Environmental governance in South East Europe/ Western Balkans: reassessing the transformative power of Europe

摘要

What overall conclusions can be drawn from the findings of this special issue regarding the emergent forms of environmental governance in the Europeanization of SEE-WB? Both NGO networks and formal institutional hierarchies are, in general, weak and this is largely to blame for the slow pace of reform. There is undoubtedly a need to build and strengthen the governance capacities of both state and non-state actors and to ensure that they work in tandem (Taylor, this volume); bolstering one at the expense of the other is neither feasible nor desirable in this context. The picture that emerges from each contribution is that weak inceptions of new modes of governance co-exist with vestiges of old command-and-control government. Formal compliance with EU environmental laws brings about new regulations, institutions and processes, but does not necessarily result in behavioural changes. Thus, iterations of new modes of governance seem able to co-exist alongside old practices and ways of managing natural resources. International actors, and the EU in particular, exert a positive impact, but outcomes are often sub-optimal, the consequences unintended and the extent of progressive and sustainable change questionable. The clearest example of this is seen in Kosovo, where the EU and US AID have each aided the development of quite different modes of environmental governance (Obradovic-Wochnik and Dobbs, this volume). Although there is evidence of non-state actors having been successfully drawn into the decision-making and implementation processes, external involvement seems incapable of challenging (and may rather, according to the authors, be perpetuating) weak hierarchy. In several respects, the SEE-WB countries are following the trajectory of post-socialist countries that already joined the EU: the EU is the driver of formal change, but behavioural compliance is far more difficult to achieve. Despite the emphasis on civil society development and supporting NGOs, networks of non-state actors lack capacities (technical and political) to enmesh themselves within policy processes, challenge inaction or monitor non-compliance (Sotirov et al., Buzogany and Fagan/Sircar, this volume). They are often so weak that private economic actors are actually more effective in terms of promoting regulation (Tosun/Schulze, this volume). At the same time, the contributions to this volume do invariably find evidence of civil society mobilization, albeit not necessarily within formal institutions (Fagan/Sircar, this volume). Although Europeanization may not directly impact non-state actors, the new EU-inspired reform processes and legal requirements undoubtedly provide opportunities for civil society to advocate, monitor and mobilize. The contributions to this special issue find that some civil society organizations have made use of these new political opportunities. This endorses the findings of Wunsch who, in her recent analysis of the impact of Europeanization on NGO monitoring coalitions in Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia, concludes that 'narrow Europeanisation approaches focusing exclusively on the impact of EU support upon civil society in accession countries tend to overlook important dynamics that influence both the form and effectiveness of civil society mobilisation' (Wunsch, 2015). We should not, however, assume that Europeanization and transformation are simply a question of time and that Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia or even Serbia will necessarily 'catch-up' with Poland, the Czech Republic or Slovenia. The scope conditions for effective Europeanization in SEE-WB are much more complex and challenging. State institutions are evidently weaker and governmental agencies lack authority as well as expertise, money and human resources to effectively implement EU policies. The extent to which the international community is involved in domestic politics is also much greater and this at times seems to impede progress by undermining domestic actors and supplanting their authority to regulate (Obradovic-Wochnik/Dobbs, this volume). Each of the case studies in this special issue present us with varieties of environmental governance in which domestic and international, state and non-state actors are engaged in a charade of trying to manage environmental protection according to a new set of (EU-derived) norms and rules of the game. The gap between these norms and rules and the capacities to play them 'on the ground' is so significant that the configuration of power between the multitude of actors is in flux; it does not map onto our conventional understanding of multi-level environmental governance in which state agencies cooperate with non-state actors, cast a shadow of hierarchy over decision-making and in which private economic actors are mostly the subjects of regulation. The influence of the EU and other international actors is undoubtedly transforming the way environmental laws are made and implemented; the involvement of new constellations of actors and introduction of new processes would arguably not otherwise be happening. Rather, the concern raised in the contributions to this special issue is the extent to which new modes of governance, however embryonic and idiosyncratic, are genuinely taking hold; whether