Social Movements, Transnational Actors, and
Democratization: The Case of the Russian
Environmental Movement
Laura A. Henry, University of California, Berkeley
Introduction
The fifteen former Soviet states have been engaged in a massive project over
the past decade to transform their political, economic, and social institutions. Hoping
to facilitate their transitions from single party states to democracies, representatives of
Western governments and transnational activists have flocked to the region, bringing
with them expertise, resources, and their own political and social norms. Many of
these foreign actors have framed their projects in terms of "strengthening civil
society" in postcommunist states and "encouraging democratization from below"
through support for grassroots nongovernmental organizations of all types. In light of
these activities, political scientists have begun to consider more closely the degree to
which external actors can facilitate and shape democratization in another country,
particularly by fostering demand for democracy at the grassroots level.
This paper examines the influence of foreign aid on the development of the
Russian nongovernmental (NGO) sector and investigates the dynamic interaction
between activists from the Russian environmental movement and Western aid
officials by considering three factors-resources, issue framing, and political
opportunities. The often overlapping, but occasionally conflicting, strategies, goals,
and political orientations of Western donors and Russian activists have important
implications, both positive and negative, for NGO legitimacy, autonomy, and
sustainability. Without foreign funding, Russian NGOs would have a very difficult
time continuing their activities. Ultimately, however, the desire of donors to quickly
create Western-style pluralism through support for NGOs may subtly undermine these
organizations' ability to contribute to the democratization of Russia.
Political Transition and International Donors: Choosing the NGO Model
Contemporary political transitions are never enfirely domestic processes.
Whether simply influenced by a Western model of democracy, explicitly advised by
institutions such as the World Bank or the European Union, or inundated by
transnational NGOs, actors engaged in the transition and consolidation of a new
regime are profoundly affected by international factors. In spite of this, most models
of transition, and specifically of democratization, neglect international factors or fail
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to specify their effects on transition. We can begin to address this lacuna in our
models of political transformation by examining particular instances of domestic and
international interaction during transition, such as the efforts of aid donors to promote
democracy in Russia. Using the political process model as formulated in social
movement theory to consider the way in which domestic groups are affected by
international actors offers a way to avoid some of the oversimplifications of
"transitions to democracy" scholarship.' It draws our attention instead to political
activity at the grassroots level-activity that points neither toward nor away from
democracy, but may have broad significance for Russia's future political and social
development.
Only by including transnational actors-in this case Western aid
donors-into the political and social equation can we begin to
understand the development of the Russian nongovernmental sector
and grassroots social activism in Russian during the past decade. For
postcommunist NGOs in Russia, the transnational arena has often
proved to be more hospitable than the domestic political scene.
Whether due to the unreceptive nature of transitional state institutions
to social activism, or simply the uncertainty generated by political
instability, the "relentless opportunism" of social movement
organizations leads them to direct their attention to the burgeoning
transnational civil society (McAdam 1998a:255).
In recent decades, Western officials-particularly those from the United
States-have announced that promoting democracy in the postcommunist region
serves the vital national interest of their states. Thus, democratization in other regions
has become an explicit foreign policy goal. Shortly after taking office, the Clinton
Administration identified "building sustainable democracies" as a priority of the US
Agency for International Development (USAID).    USAID   documents offer
justifications for this policy:
Democratic governments are more likely to advocate and observe
international laws and to experience the kind of long-term stability
that leads to sustained development, economic growth, and
international trade. Countries that are experiencing economic growth
and are actively engaged in trading relationships are less likely to
engage in acts of war. [USAID 1999]
Once democratization became a priority, donors needed a strategy. They
therefore turned to theories of how their own democracies developed, and particularly
to the work of Alexis de Tocqueville.2 Western aid donors have professed agreement
with the Tocquevillean theory that societal associations contribute to a vibrant civil
society through their ability to aggregate public opinion, articulate it to the relevant
state officials, offer policy alternatives, and train the next generation of social and
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political leaders. They also have agreed that the development of a pluralistic civil
society is an essential component of democratic consolidation.
While civil society is a complicated and much debated term, those who cite its
positive characteristics often mention diverse social interactions, ranging from soccer
clubs to choirs to neighborhood associations (Putnam 1993). For the practical purpose
of disbursing aid to promote the development of civil society, however, most Western
aid donors have chosen to export a particular organizational form: Western-style
nongovernmental organizations.  The range of Russian organizations currently
receiving foreign assistance includes professional associations, women's rights
organizations, business and labor federations, media watchdogs, environmental
activist groups, and human rights monitoring organizations. Despite the diverse
purposes of these groups, the NGO model is seen as a "one size fits all" form for
achieving societal goals. The process of exporting this NGO model is obviously not
as straightforward as simply imposing organizational forms, tactics, and goals. It
would be more accurate to say that these organizational characteristics are not
transferred, but adapted or translated by Russian groups in order to function in the
postcommunist context. This "indigenization" of Western models may influence both
the NGOs' current effectiveness in promoting societal change and their potential for
survival and future development.3
Judged by the increase in the total number of NGOs operating within the
Russian Federation, as well as by the high percentage of those that have received
Western support, donors' efforts to encourage the development of nongovernmental
organizations in Russia since the early 1990s have been quite successful. After the
demise of many social organizations during the hyperinflation and economic decline
of 1992-93, the number of Russian NGOs has rebounded. One foreign donor asserts
that there are now 60,000 NGOs in Russia, and other estimates are even higher4
(author interview, April 21, 2000). More than 13,500 activists from nongovernmental
organizations have gone through the USAID-sponsored training program alone, and
most Western European governments support similar programs, albeit on a smaller
scale. Looking specifically at the green movement, Russian environmental groups
clearly have increased in number, organizational capacity, and professionalism since
the mid-1990s, and foreign aid has played a significant role in these increases. Based
on surveys of green activists, Russian sociologists have argued that contacts between
Russian environmental leaders and Westerners have increased ten times between 1991
and 1998, and that about 75 percent of the financial resources of Russian
environmental NGOs now come from the West (Kouzmina and Yanitsky 1999:180).
