hollow sustainabilities? perspectives on sustainable development in the post-socialist world

Hollow Sustainabilities? Perspectives on SustainableDevelopment in the Post-socialist World

Mark Whitehead*Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University

Abstract

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of recent work that analyzesthe nexus of post-socialist transition and sustainability. Beyond this broad aim, the paper alsoproposes two analytical insights. First it argues against binary thinking within work on transitionand sustainability. This binary is marked on the one side by those who celebrate the newopportunities that transition offers to hard-wire sustainability into the constitutional fabric ofpost-socialist society; and on the other, by analysts who claim that the economic imperatives ofcapitalist transition have engulfed the chance to build sustainable development capacities. Second,it suggests many of the formal processes and events that are used to measure and assess the riseof sustainable development in the post-socialist world (particularly laws, institutions, plans plan-ning conventions, and protocols) are poor indicators of actually existing sustainabilities. Drawingpredominantly, but not exclusively, on the work of geographers, and focusing explicitly on Cen-tral and Eastern Europe and Russia, analysis ultimately claims that a post-socialist perspective canbring important empirical and conceptual insights into sustainable development studies, and thatsustainable development offers an important critical lens through which to explore the emerginggeographies of transition.

Introduction – Storm Clouds Over Temelın

At a height of 490 ft each, the four concrete cooling towers of the Temelın NuclearPower Station announce its presence long before the distinctive red and white claddingof the station’s main buildings hove into view. At the center of the Temelın complex is alow-rise cylindrical structure that houses the VVER 1000 ⁄320 PWR reactor. Located inthe Sothern Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, the Temelın reactor provides a,perhaps, unlikely starting point to begin a discussion of the place of sustainable develop-ment in the post-socialist world. However, the political struggles, state dictates, and civicmobilizations that have emerged in relation to the Temelın Nuclear Power Station actu-ally guide us to the heart of the complexities that characterize discussions of sustainabilityin transitional societies.

Commenced in 1987, the development, and eventual construction, of the power sta-tion straddled the Velvet Revolution and the transition from communism to a post-socia-list society in Czechoslovakia. In this context, the Temelın Nuclear Power Stationoffered an early political test-bed for the changing social, economic, and environmentalpriorities of the newly formed Czech state. The early signs were not encouraging.Temelın had initially been thrust upon the people of Southern Bohemia by anauthoritarian regime with apparently little regard for its environmental and social conse-quences. Yet following political transition, the Vaclav Klaus government continued topursue the project with little in the way of public consultation or transparency

Geography Compass 4/11 (2010): 1618–1634, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00398.x

ª 2010 The AuthorGeography Compass ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

(Beckmann 1999). Two aspects of the post-socialist politics of Temelın demand ourattention. First, the reasons given by the Klaus administration for its largely undemo-cratic pursuit of nuclear power have a deep significance. According to the Klaus gov-ernment, the fact that the Temelın plant had been commenced in the socialist erameant that the project was exempt from the new environmental commitments, demo-cratic processes, and freedom of information that were enshrined within the constitu-tion of the post-socialist Czech Republic (Beckmann 1999). The selective exclusion ofTemelın from the eco-democratic strictures of post-socialist society is indicative of thehighly uneven and often partial nature of political-economic transition. Second, thestrong opposition that has emerged to the Temelın project reveals the new opportuni-ties that exist within the post-socialist world to forge a politics of sustainable develop-ment that holds the nature and extent of transition to account. The ultimatecompletion of the Temelın site may appear to represent a defeat for those in the CzechRepublic desiring a new form of society that places environmental sustainability andpolitical empowerment at its operative core. Beckmann (1999), however, claims thatthe nascent environmental movement that mobilized against the completion of theTemelın plant [and incorporated Greenpeace, the Rainbow Movement (the CzechFriends of the Earth), and the South Bohemian Mothers, inter alia] was about morethan nuclear power. In resisting the centralizing technocentrism of the Klaus adminis-tration, those opposing Temelın provided a fulcrum of debate around which the direc-tion and goals of the post-socialist Czech Republic were brought to the fore (for moreon the emerging forms of green politics in the Czech Republic, see Fagan and Jehlicka2003; Jehlicka 2001; Sarre and Jehlicka 2007).

The case of Temelın exposes just some of the complexities that connect post-socialisttransition and issues of sustainable development. The primary purpose of this paper is toprovide a critical review of recent work that analyzes the nexus of transition and sustain-ability. Beyond this broad aim, it also proposes two analytical insights. First it arguesagainst binary thinking within work on transition and sustainability. This binary ismarked on the one side by those who celebrate the new opportunities that transitionoffers to hard-wire sustainability into the constitutional fabric of post-socialist society;and on the other, by analysts who claim that the economic imperatives of capitalist tran-sition have engulfed the chance to build sustainable development capacities. Analysisclaims that the study of actually existing post-socialist sustainabilities reveals a complexset of responses to the sustainable development agenda, which cannot be explainedthrough a monolithic recourse to transition effects. Second, the paper reveals that manyof the formal process and events that are used to measure and assess the rise of sustainabledevelopment in the post-socialist world (particularly laws, institutions, planning conven-tions, and protocols) are poor indicators of actually existing sustainabilities. It is claimedthat formal institutions and actions such as these often mask a hollow set of commitmentsto sustainability (see Mol 2009). Drawing predominantly, but not exclusively, on thework of geographers and focusing explicitly on Central and Eastern Europe (hereafterCEE) and Russia, this paper begins by establishing some basic parameters concerning thenature and intent of both sustainable development and post-socialist studies. Then draw-ing on Stenning’s (2005) tripartite framework of post-socialist analysis, the followingsections consider the relationships between socialism and sustainability; the impacts ofpost-socialist transition on sustainable development policies in the CEE and Russia; andfinally, the varied directions that sustainability action appears to be taking in the post-socialist world.