the pendulum is swinging too far away from hierarchy, whether the balance between domestic agency and international involvement is appropriate or the extent to which old practices are actually being supplanted by the new. The study of environmental governance in post-socialist European states began by primarily focusing on the weakness of civil society (Tickle and Welsh, 1998), and the combined impact of international intervention, neoliberal economic reform and democratization on state bureaucracies (Andonova, 2003; Baker and Jehlicka, 1998; Carmin and Hicks, 2002). Not surprisingly, the focus quickly shifted to the impact of Europeanization. This gave rise to a more nuanced understanding of how the provision of EU resources and political opportunities impacted upon the interaction between state and non-state actors; how the capacities of each were critical in determining change and the emergence of new modes of governance; and how Europeanization could, and needed to, simultaneously transform state hierarchies and civil society networks (Borzel and Buzogany, 2010b; Carmin and Vandeveer, 2004; Fagan and Sircar, 2010). An important strand of the literature emphasised the importance of transnational networks as purveyors of resources, expertise and knowledge for understanding the empowerment of domestic organizations (Carmin et al., 2003; Parau, 2009; VanDeveer, 2011). The implicit assumption was that given sufficient capacities, whether via the EU or through horizontal interaction with pan-European networks, state and civil society actors would work together in the pursuit of EU-compliant progressive reform. The contributions in this volume do not dispute the importance of capacity building and the critical interaction between state and non-state actors. Rather they illustrate the wider context of such interactions, and the interplay between domestic and international actors and agendas (Bostrom et al., 2015). Indeed, each contribution corroborates the conclusion reached by Andonova and Tuta that 'domestic and international institutional contexts provide access points for non-state and sub-state actors to participate in rule-formation and implementation' (2014: 15). At the same time, each case study highlights the critical impact of what may be described as particular 'scoping conditions'; factors that are specific to this group of countries that stem from legacies of conflict, from state collapse and fractured political authority and sustained economic crisis. However meticulously dispensed and forensically focused, externally engineered conditionality and capacity building will not necessarily mitigate such extant realities. The special issue confirms arguments in the governance literature that strong states and strong societies are necessary but not sufficient for the emergence of new modes of governance. It also highlights the importance of an administrative or state culture that renders the cooperation with non-state actors an appropriate means to ensure good governance (Kohler-Koch, 2000). New modes of governance may not always be compatible with the dominant view of state actors on how to make effective and legitimate policies. This is particularly true for countries with an authoritarian legacy and no sustained tradition of institutionalized state-society relations (Linz and Stepan, 1996). But even consolidated democracies differ significantly with regard to state tradition and policy style (Knill, 2001; Richardson, 1982). Moreover, in post-socialist countries, new modes of governance are often seen as undemocratic since they circumvent the parliamentary arena and are prone to corruption and state capture (Borzel, 2010a). Non-governmental organizations appear to be particularly sceptical of new modes of governance, also because they do not want to be seen by their supporters as co-opted by the state. Post-accession conflict over the practical application of formally adopted EU policies appears to reinforce their self-understanding as 'watchdogs' rather than partners of the state in public policy-making (Obradovic and Alonso Vizcaino, 2007). What relevance do these case studies of environmental governance in South East Europe and the Western Balkans have beyond their contribution to the scholarly literature on Europeanization and transformation? Policy implications are probably most salient for the EU as it continues to reflect on how to improve the effectiveness of its transformative power for a group of countries that have made little tangible progress towards accession, despite extensive capacity building and conditionality. Although the second incarnation of the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance engages civil society actors more directly in the monitoring and implementation of reforms, and aligns financial and technical assistance much more closely to compliance with specific parts of the acquis, emphasis is still firmly on capacity building and underpinned by the notion that if state and non-state actors are supported in order to work together, they will work together. This is not a reality endorsed by the contributions to this special issue. The EU will have to conceive other means than conditionality and assistance to induce cooperation between state and non-state actors - or become less reliant on new modes of governance because the scoping conditions for their emergence are simply not favourable in SEE-WB.