International Environmental Non-governmental Organisations Research Articles

Europeanization as a hegemonic process: the counter-hegemonic coal phase-out struggle in Turkey

ABSTRACT The study examines how anti-coal groups – national and international environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and influential think tanks – conduct a counter-hegemonic struggle to Europeanize the coal exit process in Turkey. By undertaking intellectual leadership in Turkey’s growing authoritarian political-economic space, anti-coal groups proactively have shaped the discourse on the coal phase-out debates within civil society. To delegitimize the official hegemonic frame promoting coal for energy independence, supply security, and rapid economic development, they have appealed to the European Green Deal as a powerful discursive tool to create necessary consent for a coal exit in Turkey. Based on the Europeanization perspective complemented with the Gramscian insights that enabled the consideration of the power relations and vested interests within energy transition, the study reveals that the anti-coal groups have conducted a counter-hegemonic discursive struggle for the Europeanization of Turkey’s policy of coal exit.

US‐based and international environmental nongovernmental organizations use social media, but few have large audiences online

AbstractSocial media plays an outsized role in information dissemination, issue mobilization, and public influence. For environmental nongovernmental organizations (“eNGOs”), social media plays a critical role in fundraising and inspiring engaged audiences using rich media and punchy taglines. Yet, there is little to no accounting of whether and how eNGOs have adopted social media, limiting analyses of how eNGOs are leveraging social media to develop effective communication strategies and campaigns. We analyzed the social media presence of over 100 eNGOs. We evaluated which platforms are used by eNGOs and differences between them in terms of their visibility on social media. 88%–97% of the eNGOs in our sample use four out of the five leading social media platforms. There were marked differences across eNGOs and platforms in terms of public visibility, represented by the number of followers. eNGOs focusing on advocacy, aquatic environments, and species conservation had significantly larger numbers of followers. Our findings indicate that conservation can make more headway on newer, more visually‐oriented platforms that also have stronger youth traction. We use our analyses to identify which eNGOs have much larger followings on social media than expected. These leaders can provide lessons on how eNGOs can enhance their social media impact.

Greening global governance: INGO secretariats and environmental mainstreaming of IOs, 1950 to 2017

The last decades have seen a remarkable expansion in the number of International Organizations (IOs) that have mainstreamed environmental issues into their policy scope—in many cases due to the pressure of civil society. We hypothesize that International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), whose headquarters are in proximity to the headquarters of IOs, are more likely to affect IOs' expansion into the environmental domain. We test this explanation by utilizing a novel dataset on the strength of environmental global civil society in proximity to the headquarters of 76 IOs between 1950 and 2017. Three findings stand out. First, the more environmental INGOs have their secretariat in proximity to the headquarter of an IO, the more likely the IO mainstreams environmental policy. Second, proximate INGOs’ contribution increases when they can rely on domestically focused NGOs in member states. Third, a pathway case reveals that proximate INGOs played an essential role in inside lobbying, outside lobbying and information provision during the campaign to mainstream environmental issues at the World Bank. However, their efforts relied to a substantial extent on the work of local NGOs on the ground.

Domestic autonomy and environmental international non-governmental organizations: a cross-national analysis of forest loss

Non-technical SummaryNations across the world are concerned with environmental issues like forest loss. The majority of nations acknowledge the importance of reducing forest loss, and make commitments to do so. However, researchers often find that despite these commitments, and the work of non-governmental organizations, in many nations, forest loss is not declining. This research argues that institutional capacity, specifically a nations domestic autonomy may help explain the ineffectiveness of environmental international non-governmental organizations (EINGOs) at reducing forest loss. Specifically, I argue that nations with stronger domestic autonomy, measured as the extent to which a nation is free of the direct control of external political actors, improves the effectiveness of EINGOs at reaching their goals of reducing forest loss due to an autonomous state's relative strength and ability to integrate their version of environmentalism or reinterpret existing norms of environmentalism into EINGO ideologies and activities.Technical SummaryPrevious research finds that environmental international non-governmental organizations (EINGOs) tend to have differential impacts on environmental factors cross-nationally, such as forest loss. More recent work argues that decoupling between stated environmental norms and actual environmental outcomes may be the result of a lack of institutional capacity. Using ordinary least squares regression for 91 low- and middle-income nations from 2001 to 2014, I find that EINGOs reduce forest loss more in nations with higher rather than lower levels of domestic autonomy. However, I find that EINGOs and domestic autonomy on their own do not significantly predict forest loss.Social media summaryThis research argues that a nations domestic autonomy may help explain the ineffectiveness EINGOs at reducing forest loss.

