Environmental Decision-making in the Pskov Region of the Russian Federation

Abstract: The break-up of the Soviet Union handed down the Russian Federation a number of Soviet environmental legacies ranging from contaminated areas to the old bureaucratic procedures and outdated practices. In the post-Soviet years of transition to a free-market economy Russia began to face increasingly acute tension between environmental security and economic development, and the state’s ability to effectively pursue environmental policies deteriorated. Current environmental policy-makers are faced with a multitude of challenges that range from complicated environmental systems to the inconsistent legislative framework and resource deficiencies. Although researchers have paid some attention to these problems, environmental decision-making remains a poorly illuminated area and constitutes a theoretically challenging problem. This paper addresses the regional environmental decision-making process in the Russian Federation. Using the Pskov region on the border with Byelorussia and the two future EU members Estonia and Latvia as a case study, this paper seeks to supply a better understanding of how environmental decisions are made on the regional and local levels with a special focus on constraints affecting environmental policy-making. The study attempts to explain the environmental decision-making process in light of the two competing theories of decision- making, incrementalism and the bureaucratic politics model. It is primarily based on interviews made in the Pskov region in the autumn of 2002.