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ª 2010 The Author Geography Compass 4/11 (2010): 1618–1634, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00398.xGeography Compass ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Sustainable Development and Post-socialism: Some Preliminary Parameters

POINTS OF DEPARTURE IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Much has already been written in geography on the impacts of post-socialist transitionon the economies, societies and political structures of the communities in CEE andRussia (for collective overviews, see Bradshaw and Stenning 2004; Pickles and Smith1998). It is not my intention to repeat these well-established debates here. This paperprovides a collective exegesis of work that has sought to interpret the evolving relationsbetween post-socialist transition and sustainable development. The focus on transitionalsustainabilities adopted by the paper requires the establishment of two important pointsof departures. The first emphasizes the broad and integrative nature of sustainabledevelopment. Although much research has been done on the environmental impacts ofsocialism and transitional economies, to focus on sustainable development necessitates aconcern with the connections that exist between patterns of economic development;social justice (including distributional and procedural justices); and ecological sustainabil-ity (see Agyeman et al. 2003; Krueger and Gibbs 2007; Whitehead 2007). An analysisof sustainable development is thus defined by a distinctive concern for the ways inwhich interlocking socio-economic systems, and processes of environmental use andprotection, facilitate or inhibit variously defined forms of human and environmentaljustice in the long-term (Whitehead 2007). In their recent review of sustainable devel-opment studies, Hamdouch and Zuindeau (2010) go as far as to imply that work onsustainability is defined by a commitment to multidimensionality. The second point ofdeparture, without wishing to state the obvious, concerns the fact that to speak of sus-tainable development is not to evoke a singular term that has uniform scientific andpolitical support. Numerous scholars have illustrated that sustainable development ismarked by a wide range of competing definitions and modes of interpretation, whichspan varied matrices of ecocentrism and anthropocentrism, and incorporate spectrums ofweaker or stronger sustainabilities (Bernstein 2000; Connelly 2007; McManus 1996;Neumayer 2003). In this context, studies of sustainable development are increasinglycharacterized by a sensitivity to the role of place and local culture within the (re)inter-pretation of the complex synergies that exist between socio-economic and environmen-tal systems (see Gibbs and Krueger 2005).

Recognizing the integrative nature of sustainable development, its varied definitionaltropes, and geographical contexts, are particularly salient in the context of post-socialistresearch. A significant amount of early work on sustainable development within geo-graphy focused upon the global south: where the integrative imperatives of sustainabledevelopment to enable development (and alleviate poverty) while conserving environ-mental resources, appeared to come under greatest strain (Adams 1993; Redclift 1987).Since the early 1990s, the double burden embodied in the environmental failures ofsocialism and the economic downturns associated with transition, have opened up newgeographical areas in Easter Europe and Russia where sharp imperatives for economicrecovery have been met with strong desires for renewed forms of environmental protec-tion. It is precisely because of the urgent intersection of economic need and environmen-tal concern that followed 1989 that post-socialist studies have provided an increasinglyimportant strand of sustainable development analysis over the last 20 years. In addition toproviding salient contexts within which to think about the reform of both socio-economic and environmental relations, the peculiarities of the post-socialist condition hasalso given rise to a new series of interpretations of sustainable development.

1620 Sustainable development in the post-socialist world


Before moving on, it is important to briefly recognize two key, recent developments,in studies of sustainability that appear to have particular valence for work on post-socialistsocieties. The first set of developments is largely methodological, and relates to how tomeasure sustainable development. Increasingly, work within sustainable developmentstudies is moving away from mono-dimensional measures of sustainability (particularlyaggregate measures that focus on the monetary dimensions of sustainable development,such as gross domestic product or Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare), and towardmulticriteria approaches (see Hamdouch and Zuindeau 2010). Systems of multicriteriaanalysis, which encompass a range of comparable measures of human development andenvironmental sustainability, have crucial implications for how sustainable development isbeing assessed and analyzed in the post-socialist world, and will make it increasingly diffi-cult to obfuscate precisely how states are in achieving their sustainability commitments.The second set of developments pertains to the increasing prominence that is given toquestions of governance within assessments of sustainability (Hamdouch and Zuindeau2010). As a kind of forth pillar of sustainable development, questions of governance arewidening discussions of sustainability out to incorporate consideration of democracy,evaluation mechanisms, and effective capacity building (Hamdouch and Zuindeau 2010,429–430). Given the significant, and multiscalar, forms of governance restructuring thatpost-socialist societies have been through, close attention to such themes appears to haveparticular significance to studies of sustainable development therein.

‘POST’OLOGIES AND THE CONCEPTUAL POTENTIAL OF THE POST-SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE

Before considering more specific aspects of the relations between post-socialism and sus-tainable development studies, it is necessary to outline an important area of contemporarydebate concerning the intellectual status of post-socialism. For certain scholars post-social-ism is an historically specific condition, which pertains to the transitional processes thatsurround the transformation of socialist communities to capitalist successor societies.Caroline Humphrey (2002) provides an interesting critique of this intuitive understandingof the notion of post-socialist transition (see also Pickles and Smith 1998). According toHumphrey (2002) the notion of transition from socialism toward capitalism rests uponthe construction of stable (and often singular) notions of socialist and capitalist society,and the problematic assumption of a unidirectional movement between them (pp. 12–14). The great diversity of empirical experience associated with post-socialist transitionssuggests that actually existing socialisms and capitalisms are much more varied than this sim-plistic perspective suggests. To these ends, some degree of separation between the notionsof post-socialism and transition has been gradually established within recent work in thefield.

