Environmental risk minimization in Russian regional industries

Russian society is continuously facing severe environmental risk caused by several kinds of industries. Up till now Russian environmental policies have not been able to set up adequate, effective and efficient policy-making structures and arrangements to deal with these increasing industrial risks. Three main characteristics of recent changes in Russian environmental policy and management will form the central focus in this research project: (i) the erosion of the federal environmental policy, authorities and activities; (ii) the emergence of regional and local environmental policy arrangements; (iii) the emergence of non-governmental dynamics in environmental reform in various regions, linked both to the market/market actors and to civil society. This project will investigate in different Russian regions to what extent new kinds of successful and effective forms of decentralised environmental policy arrangements have been introduced, how market actors, dynamics, and incentives played a role in improving the environmental performance and reducing the environmental risks of Russian industries, and how these innovations relate to the federal system of Russian environmental policy and management. Within Russia large differences exist between the various regions, with respect to industrial structure and economic development (and consequently environmental risks related to that), environmental policy styles and capacity, and the involvement of public participation in environmental decision making. Based on preliminary research, four Russian regions have been selected that will be used for in-depth case studies: Karelia republic, Murmansk region, Samara region and Novgorod Great region. The first two regions are exemplaric for economies based on resources-based industries: mining (Murmansk region) and logging (Karelia republic). The other two have developed into multi-industrial economies, ranging from oil extraction to high-tech chemical industry (Samara and Novgorod Great Region). The last region has a fast growing industry on the one hand based on the Soviet legacy (chemical and electronic plants with a skilled labor force) and on the other hand on growing foreign capital (a number of Western industrial companies are active here). The regions show major differences in the degrees and forms of industrial environmental management, in the development of an active civil society regarding environmental issues and in the way the regional and local governments are involved in environmental policy making and implementation. The ecological modernization theory and the triad network approach, as developed and tested by Wageningen University, will be used as hypothesizing framework and analytical tool respectively. The ecological modernization theory provides ideas and hypotheses on the social dynamics of environmental reform under changing state-market-civil society relations. The triad-network approach is a methodology to analyze how various network relations contribute to or block environmental transformations. Research methods are in-depth case studies of industrial complexes and cities, and secundary analysis of existing studies and data.