One fundamental problem with interest articulation stemming from the environmental sector in ECE is while many groups have gained experience and lobbying know-how since consolidation, government and state agencies have retained socialist era skepticism toward sub-state actors. Two examples seem to support this position. First, President Vaclav Klaus has – several times - publicly condemned NGOs for being undemocratic and illegitimate. Referring to Klaus’s speech at the Council of Europe Summit in
Warsaw, the Prague Post quoted him as saying “various manifestations of NGOism [sic], of artificial multiculturalism, of radical human rightsism [sic], of aggressive
environmentalism" were ways of "endangering and undermining freedom" in the post- communist era.”56 Polish politicians do not seem to have the same penchant for stirring
up controversy over their views on NGOs, but undervalue the potential policy expertise of third sector advocates a similar way. For the second example I turn to the relationship between the Polish government and the third sector. It is worth quoting Regulska (1999) at length:
The national state’s policy towards the NGO sector in Poland is confused. In the context of a high rate of government turnover – nine governments presided during the past nine years – the attitudes of elected and appointed officials toward NGOs also have oscillated. Several Polish Prime Ministers and their governments of example felt obliged to take public stands regarding NGOs, and with each sending different signals, a clear policy is yet to be established. Various fiscal and
financial provisions have been introduced, only to be either withdrawn shortly afterward, remain unimplemented, or to be hampered in implementation by excessively bureaucratic procedures (1999: 67)
This chapter will accomplish four things. First, it will determine why policy formulation in Poland and the Czech Republic is state-directed and, shed light on the reasons for state autonomy. Second, it will supply an overview of lobbying, contentious politics and the protest repertoires available to several established and emerging environmental groups. Third, a synopsis of environmental group development in Poland and the Czech Republic
56 Dinah A. Spritzer “Speech Against ‘NGOism’ Haunts Klaus,” Prague Post online (www.praguepost.com): last accessed 5 August 2006.
will be given with focus on trajectory and relative potency – that is, how EIG development relates to structural changes at the political elite and institutional level. Finally, the protests at Temelin nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic, along with the Green party movement (fissure?) in Poland will be analysed to discern the impact of state building on interest group behaviour, in the first instance, and the political factors
influencing the Green party activities, in the second.
This chapter is expressly concerned with the interchange, or lack thereof, between state officials and environmental interest groups (NGOs), and also the unwillingness of elected officials to implement environmental policy with aid of non-elected or non-state groups – e.g., environmentalists. It has been noted that however well this sector is currently performing, its dependency on western donors means many environmental groups and correspondingly their policy community is without a robust grassroots
network to draw support from (cf. Fagin 2000; Fagan 2004; Davis 2004; Andonova 2004; Jehlicka et al. 2002). According to these same authors it is precisely the preponderance of international aid which has exacerbated this problem, creating a situation where local environmental groups are concerned first and foremost with donor expectations and requirements and not with developing meaningful connections to the grassroots. Incidentally, because some donors are forced to seek out and support apolitical or less political organizations, something that American philanthropic associations are bound by law to do, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of research centers and educational programmes (McMahon 2001). As McMahon suggests, “foundations and other non-profit organizations can only make grants for charitable, scientific, literacy, or educational purposes only (…) their support cannot be used to influence legislation or support groups with a political agenday” (McMahon 2001: 56). The growth of
educational programmes, however, has been at the expense of direct lobbying and contentious politics. This is beginning to change, as Davis indicates, “although research, education, publicity, and occasionally protest remain the core activities of Czech
environmental groups, a few have begun to engage in more of the ‘insider’ modes of political participation – namely lobbying and litigation – that have long formed the nucleus of their American counterpart’s efforts” (2004: 386). But for the first years of
democracy many groups were less involved in policy making than they might have hoped.