Donors' apparent success in increasing the NGO population in Russia masks
some troubling aspects of the sector's development, however. Some important and
unintended consequences may have profound effects on the process of
democratization at the grassroots level in Russia. For example, most environmental
NGOs in Russia lack a membership base, are disconnected from the needs of local
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populations, and are reluctant to engage the government. While domestic factors
certainly contribute to these weak patterns of organizational development, Russian
NGOs' excessive reliance on donor funding and the donors' ability to set strategies
and goals for NGO development may reinforce domestic pathologies or encourage
other detrimental patterns in the NGO sector. In particular, foreign aid may
jeopardize the autonomy of Russian organizations, their connection to their natural
constituencies, and their legitimacy, subversive power, and sustainability. In short,
Russian NGOs dependent on foreign aid may fail to fulfill the roles of intermediary
civil society organizations-roles anticipated by donors-in part due to their reliance
on the donors themselves.
The Influence of Donor Assistance on NGOs
As noted above, my analysis will be confined to Russian environmental
NGOs and foreign aid donors promoting the development of civil society and
democratic consolidation in Russia through aid to nongovernmental organizations. In
addition to the changes in form, goals, and strategies that have accompanied green
NGOs' reliance on foreign aid, the Russian environmental NGO sector offers
particularly fertile ground for considering the ability of NGOs to promote
democratization, since the green movement played a historic role in mobilizing citizen
protest and organizing demand for regime change in the late Soviet period (Dawson
1996).
The data for this analysis were drawn from interviews conducted in 1999 and
2000 with both Russian environmentalists and Western aid officials in six Russian
cities (St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Bryansk, Vladimir, and Moscow),
surveys of the Russian press, and a review of Russian social science publications
relating to the environmental movement. Three broad explanatory variables drawn
from the political process model, a theory of social mobilization, will be used to trace
the interaction between foreign donors and Russian NGOs: the resources available for
mobilization; the framing strategies that resonate with, and motivate, a population;
and political opportunities for activism.5 Although usually applied to the domestic
political sphere, these variables can be used to highlight the way international actors
help to construct the incentive structure within which NGOs operate. Furthermore,
since varying economic and political incentives can encourage different types of
organizational form, behavior, and networks, foreign aid donors indirectly shape the
evolution of domestic NGOs. In fact, as illustrated below, the incentives of donor
resources, framing, and political opportunities often reinforce each other in producing
similar patterns of organizational development and behavior in Russia.
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Resources
The most obvious contribution of foreign donors to Russian NGOs is the
funding they provide through grant competitions.7  Foreign donors encourage the
emulation and proliferation of the Western NGO model by financing particular
projects and by demanding certain types of organizational forms (a board of directors,
open membership, transparent decision-making) and financial accountability in
8
return. Due to Russia's partial economic liberalization, including price increases and
a relative decline in employment and wages, Russian NGOs often have difficulty
securing reliable, domestic sources of funding, whether from state, business, or private
donations. In this resource poor context, it becomes possible for foreign aid donors to
play an especially significant role in expanding the economic opportunities of NGOs
and even in selecting which NGOs are most likely to survive the economic transition.
During the past five years, donors have overcome many of the obvious flaws
in their early grant programs, which were widely criticized within the Russian activist
community. For example, access to grant competitions has improved significantly
since the early 1990s when most application materials were only available in English
and most grants were given by the Moscow offices of Western foundations to
Moscow-based organizations.  Early grants also often required that Russian
organizations collaborate with a Western counterpart, but these partners were difficult
to find and often dominated the projects. Now funding may be channeled directly to
Russian NGOs or through Russian sub-contractors, as opposed to early grant
programs in which a significant amount of the funding went to support Western
consultants and the sub-contractors administering the programs. Now, more local
experts also are included in judging grant competitions.
Certain difficulties for Russian organizations receiving foreign aid persist,
however, especially in regard to how money may be used by NGOs. For example,
due to the emphasis on discrete projects in grant competitions, many Russian NGO
leaders noted that it is difficult to get money for operating expenses and is therefore
difficult to retain staff and continue the organization's activity between grants. Some
activists admit that this has led their group to conceal how they actually use the grant
money and to exaggerate their financial need in grant applications in order to cover
office expenses. In several cases, NGO representatives acknowledged that they had
purchased a vehicle or computer, or paid a staff member's salary, with grant money
even though it was designated for a specific project (author interviews). They
justified this by arguing that they continued to work on their grant-winning project
throughout the grant period. Unrealistic restrictions on how the money will be used
thus introduce an element of prevarication into the donor-recipient relationship.
Other activists expressed frustration that they are able to obtain money to start
projects, but not to continue them. Almost all interviewees stated that seminars and
conferences are by far the easiest "projects" to obtain money for, but many agreed that
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seminars are also among the least productive activities in which they engage. Noting
the cost of flying in foreign experts for seminars, some activists argued that the money
would be better spent on small grants. Respondents were especially frustrated by
seminars that encourage them to spend the day brainstorming possible future projects,
only to announce later that there is no funding available for these projects. Activists
from environmental groups focusing on scientific questions note that it is extremely
difficult to get grant money for technology, on-going environmental monitoring, or
other independent scientific activities that might buttress the environmentalists' policy
preferences.
In addition, the receipt of grant money is not a cost-free option for Russian
NGOs. A number of requirements related to accounting and reporting the use of
funds are connected to foreign grants, and the organizations face significant pressure
to mimic the structure of Western organizations. For many Russian NGOs, receiving
a grant requires them to open a bank account, hire an accountant, and pay taxes for the
first time-sometimes drawing unwanted attention from the state authorities. A St.
Petersburg environmentalist argues that foreign funding "is a heavy burden on the
NGO budget, both in terms of finance and time" (author interview, April 5, 1999).