Деятельность неправительственных международных организаций как предпосылка совершенствования законодательства об охране озера Байкал

The reported study aims to analyze the instruments adopted by international environmental non-governmental organizations in the sphere of protection and sustainable use of water resources. The structure of the World Water Council and its principal outcomes are reviewed. The practice of holding the World Water Forum is analyzed due to its rare coverage in Russian legal literature. Primary attention is paid to the outcomes of the Forum in the form of declarations. The activities of the International Water Resources Association are reviewed, particularly the outcomes of the 16th World Water Congress. The above mentioned international experience is extrapolated to the problems of Baikal’s legal protection. The documents adopted by the mentioned forums are proposed to be used as an inspiration and model for the legislative improvements in Baikal’s legal regime. For instance, the Ministerial Declaration “An urgent call for decisive action on water”, adopted at the 8th World Water Forum stresses the public attention on the issues of climate change and encourages the states to take into account this global problem in national water strategies. However, due to various reasons, the climate change issues are completely out of the legal discourse of Baikal protection. The Sustainability Declaration of the Forum has a significant potential for legislative and political improvements. Its 8th recommendation calls for business to value and mainstream water into its strategies, materiality and decision making process and share good practices in water management. Baikal’s business community’s commitment to the goals of sustainable development (in the form of Declaration) would be a useful politico-legal instrument within the lake’s legal regime. The outcomes of the 16th World Water Council in Cancun hosted by International Water Resources Association may also be a premise for the improvement of environmental policy and legislation in Baikal region. Among the most fruitful ideas of the forum is the acknowledgment of the pivotal role of scientific expertise in the environmental policy-making. The management system of Lake Baikal clearly needs an expert council, exercising advisory powers in respect to all the regulatory instruments concerning the ecosystem of the lake.

Local environmental information disclosure and environmental non-governmental organizations in Chinese prefecture-level cities

Many studies demonstrate that the booming number of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in China have substantially affected on the environmental issues. However, little research has paid attention to discern the different types of ENGOs' activities. Thus, this study aims to provide the first set of quantitative data analysis to demonstrate the effects of different types of ENGOs’ effects on the governance from two major perspectives, namely, top-down and grassroots. Both perspectives offer different assumptions of whether the effects of key ENGOs on promoting urban environmental governance are national or local. This paper collects unique data from the websites of several NGO list-collecting organizations, the urban statistical yearbooks published by the Chinese government, and the pollution information transparency index released by ENGOs annually, to accurately identify the characteristics and activities of ENGOs. By using the Ordinary Least Squares regression model in which the city fixed effects are included, this study analyzes the influences of ENGOs on the levels of environmental information disclosure among over 100 prefecture-level cities from 2008 to 2015. The results primarily support the grassroots perspective. Cities with more local ENGOs have better performance in terms of environmental information disclosure. In addition, although local ENGOs allying with national NGOs have certain influences in 2014–2015, they downgrade the effects of other local ENGOs. Taken together, the findings illustrate that, while national ENGOs have received great deal of attention, possessed more resources to align local ENGOs, and had extensive opportunities to connect with international ENGOs, local ENGOs within local contexts and activities play crucial roles in the local environmental governance. Furthermore, the results also imply that although the Chinese government has reinforced control over the civil society after 2012, local ENGOs still strengthen their influences on the environmental governance.

