AbstractThis contribution is based on a set of reflections presented at the REGov Workshop. These reflections were offered as part of a panel discussion around the topic “Environmental regions in multilevel governance.” Additional presentations provided in the context of this panel discussion include those of Ron Witt, United Nations Environment Programme, and Olivier Graefe, University of Fribourg (this volume). Webcasts of all presentations are available at http://www.reg-observatory.org/outputs.html

Andonova, Liliana B.

Van Deveer, Stacy D.

Elsevier - Publisher Connector 

Regional institutions and the environment in Central and Eastern Europe 

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.03.013
Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 14 (2011) 20–23
Regional Environmental Governance: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Theoretical Issues, 
Comparative Designs (REGov) 
Regional institutions and the environment in Central and Eastern 
Europe
Liliana B. Andonovaa* and Stacy D. VanDeveerb
aGraduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Political Science Unit, PO Box 136, 1211 Geneva 21, Switzerland 
bUniversity of New Hampshire, Department of Political Science, Durham, NH 03824, USA 
Abstract 
This contribution is based on a set of reflections presented at the REGov Workshop. These reflections were offered as part of a
panel discussion around the topic “Environmental regions in multilevel governance.” Additional presentations provided in the 
context of this panel discussion include those of Ron Witt, United Nations Environment Programme, and Olivier Graefe, 
University of Fribourg (this volume). Webcasts of all presentations are available at http://www.reg-observatory.org/outputs.html.
© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 
Keywords: Environmental regionalism; Central and Eastern Europe; LRTAP; Environment for Europe Process; Regional seas; EU accession.
1. Environmental Regionalism in Europe 
The comparative study of regionalism draws on multiple disciplines and subfields, among them comparative 
politics and the emerging subfield of comparative environmental politics, and the rapidly expanding literature on 
multilevel governance (Andonova, 2004; Steinberg & VanDeveer, forthcoming; Selin & VanDeveer, 2009; 
Schreurs, Selin & VanDeveer, 2009).  To begin, one must accept that there are multiple environmental regionalisms 
in Europe – multiple regionalisms and multiple forms of environmental regionalism (Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2010). 
These regionalisms are institutionalized in highly contested political processes, the analysis of which engages power 
and rational interest perspectives as well as norm-based perspectives in the study of politics. In fact, by way of 
example, even the region invoked in the title of the paper – Central and Eastern Europe – is, at the same time, 
situated within a broader conception and set of institutions at the larger “European level” even as it includes 
numerous, geographically smaller but no less contested regionalisms (VanDeveer, 2004). 
Environmental regionalisms in Europe have histories that embed them in larger institutions and discourses.  For 
example, “Europe”, despite how deeply divided politically it was during the Cold War period, had state actors and 
scientific and technical actors that sought to build spaces in which to cooperate. Environmental issues and 
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: liliana.andonova@graduateinstitute.ch. 
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Liliana B. Andonova and Stacy D. VanDeveer. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 14 (2011) 20–23 21
challenges emerged as one such space for cooperation by the late 1950, as illustrated by the founding and 
construction of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. We see, over the course 
of the Cold War period, the creation of ‘safe spaces’ for East-West cooperation around environmental issues such as 
acid rain and other long-range transboundary air pollution concerns and/or the efforts to reduce pollution inputs into 
the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas (Haas, 1989; Levy, 1995; VanDeveer, 2000). Such “regional commons” – air 
sheds and watersheds – framed politically acceptable environmental cooperation during this period. The arrival of 
the 1990s democratization and Europeanization processes across much of Europe, particularly with reference to 
Central and Eastern Europe, witnessed the regular framing of regional environmental cooperation in these terms 
(Andonova, 2005).  That is, regional environmental cooperation was put into service for democratization and 
Europeanization goals, and it has benefited tremendously from these overarching political, economic and social 
processes. 
Over the course of the last five-plus decades, Europe has come to play host to an extremely dense set of interstate 
and transnational environmental institutions, which together serve to internationalize and Europeanize states and 
societies across Central and Eastern Europe.  In fact, the environmental content of CEE environmental policies, 
implementation efforts and discourses have all been substantially impacted by this dense institutionalization 
(Andonova, 2004, 2006; Carmin & VanDeveer, 2005).  Our research posits three mechanisms of international 
influence within this densely institutionalized set of regional cooperation arrangements: normative action and 
knowledge diffusion; regulatory commitments; and capacity building programs (Andonova & VanDeveer, 
forthcoming).  These mechanisms of influence are explored via analysis of four cases of regionally framed 
environmental cooperation:  the Conventional on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) and its 
associated agreements and programs; the Environment for Europe process; regional seas cooperation regimes; and 
the EU Accession process.  All four cases have been the subject of substantial scholarly literatures and several years 
of research by the authors. 
2. Four Cases of European Environmental Regionalism 
