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In the countries under discussion in this symposium, the path to EU-membership is no longer topical, and the transformative power of "Europe" is no longer the dominant determinant of environmental policy and governance. Published not long after the 2004 and 2007 accessions, that volume focused on how environmental activism in the post-socialist states had been regulated and configured first by the "transition" from communism to liberal democracy, and then by the stipulations and choreography of the EU accession process. Impaling Dracula: how EU accession empowered civil society in Romania. Their actor-centred perspective highlights the importance of the strategic capacity of movement actors and contradicts those assumptions made in the Europeanization literature that overemphasized how EU accession and membership shapes social movements. [Extracted from the article]

How have environmental movements and organisations evolved in the two decades since the end of state socialism? Focusing upon how the impact of external forces, the core debates concern how changing political opportunities and access to resources as a consequence of European Union accession have impacted on environmental NGOs, as well as the effects more generally of contentious transnational assistance and tutelage offered to local activist networks by US and west European donors. Theoretical and conceptual debates regarding dependency and co-option, versus channelling and new governance, are examined. Have environmental actors and movements in these transitional states and new democracies aligned with the trajectory predicted by scholars 20 years ago? To what extent have longstanding environmental values, modes of political engagement and submerged networks buffered and even transmuted the impact? Why, and to what extent, do the movements and organisations of the region retain a distinctive character and profile? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational aid and assistance for the environment and civil society development is underscored by assumptions that the transfer of expertise and technical assistance will ultimately make environmental movements in new democracies more like their Northern counterparts. However, recent research on green movements across post-socialist Europe has called into question the extent to which environmental non-governmental organisations in receipt of donor aid are actually on course to replicating west European modes of political interaction and civil society engagement. From the perspective of environmental politics in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article further challenges the embedded assumptions about the impact of transnational donor assistance and, through empirical analysis, asserts that structural contexts continue to exert a profound impact on movement behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to a growing literature critiquing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as civil society in post-communist Europe. From the perspective of the Czech environmental movement, although over a decade of foreign assistance and know-how transfer has resulted in a tier of professional NGOs that have obtained political influence at the elite level, these organizations have made little progress in rooting themselves in society at large. This gives rise to the claim that what exists today are NGOs without civil society. It is argued that, in light of the withdrawal of large American donors since May 2004 and EU accession, NGOs need to make links with the enmeshed community-based organizations that have emerged in recent years and focus much more on fund-raising and developing sustainable strategies for their future development. Fifteen years after communism collapsed, it is time to take stock of what has evolved under the banner of civil society, particularly in a state where the concept has been fiercely debated. At a theoretical level, it is argued that, in order to assess the capacity of NGOs to fulfil the democratic functions of civil society, we need first to acknowledge the ideological rationale that has dictated their development. It is only by returning to a more normative understanding of the concept of civil society that we gain a critical insight into the apparent disconnection between NGOs and society and their limited capacity to mobilize popular support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Challenges the depiction of generalized trends within the Czech environmental movement by considering the extent to which professionalism and 'Europeanization' have become endemic features of environmental movement organizations (EMO). Types of EMO; Factors that have influenced the theory and practice of environmental politics in the Czech Republic; Analysis of the evolution of environmental movement in the Czech Republic; Discussion on the political role, function and strategies of EMO; Problems associated with the application of the political process approach to the study of EMO activity.