NGO staff members often discover that Western organizational practices are not
suited to their local setting. One Russian historian comments that former political
prisoners, who often possess the social capital necessary to lead organizations,
discover that their informal networks break down under the pressure of an imported
Western business culture that requires specific skill sets and an impersonal style of
management (Lurye 1998).   Others expressed frustration with more informal
obligations to donors. For example, hosting Western visitors and volunteers can take
a significant amount of time and energy. The leader of a St. Petersburg NGO that is
considered a model organization by donors noted that he spends almost half his time
communicating with Western donors and Western NGO counterparts, contributing to
donor reports, and elucidating his group's relatively successful experience (author
interview, May 5, 1999).
While in the early 1990s donors tried to offer small grants to the greatest
possible number of organizations, current grant programs have shifted to providing
targeted assistance or larger grants for specific issue to NGOs that have successfully
completed projects in the past. Each funding strategy has strengths and weaknesses.
The administration of the first grant competitions led to the proliferation of small
groups and a competitive environment among green organizations. Groups were
reluctant to cooperate for fear that in sharing information and projects they would lose
their comparative advantage or devalue their contribution. Under the conditions of
those programs, it made sense for activists in a medium-sized Russian organization
with two project ideas to splinter into two smaller groups in order to maximize their
funding potential. Another common strategy was for one activist to found several
organizations, each with a slightly different name, so that each organization could
apply to the same grant program.9
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One persistent problem of Western aid, related to the proliferation of small
groups, is opportunism on the part of Russian groups-organizations springing up in
response to financial opportunities alone. Lessons learned over the past decade about
organizing grant competitions have allowed donors to weed out the most blatant forms
of opportunism. But the problem continues to be a concern. One St. Petersburg
environmentalist argues that during perestroika environmental slogans were adopted
by many who later had no commitment to the movement and created
"pseudoinstitutions.. .making a fuss about pseudoproblems, creating an illusion of
vigorous activity" in order to further their own political careers. That period was
"characterized by mass use of environmental slogans and forms of the 'Green'
movement by people who were, in fact, quite far off from the ideology of
environmentalists." This activist applauds the disappearance of organizations "which
have no influence and cannot mobilize local resources for their activity," but he also
worries that this natural decline is "complicated by the 'western' financial assistance,
keeping 'afloat' the environmental NGO, whose basic task quite often was and is to
get this assistance" (Shevchuk 1995). A milder form of this opportunism occurs when
an existing organization develops a project in response to a grant posting, not in
response to local needs or demand. Several activists noted that, in retrospect, this
practice has proven detrimental to their organizational development by leading them
into issue areas in which they had less expertise or to which they were less committed.
In the past few years, funding strategies have shifted somewhat, and donors
now tend to give slightly larger grants to organizations that have demonstrated success
in the past (an "achievement-based" award strategy). Yet many foreign officials still
praise the early "seed grants" in spite of their drawbacks because they quickly created
a pluralistic NGO sector. One US donor notes that "Russians historically have not
been good coalition builders" and that "the environmental community and the
women's movement are two good examples of a lot of fractious.. .interaction." This
same donor concludes, however, that "at an early stage of sector development [with] a
lot of players at the table, it helps create healthier organizations at the end than if you
have one or two that from the beginning are sort of coddled or nurtured or hot-house
developed" (author interview, March 24, 2000).
However, another more senior US official defends the new targeted funding,
arguing that there are too many NGOs in Russia right now and that NGOs need to
compete more for the foreign resources they receivel' (author interview, April 21,
2000). As foreign grant competitions focus on fewer, larger projects, donors have
attempted to find another way to assist as many NGOs as possible while efficiently
using scarce money and time. Their new funding strategy is to establish NGO
resource centers in different Russian regions that will provide consulting services, but
not funding, for new NGOs. While resource centers are cost-efficient for donors, it is
not yet clear whether they will be sustainable since these centers usually lack an
indigenous base to an even greater degree than the NGOs themselves. Some activists
have also expressed concern that resource center projects often build the new
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institution on the basis of the region's most effective NGO, thereby diverting the most
successful NGOs from their original missions.
In spite of frequently fierce competition for foreign grants, external funding is
not a long-term solution for Russian NGOs. Based on studies of poor people's
movements within the United States, Piven and Cloward (1977) have argued that
resources from an external source are extremely attractive for movement
organizations based on resource-poor constituencies, but that the acquisition of this
support is also fraught with strategic and tactical concerns. For example, reliance on
external sources may jeopardize the sustainability of the organization because it is
"not possible to compel concessions from elites that can be used as resources to
sustain oppositional organization over time," if concessions are simply not in the
interest of those same elites (xxi). We may already be witnessing "donor fatigue" in
postcommunist societies. Some observers argue that the flow of aid to the region is
beginning to slow, with uncertain consequences for the organizations that have relied
on this money. External funders may also seek to moderate or restrain potentially
subversive activism. McAdam (1982) points to this pitfall of elite dependency, noting
that external sponsorship of movement organizations frequently represents an effort to
tame the movement or to divert activism away from social upheaval, violence, or
political demands that are simply inconvenient for the elite (26-28).
Many difficulties in designing and reforming grant programs can be traced
back to the pressure on donors from their own domestic political environment.
Donors increasingly are asked to show measurable impact from their programs
quickly or, as one donor puts it, to address "the whole question of getting the most
bang for your buck." A European donor noted that his office is required to spend all
of its money in a single year or his own government "will make bombs with it."
