The Shift of Environmental Debates in Russia

Abstract

This article presents the results of long-term research aimed at identifying the major trends in environmental debates conditioned by Russian reforms and by the changing geopolitical situation of the Russian nation-state. The main topics of the article are changes in the very subject of these debates, the actors involved, the political opportunity structure of the debates and the character of the languages used by their participants. Four major shifts have been identified and analysed: first, from long-term to short-term issues; second, from nationwide to ‘insular’ debates conditioned by the division of Russians into those who live in time and in space; third, from value-centred to economically oriented; and fourth, from humanistic to social-technological. Epistemologically, these shifts indicate a process of transition from instructive to discursive production of scientific knowledge that should take into account local knowledge; in terms of sociology of social knowledge, this means a change in the relationships between science and publics that have acquired a right to speak; in cultural terms, it marks a shift from scientific to cultural rationality; and in institutional and organizational terms, it means a shift from debates in big national public arenas to issue-centred bargaining in which official and citizen experts compete.