Two tales of Kushtau Hill movement: ethnic environmental mobilisation and perceived costs of neopatrimonialism

Two tales of Kushtau Hill movement: ethnic environmental mobilisation and perceived costs of neopatrimonialism



Article received: 2022.04.17. Accepted: 2023.10.20


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2024.03.11
EDN: BDRLHY

Rubric: Russia today

For citation:

Snarski Ya.A. Two tales of Kushtau Hill movement: ethnic environmental mobilisation and perceived costs of neopatrimonialism. – Polis. Political Studies. 2024. No. 3. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2024.03.11. EDN: BDRLHY (In Russ.)


The study was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation No. 23-18-00661, https:// rscf.ru/project/23-18-00661/ “Regional and ethnic identities as a factor of grassroots politicization and the formation of environmental culture: cross-regional analysis of value attitudes and behavior strategies”.


Abstract

In recent years the number of environmental protests in Russian regions has been on the rise, despite the shrinking political opportunity structure. In the Bashkortostan republic, the Bashkir Soda Company's (BSC) decision to develop the Kushtau Hill for soda ash provoked an environmental campaign to save the mountain. The Kushtau Hill movement succeeded, despite the highly repressive response from regional government and its tight patrimonial link to the BSC - two conditions identified in the literature as unfavorable to protesters. How is environmental discontent successfully mobilised under a repressive government and embedded extractive practices? Drawing on semi-structured interviews with activists, I trace two interlinked pathways to successful mobilisation. The first one testifies to the role played by national organisations in sustaining environmental collective action. Under a shrinking opportunity structure for formal ENGOs, the Bashkir national organisation “Bashkort” provided the emerging movement with its experience of informal organisation. Its leadership successfully linked ethnic grievances to environmental mobilisation by claiming the Bashkirs' special relation to the mountain. However, ethnic and neighbour ties did not prevent a repressive response from the regional government due to a limited scale of the mobilisation. The second story deals with framing processes that expand the scope of potential supporters beyond particularistic ties. Protesters highlighted the perceived costs of neopatrimonialism to justify their demands. This framing put the republic head as a scapegoat who secured interests of the federal centre and BSC, compromising the residents' ecological well-being. Therefore, Kushtau Hill activists attracted new members, not putting themselves into danger of being perceived as extremists that targeted a regime-dimension.

Keywords
environmental protest, neopatrimonialism, Bashkortostan, environmental mobilisation, national organisations, framing.


References

Benford, R.D., & Snow, D.A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: an overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611-639. https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV.SOC.26.1.611

Chen, X., & Moss, D.M. (2019). Authoritarian regimes and social movements. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (pp. 666-681). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119168577.CH38

Clardie, J. (2022). Protests in Russia's regions: the influence of regional governance. Social Science Quarterly, 103(1), 5-17. https://doi.org/10.1111/SSQU.13119

Clement, K., & Zhelnina, A. (2020). Beyond loyalty and dissent: pragmatic everyday politics in contemporary Russia. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 33(2), 143-162. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10767-019-9319-0/METRICS

Conversi, D. (2020). The ultimate challenge: nationalism and climate change. Nationalities Papers, 48(4), 625-636. https://doi.org/10.1017/NPS.2020.18

Demchuk, A.L., Misid, M., Obydenkova, A., & Tosun, J. (2021). Environmental conflict management: a comparative cross-cultural perspective of China and Russia. Post-Communist Economies, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631377.2021.1943915

Evans, A.D. (2016). Protest patterns in provincial Russia: a paired comparison of company towns. Studies in Comparative International Development, 51(4), 456-481. https://doi.org/10.1007/S12116-015-9191-5/METRICS

Fails, M.D. (2020). Oil income and the personalization of autocratic politics. Political Science Research and Methods, 8(4), 772-779. https://doi.org/10.1017/PSRM.2019.14

Gel'man, V. (2015). The vicious circle of post-Soviet neopatrimonialism in Russia. Post-Soviet Affairs, 32(5), 455-473. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2015.1071014

Gobel, C. (2020). The political logic of protest repression in China. Journal of Contemporary China, 30(128), 169-185. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2020.1790897

Gorbacheva, K.I. (2020). Manipulations of public consciousness in the environmental conflict on Kushtau. Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia, 59(3-4), 177-199. https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2020.2139535

Guliyev, F. (2011). Personal rule, neopatrimonialism, and regime typologies: integrating Dahlian and Weberian approaches to regime studies. Democratization, 18(3), 575-601. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2011.563115

Haber, S., & Menaldo, V. (2011). Do natural resources fuel authoritarianism? A reappraisal of the resource curse. American Political Science Review, 105(1), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055410000584

Hale, H.E. (2019). How should we now conceptualize protest, diffusion, and regime change? Journal of Conflict Resolution, 63(10), 2402-2415. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002719862427

Helmke, G., & Levitsky, S. (2004). Informal institutions and comparative politics: a research agenda. Perspectives on Politics, 2(4), 725-740. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592704040472

Henry, L.A. (2023). The comparative politics of environmental activism in Russia: strategic adaptation to authoritarianism. In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780197515037.013.8

Kuzmina, Y. (2022). “The Defenders of Shiyes”: traditionalism as a mobilisation resource in a Russian protest camp. East European Politics, 39(2), 260-280. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2022.2092842

Martus, E. (2021). Policymaking and policy framing: Russian environmental politics under Putin. Europe- Asia Studies, 73(5), 869-889. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2020.1865275

McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of contention. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805431

McCarthy, J.D., & Zald, M.N. (1977). Resource mobilization and social movements: a partial theory. American Journal of Sociology, 82(6), 1212-1241. https://doi.org/10.1086/226464