Deforestation in the Global South: Assessing Uneven Environmental Improvements 1993–2013

In recent decades forest degradation declined around the globe. While encouraging, improvements emerged unevenly in the Global South. What explains these variable trends? Using longitudinal panel models with fixed effects, I assess changes to forest area from 1993–2013 in 73 countries. Drawing from sociological institutionalism and unequal ecological exchange, I make three contributions. I find that omnibus environmental laws mitigate forest loss rather than environmental international nongovernmental organizations, and, I show that dependency on trade with wealthy countries weakens the impact of these policies. I also substantiate and theorize export-led industrialization as a leading driver of deforestation. Broadly, I argue that national states are key sites of contestation between transnational political-economic forces and legitimated but pliable environmental institutions. Developing countries adopt standardized forest protections while, facing political-economic pressures, they variably consent to predatory trade terms and streamline export infrastructures. I conclude with recommendations for future research and policy implications.

Authority, strategy, and influence: environmental INGOs in comparative perspective

ABSTRACTThe work of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) has contributed to the institutionalization of environmentalism. Putting environmental INGOs in comparative perspective, it is argued that differences in authority among INGOs are an important determinant of the strategies that INGOs adopt and the ultimate influence they are able to achieve. This claim is illustrated through an examination of the changing political opportunities for INGOs and a case of a recent private governance initiative, The Sustainability Consortium. The status maintenance concerns of leading INGOs encourage them to adopt incrementalist and pro-market policies that help launch weak governance schemes and frustrate many other environmental INGOs.

International environmental NGOs and the politics of genetically modified organisms

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to problematize the resistance role played by international environmental non-governmental organizations (IENGOs) in the governance debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to sustain that some of them are important actors in global environmental governance due to their resistance to transnational corporations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a reflection on the literature review focused on civil society and IENGOs. Accordingly, the political role of IENGOs in GMO governance is highlighted grounded on the negotiation process of the Cartagena Protocol. At the end, the authors stress that some IENGOs act as resistance actors to corporations’ practices.FindingsThe investigation of the political role played by the IENGOs in the negotiation process of the Cartagena Protocol highlighted that these actors use information to influence decision-makers and power holders, often providing know-how and material resources to local activists and social movement organizations at the domestic level. As a result, the political role played by IENGOs in GMO governance places these international actors as highly influential on the international business (IB) domain.Originality/valueThis paper highlights the importance of IENGOs as resistant actors in what regards corporations’ practices. The authors also sustain that the relationships between states, corporations and civil society actors at the governance level should be part of IB’s research agenda to advance the understanding of how civil society mobilizes, articulates and produces consent and coercion in the international domain. Therefore, the paper contributes to foster actors and voices from the margins as a relevant IB research topic.

Decoupling reconsidered: Does world society integration influence the relationship between the environment and economic development?

This study advances scholarship on environment and development by examining whether nations more embedded in the pro-environmental world society are more or less likely to experience a relative decoupling between economic development and carbon emissions over time. The authors calculate a network centrality measure using national-level membership data on environmental international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and then employ the measure to create four subsamples of nations that are relatively more or less integrated in the environmental world society. The authors use interactions between measures of economic development and time in two-way fixed effects models to estimate the potentially changing effects of development on carbon emissions for the four subsamples of nations from 1970 to 2009. Results indicate that nations that are the most embedded in the environmental world society experienced a moderate decrease through time in the effect of development on carbon emissions, while the effect of development on emissions increased through time in the most peripheral nations.

Green Governmentality, Responsibilization, and Resistance: International ENGOs’ Issue Framings of Future Energy Supply and Climate Change Mitigation

The starting point for this paper is the increasing shift towards green governmentality as a particular mode of governance in the Western world, implying a shift from state-centered regulation to market-based mechanisms. In this paper, we are particularly interested in the role of environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) in this form of governance. The central question concerns how international ENGOs’ approaches to energy supply and climate mitigation can be understood as aligned with or dissenting from green governmentality. To approach this issue, we analyze the major energy reports of three international ENGOs – i.e. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and WWF – focusing on their issue framings of future energy supply and climate change mitigation. We conclude that these ENGOs’ issue framings are aligned with green governmentality to varying degrees, involving the economization of environmental issues and the responsibilization and moralization of economic actions. These ENGOs also to varying degrees express opposition or resistance to this mode of governance, for example, by opening up the discussion of various aspects of responsibility, including both remedy and culpability.

