Authoritarian Politics and Environmental Activism in Russia and China
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AUTHORITARIAN POLITICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM IN RUSSIA AND CHINA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Elizabeth Nicole Plantan August 2018 © 2018 Elizabeth Nicole Plantan AUTHORITARIAN POLITICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM IN RUSSIA AND CHINA Elizabeth Nicole Plantan, Ph. D. Cornell University 2018 Why do state-society relations under authoritarianism vary so widely from repression to cooperation to neglect? Why are some groups within civil society able to enter into cooperative relationships with state actors, while others are repressed or ignored? Using the example of environmental activism in Russia and China, I gain leverage on these questions by examining four tactics that activists use to interact with the state – leveraging international influence, engaging in mass mobilization, seeking justice through the legal system, and participating in formal and informal relationships with policymakers. Despite China’s more closed authoritarian system, I find that Chinese environmental groups have greater access to policymakers and are more able to contribute to governance. While in Russia, environmental groups are mostly excluded from governance and often specifically repressed. I argue that this can be explained by considering each state’s different approach to the dilemma of information and control and how that is shaped by differences in political structure, the regime’s basis of power, and major historical traumas. Evidence is drawn from over 13 months of fieldwork and more than 140 interviews with relevant actors in Russia and China. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Elizabeth Nicole Plantan was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. She holds a B.A. in Government and Russian & East European Studies from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Her graduate training includes an M.A. in Russian & East European Studies from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Beginning in August 2018, she will be a China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation was made possible by the support and guidance of many people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Valerie J. Bunce, for reading multiple drafts with a rapid turnaround, providing invaluable feedback and support, and encouraging me to think big. My other committee members, Andrew Mertha, Ronald Herring, and Kenneth Roberts, each brought something unique. From expertise on China to environmental politics to social movements, they each added richness to the project and helped to ensure that this dissertation would appeal to a broader audience. I would also like to thank my outside reader, Jeremy Wallace, for his thoughtful comments. Within the academic community at Cornell and beyond, I would like to thank those who have provided support, guidance, and feedback at various stages of this project at conferences, workshops, or over a cup of coffee. I would especially like to thank Harley Balzer, Jessica Batke, Al Evans, Leah Gilbert, Yana Gorokhovskaia, Laura Henry, Tomila Lankina, Shawn Shieh, Anthony Spires, and Lisa Sundstrom for their insight. Within the Government department at Cornell, I would like to thank my fellow travelers, especially Steffen Blings, Wendy Leutert, Sarah Maxey, and Delphia Shanks-Booth, for their friendship, guidance, and support. Thanks also to the participants of Cornell’s Dissertation Colloquium. Special thanks are due to Manfred Elfstrom, Alex Matovski, and Karrie Koesel for sharing both their experiences navigating this process and their expertise as scholars. I am also grateful to Peter Rutland and Mary Alice Haddad, who have helped me grow from an undergraduate at Wesleyan University into the scholar that I am today. v Field research for this project was made possible with generous support from several sources. My fieldwork in Russia was supported by a Luigi Einaudi Fellowship from Cornell’s Institute for European Studies and two International Research Travel Grants from Cornell’s Einaudi Center. Fieldwork in China was supported by a Lee Teng-hui Fellowship and a Hu Shih Travel Grant from Cornell’s East Asia Program as well as a Research Travel Grant from Cornell’s Graduate School. Support for additional language training was provided by a FLAS Fellowship from Cornell’s Institute for European Studies (for Russian) and from Cornell’s East Asia Program (for Mandarin). I am also grateful to numerous individuals and institutions for facilitating my time abroad, including the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development (ICSID) at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, the Inter- University Program (IUP) for Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and the Universities Service Center for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Furthermore, I am indebted to the numerous unnamed individuals who agreed to be interviewed as a part of this research. Thank you for candidly sharing your stories with me, despite the personal risk that it may have caused. Finally, I am grateful to my friends and family for their support throughout the research and writing process. I am especially grateful to my babushka, Vera, for sparking my initial interest in Russia and to my mother, Ludmila, for supporting my education. A special debt of gratitude goes to Zach and Valerie (and their cats Belle and Watson) for making our house a home while I was abroad and for reminding me that there is life outside academia. Last, but not least, I am forever grateful to my husband, Mark, for his unwavering support and to our daughter, Linnea, for the new and rewarding challenge of parenthood. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iv Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vii 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. EXPLAINING VARIATION IN STATE-SOCIETY RELATIONS UNDER AUTHORITARIANISM 32 3. ATTRACTING & BLOCKING INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE 55 4. MASS MOBILIZATION: FROM UNEXPECTED VICTORIES TO UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES 97 5. SEEKING LEGAL JUSTICE THROUGH THE COURT SYSTEM 142 6. ADVOCACY THROUGH (IN)FORMAL INSTITUTIONS FOR CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION 181 7. CONCLUSION 228 References 242 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Aggregate Freedom House Scores 2003-2018 (out of 100) 19 Figure 2 Origin of Foreign Funding for Organizations Listed as “Foreign Agents” 74 Figure 3 Top 15 Foreign Sources of Funding For Organizations Listed as “Foreign Agents” 74 Figure 4 Organizations Listed as “Foreign Agents” by Issue Area 75 Figure 5 All Organizations Removed from “Foreign Agent” List 77 Figure 6 Origin of Overseas NGOs with Registered Representative Offices 86 Figure 7 Number of Registered Representative Offices for Overseas NGOs in China by Area of Work 87 Figure 8 Organizational Structure for Coal Consumption Cap Project (NRDC) 206 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Introduction From 1989 to 1991 a remarkable series of events led to the stunning collapse of communism across Central and Eastern Europe. In the Soviet Union, the late 1980s policies of glasnost and perestroika gave Soviet citizens a taste of political reform. As revolutions cascaded across the region, Soviet republics joined in the wave to declare their independence. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist and Russia emerged as a newly independent state. However, although the inspirational events of 1989 reached beyond the region, similar pro-democratic movements in other parts of the world did not necessarily result in the desired change. In China, the pro- democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere across the country were met with harsh repression. Instead of opening up politically, the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders re-asserted control over society. As a result of these events, in the early 1990s the expectations for Russia and China could not have been more different. Russia looked to be on a democratic path, where citizens would be increasingly included in governance. Meanwhile, the Chinese leadership’s violent affirmation of control in 1989 indicated greater restrictions on society. Scholarly evaluations of state-society relations in the two countries during this period reflected these expectations. Post-communist civil society in Russia was criticized for its “weakness” (Howard 2003), since societal actors were expected to help consolidate the fledgling democracy but were seen as underdeveloped due to their Soviet background (Fish 1995). In China, scholars emphasized the corporatist nature 1 of state-society arrangements (Unger and Chan 1995; Frolic 1997), with the state in control over an acquiescent, co-opted society. Fast forward to present day. Instead of becoming a consolidated democracy, Russia backslid into a hybrid electoral authoritarian regime. The relative freedom that civil society groups experienced in the 1990s began to disappear as the state became increasingly authoritarian. In China, however, the space for civil society has gradually expanded. Paradoxically, civil society actors in China have been afforded more space for contributing to governance, while civil society actors in post-Soviet Russia have slowly watched their opportunities contract. Chinese societal groups can enter into consultative relationships with government actors, contributing to governance and influencing policy (Teets 2013, 2014).