Stenning (2005) argues that post-socialism is more than merely an attempt to analyzeone period of intense socio-economic transition. Drawing parallels with the concepts ofpost-colonialism and post-modernism, Stenning suggests that the analytical value of post-socialism reaches beyond its role as a transitory interpretive marker. At the center ofStenning’s argument is the assertion that post-socialism encapsulates more than a periodof socio-economic transition. While the rapid, extreme and often traumatic transitionfrom socialist economic systems is clearly a defining characteristic of the post-socialistcondition, if economic transformation was its dominant characteristic then it would bedifficult to see how post-socialism differed from the major economic changes that haveaffected the developed world (take, e.g., the transition from Fordism to flexible regimesof economic accumulations), or the structural adjustments that have afflicted many



developing economies. According to Stenning then, the analytical purchase of post-social-ism stems not from transition alone, but from the three interconnected perspectives itbrings to research on transitional societies. First is the consistent emphasis that it places onthe ongoing influence of socialist political systems, economic assumptions, and culturalmores in post-socialist states. The continuing influence of socialism on transitional socie-ties can be discerned in two main ways: (i) it pertains to the continued use of social andpolitical practises that emerged under socialism in post-socialist contexts; and (ii) it relatesto the ideological construction of socialism as either a period of harmonious security thathas been loss, or oppressive insecurity that must be replaced by a new form of society(Stenning 2005, 115–116). Second, a post-socialist perspective draws attention to thepower of certain transitional goals – often associated with the Western orthodoxies ofmarket-based economies, democratic political structures, and liberal forms of social free-dom – in shaping the trajectories and expectations of transitional communities (Stenning2005). Third, a post-socialist analytic naturally draws attention to the actual dynamics oftransition and the impacts which rapid transformation and shock therapies have on theform and content of post-socialist society (Stenning 2005).

Stenning’s innovative assessment of the post-socialist analytic falls short of her desire todislocate post-socialism from specific empirical circumstances. Her construction of a tri-partite framework of post-socialist analysis is undeniably successful in ensuring thatpost-socialism has relevance beyond the most immediate historical processes of socialisttransformation. We are presented with a mode of analysis that does not diminish in sig-nificance the further you move temporally from the original point of transition, butrather opens up an ongoing dialectic of analysis for societies that are in constant fluxbetween a past that cannot be escaped and a future that has not yet been reached. WhereStenning’s account of post-socialism fails to match the analytical utility of post-modernismand post-colonialism, is that it remains difficult to imagine how it could be applied tosocieties that have not experienced systematic forms of socialisms in their past. Conse-quently, while post-socialist states have clearly been subjected to aspects of modernity andcolonialism, it is difficult to imagine how post-socialism could add analytical purchase towork on post-colonial societies that have not experienced socialist revolutions. Notwith-standing this critique, I claim that much can be gained from applying Stenning’s tripartiteframework of post-socialist analysis to the interpretation of sustainable development inthe post-socialist world. Indeed the remainder of this paper utilizes Stenning’s tripartitesystem of post-socialist analysis as a basis for ordering our exploration of sustainabilitywithin the post-socialist world.

Socialism, Stability, and Sustainability

INTRODUCING SOCIALISM: MARX AND THE QUEST AGAINST ANARCHY

As has been pointed out many times before, it is impossible to understand the nature ofpost-socialism without first reflecting on its dominant political ⁄ economic antecedent.Excavating the nature of socialism has the added value, in the context of this paper atleast, of immediately foregrounding questions of the sustainability. As a political economicsystem socialism has taken many forms, ranging from the Bolivarian populism of Chavez’sVenezuela, to the market-based authoritarianism of the People’s Republic of China. Butwhat unites the charismatic socialisms of the Caribbean with the old style socialisms ofthe Eastern Bloc is their commitment to forms of socio-economic regulation and control.Put simply, socialism attempts to address the anarchy that Karl Marx discerned at the



heart of capitalist forms of society. According to Marx, unfettered capitalist developmentis unsustainable for two reasons, inter alia: (i) it results in the highly uneven distributionof wealth, and the formation of an impoverished, disenfranchised, and ultimately rebel-lious proletariat class; and (ii) the avaricious nature of the capitalist economic form, andin particular the tendency toward overproduction and the inability to recycle surplusvalue, mean that it is highly crisis prone and characterized by systematic failures and ensu-ing political and economic unrest (Marx 1978). What socialism thus proposed was a seriesof controls on economic development based upon expanded systems of state management(including the nationalization of various industrial sectors), which would be used tosupport the more egalitarian distribution of wealth, and the development of ever moreelaborate plans for the future direction of society.

While the regulatory ethos the socialist political economy echoes key aspects of early,progressive iterations of sustainable development thinking (Bernstein 2000), the relation-ship between socialism and environmental values is more ambiguous. According toBurkett (1999) socialism was, and continues to be, caught between an anthropocentricdesire to exploit nature in pursuit of social development, and a critique of the anti-ecological effects of capitalist greed and consumerism (pp. 147–173; see also Benton1996). What is clear is that within early socialist state systems there was a clear desire toreconnect people with nature and to construct a new set of eco-socialist values thatopposed the alienating environmental effects of capitalist development (see Gare 1996).So in their analysis of pre-Stalinist Soviet ecological science in the 1920s, for example,Oldfield and Shaw (2002) discern the emergence of holistic approaches to socio-environ-mental relations (which largely draw from Marxist–Lenist thought) and prioritized theestablishment of equilibrium between economic development and ecological integritymuch as sustainable development does (p. 396; see also Weiner 1988, 1990, 2000). Whileit is important not to equate the forms of socio-economic and environmental stabilitypursued within early socialist society with the notion of sustainability, it is clear that bothsocialism and sustainability are targeted at reining in the socio-environmental injusticesassociated with capitalism. It is also clear that in practice the early ecological sensibilitiesexhibited within the ideologies of European socialist states, rapidly gave way to a moreproductivist ethos during the Stalin era (see Bridges and Bridges 1996; Carter and Tur-nock 1996; Weiner 1999). During this period the desire to balance socio-economic needand environmental protection gave way to the pursuit of agro-industrial expansionism.When it did exist, environmental conservation was predominantly equated with the moreefficient use of natural resources (Pryde 1991).