Another official sums up the situation this way:
We used to try to seek out areas in which we hadn't done any grant
making before. Oh great, we got a proposal from Ust-Deninsk, where
we've never been! We are moving away from it and trying to identify
regions in which there are leaders, individuals, organizations, local
governments that are open and receptive to change, that are
committed to it, and that have the institutional capacity to undertake
projects. And we also as part of that have really moved away from
competitions per se. [author interview, March 24, 2000]
There are dangers to this approach, as this same official recognizes: "it's very
controversial...within our own staff there are a lot of people who feel that we are
headed in the wrong direction because the gap between the winners and losers
becomes greater." Not surprisingly, the narrowing of recipients has not been popular
among the NGO community. A magazine for the NGO community ran a cartoon in
which two men each hold one hand of a third man who is dangling over a cliff and
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one says, "It seems to me that we have supported him long enough. Now it's time to
let go so that he learns to be independent" 1 (Biulleten' Moskovskogo ISAR 1998:20-
21).
The primary focus of civil society programs thus far has been to increase the
total number of NGOs in a transitional society. In this task, donors have been guided
by the firm belief that "more NGOs meant more democracy" (Sampson 1996:128). In
spite of donors' efforts, however, many Russian organizations resemble their Western
brethren only superficially, on their business cards and brochures. Many are simply
"NGIs," or "nongovernmental individuals"12-organizations based on family
networks or a charismatic leader. In almost every case, however, each organization
expends a significant amount of energy trying to look as much like the donor model as
possible, leading to a hollowing out of the organizational form in which there is a
greater emphasis on structure than content. With its greater emphasis on mimicking a
certain organizational style than on developing real connections to the community, it
is possible that the NGO model obscures or crowds out other possible organizational
types and relationships that may be more sustainable in the Russian context.
Ultimately, the disadvantages of the NGO-donor relationship relate to the
power imbalance inherent in it. Goldman (1988) argues that the issues of dependency
in this relationship cannot be avoided, but "can only be managed and minimized"
(52). If not managed, the issue of NGO dependency could undermine the donors'
broader goal of democratization. In reacting to the donors' incentives, activists learn
survival techniques that may not help them to continue their work once foreign
funding dries up, as these techniques are not applicable in their own cultural milieu.
Thus, the money spent to encourage and support these organizations has trained them
to organize around opportunities that may be restricted to the early years of the
transition and does not guarantee their sustainability.
Framing
Another way in which donors set incentives for Russian environmental NGOs
is by framing issues-that is, donors determine how issues and strategies within the
movement are prioritized. In the context of strictly domestic social activism, framing
is usually defined as identifying which issues and strategies will resonate with pre-
existing societal norms and cultural values, and most effectively mobilize public
support within that society (Snow, et. al. 1986; Snow and Benford 1992). Therefore,
framing tactics depend on a movement's perceived constituency: its members or
beneficiaries, or, perhaps more broadly, its supporters. Framing is thus designed
strategically in response to those people the movement is trying to convince to support
its goals, and framing differences logically arise out of differences in perceived
constituencies. Yet in the case of an NGO sector broadly supported by external
actors, there tends to be a "constituency in principle" and a "constituency in practice"
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for both the environmental activists and the aid donors. In the case of the Russian
green movement, the constituency in principle for both donors and Russian
environmental NGOs is the general Russian population, and the programs of the
donors and projects of the NGOs are designed to serve the population's needs and
improve their lives, politically and substantively. In practice, however, US donors
need to justify their programs to Congress, as Congress does to its taxpayers. The
Russian NGOs, due to the extreme resource poverty of the constituency in principle,
need to justify their projects to donors. Thus, the NGOs' constituency in practice has
become the donors themselves.
Due to these different constituencies, the primary framing tension in this
relationship centers on the difference between the environmentalframing of the NGOs
and the civil society-democratization framing of the donors. In the former, NGO
activity is directed at improving the environmental situation in Russia, while in the
latter NGOs are viewed as a vehicle for achieving, and for symbolizing, democratic
pluralism. This is problematic. In many cases Western efforts to develop civil society
through the activities of environmental organizations do not necessarily support the
type of projects that will most effectively limit environmental degradation in Russia,
which leads environmentalists to feel frustrated with the priorities of grant programs.
And ironically, while the donors' desired outcome may be broader social participation
and more effective articulation of social interests in Russia, the donors framing
strategies actually encourage Russian environmental organizations to grow
increasingly distant from their domestic constituency. Externally introduced framing
strategies may divert the environmental movement from issues of local concern and
lessen its likelihood of success.13
One of the most obvious framing related questions is how donors determine
the funding priorities within grant programs. Who determines which type of
environmental issues are most deserving of support? One US official acknowledges
that, while it works with its Russian counterparts to develop program priorities, the
US government has its own environmental priorities-such as biodiversity, global
warming, nuclear safety, and sustainable development-which can only be addressed
on a global scale (author interview, April 3, 2000). While some activists in European
Russia are also concerned about sustainable development,14 for the most part Russian
environmentalists express interest in more locally rooted problems, such as polluted
lakes and streams, refuse in parks, uncontrolled stray pet populations, and health
problems related to industrial pollution. A leader of a Russian green party noted that
donors direct too much of their funding toward wildlife rather than toward "real
problems here and now in Russia" (author interview, April 26, 1999). Adhering to the
broader goal of democratization, donor programs often emphasize the social over the
scientific.
A number of Russian environmentalists express concern over the lack of
money available to train the next generation of scientists who will work to support the
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green movement (author interview, December 7, 1999). Noting donors' fondness for
environmental education programs, as opposed to industrial pollution and other urban
environmental problems, one respondent worried that "feel good" ecological
education is causing "cognitive dissonance" for Russian children who have to live in
the real world and who then feel guilty for "doing what they must to survive in a
system that won't allow them to be ecological." He suggested that donors work on
issues of "energy, infrastructure, and not all of these ridiculous social projects"
(author interview, November 12, 1999). Donors have started to recognize this pitfall.
In the last few years donors have begun a slow and incomplete shift from encouraging
Russian NGOs to work toward pre-existing priorities to encouraging Russian NGOs to
generate their own ideas.