The piecemeal way policy is created and developed is also problematic for NGOs, as they are unable to regularize their contact with parliamentarians and/or bureaucrats. For example, once a part of the policy making process, “the stunning reversal in the policymaking access enjoyed by environmental groups highlights the development of weak connections between the state and society (…) Environmental groups saw their involvement in policymaking diminish gradually through 1996 and their interests openly derided as naïve and harmful” (Green 1999: 9). Also of concern to lobbyists, anywhere really, is the stability of a given government and/or governmental ministries. In Poland for instance, where governments are short lived and susceptible to fissure, groups are less likely to engage in conventional forms of political protest and/or lobbying. There is simply less opportunity in Poland to establish working relationships with parliamentarian and non-elected officials. Dalton et al.’s study of environmental modes of action across six regions reveals, 1) East European environmental groups are least likely (out of all six regions) to engage in conventional activities, and 2) the second least likely (only behind North America) to use protest as a way to pressure officials (Dalton et al. 2003: 754). Considering NGOs publicly stated willingness to work with government during the first years of transition, and then their inclusion in environmental policy making in the early 1990s, it would appear that as state building has proceeded, so NGOs have become marginalized. Both Jiri Tutter of Greenpeace CZ and Vojtech
Kotecky of Friends of the Earth CZ (FoE CZ) confirm as much, as they report a less than ideal working relationship with the Czech Ministry of Environment. Two questions underpin this chapter:
1. Is the development of effective environmental groups in Poland and the Czech Republic being hampered by the persistence of communist era collective action tactics?
2. Are policy networks (or communities) suitably able transmit the desires of both NGOs and the population to decision makers so that environmental policy takes into consideration the needs/wants of relevant stakeholders?
This chapter argues Czech and Polish environmental NGOs have struggled to find a positive place in post consolidation policy making, even though they have toiled long and hard to effect change and develop western-style advocacy networks (Carmin and Hicks, 2002). A socialist legacy has something to do with this, certainly, as the actions taken by both contemporary politicians and environmentalists are likely to be influenced by communist era (anti) politics. Without policy networks and interest communities, for example, communist era politics was segmented and closed off from societal
stakeholders, providing the state with considerable autonomy and thus no direct challengers. This is a difficult condition to overcome. Fragmentation within the environmental community has enabled state institutions to continue their paternalistic practices and avoid direct, meaningful, dialogue with environmental groups. But as new EU directives take effect, the environmental lobby at both the EU and member-state level becomes more powerful. Environmental groups are prominent and important political actors at both the national and international level. Growing in size (total number of organizations and membership) and gaining institutional competency over the past 30 years, such groups as Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and Friends of the Earth, have managed to secure their place in a complex worldwide network of environmental policy advocates and professionals. Direct action campaigns, educational programmes and membership drives have made these groups household names – and the face of
environmentalism. Recognised as legitimate environmental policy experts, environmental NGOs are now credible and potent sub-state actors, able to influence environmental policy and government planning in profound ways.
It is not an exaggeration to say environmental NGOs have managed to push sustainable development and renewable energy atop the international policy agenda while drawing attention to such destructive practices as driftnet fishing, clear-cut logging and automobile pollution. In Poland and the Czech Republic however, these issues have less salience with the population than more immediate concerns, such as job security,
unemployment and healthcare. Pollution, both water and air, along with inadequate solutions to toxic waste disposal, open pit mining and inefficient logging practices, have provided democratic-era ECE environmentalists with a litany of problem areas to focus
their attention on. After forty years of maltreatment at the hands of Communists, the environment in both Poland and the Czech Republic was in need of immediate attention. The As Pavlinek and Pickles (2004) identify:
It is now well known that post-socialist Europe inherited a complex legacy of environmental problems with their own distinct and important geographies (…) By the late 1980s, large areas of the region suffered from excessive air pollution, water pollution and land degradation, particularly in the former East Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland (p.239).