UNSUSTAINABLE REALITIES AND ACTUALLY EXISTING SOCIALISMS

The phrase ‘actually existing socialism’ has become a popular moniker within post-socialist study for the empirical realities that lay behind the ideological goals of socialistsociety. At one level, the idea of actually existing socialisms can be interpreted as a callfor detailed analyses of the realities of socialist society: it has however, become a short-hand term for the social, economic, and ecological failings of the socialist world. Thefailures of environmental sustainability were among the first aspects of actually existingsocialism to be critically studied and quantified in the West. The high profile of theenvironmental problems associated with socialism within CEE and Russia was in partrelated to the transboundary impacts that they had on non-socialist states (see Oldfieldet al. 2004). Thus whether it was the pollution of shared water resources such as theBarents and Baltic Seas and the Danube River; air pollution crossing from the Black



Triangle Region into West Germany and Austria; or nuclear fall out from Chenobyl,Western scientists and political leaders were keenly aware of the ecological crisis ofsocialist society.

Following the collapse of European socialism a plethora of ongoing studies haveemerged that attempt to quantify the complex environmental problems of the formersocialist world (for good overviews, see Alcoma 1992; Carter and Turnock 1996; Pav-lınek and Pickles 2000; Yablokov 1992). While environmental problems varied greatlybetween different geographical regions, studies reveal high levels of average environmen-tal degradation and a number of serve hotspots of environmental pollution (Pavlınek andPickles 2000). Just considering CEE states, for example, Alcoma (1992) states that in theearly 1990s 6–10% of the total territory of this region had very poor quality air or water, andapproximately 25% of the total territory had poor or very poor quality air or water (p. 30;Pavlınek and Pickles 2000, 39–40). Focusing on pollution hotspots, in heavily industrial-ized urban areas such as Katowice in southern Poland, we find levels of smoke in theearly 1990s that were six times higher than those allowed under European Union legisla-tion (Whitehead 2007, 73).

A complex set of reasons has been put forward to explain the environmental failing ofsocialism in CEE and Russia. Although these reasons may vary from region to region,what unites them is the way in which they connect environmental performance to theparticular economic and political practices of socialism. One of the most popular explana-tions relates to the functioning of the administered economy under socialist states (seeCampbell 1991). According to Bradshaw and Stenning (2004), the nature of the state-led,administered economy, and associated forms of top–down economic planning, had twoaffects on the socialist economy: (i) it removed the essence of economic competitionbetween different companies ⁄organizations producing the same product; (ii) it madechange and innovation in the production process prohibitive (pp. 6–9; see also Shmelevand Popov 1990). The combined result of these two affects was essentially the same: theyremoved both the motivation and ability of economic agencies to improve the efficien-cies of their production process. In environmental terms, this essentially removed the keyeconomic incentives, which would eventually see energy savings and reduced levels ofindustrial pollution within market economies. A second explanation of the particularenvironmental problematics of socialist states focuses on the political form of socialism.According to Pavlınek and Pickles (2000), the evisceration of civil society under thehegemony of the Communist Party system made popular mobilizations against environ-mental harm and pollution in socialist societies very difficult (pp. 106–114). Not only didthe single party system make the formation of oppositional political groups difficult undersocialist rule, but the increasing administrative subservience of branches of local govern-ment to central dictate removed many of the opportunities for local representations ofenvironmental anxiety (Pavlınek and Pickles 2000, 113). What emerged from this politi-cal system was a state economy that was insulate against the popular concerns thatsurrounded its treatment of the environment, and the stifling of a fully fledged green polit-ical movement (Hicks 1996).

Supplementing the extensive literature on the environmental conditions of actuallyexisting socialism has been a series of detailed accounts of the economic, political, andsocial tensions associated with socialist world (see Bradshaw and Stenning 2004; Picklesand Smith 1998). What has been articulated less systematically are the sustainable devel-opment dynamics of the socialist system. To recap, to consider the sustainability of anysystem involves more than an assessment of the longevity of separate social, economic,or environmental modalities of existence, it requires an interpretation of how such



systems interact to either support, or undermine, the long-term stability of particularconditions of life. Where such an integrated assessment of socialist society has beenmost explicitly explored is in relation to the construction of planned ⁄ ideal ⁄new socialistcommunities (see Bialasiewicz 2002; Stenning 2002; Whitehead 2005). The study ofplanned ⁄ ideal ⁄ new communities draws particular attention to urban and rural locationsthat were deliberately constructed (or intensively reconstructed) to serve the needs, andreflect the ideals, of socialist society. As geographical microcosms of socialism, thesecommunities have provided intensive test-beds in and through which the realities ofsocialist existence have been assessed (Stenning 2002). In terms of sustainability, the rel-atively small scale of such sites facilitates efficient analyses of the feedback loops thatconnect interdependent social-economic and environmental systems.