As Russian activists have begun to assert their own authority in terms of
prioritizing the ecological problems they are willing to tackle, they are becoming more
circumspect about taking the advice of their Western partners. A St. Petersburg
environmentalist comments:
The 'Western Greens'...not only do not know what plants and
animals are protected in the region, or what the composition of
sewage from the typical pig farm is....To put it simply, they do not
know anything which is beyond the scope of their main professional
line. Therefore, their advice might often prove to be speculative and
practically inapplicable. [Shevchuk 1995:44]
One orientation that both sets of actors appear to share, however, is a sense of
frustration with the passivity of the Russian population. This is a sentiment that
occasionally sounds somewhat elitist, lending credence to fears that donor funding is
creating a new kind of NGO nomenklatura. Both sets of actors argue that one of their
goals is to create a "more civilized society," but a number of donors and activists
claim that it has been disappointing to work with the apathetic local population. Both
sets of actors cite the depressing effect of Russia's economic transition to justify their
disconnect from the average Russian citizen, but few recognize that there might be a
link between imposed priorities and their lack of resonance with the population.
Most Russian environmental organizations are not membership based, and
few organizations engage in community outreach.15 This lack of member support can
be traced in part to economic constraints on the population, but it is also connected to
the NGOs' reliance on Western grants that preclude the need for members. In fact,
few groups express interest in acquiring members or spend much time on membership
drives. When asked about his organization's relations with the local community, one
St. Petersburg environmentalist answered with this proverb: "To make a deal with a
Russian man, beat him with money or a big stick." In other words, motivating people
with ideas is futile, only economic incentives or punishment gets the public's
attention. Other groups have reported that the public either relates to them with
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suspicion, or is simply not interested. When asked about their interaction with the
local population, another organization summed up their mutual indifference by
stating: "The population relates on the basis of neutrality or with bias-what do we
have to do with that?" (Green Petersburg 1997). A St. Petersburg activist and a
Russian scholar, through their own survey research, received responses from
environmentalists such as: "We do not know what to say to people and what to call
them for"; "We do not know where to find interested people, nor do we know what to
suggest to them"; "We do not know how to mobilize people for constructive action
and are afraid of misunderstandings;" "We do not have experience talking to people"
(Tysiachniouk and Karpov 1998). Considering this lack of a social base for NGOs,
one longtime environmental activist from southern Russia goes so far as to say that
there is no environmental movement in Russia today. She states that as new
organizations have sprung up, they have "formed what they called the third sector and
they work without, or almost without, connections with the population" (Luneva
1998).
Slowly donors are coming to realize that the NGOs they have fostered have,
for the most part, failed to develop links with local communities. One official
representing a private foundation concluded that the NGOs they have funded are "too
ivory tower, on the fringe of society" (author interview, May 19, 2000). She says that
she often hears NGO leaders say "the public doesn't understand us," but the
foundation is now paying more attention to whether and how Russian organizations
are trying to reach out to the public. A Russian activist in Vladivostok notes that the
population simply does not understand what the NGO sector is or why they might
need it, but she recognizes that it is the NGO sector's job to go into the community
and educate people about their rights and responsibilities (author interview, November
1, 1999). The leader of a Russian NGO resource center commented that social
organizations have no money, partly because no one thinks that the work they do is
important and they are not seen as able to solve any social problems (author interview,
November 1, 1999). Part of the problem might be that as Russian NGOs discover
how to succeed in the competitive grant arena, they begin adopting a new
transnational NGO language of "proekty" (projects) and "fondresing" (fundraising)
that mimics the donors' rhetoric and priorities, but that does not resonate with
potential local partners.
Funding focused directly on local environmental problems may do more to
assist in civil society development than training and increasing organizational
capacity. With such funding, activists could identify relevant problems on their own
initiative and take responsibility for persuading community members to support them.
A rapprochement with the local population cannot come too soon.  Many
environmental NGOs are already suspected of operating under "foreign control." One St.
Petersburg activist, who cooperates with Western donors, admits that the greens' direct
employment by Western organizations and reliance on Western funding opens them up
to this charge (author interview, April 5, 1999). He traces the lack of popular support for
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jailed environmentalists, such as Aleksandr Nikitin and Grigorii Pasko, to this popular
belief.16
Undeniably, the ability of Russian NGOs to frame their activities is also
constrained by domestic factors.  In the Russian transitional political context,
movement framing may be less straightforward than simply trying to attract the
greatest number of supporters and resources to one's cause. In a setting of lingering
authoritarian practices, NGOs may be wary of directly opposing government policies
or even of attracting too much public attention to their activities. Even if the political
discourse continues to liberalize, the government may only slowly sanction certain
issues as "open" for public debate. For example, nuclear waste remains a closely
monitored topic. These and other constraints on free speech may lead donors to frame
their activities differently depending on who their audience is, with one type of
framing for taxpayers, another for the transitional government, and a third for
sponsored NGOs. Out of necessity, Russian activists engage in similar subterfuge.
There is some danger that these alternate framings, used simultaneously with different
audiences, may make it more difficult for Russian NGOs and aid donors to
communicate clearly about their expectations and priorities.
On the other hand, there may also be deeper synergy between the donor and
activist framing strategies and the goals they represent. For example, if one considers
the goals of nongovernmental organizations broadly, in addition to their particular
issue-based goals, NGOs also demand basic civil and political rights, the enforcement
of the rule of law, and the implementation of existing government policies. Perhaps
these broad demands could serve as a vehicle for increasing democratization, but
without the support of local communities for NGO issues and projects, these more
general agendas lack legitimacy and are unlikely to be taken seriously by the Russian
government.