The sociology of ecologically unequal exchange, foreign investment dependence and environmental load displacement: summary of the literature and implications for sustainability

The article begins by summarizing sociological approaches to (1) ecologically unequal exchange, and (2) foreign investment dependence and environmental load displacement. These areas of sociological inquiry consist of structural theories and cross-national statistical analyses that test hypotheses derived from both approaches. It concludes by briefly describing sociological research on global civil society and the environment, with a focus on the world society approach to environmental change. This area of theory and research provides some insights on ways in which global and transnational civil society groups, such as environmental international nongovernmental organizations, can partially mitigate the environmental harms caused by ecologically unequal exchanges and environmental load displacements.Key words: ecologically unequal exchange, environmental load displacement, foreign investment dependence

NGOs, INGOs, and Environmental Policy Reform, 1970–2010

We examine the effects of domestic and international environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on pro-environmental policy adoption using cross-national data. We address three views: (1) a bottom-up perspective, prioritizing the role of domestic NGOs; (2) an interaction imagery, stressing alliances or reinforcing pressures between domestic and international NGOs; (3) a top-down view, emphasizing the part of international NGOs. We use event history analysis to model the cross-national adoption of three major pro-environmental policy reforms between 1970 and 2010: omnibus environmental laws, environmental impact assessment reporting requirements, and national environmental ministries. Results show that international NGOs are strongly associated with pro-environmental reforms, with very large effects. By contrast, domestic NGOs are generally not associated with policy adoption in global analyses. In a subsample of democratic countries, we find smaller effects of domestic NGOs for some outcomes. We find no evidence that international NGOs amplify the effects of domestic ones. While there are compelling historical examples of bottom-up and interaction processes, the broad pattern of environmental policy adoption across the world is better explained by global rather than domestic organizational dynamics.

Legitimating Knowledge in the Modern World Polity: a Study of INGOs and Sustainable Hunting

This paper looks at globalization as a cultural construct that is neither homogeneous nor inclusive of a broad range of perspectives. It does so by analyzing the process of how knowledge claims are legitimated within international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), showing how political globalization likely limits the ability of global civil society to effectively facilitate diverse knowledge, values, and styles of reasoning. Sustainable hunting is the topical focus for understanding what scientific knowledge is promoted by environmental INGOs, how knowledge is legitimated, and what that legitimation process means for globalization and civil society. This exploratory, qualitative analysis of four environmental INGOs identifies the mechanisms for knowledge legitimation, including funding and several aspects of trust. This paper discusses how contradictory conditions of these mechanisms make inclusive and effective decision-making difficult, which may help explain problems INGOs have in adaptively working with local peoples and environments.

Crisis and Opportunity: Environmental NGOs, Debt-for-Nature Swaps, and the Rise of 'People-Centred' Conservation

Abstract This article presents a history of the rise of 'people-centred' conservation in international environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) during the global debt crisis of the early 1980s. In the mid-1980s, many NGOs embraced complicated financial arrangements called 'debt-for-nature swaps' to relieve the debt crisis and to promote environmental conservation in many developing nations. The swaps presented an opportunity for NGOs to promote environmental protection in the developing world in an era of crisis. Yet the implementation of the swaps reveal the challenges major environmental NGOs faced in incorporating new ideas about indigenous participation into their policies. The swaps came just as many of the leading environmental NGOs embraced market-oriented solutions to conservation issues and also adopted 'people-oriented' conservation strategies. Conservationists had a troubled history with indigenous peoples, but this article reveals how, by the late 1970s, many NGOs came to view them as allies in conservation efforts. Yet NGOs struggled to reconcile their desire for indigenous participation with the institutional demands of the swaps. Two brief case studies of swaps in Bolivia and Madagascar show how institutional and political challenges undermined a successful implementation of this new participatory vision. This article thus expands on scholarship of the relationship between environmentalists, native populations, and 'wilderness' ideology by showing how many leading environmental NGOs came to find a place for people in parks by the late twentieth century. It also highlights how the institutionalisation of the environmental movement into large NGOs both provided new opportunities to promote environmental protection and created constraints on individuals in implementing new ideas.

Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations and Russian Environmental Governance: Accountability, Participation and Collaboration

AbstractThis article examines the role of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in Russia and the impact of tightening governmental accountability measures. Drawing on 18 interviews conducted in 2012–13 with Russian and international ENGOs, the article examines three key governance issues, namely: the collaborative relationship between the state and ENGOs, the impact of accountability measures on ENGO activities, and the relationships between ENGOs themselves. The findings reveal that ENGOs maintain a legitimate and effective role within Russian environmental governance. However, their legitimacy and success is significantly limited and threatened by increasing accountability measures and state actions. The article accordingly identifies a number of recommendations for increasing the likelihood of successful ENGO action in Russian environmental governance, including improving ENGO collaboration with the state and resolving tensions between participation and accountability.

Collaboration or Contention? Decentralised Marine Governance in Berau

Conservation of marine space is a new frontier in environmentalists’ involvement with resource governance in Indonesia. The coastal and marine area of Berau was established as a District Marine Conservation Area (MCA) based on District Head Regulation No. 31/2005. The total MCA of 1.27 million ha was expected to become part of the wider MCA networks of the East Borneo Seascape and the Sulu Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion, as well as of the Coral Triangle international network of conservation areas in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The Berau MCA was developed in collaboration between the Berau district government and international environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). They claimed to use a new concept of partnership with the decentralised district government as the principal institutional partner. However, the governance framework is full of legal disconnects due to decentralisation of resource management, and its implementation faces the real-life challenges of political-economic and historical valuations of the marine environment producing conflicts of interest between the multi-scalar actors involved. Following the very process of establishing the Berau MCA over a five-year period (2005–2010), this paper shows why it is necessary to understand how collaboration and contention are constructed and in turn construct actors' perceptions and perspectives on marine conservation and resource extraction in decentralised coastal governance.

Conserving China's Biodiversity

Over the past several decades, with the introduction of ecology as a scientific pursuit, China has made advancements in ensuring the health and sustainability of its forests and biodiversity. A very large number of endemic plant and vertebrate species are found in China, plenty of which have value in many areas, including aesthetics and medicine. China’s biodiversity faces many threats, including the invasion of alien species, urbanization and deforestation, as well as global warming. As the monetary value of the products obtained from the many endemic species has been recognized, an increase in environmental awareness has surfaced. Several domestic and international environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) committed to the preservation of China’s forests and wildlife have played an increasing role in educating both the Chinese and the rest of the world. The major issue concerning the preservation of China’s biodiversity is a lack of education in the biological sciences. Increased funding to attract more educated people to work in the Ministry of the Environment, as well as to aid in educating more people is the first logical step.

Organic Agriculture as Environmental Reform: A Cross-National Investigation

Organic agriculture is a prime case for studying social processes of environmental reform. We empirically assess the environmental consequences of organic agriculture using cross-national data and find that greater area of organic agriculture land is associated with lower fertilizer consumption while larger average organic farm size is associated with higher fertilizer consumption. Then we investigate the cross-national factors influencing organic land area and average farm size. We test hypotheses derived from three theoretical perspectives: neoliberal modernization (NLM) theories, international political economy (IPE) theories, and world polity theory. In support of NLM theories, we find that agricultural export intensity is positively associated with organic agriculture land area. In support of IPE theories, we find that both economic development and agricultural export intensity have significant, positive effects on average organic farm size. World polity theory is supported with a positive association between number of environmental international nongovernmental organizations and organic land.

Individual environmental concern in the world polity: A multilevel analysis

The authors assess the extent to which national-level integration in the world polity influences individual-level concern for the environment. While theoretically-derived propositions about such relationships have a deep history in comparative sociology, they—with few exceptions—remain untested. Consistent with past research, employed national-level measures of world polity integration include the relative presence of environmental international nongovernmental organizations (EINGOs) and the existence of environmental ministries. Results of multilevel analyses of individual-level environmental concern in 37 nations indicate that both forms of world polity integration increase the likelihood of individual-level environmental concern, net of other national-level factors and individual-level characteristics; although we find stronger support for the influence of EINGOs as a key variable indicating world polity connection. The findings provide unique support for world polity theory, suggesting that future research should consider how elements of world polity integration influence other forms of individual attitudes and behaviors. The results also highlight the importance in considering global and transnational factors when assessing the determinants of individual attitudes about the environment.