The case of (Upper) Silesia, in southern Poland provides an important set of insightsinto the place-based fabric of sustainability within European socialism (see Bialasiewicz2002; Tomeczek 1993; Whitehead 2005). While the region of Silesia has a long andcomplex history, its place in the Polish nation was recast following the rise of the PolishSocialist State systems in the 1940s. As a strategic site of cheaply accessible brown coal,Silesia was targeted as a key region whose effective development was vital for Polish eco-nomic welfare. But the original plans that were put in place for the orchestrated industri-alization of Silesia did not simply seek to pursue unfettered economic development; theypromised a new form of region, with high-quality housing, clean air and green spaces,high wages for workers, and long-term socio-economic security (see Bialasiewicz 2002;Whitehead 2005). Bialasiewicz (2002) describes how the Upper Silesian Industrial District(as the area became known under socialism) was popularized as a workers’ Eldorado: aregion that sought to attract new residents to work in its mines and factories and enjoy anew life of health and prosperity.

While the failure of the Upper Silesian Industrial District to live up to its gildedexpectations may not come as great surprise, the actual intensity of socio-environmen-tal problems that emerged in the region is more of a revelation. The pressures toextract economic value from Silesia meant that by 1991 its industrialized districtshoused 4400 industrial plants (15% of the Polish total), and produced 97.6% of Polishhard coal, and 56.6% of the nation’s steel production (Katowice Voivodship 1991).Essentially the Stalinist logics of economic expansionism meant that key regions suchas Silesia became dominated by their industrial function (with few other places, orindustrial techniques able to emerge to compete or replace them). The need for rapidindustrialization in these districts also meant that the promise of carefully planned andregulated communities was replaced by the realities of poorly constructed accommoda-tion, overcrowding, and communal living (Dziegiel 1998, 235). With limited incentivefor industrial innovation, or space for environmental protest, the pollution levels inindustrial regions like Silesia also reached catastrophic levels. Such environmental con-ditions had a deleterious impact on the health of workers and local residents with ele-vated cancer rates and higher than average levels of respiratory and circulated diseases(Whitehead 2005). Poor living conditions, environmental pollution, and health prob-lems collectively created a disenchanted and ineffective workforce in Silesia, which inturn led to further economic inefficiencies, and the need to pursue an expanded basefor industrial production in the region. In summary, socialist regions, such as Silesiareveal how socio-economic systems can emerge, which actually contribute to aself-fulfilling cycle of unsustainable socio-environmental existence that embodies theantithesis of sustainable development.



SUSTAINABLE ‘AWAKENINGS’ IN THE POST-WAR ERA

While it is tempting to categorize the history of European socialism as anathema to sus-tainable development, it is crucial to recognize critical moments during this period thatclearly paved the way for the rise of post-socialist sustainabilities. In his comprehensiveanalysis of environmental management in the Soviet Union, Pryde (1991) identifies anumber of ‘environmental awakenings’ within Russian and Eastern European societies.The first awakening identified by Pyrde centered on Lake Baikal in the late 1960s. LakeBaikal was an epicenter of socialist anxieties over sustainable development for two rea-sons. First, the lake constitutes a unique ecological system. The lake contains one-fifth ofthe planet’s unfrozen fresh water, and was recently described by The Economist (2006) as a‘Siberian Galapagos’ on account of the large number of plant and animal species that areendemic to it. Second, the lake, and its surrounding shoreline, has for some time pro-vided opportunities to develop the economic infrastructure of this isolated region. Pryde(1991) describes how logging and related processing operations had gradually developedaround Lake Baikal during the Soviet period (p. 84). During the 1960s, however, theSoviet government supported the development of two large wood-processing factories inthe area (Pryde 1972). The factories represented a double threat to the ecological inte-grity of the lake. First, their operation depended on the large-scale deforestation of thewoodlands surrounding Lake Baikal, which greatly increased the levels of soil runoff intothe lake (Pryde 1991, 84). Second, as wood was treated in the plants to produce paperand other products, there was concern that the lake would be contaminated by the facto-ries’ waste products (Pryde 1991; see also Wolfson 1988).

It was because of the lake’s unique ecological standing and global significance, thatLake Baikal became a key object of political and scientific debate in soviet Russia duringthe 1960s. Since this time, the lake has consistently constituted a key locus for Russiaenvironmental debate and politics.

According to Pryde (1991), the ‘Baikal awakening’ largely inspired environmentalconcern and activism among Russian writers and scientists. Pryde’s second, ‘Chernobylawakening’ (1986 to early 1990s) had a very different set of effects. According to Pryde(1991), the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in 1986 led to the break-down of ‘conservative, domestic, status quo type of environmental thinking’ (p. 13). As aform of socio-environmental disaster that Read (1993) compares with the San FranciscoEarthquake and the destruction of Pompei (p. xxi), it should not be surprising that Cher-nobyl should have undermined the logics that supported the Stalin–Brezhnev models ofeconomic development that dominated the Soviet Union at the time (Pryde 1991). ButChernobyl also generated increasing concern about socialist environmental relations withinthe general populous of the Soviet Union and within a broader community of inter-national scientists and environmental campaigners (Pryde 1991; see also Medvedev 1992).

The final, and uncompleted, environmental change identified by Pyrde was theso-called ‘Perestroika awakening’. In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, and the broaderreforms to Soviet political and economic life in the late 1980s, Pyrde suggests that thePerestroika awakening would be of a different order to its historical predecessors to theextent that it would see a fundamental shift in the environmental mindset of the SovietBureaucracy (including ministry officials and factory owners) (1991). To these ends, thePerestroika awakening would recognize that the ecological failings of socialism were notsimply the fault of fallible personnel within the Soviet superstructure, but were a productof the systems operation itself (Pryde 1991). While Pryde’s vision of an eco-Perestroikawould, of course, be overtaken by the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, the environ-



mental awakenings that he identified are clearly crucial historical precursors to the post-socialist discovery of sustainable development.