Many local groups, often accompanied by (or sometimes led by) large international NGOs, started asking tough question of the newly elected governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia. They wanted to know what the government’s immediate plans were for environmental clean-up and sustainable enterprise in both the industrial and agricultural sector. NGOs were quickly becoming powerful policy advocates at both the local and state level, putting to work an established network of environmentalists with requisite policy experience. Examples of their activity range from a Greenpeace authored ‘letter to the editor’ in the Prague Post about river contamination after the floods of 2003, to a rather ruckus series of protests in Warsaw’s Targowek borough over a proposed incinerator. While the environment, as an area of discrete policy concern, has slipped down the political agenda (Carmin and Hicks 2002: 314), it still seems ECE governments are having to deal with environmental interest groups (NGOs) whether they would like to or not. In this way traditional interest cleavages are forming between industry and
environmentalists, and between neo-liberal/market oriented politicians and NGOs. The environmental sector in Poland and the Czech Republic are beginning to exhibit some the characteristics of a ‘western’ policy community, with a host of competent groups
regularly challenging government programmes, liaising with local and European media, and critically, they are offering the public alternatives to government policy. But this sector is lacking connections, to both its own constituency (e.g. ecologically oriented Czechs and Poles) and the state (e.g. the bureaucracy and/or Ministry of Environment). Important to developing a lasting and potent environmental network in ECE is the creation of vertical advocacy chains, moving upwards from informal local groups to professional organizations with policy competency. At the top of this chain is where the state and professional NGOs meet. Here, the actions of state officials and government are
critical to the transmittance of policy ideas from the third sector to the Ministry of the Environment or to government proper. It is worth noting what USAID said about this working relationship in the Czech Republic first, and Poland Second:
Czech Repbulic:
Cooperation between the government and NGOs needs to be improved. The government does not perceive NGOs as partners; some prominent government officials even refer to NGOs as illegitimate, non-elected organizations with verifiable democratic structures.
Poland:
Despite [many tangible] advances, NGOs continue to face serious problems: financial viability remains elusive for many organizations; relationships with the government require strengthening; and the general public still does not have a solid understanding of the role of NGOs.57
Given the tradition of organized opposition in Poland (Ekiert and Kubik, 1998) it is surprising that environmental groups seem preoccupied with elite level or formalized interest contestation (i.e. the establishment of a green party) rather than developing further as a sub set of civil society. In the Czech Republic, the push for a green party has been tempered by the organizational success of NGOs, which have garnered considerable attention from the press and academia58 and have, compared to Poland, been active since the early 1990s. Therefore the intervening variable with the most impact on repertoires of contention in post-communist Europe is the state, for government and state officials are establishing the terms of contentious politics and augmenting institutions and laws on almost a monthly basis.
It is not an overstatement to say the post-communist state is concerned about its prospects of losing power to interest groups and sub-state agencies. A recent example
57 Both citations are taken from United States Agency for International Development “2001 NGO Sustainability Index,” published by USAID and available on their website, www.usaid.gov. 58 It has been this author’s experience throughout the course of researching environmental organization in Poland and the Czech Republic, that the environmental movement in
Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic has received the lion’s share of scholarly attention since the collapse of communist in 1989. There are a number of reasons for this, but the two dominant ones seem to be the critical role played by environmentalists nearer to the end of communism and second (cf. Pavlinek and Pickles, 2004), the recent activity of Greenpeace and FoE, which has kept the environment, if not at the top of the political agenda, certainly at the top of the scholarly agenda.
comes via Ladislav Jakl, secretary to president Vaclav Klaus, who said: “I think NGOs’ power over people is dangerous – this power should only be used by institutions with a public mandate, which can be overseen” (Radio Praha, 13/07/2005). Ultimately
contentious politics is shaped not by the actions or character of interest groups in isolation, but by the government or state’s perception of NGOs and reaction to their lobbying. If Jakl’s comments are truly representative, then it seems only too obvious why environmental NGOs and the government are distrustful of each other. A viable thesis emerges from this cleavage which posits third sector weakness is a consequence of unfavourable working condition between governmental agencies and NGOs and/or international NGOs. In Poland, Kurek et al. (2001) argue “unfortunately the influence of ENGOs [Environmental Non-governmental Organisations] in the administrative process is weak because membership and financial resources are limited and the record of concerted action is poor” (p. 511). In situations where the state is openly hostile towards organized interests, e.g. Klaus’ view of civil society and NGOs, it is no longer acceptable to regard low levels of political efficacy as the root cause of third sector marginalization. The focus should be squarely on the state and its administrative competencies (including the particular ethos of the Ministry of the Environment) in order to determine
impediments to ecological mobilization and collective action.