Middeldorp, N., & Le Billon, P. (2019). Deadly environmental governance: authoritarianism, ecopopulism, and the repression of environmental and land defenders. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 109(2), 324-337. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2018.1530586

Moldalieva, J., & Heathershaw, J. (2020). Playing the “game” of transparency and accountability: nonelite politics in Kyrgyzstan's natural resource governance. Post-Soviet Affairs, 36(2), 171-187. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2020.1721213

Morris, J., Semenov, A., & Smyth, R. (Ed.). (2023). Varieties of Russian activism: state-society contestation in everyday life. Indiana University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv37scft2

Oberschall, A. (1973). Social conflict and social movements. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Ozen, H., & Dogu, B. (2020). Mobilizing in a hybrid political system: the Artvin case in Turkey. Democratization, 27(4), 624-642. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2019.1711372

Plantan, E. (2018). Mass mobilization in China and Russia: from unexpected victories to unintended consequences. Russian Politics, 3(4), 513-547. https://doi.org/10.1163/2451-8921-00304004

Robertson, G.B. (2011). The politics of protest in hybrid regimes: managing dissent in post-communist Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511921209

Ross, M.L. (2015). What have we learned about the resource curse? Annual Review of Political Science, 18, 239-259. https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV-POLISCI-052213-040359

Shkel, S. (2019). Bastions of tradition: the ethnic factor and political machines in Russian regions. Russian Politics, 4(1), 76-111. https://doi.org/10.1163/2451-8921-00401004

Smyth, R. (2020). Explaining urban protest in illiberal regimes: an emphasis on Russia. APSA-CP Newsletter, XXX(1), 84.

Snow, D.A., & Benford, R.D. (1988). Ideology, frame resonance, and participant mobilization. International Social Movement Research, 1(1), 197-217.

Sun, X., & Huang, R. (2018). Spatial meaning-making and urban activism: two tales of anti-PX protests in urban China. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42(2), 257-277. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2018.1443010

Szakonyi, D. (2020). Politics for profit: business, elections, and policymaking in Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tarrow, S.G. (1996). States and opportunities: the political structuring of social movements. In McAdam, D., McCarthy, J.D., & Zald, M.N. (Ed.). Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (pp. 41-61). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tertytchnaya, K. (2023). ‘This rally is not authorized': preventive repression and public opinion in electoral autocracies. World Politics, 75(3), 482-522.

Tulaeva, S.A., Tysiachniouk, M.S., Henry, L.A., & Horowitz, L.S. (2019). Globalizing extraction and indigenous rights in the Russian Arctic: the enduring role of the state in natural resource governance. Resources, 8(4), 179. https://doi.org/10.3390/RESOURCES8040179

Tysiachniouk, M.S., Tulaeva, S.A., Kotilainen, J., & Henry, L.A. (2023). Liberal spaces in an illiberal regime: environmental NGOs, state sovereignty and the struggle for nature. Territory, Politics, Governance. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2023.2186942

Wang, Y., & Wong, S.H.W. (2021). Electoral impacts of a failed uprising: evidence from Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement. Electoral Studies, 71, 102336. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ELECTSTUD.2021.102336

Wooden, A.E. (2013). Another way of saying enough: environmental concern and popular mobilization in Kyrgyzstan. Post-Soviet Affairs, 29(4), 314-353. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2013.797165

Wu, F., & Martus, E. (2020). Contested environmentalism: the politics of waste in China and Russia. Environmental Politics, 30(4), 493-512. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2020.1816367

Young, S. (2019). Social movements in Cambodia: why they succeed or fail. Journal of International Relations and Development, 23(4), 899-923. https://doi.org/10.1057/S41268-019-00175-7

Young, S. (2021). Strategies of authoritarian survival and dissensus in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6112-6

Yusupova, G. (2018). Cultural nationalism and everyday resistance in an illiberal nationalising state: ethnic minority nationalism in Russia. Nations and Nationalism, 24(3), 624-647. https://doi.org/10.1111/ NANA.12366


Scherbak, A.N., Zubarev, N.S., & Semushkina, E S. (2024). 'Green guardians': Russian conservatives' views on solutions to environmental problems. Universe of Russia, 33(1), 84-114. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17323/1811-038X-2024-33-1-84-114

Semenov, A.V., Snarski, Ya.A., & Tkacheva, T.Yu. (2024). Temporal and cross-regional variation in environmental protest activity of Russians (2007-2021). Sociological Studies, 2, 62-74. (In Russ.)

Tulaeva, S., & Snarski, Ya. (2022). Green nationalism in a resource-based state: environmental agenda and national identity in Russian region. Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research, 14(3), 4-33. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.25285/2078-1938-2022-14-3-4-33

 

Content No. 3, 2024

See also:


Sukhanov V.M.,
Bashkortostan: The problems of Identity in a Multi-Cultural Region. – Polis. Political Studies. 2008. No4

Round Table of the «Polis» Journal, Gaman-Golutvina O.V., Avdonin V.S., Sergeyev S.A., Chernikova V.V., Sidenko O.A., Sokolov A.V., Evdokimov N.A., Tupaev A.V., Slatinov V.B., Zhukov I.K., Kozlova N.N., Rassadin S.V., Chugrov S.V.,
Regional political processes: how «subjective» are subjects of the RF. – Polis. Political Studies. 2013. No5

Selivanov A.I.,
Bashkortostan - Terra Incognita on the Political Map of Russia. – Polis. Political Studies. 1995. No6

Kulpin E.S.,
The Contemporary Global Ecological Crisis and Russia. – Polis. Political Studies. 1997. No1

Goncharov D.V.,
Political Mobilization. – Polis. Political Studies. 1995. No6


Screen version