizens
avenues of leverage on individual states and fi rms.
Both general transnational networks and, especially, networks and
institutions in the European Union have been important actors and
resources for local groups and Bulgarian NGOs striving to infl uence
decisions in the three gold-mining cases. Thus, the strategies for opposing
these investments have involved actors and actions on multiple levels
from the local village to international institutions.
Local-Level Actors
Local actors have been involved in all three of the Bulgarian cases. The
mobilization of opponents to the projects, their interactions with local
offi cials, and their ties to national actors have varied, and this variation