Transitional Sustainabilities: Sustainable Development and the Post-socialist Revolution

FROM BERLIN TO RIO: THE TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABILITY

There is more than a passing degree of historical synchronicity between the fall of social-ism in CEE and Russia and the rise of sustainable development to international ascen-dency. Less than 3 years past between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the convening ofthe United Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro(the preparations for the UNCED actually commenced in December 1989). The32 months that passed between the events of Berlin and Rio marked the beginning ofthe end of one socio-economic vision, and the rise of a new global paradigm for humandevelopment. The principles of sustainable development, which were agreed at Rio, werereadily endorsed and embraced by the newly independent post-socialist states thatattended the conference as a paradigm for rebuilding their communities (see Baker andJehlicka 1998; Oldfield 2001).

The prominent role of sustainable development within post-socialist policy and politicsis more than just a product of historical coincidence. According to Pavlınek and Pickles(2000), the rise of sustainable development in CEE must be interpreted in relation to thepolitical forces that contributed to the fall of socialism. It is clear that the umbrella ofconcerns associated with the environmental issues (including work places, homes, air andwater quality, and landscape degradation) provided an important arena for mobilizingearly political resistances to socialist orthodoxies. If environmentalism embodied animportant political force in the active resistance of socialism, it appears logical that earlypost-socialist societies would look for models of development, precisely like sustainability,that brought environmental concerns to the front and center of varied social andeconomic policy debates.

Having established some of the reasons why sustainability assumed such a significantrole in the creation of road maps of development in the post-socialist world, it is impor-tant to consider the precise modalities through which sustainable development was mobi-lized in transitional contexts. At one level, it is clear that the rise of various forms ofenvironmental institutions, laws, and policies can be used as a crude proxy for the riseof sustainable development planning. It has now been clearly established that the fall ofsocialism in CEE and Russia was followed by a significant trends toward the institutional-ization of the environment as a key consideration within varied political, social, and eco-nomic policy regimes (see Mol 2009, 224). According to the work of Pavlınek andPickles (2000), it is possible to discern the institutionalization of environmental policyinto post-socialist states in three main ways (pp. 194–241). First are the series of environ-mental recovery programmes that were instigated in to address some of the most pressingenvironmental problems facing communities in CEE and Russia (Pavlınek and Pickles2000, 197). Second was the rise of new forms of environmental legislation that werepassed in newly formed post-socialist states (Pavlınek and Pickles 2000, 195–202). Third,the rise of post-socialism corresponded with the establishment of new ministries andbureaus of the environment, which were specifically designed to better coordinate andenforce environmental law and policy (Mol 2009).

As has already been established, however, the rise of state-sponsored environmentalaction is not necessarily an indication of the growing influence of policies for sustainable



development. Work that has focused more explicitly on the impacts of sustainable devel-opment policies has, however, revealed the strategic policy impacts of sustainability oftransitional planning (see Oldfield 2001, 2005; Oldfield and Shaw 2002). The pioneeringwork of Jonathan Oldfield (2001, 2005) on the emergence of sustainable developmentthinking in Russian society has indicated the numerous plans, policies, and decrees onsustainability that have been instigated in Russia since 1992. The crux of these variedpronunciations and initiatives is the notion that sustainable development not only repre-sents a policy-fix for specific post-socialist economic, environmental, and social concerns,but that sustainable development could act as the model for post-socialist transition itself.The role of sustainability as an ordering narrative for transition is perhaps captured mostdirectly in the Russia Presidential Decree of 1996, which was aptly entitled, The Transi-tion to Sustainable Development. This decree suggested that the transition away from social-ism should not simply involve unthinkingly moving to deregulated market capitalism, butto the deliberative construction of a more socio-ecologically balanced world (Whitehead2007, 80–81). Such pronunciations clearly elevated sustainable development, as a principleat least, above the more narrowly defined, and sector-specific impacts of environmentalpolicy and legislation. As we will see later, however, the Presidential Decree has notnecessarily been translated into a long-term commitment to sustainable development inRussia. This failing has been particularly pronounced during the Putin era when thestate-sponsored exploitation of environmental resources by powerful economic elites hascompromised the pursuit of both social and environmental justice (see Agyeman andOgneva-Himmelberger 2009).

POST-SOCIALISM AND THE RE-INTERPRETATION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Before moving on to consider the actual impacts of sustainable development on post-socialist societies, it is important to reflect upon the particular forms which sustainabledevelopment took in CEE and Russia during 1990s. The collapse of socialism in CEEand Russia resulted in the formation of new nations who were essentially coming late tothe sustainable development policy-making process, and were doing so from very differ-ent historical circumstances and cultural traditions. While acknowledging the fact that thebroad drive toward the marketization of post-socialist societies has resulted in the popu-larization of more moderate, weak, interpretations of sustainability in Russia, Oldfieldand Shaw (2002) reveal the significant influence of Russian scientific and environmentaltraditions on the forms of sustainable development that have emerged there (p. 395).According to Oldfield and Shaw the official connections that have been made betweenpost-1992 policies for sustainable development and Russian traditions has been importanton two counts: (i) because it suggests a certain level of compatibility between the prac-tices of sustainability and the nature of Russian citizenship; and (ii) because it enablessustainable development to be constructed as something that does not necessarily have tobe seen as a Western policy import (Oldfield and Shaw 2002, 395–397).1

It is precisely in the context of the development of these non-Western, indigenouslyinspired interpretations of sustainability that a post-socialist perspective appears to be ableto bring so much to analyses of sustainability. Russian visions of sustainability have beenforged at the interface of socialist scientific traditions, the tumult of socio-economic tran-sition, and the need for coherent visions of the post-socialist future. As products of theseparticular socio-historical and geopolitical circumstances, the strands of sustainability thathave been excavated within post-socialist analysis provide important points of positioning,outside an inescapable consensus of sustainability that has emerged in the West (see



Swyngedouw 2007), from which to think about how sustainable development could beoriented to a very different set of goals.

