Joan DeBardeleben - Böcker

This volume, based on papers presented at a conference on Environmental Security after Communism at Carleton University, explores the linkages between environmental quality and security in Eastern Europe and the Soviet successor states.

This volume, based on papers presented at a conference on Environmental Security after Communism at Carleton University, explores the linkages between environmental quality and security in Eastern Europe and the Soviet successor states.

In the past two decades, environmental pollution and natural resource shortages have evoked increasing concern in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The emerging ecological crisis has challenged many common assumptions in the Soviet bloc, as in the West. This book provides, for the first time, a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the ecology debate in the USSR and its highly industrialized ally, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Based on a thorough examination of the Soviet and GDR sources, Dr. DeBardeleben explores the authorities' attempts to explain the problem to their populations. She also examines the viewpoints of scientists, writers, and scholars, with special attention to economic dimensions of the ecology debate. The study reveals the increasing sophistication of specialists in influencing public policy by adapting official values to support their positions. Through comparison of the Soviet and East German cases, the study clarifies the impact of natural resource endowment and legitimacy dilemmas on treatment of the ecology issue. The book demonstrates that Marxist-Leninist values subtly affect Soviet and GDR responses, but at the same time the environmental crisis is forcing a reevaluation of some aspects of Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology itself.

In the past two decades, environmental pollution and natural resource shortages have evoked increasing concern in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The emerging ecological crisis has challenged many common assumptions in the Soviet bloc, as in the West. This book provides, for the first time, a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the ecology debate in the USSR and its highly industrialized ally, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Based on a thorough examination of the Soviet and GDR sources, Dr. DeBardeleben explores the authorities' attempts to explain the problem to their populations. She also examines the viewpoints of scientists, writers, and scholars, with special attention to economic dimensions of the ecology debate. The study reveals the increasing sophistication of specialists in influencing public policy by adapting official values to support their positions. Through comparison of the Soviet and East German cases, the study clarifies the impact of natural resource endowment and legitimacy dilemmas on treatment of the ecology issue. The book demonstrates that Marxist-Leninist values subtly affect Soviet and GDR responses, but at the same time the environmental crisis is forcing a reevaluation of some aspects of Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology itself.

Relations between the EU and Russia have been traditionally and predominantly studied from a one-sided power perspective, in which interests and capabilities are taken for granted. This book presents a new approach to EU-Russia relations by focusing on the role of images and perceptions, which can be major obstacles to the enhancement of relations between both actors. By looking at how these images feature on both sides (EU and Russia), on different levels (bilateral, regional, multilateral) and in different policy fields (energy, minorities, regional integration, multilateral institutions), the book seeks to reintroduce a degree of sophistication into EU-Russia studies and provide a more complete overview of different dimensions of EU-Russia relations than any book has done to date. Taking social constructivist and transnational approaches, interests and power are not seen as objectively given, but as socially mediated and imbued by identities. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of European Foreign Policy, Eastern Partnership, Russian Foreign Policy and more broadly to European and EU Politics/Studies, Russian studies, and International Relations.

Bringing together leading European and North American experts, this timely volume answers questions about the implications and management of the new external borders of the European Union following another phase of enlargement. Implications of the EU's new external border, especially its eastern border with Russia and Ukraine, will be a key issue for the new member countries, for the EU, and for the new neighbouring regions. The contributors address this emerging question from two perspectives. They examine whether an expanded Europe will create a new dividing line in Europe between 'insiders' and 'outsiders', and also consider the concrete problems of border management and how the issues will be handled. The book will be of particular value to those concerned with European politics and the expansion of Europe, and to those with an interest in political sociology.