Environmental Politics in Southeastern Europe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7727796 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wim Van Meurs, W P Van Meurs (0000-0002-8367-6473, corresponding author), Liesbeth Van De Grift |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 365-371 |
| Publication date | 2015-03-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative Southeast European Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2701-8199 • E-ISSN: 2701-8202 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/soeu-2015-630302 |
| OpenAlex | W2467812863 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
In Western Europe and North America today, environmental problems are among the most pressing items on the political and public agenda. Despite all the woeful tidings, much has been achieved over the past forty years in the effort to 'save the planet', make economic growth sustainable and halt the depletion of natural energy resources and the decline in biodiversity. Essential to these changes have been states with the resources and administrative capacity to design and implement the necessary policies, and an electorate ready to accept, if not quite demand, the prioritization of environmental issues. However, the former communist polities typically lacked both. An awareness of long-term environmental danger among citizens and policy-makers alike is a precondition for the necessary investment, always costly, in alternative sources of energy, environmentally friendly production and other measures, which are often seen as restrictive . Moreover, only an affluent nation could afford to aspire to be a 'green nation', 1 but while environmentalism has always been perceived in Western Europe as typically a concern of the left-leaning, the opposite might well be true for former Eastern Bloc countries . There, concern for the environment galvanized democratic and national opposition to communism . Thus, there seems to be a clear dividing line between East and West, at least as far as environmental politics are concerned
Environmental protection · Geography · Political science · Politics · Global Energy Security and Policy · Law · Russia and Soviet political economy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|