Actually Existing Post-socialist Sustainabilities

Continuing to follow the Stenning tripartite framework of post-socialist analysis, this sec-tion considers the directionality that sustainable development policy has taken in CEEand Russia. Focusing on the longer-term evolution of sustainable development in thepost-socialist world, particular attention is given to the impacts that relative levels of pro-gress in sustainability have had on the ongoing dialectic between socialist tradition andpost-socialist aspiration.

SUSTAINABILITY GAINS AND THE POLITICS OF HOT AIR

One of the most immediate impacts of transition on the states and CEE and Russiawas a relative improvement in levels of environmental sustainability. On most measuresof environmental quality, the 1990s saw a sharp decline in pollution levels amongpost-socialist states (Pavlınek and Pickles 2000). The reasons for this decline in levelsof environmental pollution do, however, raise questions concerning the performance ofpost-socialist states on broader measures of sustainability. If, as has now been widelyaccepted, the environmental gains of post-socialism were largely an unintended productof what is referred to as the transitional recession (an economic downturn that afflictedthe economies of the newly formed states of CEE and Russia), it is clear that enhancedlevels of environmental sustainability came at the expense of secure employment andsocial welfare. In the medium terms, however, these easily achieved environmentalgains have also worked against the development of effective systems for securing envi-ronmental sustainability.

At one level this paradox has manifest itself in relation to international action onclimate change. Post-socialist states of CEE and Russia are among the few nations thathave achieved actual reductions on their 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions (one ofthe results of transitional recession). This has placed post-socialist states in a strong posi-tion in relation to carbon trading, where they have huge surpluses in their emissionrequirements and are thus able to trade their permits to pollute with other nations. Manycritical commentators have likened this trading situation to the sale of hot air – wherebypost-socialist states gain economically from greenhouse gas emissions that would neverhave been produced in the first place, while enabling other countries to raise their emis-sions ceiling on the basis of the virtual trade. At another level, Baker (2000) has suggestedthat the easily won environmental gains associated with the transitional recession, havetended to act as a disincentive to the development of effective institutional structures forthe delivery of sustainability, and removed the potential for the policy-learning situationsthat are typical when sustainability gains are more hard won (p. 162).

Notwithstanding the need to be skeptical about the progress in environmental protec-tion made in the early phases of transition, it is clear that certain post-socialist states havehad more lasting and institutionally significant transitions toward sustainability. If we con-sider the post-socialist states of CEE who have joined, or automatically become part ofthe European Union, we discover a series of countries whose pre-accession strategiesrequired that they complied with the minimum sustainable development standardsrequirement for membership (see Baker 2000; Jehlicka 2009; Jehlicka and Tickle 2004).Membership and pre-accession to the European Union has seen a host of post-socialist



states (from Romania in the south to Estonia in the north) develop a more overtly bal-anced approach to sustainable development. These approaches, which have been sup-ported by pre- and post-accession funding from the European Union, have seen newstandards for work and social welfare be agreed; the development of more clean and effi-cient production processes; an elevated role for environmental NGOs in decision-makingprocedures (a process associated with the establishment of new democratic standards andpractices); and the establishment of more rigorous environmental monitoring apparatusesto control pollution (Baker 2000, 161–163).

HOLLOWING OUT SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: FROM ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTIONALIZATION TO

DEINSTITUTIONALIZATION

While it is important to recognize both the intended and unintended, as well as the par-tial and more complete, sustainable development gains that have been made in transitionalsocieties, current work points to a significant gap between the visions of post-socialist sus-tainability, which were established in the early 1990, and actually existing sustainabilities.At the crux of these shortfalls, no matter what the geographical context, appears tobe the problematic relationship between the environmental and economic imperatives ofsustainability.

Although the gradual marketization of post-socialist economies has generated newincentives for ecological modernizations of different kinds, the new economic forms thathave emerged in CEE and Russia have generated new challenges for the delivery of sus-tainable development. As the effects of transitional recessions have faded, the excessivepractices of new consumerism have started to take hold of post-socialist societies. While thecultures of new consumerism have generated novel opportunities for economic growth,in both the manufacturing and service sectors, they have also been associated with the riseof new environmental problems. To take just one example, the rapid growth of personalcar ownership in the post-socialist world [the Russian Federation saw levels of passengervehicles rise from 8.5 million in 1990 to 16 million by 1997 (see also Oldfield et al.2004, 140)] has been associated with the rapid escalation of particulate air pollution and arise in incidence of environmental health problems in large cities. The actual structure ofthe newly emerging market economies has also generated obstacles for the implementa-tion of sustainability. In her reflections on economic transformation in Bulgaria, forexample, Baker (2000) reflects on how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) haveemerged to replace large state-backed industries and become the mainstay of the econ-omy (p. 162). The rise of so-called SMEs has, however, made it much more difficult toeffectively enforce and monitor new environmental standards in Bulgaria with manymore economic agents now requiring regulatory oversight. In addition, Baker (2000)argues that it has been difficult for smaller-scale industrial enterprises to take on the risksand expenses associated with investments in ecological modernization (p. 162).