Political Opportunities
Political opportunities are the most difficult factor to specify in the donor-
NGO relationship. In the Western political context, scholars have disaggregated
political opportunities into four categories: the relative openness or closure of the
institutionalized political system; the stability or instability of elite alignments; the
presence or absence of elite allies; and the state's capacity and propensity for
repression (McAdam 1982). When looking at specifically transitional environments,
however, it seems clear that informal political practices are often as significant to
NGO development as formal political structures, especially in a context of political
instability where formal practices are either very new or not fully institutionalized.'7
For most of the 1990s, foreign governments and donors focused their energies
on attempting to ensure the survival of the Yeltsin government and preventing
Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers
economic collapse in Russia. During that period, donors were reluctant to push the
federal government too strongly toward reform. Yet these same state institutions and
laws helped create the domestic opportunity structure that allows NGOs to carry out
their work. Currently in Russia the registration and tax laws generally discourage
social activism throughout the country, although there is some regional variation in
response to local political opportunities. While institutionalized political arenas such
as the legislature or parliament of a transitional government might (technically) be
open to the public, there are very few institutionalized channels for public
participation or NGO access. Federal and regional legislatures are also often not the
site of real political decision-making on some issues. Behind the scenes, elite groups
such as the Russian oligarchs or local political officials hold the power to influence or
even set policy, and yet they remain completely inaccessible to social groups. Major
policy decisions are often made by the executive behind the closed doors of the
Kremlin.     4
Elite alignments are highly unstable, and elite allies are difficult for NGOs to
locate.  Extreme ideological differentiation among elites may linger through the
transition period. For example, it is likely that certain elite groups will oppose
democratization or liberalization and challenge the new "rules of the game,"
advocating instead a return to authoritarian politics. In such a situation, societal
organizations supporting the reform process may feel compelled to ally themselves
with elite factions that nominally are orchestrating the transition, even when there are
other, fairly dramatic, political differences between them. This type of compromise
alliance might endure as long as opponents continue to be a threat, either because they
have significant popular support or because they control certain key economic
resources. Finally, in Russia the state's capacity and propensity for repression is
higher than in typical Western political environments. Particularly threatening to
NGOs is the fact that the Soviet state security and intelligence apparatus was never
dismantled.'9
The political opportunities created by domestic political institutions and actors
are mediated to a certain degree by incentives put in place by Western donors. Note,
however, that foreign aid officials are limited in promoting their NGO model and
donating funds in two significant ways. First, donors are subject to constraints
emerging from their relationship with their own domestic constituencies. As noted in
the resource section, many donors feel pressure to disburse aid quickly and to show
clear results in order to justify their programs to legislatures and taxpayers at home.
They must also address more subtle ideological concerns, such as demonstrating the
superiority and resilience of "Westerp" political and economic institutions. Second,
donors-both government-sponsored and private foundations-are also constrained
by their bilateral relationship with the Russian government.  The transitional
government is able to set limits, both formal and informal, on donor activities, and
discourage support for certain types of NGOs that are perceived as threatening to the
government. Aid is also vulnerable to fluctuations in Russia's relationship to the
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Social Movements, Transnational Actors, and Democratization
West. International conflicts such as the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia or the war in
Chechnya can significantly delay planned aid, or in some cases can shut down donor
programs all together.
Donors are also influenced by varying political opportunities within Russia.
Because they need to show the impact of their programs, they are increasingly
inclined to carry out programs in regions where NGOs are already moderately
successful or the regional government expresses interest in working with NGOs. One
US government donor, admitting that her organization is now more selective about
where it sets up programs, comments that "the greatest determinant I would point to as
to whether regions are receptive or good prospects in terms of technical assistance is
government, local government" (author interview, March 24, 2000).  Local
governments do often passively assist these organizations through "donations" in
kind-often simply ignoring NGOs' use of government infrastructure. For example,
many NGOs use state-owned premises-some with explicit permission, but many
without-to house their offices. These premises, usually institutes and schools, often
include a telephone and basic office equipment. This kind of support is, however,
always very precarious. Some NGO activists, even those dependent on the local
government for offices, are reluctant to engage in more overt cooperation with state
institutions. One Russian observer characterizes NGO attitudes as the following: "to
have state money would be great, so let's have it!.But if they give it they will
impose their full control, including ideology" (Solovyova 1995). Not surprisingly,
then, NGOs are generally reluctant to engage in cooperative relations with the
government, even when explicitly encouraged by donors.
Donors, on the other hand, have attempted to convince federal and regional
governments that NGOs can play a positive role in governance. Some activists
express frustration that donors prematurely encourage them to work through existing
government channels, in spite of significant corruption and the dearth of opportunities
for substantive participation. The risk in cooperating with the government is that it
could result in NGOs inadvertently legitimizing state institutions and legal procedures
that are only nominally democratic. For example, a Vladivostok activist argues that
the mafia's influence and money permeate the local government where her
organization operates. She says her organization has found it difficult to find partners
within the government, noting, "There are lots of different interests within the
government and you can't always guess someone's interests based on their [official]
position." Other environmentalists, when queried about their reluctance to work with
the government, have commented that "laws exist only in theory" and "the President
himself violates the laws." One concludes that the "Russian government blocks
public participation in the decision making process" (Tysiachniouk and McCarthy
1999:8, 14).
The incentives for local environmental NGOs to orient themselves toward
transnational-as opposed to local-actors and issues does seem to make these
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organizations somewhat less political in their own domestic milieu.  Donors
encourage NGOs to cooperate with, but rarely to confront, the government. Many
grants forbid recipients from electioneering, and some discourage direct lobbying on
projects supported by donor funds. Donors also have expressed reluctance to fund
groups that resist the government's "reformist" project and that are interested in overt
protest against the government or civil disobedience. While their avoidance of these
politically sensitive activities is understandable, they may be contributing to the
deradicalization of the environmental movement. Evidence from Western social
movements has shown that disruptive behavior is often correlated with the
achievement of movement goals (Gamson 1975). Dependence on external funding
may therefore cost the movement its radical wing, an extreme element of social
movement mobilization whose presence often drives state elites to negotiate with
more moderate movement forces. As McAdam (1998b) argues, although much may
be gained by becoming a player in routinized politics, an organization simultaneously
loses "the disruptive potential from which it drew most of its effectiveness." He also
expresses concern that by attempting to foster a particular model for NGOs or civil
society as a whole, and "by thoroughly legitimating and institutionalizing protest, the
western democracies will render [the model] increasingly ineffective as a social-
change vehicle" (232-233).