After the collapse of communism politically hardened environmental advocates began to liaise and sometimes supplant home-grown activists in CEE (Carmin and Hicks, 2002; Davis 2004). Many of the groups which formed after 1989 are branches of
established international NGOs, thus securing the help of policy experts, media consultants and senior campaigners during the formation of CEE offices. The
environmental movement in both Poland and the Czech Republic has benefited from a preexisting network of environmental NGOs and has used the experiences of West European and North American groups to good effect. Therefore, when looking at contemporary NGOs in the Czech Republic one sees media campaigns, membership drives59 and protests that resemble those of established groups in countries with a longer
59 This author witnessed members of Greenpeace CZ carrying out a membership and donation drive in the Prague subway (July 2003). The scene resembled western Greenpeace campaigns, with members wearing Greenpeace T-shirts, toting clipboards and asking commuters to join or
history of public protest and volunteerism. For instance the quality of a recent
Greenpeace CZ television advertisement lambasting the government’s poor record on pollution and waste management is consistent with (if not better than) what Greenpeace has produced outside ECE60. Greenpeace has been active in Poland as well (recent
campaigns to remove a ‘pirate’ fishing vessel from Gdansk harbour and separately to stop genetically modified seeds from entering Poland bears this out) but interest among local green organizations is with creating a Green party that can compete at state and EU level elections (cf. Ferry and Rudig 2002). Part of the problem in establishing a competent green party in Poland is with environmentalism itself. As Ferry and Rudig (2002) argue “environmental issues (…) had played their symbolic role as carriers of anti-communist challenges, but then had little role to play in post-transition party politics” (p.2). With political transition came a host of more pressing issues and policy conundrums, such as economic restructuring and privatization, by which the environment seemed less pressing.
But the above examples do not speak to the growing levels of dissatisfaction amongst greens in Poland or to the limited role NGOs play in the formulation of Czech environmental policy. In Poland, the green movement has sought to create one, unified and encompassing, Polish green party to compete in national and sub-national elections. This is consistent with the history of dissidence in Poland which saw Solidarity acquire the characteristics of a political party in waiting when the opportunity to compete in semi-free elections emerged in 1989. This episode, as it will be discussed, ended up marginalizing those Solidarity members that favoured a more environmentally friendly, if not overtly ‘green,’ movement (Ferry 2002: 172). In the Czech Republic, a core group of environmental NGOs has managed to develop into a fairly effective network, but as Fagan (2005) argues
With a few exceptions, the core professional environmental NGOs that dominate policy arenas, comment on policy drafts and articulate the dominant
give generously to Greenpeace. People seemed quite receptive, but this is a purely anecdotal statement.
60 The advertisement can be viewed at www.greenpeace.cz or via the Prague Post website,
www.praguepost.com/P03/2005/Art/0217/news4.php. The Greenpeace advertisement has been criticized by Regional Development Minister Jiri Paroubek, who said “this is a strike below the belt (...) it basically presents us as some sort of dump for the whole of Europe” (Prague Post, 17 Feb 2005)
environmental discourse in the media and within the policy sphere have failed to root themselves within society at large (p.529)
This leaves a disjuncture between potential grassroots activists and the political
movements themselves, on the one hand and, a growing gulf between policy makers and professional environmental NGOs on the other. Both outcomes place limitations on what environmental groups can politically do, whether it is the building of a grassroots support network or developing a constructive relationship with policy makers. For instance, the