Another, perhaps more worrying, trend in the evolving relations between environmentand economy in post-socialist states has been identified by Mol (2009) in his research onRussia. According to Mol, despite the initial institutionalization of environmental con-cerns into the fabric of Russia’s social and economic policy infrastructure, more recentpractices have given rise to the deliberate deinstitutionalization of the environmental fromthe state apparatus. Consequently, although the collapse of socialism in Russia was metwith the formation of committees and super-ministries, which were dedicated to environ-mental protection, between 1991 and 1998 staffing levels for state personnel workingexplicitly on environmental issues fell by nearly 80% (Mol 2009, 230). In addition to staff



cutbacks, Mol charts how key environmental institutions have been gradually down-graded and related environmental monitoring capacities eroded. In the case of Russia, thehollowing out of the institutional infrastructure associated with sustainable development isconnected with the evolving nature of the Russia export economy. As fossil-based energyproduction and mineral excavation have come to dominate Russia’s post-socialist econ-omy, economic elites and government officials have been eager to support the needs ofthe resource sector. The growth of the resource sector economy has, however, been reli-ant on the gradual loss of control over strategic environmental assets by the agents ofenvironmental protection (Mol 2009). This particular interplay between post-socialisteconomic imperatives and environmental commitments is not unique to Russia, but ithas generated a distinctly hollow feel to the sustainable development commitments thatwere made in the early periods of socio-economic transition. These hollow sustainabilitiesexemplify socio-environmental commitments that are girded by impressive policypronunciations and institutional architectures, but which are ultimately betrayed in theavarice of economic redevelopment.

Conclusion on Actually Existing Sustainabilities and Sustainable Development Fixes

This paper has offered a critical overview of contemporary work on the complex inter-section between transitional societies and sustainability. Drawing on Stenning’s (2005) tri-partite framework of post-socialist analysis, this paper has endeavored to show thatsustainable development has not simply been transferred into a post-socialist context, butthat its points of origin and possible destinations are often different when considered inthe context of transition. To put things another way, a post-socialist perspective addsvalue to studies of sustainable development because it encourages us to think of the var-ied socio-cultural traditions that notions of sustainability can animate, and the differenttrajectories sustainable development policies may actually be on. This paper has, however,been more than simply an exercise in filtering sustainable development through a post-socialism prism. Analysis has shown that the integrative nature of sustainable developmentcan itself offer a flexible and exacting framework within which to assess the nature anddirection of post-socialist transition. To these ends sustainable development forces us toconsider the complex inter-relations that connect social, economic, and environmentalsystems while in transition, and how changes in the nature of these relationships canthemselves affect the direction which transition takes.

Ultimately, the collection of work reviewed here supports the emerging thesis withinsustainable development studies that we need to move away from simply exposing theimperfections of actually existing sustainabilities, and instead recognize that sustainabledevelopments always reflect imperfect geographical fixes (see While et al. 2004). Under-stood as a geographical fix, any form of sustainable development is always the product ofa certain (im)balance being formed between social need, economic imperative, andenvironmental concern. To these ends, hollow sustainabilities may not be unique to thepost-socialist condition, but they do serve to obscure the study of actually existingsustainabilities, why they are as they are, and how they may be different.

Short Biography

Mark Whitehead is a Reader in Human Geography at the Institute of Geography andEarth Sciences, at Aberystwyth University, and Senior Research Fellow at the CityInstitute, York University, Toronto. He has written widely on urban and environmental



politics and has a particular interest in the political geographies of nature. He has authoredand co-authored papers on these topics for the journals Environment and Planning A; UrbanStudies; Society and Space; Geografiska Annaler; Citizenship Studies; Ethics, Place and Environ-ment; Area; and Policy and Politics. He is the author of States Science and Skies (Blackwell,2009) and Spaces of Sustainability: Geographical Perspectives on the Sustainable Society (Routl-edge, 2006), co-author of The Nature of the State: Excavating the Political Ecologies of the Mod-ern State (Oxford University Press, 2007, with Martin Jones and Rhys Jones), and co-editorof New Horizons in British Urban Policy: Perspectives on New Labour’s Urban Renaissance (Ash-gate, 2004, with Craig Johnstone). He holds a BSc and a PhD from the University ofWales, and was the winner of the Gregynog Prize for Human Geography in 1997.

Notes

* Correspondence address: Mark Whitehead, Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University,Aberystwyth, Wales SY23 3DB, UK. E-mail: [email protected].

1Perhaps the clearest example of the impacts of Russian scientific traditions on emerging forms of sustainability canbe seen in relation to popular rediscovery of Soviet scientist V. I. Vernadsky’s notion of noosphere. Vernadsky’s noo-sphere relates to a period of evolution within human-environment relations at which point the spiritual and intel-lectual values of human kind are attuned with the needs of nature (Oldfield and Shaw 2002, 396; see also Oldfield2001). Discussed explicitly within the aforementioned Presidential Degree on sustainable development, the idea ofthe noosphere had two important impacts of Russian interpretations of sustainable development. At one level itclearly prioritized the importance of a form of eco-spiritual renewal as part of the goals of the sustainable develop-ment process: an idea that appears to form a sharp contrast with more economically oriented visions of sustainabilityin the West (Oldfield and Shaw 2002, 396). At a second level, the idea of noosphere has raised questions aboutthe sequencing of sustainable development. If a new human-ecological sphere is the ultimate goal of sustainabledevelopment, Russian policy has suggested that the process of sustainability can be usefully broken up into a seriesof evolutionary stages (see Oldfield 2001; Whitehead 2007, 81). It is in this context that Russian national state strat-egies for sustainability have suggested that the transition to sustainability could be see as a series of stages: with issuesof socio-environmental injustice to be addressed first; followed by economic reform; and then policies to addressRussia’s place in the global environment (Oldfield 2001, 103–104).

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hollow sustainabilities? perspectives on sustainable development in the post-socialist world

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