After a decade of aid, it appears that instead of reinforcing cooperative NGO-
government relations in the Russian domestic sphere, donor funding has provided
NGOs with a transnational arena that is an alternative to engaging with domestic
actors. After extensive surveying of activists, two Russian sociologists argue that
Russian environmentalists strategize to escape the infelicitous domestic sphere by
embedding themselves in transnational networks. They do so in order "to have a safe
(stable) resource pool abroad (better in the West or Japan)" and "to disengage as much
as possible from current political battles in Russia" (Kouzmina and Yanitsky
1999:180). As a general strategy, NGO disengagement from domestic political
disputes seems unlikely to further Russian democratization or the development of a
robust civil society.
Conclusion
Although civil society may be poorly understood theoretically, it still serves
as the primary framing device for donors supporting democratization, as shown above.
These predominantly Western transnational actors look not to the actual workings of
their own political systems, but to ideal-types of civil society as portrayed by political
philosophers, above all Tocqueville. According to the simplistic interpretation of
these texts, a healthy dose of civil society will solve almost any social or political ill.20
This ideal of civil society then informs the reality of designing and implementing
"strengthening civil society" projects. Alan Fowler (1997), a scholar studying civil
society promotion in many regions, argues:
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Social Movements, Transnational Actors, and Democratization
The aid system has adopted a 'mirror' view of civil society. In other
words, countries which do not have the types of organisations (sic)
and institutional configurations found in the democratic, market-
based North should be quickly helped to create them, [thereby]
creating the formal structure of civil society as if the roots do not
matter. [211]
In exporting the NGO model, what is lost is attention to civil society's enabling
environment. The idea of civil society has been glamorized to such an extent that it
has obscured both the state's necessary judicial and regulatory contribution to the
development of civil society and the socioeconomic underpinnings of actually existing
civil societies.  Foreign aid to "strengthen  civil society" and "promote
democratization" may lead to the victory of the organizational form over content-
creating organizations that mimic those of advanced democracies but that exist in a
political system that lacks democratic substance. Although this paper has focused on
Russian nongovernmental organizations and Western aid donors, these dangers
doubtless apply to the numerous other resource-poor and transitional political
environments in which donors try to "assist" democratization.
The dilemmas of external funding are clear. On the one hand, Russian NGOs
need aid to continue their activities and foreign funding does help foster a
proliferation of NGOs. On the other hand, external funding brings with it many
perverse consequences. In particular, NGOs may become detached from their
"natural" constituency, or those who would benefit most directly from movement
success. This is problematic since membership support is the basis for NGO
legitimacy and NGOs' claims to represent the wishes of the people to their own
government and to international political institutions. In addition, the unique
pressures faced by foreign aid officials has led to a strategy of trying to encourage the
accelerated development of NGOs and to emphasize "increased capacity."
Unfortunately, this has come at the cost of long-term sustainability. Donors attempt to
develop large, well-established NGOs quickly because they are easier to fund and
require less administrative oversight than multiple smaller funding relationships, yet
these large groups are even less likely than smaller grassroots organizations to be
sustainable without external funding. In their haste to achieve a Western-style third
sector, donors also encourage NGOs to professionalize their organization by following
a particular administrative model that channels funding into staff training and
administration while neglecting the substance of the organizations' activities.
Professionalization also emphasizes conformity with certain business norms,
potentially undermining NGOs' unique capacity for social transformation. Donors
frequently encourage NGOs to develop contracting relations with the government in
order to diversify their resource dependence. However, "contracting" with only
partially transformed states may require NGOs to tacitly accept continuing
authoritarian practices. By promoting the premature adoption of Western-style
institutionalized organizational forms and Western models of NGO-state relations,
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donors are in danger of undermining the very process of social and political
transformation that they hope to promote. The result of Western funding policies may
be an NGO sector that is less able both to solve Russian environmental problems, and
to pressure the Russian government to continue political liberalization.
Ironically, the Russian government has treated even the current moderate
form of environmentalism as contrary to Russia's national interest, and it has used tax
and registration laws and the judicial system to intimidate Russian environmental
NGOs into further limiting their activities. In several cases, including those of Nikitin
and Pasko mentioned earlier, publishers of environmental information have been
arrested for allegedly breaching state security. The government's negative response
has been reinforced by its backlash against independent media. This past spring, the
State Committee for Ecology and the State Forestry Committee were abolished by
presidential decree, and their responsibilities were transferred to the Ministry of
Natural Resources, effectively ending environmental oversight in Russia. Some
Russian environmental NGOs have responded to state repression by turning to
alternate issue areas, such as environmental education. Others have reacted by
broadening their demands and including basic human rights, freedom of association,
freedom of the press, and the right to a fair trial as part of their basic platform.
At this point, it seems that donor funding might be better spent on grassroots
programs of citizen empowerment. One donor from a private foundation argued that
funding for NGO development may be "a little bit like putting the cart before the
horse" when most Russian citizens are not engaged in community activism at even the
most basic level (author interview, May 19, 2000). It might be more productive to
design programs just to encourage more people to participate in civil society at all,
encouraging them to expand their affiliations outside of a small circle of family and
friends. If the definition of environmental priorities is expanded to include local
issues, such as health, cleanliness, and safety, donors could fund projects that are more
relevant to average Russian citizens and empower a broader swathe of the Russian
people to change their lives. These local projects could be centered on decrepit
apartment buildings, neighborhood parks, or polluted lakes and streams. Projects
could be organized through existing institutions, such as schools and libraries, in order
to reach the maximum number of local citizens. This type of project would require
very little funding, an important asset since the citizens who could benefit most from
activist experience are also the least skilled at writing grant applications,
implementing accounting procedures, and writing elaborate reports and evaluations.
