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Nimby Syndrome”: Political Issues Related to the Building of Big Infrastructures in Liberal Democracy Countries

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Nimby Syndrome”: Political Issues Related to the Building of Big Infrastructures in Liberal Democracy Countries Security and Defence Quarterly 2019; 23(1) Agostino Massa COPING WITH THE “NIMBY SYNDROME”: POLITICAL ISSUES RELATED TO THE BUILDING OF BIG INFRASTRUCTURES IN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY COUNTRIES Dr. Agostino MASSA, PhD [email protected] Department of Political Sciences University of Genova, Italy Abstract Th e location and building of big hazardous infrastructures is a typical feature of the modernization process, in all countries and epochs. Since they are usually useful for a large region but their impact is very localized, the people living around the places where these facilities are active, or where their building is planned, very often organize and perform protest activities against them. Starting from the presentation of recent data about these issues in Italy, considered as a good example of a liberal democracy country, the article is set to discuss their social and political consequences, focusing in particular on the so-called “NIMBY syndrome”, its development and the strategies elaborated by public and private actors to cope with it. Keywords: NIMBY groups, political participation, environmental protection, liberal democracy Introduction A typical feature of the modernization process, in every country and epoch, is the building of big infrastructures for industrial purposes, for example power © 2019 Agostino Massa, published by War Studies University, Poland This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. Agostino Massa Security and Defence Quarterly 2019; 23(1) plants, chemical factories, hazardous-waste treatment facilities, or related to the transport industry, such as railways, highways or airports. Th ese facilities are crucial for social and economic development but present heavy externalities on the environment in terms of pollution, noise or waste disposal. While they are useful for a whole region or even for a whole country, their impact is very localized, so that only few local communities have to carry the burden for everybody. Th e people living around the places where these infrastructures are active, or where their building is planned, therefore, very often organize and perform protest activities against them and try to make pressure on the political decision-makers, using diff erent actions and tools from a wide “repertoire of contention”, as in the words of C. Tilly. Th e aim of this article, starting from the presentation of recent data about the situation of these issues in Italy in 2017 (Blanchetti and Seminario 2018), is to discuss their social and political consequences in liberal democracy countries, focusing in particular on the so-called “NIMBY syndrome” (Mazmanian and Morell 1990), its development and the strategies elaborated by public and private actors to cope with it. Activity of NIMBY groups in Italy Th e building of big infrastructures has generally characterized the phase of economic transition from agriculture to industry in developing countries but it is still an issue today also in the more developed ones. Where the modernization process has encompassed both industrial development and a liberal democratic political system, the siting and building of hazardous facilities have often led to the rise of local protest groups, usually called “NIMBY”, an acronym from the words “Not In My BackYard” (Freudenburg 1984). Th e option to stand against such political decisions, on the contrary, is quite impossible in countries with a political regime diff erent from liberal democracy. Our analysis here will be focused only on countries featuring this democratic system of government, in which multiple distinct political parties compete at elections, institutional powers are separated, individual rights and freedoms are Security and Defence Quarterly 2019; 23(1) Agostino Massa offi cially recognized and protected, and the exercise of political power is limited by the rule of law. Italy can be taken as a good example of a liberal democracy country where these protest activities seem to be widespread, even if within a declining trend. Among the most contested infrastructures, in our opinion, two have achieved iconic relevance because the groups standing against them have been able to raise the political debate from the local to the national stage: these are the cases of the No- TAV and the No-TAP movements. Th e fi rst are the groups that since 2005 are organizing protests, sometimes even violent, against the building of a high-speed railway1, 270 km long, between the French city of Lyon and the city of Turin, in Northern Italy. No-TAV protest groups are against, in particular, the Italian section of the project, to be developed in the Susa Valley (see, among others: (Berta and Manghi 2006, Bettini 2006, Calafati 2006)). Th e second are the groups active in more recent years in the Apulia Region, in Southern Italy, against the infrastructures