This is not to argue that the current programs that fund Russian NGOs are not
worthwhile. While this paper has taken a critical view of donors' efforts to promote
civil society development, many of the positive programs at the community level in
Russia could not have been undertaken without external support. Creating small
social organizations that are internally democratic is a significant contribution to the
development of civil society even if deeper connections with society have not yet been
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achieved. In a setting of political transition, organizing and sustaining these small
pockets of democracy may well set the stage for further democratization. Given no
great upheaval in West-Russian relations and no radical change in Western
(particularly US) policy toward Russia, donors will likely continue to work in Russia
in the near future and further refine their programs. As one donor commented, "We
thought that we would go to Russia, build civil society, declare victory and go home.
But five years later we still haven't declared victory, we're still here, and we're still at
the table."
Notes
An earlier version of this paper ("The Greening of Grassroots Democracy? The
Russian Environmental Movement, Foreign Aid, and Democratization") was
published under the auspices of the Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet
Studies Working Paper Series.
1Over-simplifications that occur within the transition literature include a linear
theory of democratic development and a teleological approach positing a clear end
point to political liberalization.
2See Tocqueville's classic work Democracy in America (1990 (1848)).
Connections between iconic works of political theory and the formation of aid
strategies are often indirect, but donors do occasionally refer to Tocqueville in
interviews.
3 This type of adaptation and influence does not move only from the West to the
South and East. Although Western movements generally are analyzed in isolation in
the social movement literature (for example, a study of the German greens), we are
beginning to see more frequent acknowledgement that non-Western movements have
been dramatically influenced by their counterparts in advanced capitalist states. The
next step, which is not addressed by this project, is to complete that feedback loop and
examine the tactics and framing strategies imported by Western activists.
4The exact number is difficult to capture since many groups are registered but not
currently active, while others operate without registration.
5See McAdam (1992, 1998), McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald (1996), and Guigni,
McAdam, and Tilly (1999).
6'While many of these opportunities and disincentives originate in domestic socio-
economic and political features, in this paper I will focus primarily on the role of aid
donors.
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7Note that in the political process model, the variable "resources" is generally
construed more broadly than mere financial resources. In the interest of brevity and
because financial resources are by far the most visible contribution of donors, my
analysis will be restricted to financial assistance.
8Some observers have referred to this project-based NGO funding strategy as the
"projectization" of civil society and critiqued it for focusing on just one element of
NGO activity. See Sampson 1996.
9This tactic, combined with the fact that many activists retain their professional
affiliations in academic or governmental institutions, can lead to humorous and
confusing encounters, in which several different business cards are offered to the
interviewer and the interviewee responds differently to questions depending on which
group he or she is representing at that time.
l0This official compares the proliferation of NGOs to the large number of
newspapers in Russia, each unable to maintain a financially viable readership, and to
the great number of political parties that do not actually represent society's interests.
She argues that each of these sectors needs to be consolidated to become more viable
in the future.
11"Mne kazhetsia, shto my dostatochno dolgo okazyvali emu podderzhku. Teper'
pora eto otpustit', shtoby on nauchilsia samostoiatel'nosti."
12Thanks to David Gordon, PERC, for bringing this term to my attention.
13Even when financial resources are relatively abundant, a lack of local support
could be crippling for NGOs. As a Russian proverb says, "A hundred friends is better
than a hundred rubles." Certain types of environmental projects, such as publishing
and information gathering, can be carried out without the support of the local
community, but when organizations attempt to mobilize to change local policies, they
often find that their lack of local support and credibility hinders their ability to
publicize their stance and gather supporters.
14Note, however, that some Russian environmentalists have called sustainable
development "a post-capitalist ideology [that] cannot be applied to Russia," and noted
that there is too much similarity between sustainable development and communist
ideology (Tysiachniouk and McCarthy 1999:4).
15 Greenpeace is one of the few exceptions, boasting thousands of members in
Russia, although it is not clear how many of the organizations' members regularly pay
dues.
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'6Nikitin is a former Russian naval officer charged with espionage and the
disclosure of state secrets in connection with a report he wrote on the risks of
radioactive pollution from Russia's Northern Fleet while working for the Norwegian
environmental organization Bellona in 1996. Pasko was charged with treason relating
to articles written for Japanese publications on the state of vessels in the Pacific Fleet
in Vladivostok.
17For more on the importance of informal practices, see Kriesi, et. al. (1995).
While I am not focusing on the Russian domestic political opportunity structure in this
paper, I do not want to downplay the continuing importance of the Russian state. The
nature of the state itself, both its institutions and actors, remains on of the most
important features of the political opportunity structure. The state is the "target,
sponsor, antagonist" of social movements, even during a political transition (Jenkins
and Klandermans 1995). In an effort to facilitate a more nuanced and detailed use of
the POS variable, I also advocate disaggregating state institutions as much as possible.
In other works I attempt to address the degree to which Russia is truly a federal state,
where policy making is carried out, and how it is implemented.
18While a certain degree of instability in elite alignments might work in the favor
of NGOs, generating new opportunities for alliance, Russian political blocs tend to
consolidate during election campaigns, hastily produce a political platform, and then
decline in significance during day to day policy making.
19Alternatively, McAdam (1998a) suggests that the international spotlight may in
fact lead to "the diminution of the established regime's repressive capacity" (258).
This diminution would occur under conditions in which the new democratizing regime
is sensitive in some way to the censure of other states.
20This belief is particularly interesting given that not all elements of civil society
are particularly "civil," notably the mafia, some nationalist organizations, and other
family-based groups. Fowler (1997) argues that "in the short run, strengthening civil
society is as likely to increase social tensions as to reduce them because more voices
are better able to stake their claim to public resources and policies" (8).
Henry
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