necessary to the coming ashore of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), part of a longer conduct planned to transport natural gas from the Caspian region to Europe. According to NimbyForum, a think-tank that since 2004 is set to observe and monitor these social and political phenomena, in 2017 there were 317 infrastructures that became target of protest groups, included the two above-mentioned, about 11,7% less than the 359 of the previous year (Blanchetti and Seminario 2018, p. 15). Among them 80 have been contested in 2017 for the fi rst time, while their number was 119 in 2016. Such declining trend, steady along the last eight years, if on the one hand could mean a diminution in anti-industrial attitudes in Italian civil society, on the other hand can be related to lower levels of industrial investment, notably in the last phase of the recent great economic crisis. Most targets of NIMBY groups in 2017 were infrastructures in the energy sector (57,4%), for examples oil rigs or big power lines, others were hazardous-waste treatment plants (36,0%) or facilities related to the transport industry (5,7%) (Blanchetti and Seminario 2018, p. 16). 1 In Italian: Treno ad Alta Velocità (TAV). Agostino Massa Security and Defence Quarterly 2019; 23(1) Th e survey off ers also data about the subjects prompting these protests. Slightly more than one third of them can be found among common citizens (34,6%), while are important also public institutions (26,3%) and political actors (25,4%). It is worth stressing the lesser relevance of environmentalist associations (9,6%) and trade unions (4,1%) (Blanchetti and Seminario 2018, p. 20). Th e picture of Italy drawn by this research is that of a country divided between two diff erent and confl icting souls, the pro-industrialist and the NIMBY ones. What is striking is that each of them are respectively fi nding support in one of the two parties currently forming the national Government – rather than in opposition parties. As for the attitudes towards the building of new infrastructures, according to the think-tank, the country is far from any form of equilibrium and harmonious matching of development and sustainability, between industrial modernisation and active citizen participation (Blanchetti and Seminario 2018, p. 24). The rise of the “NIMBY syndrome” Protest activities carried out in Italy are common to many industrialized countries, where since the early 1980s the presence of environment-concerned social movements increased. Target of these protests has been often the localization of big public infrastructures, potentially harmful to the environment and dangerous for citizens’ health. Before that period, especially in the Usa, decisions about facility siting were set according to market rules. Private companies were free to decide when, how and where they had to be placed, considering just economic factors. Th ere were no laws at national level to limit land exploitation and to protect the environment. Moreover, it must be added that the lack of scientifi c and technical information about pollution damages was an obstacle to people mobilization. A key date in this context is 1970. As D. Mazmanian and D. Morell (1990, p. 127) have noted, that year ushered in the environmental movement as a major social and political force in the United States. Th e celebration of the Earth Day, the signing of the National Environmental Policy Act, the creation of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency Security and Defence Quarterly 2019; 23(1) Agostino Massa were followed quickly by the initiation of dramatic revisions in the laws about nation’s air and water pollution. Since that, decisions about major infrastruture projects, industrial facilities and waste management have not been the same. At the end of the 1970s, also social scientists became more interested in the study of environmental problems. Very soon they had the need to fi nd out proper defi nitions for new concepts. Th e term NIMBY was created to describe the reaction of citizens and local communities to actual, or even potential, infrastructure or facility siting when they are supposed to be dangerous for the environment and therefore to their interest. Th e acronym has got a negative meaning, as far as it is usually referred to citizen mobilizations very local and particular, often considered as driven just by self- interest (Bobbio and Zeppetella 1999, p. 186). Th is is not the only acronym created in the anglosaxon literature on environmental confl icts. Widespread is also the term LULUs, from the words “Locally Unwanted Land Uses”, associated to a more neutral meaning (Vecchi 1992, p. 103). Sometimes, a NIMBY attitude can even turn into BANANA, which stands for “Building Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone” (or Anybody). An article from the «New York Times» (June 19th, 1988) describes NIMBYs as «people who live near enough to corporate or government projects – and are upset enough about them – to work to stop, stall, or shrink them». Th ey organize, march, sue and make petitions in order to block the developers they think are threatening them.
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