The four cases discussed briefly here – LRTAP, the Environment for Europe Process, regional seas cooperation 
and EU accession – illustrate the multilayered regionalisms at work in Europe. LRTAP cooperation was launched 
during the Cold War in the late 1970s.  By this time, extensive discussions of air and water pollution challenges had 
been ongoing in Western countries (and some others) for several years.  However, the notion that such pollution 
traveled long distances and damaged environments far from its sources was relatively new, contested and not yet 
well demonstrated.  The challenge, therefore, for countries such as those in Scandinavia, was to define and construct 
regionally framed scientific and technical research and regional policymaking cooperation.  As such, EMEP was 
founded to gather and assess standard air pollution data across European countries and the United National 
Economic Commission for Europe was chosen as an institutional home for cooperation between scientists and state 
actors from across the East-West divide.  In fact, UNECE was chosen precisely because it was among the few 
intergovernmental organizations in Europe that included wide membership across Cold War competitors. Regionally 
framed scientific and technical research helped to establish that air pollution does, indeed, travel long distances, 
across borders and cause ecological, physical and human harm where it is deposited. Early researchers created 
“blame matrices” – tables and charts listing how much of particular pollutants each country exported (and to whom) 
and how much (and from whom) each country imported emissions. Such work, and the policy discussions around it, 
helped to construct and frame regional (European) air pollution, as well as to justify further research and political 
action.  As scientific and technical research and policymaking developed together within LRTAP, blame matrices 
were left to history and critical loads mapping and differing risks and damage from transboundary pollution came to 
dominate discussions. The ratcheting up of regional air pollution regulation under LRTAP involved a complex 
interplay of regional influence on both domestic politics and international collaboration (Andonova 2004 and 2006; 
Levy 1995; Wettestad 2002) 
 In contrast to LRTAP, the Environment for Europe process was launched at the end of the Cold War era, upon 
the initiative of the Czechoslovak environment minister in the newly democratic, post communist Central and 
Eastern Europe.  In this instance, an initiative to address regionally shared environmental challenges was framed 
22  Liliana B. Andonova and Stacy D. VanDeveer. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 14 (2011) 20–23
explicitly in democractization terms – that environmental protection requires democracy, access to information and 
democratic participation within civil society (Andonova 2005). The Environment for Europe process brought 
together state and civil society actors from across Europe, attempting to energize democratic governance even as it 
is pushed for planning and action to engender environmental protection. This process helped to justify the creation 
of the European Environmental Agency (EEA) and the Arhus Convention on access to information.  
Two other forums of regional cooperation which illustrate the multiple environmental regionalisms at work in 
Europe included a set of regional seas cooperation arrangements, such as those around the Baltic and Mediterranean 
seas (cooperation that began in earnest in the 1970s) and the process of EU accession from the 1990s to the 2004 
and 2007 enlargements of the EU.  Regional seas cooperation, like LRTAP, demonstrates that changes in discursive 
framing can occur over time and that constructing basic institutions for scientific and for policy cooperation are 
justified by constructing regionality (VanDeveer, 2004). For example, Baltic cooperation was heavily technocratic 
from the 1970s through the 1990s, carefully building consensus among Baltic States on very narrowly framed joint, 
highly technical guidelines for policy. Since the early 1990s, however, much more expansive cooperation has 
occurred, including renegotiations of a regional treaty and the inclusion of more civil society actors, more local 
government actors and a broader set of issues including sustainable development and historical protection and 
shared regional heritage under the umbrella of regional environmental protection.  Furthermore, Baltic cooperation 
has become, in part, a vehicle for the implementation of EU policies among the Baltic sea states which are also EU 
members (all but Russia, in fact) (Selin & VanDeveer, 2004). 
As the process of the accession of the Central and East European countries to the EU accelerated, much more of 
the regional political activity was premised on harmonizing the environmental policies of candidate states with those 
of the EU (Andonova 2004).  Of particular importance here, were a plethora of programs designed to enhance state 
and civil society sector capacity to translate, understand, enact and implement EU policies in the post-communist 
states in the region. The accession process also involved an extensive, iterated review of harmonization and 
implementation progress around the Baltic and larger CEE region, some of which reveals that newer member states 
increasingly face a set of environmental governance challenges similar to those faced by older EU member states 
(Carmin & VanDeveer, 2005). 
3. Multiple European Environmental Regionalisms 
In closing, it is clear that multiple environmental regionalisms exist in Europe and that a dense, multilayered 
regional institutionalization of environmental science and policymaking institutions has developed over time. This 
dense institutionalization, and the many mechanisms of transnational influence that are embedded in it, have had 
significant impacts on the environmental content of state policies, organizational structures and societal debates 
across CEE. The four fora discussed briefly here illustrate that European regional environmental cooperation is both 
a product and a producer of regionality – in scientific research and policymaking and political cooperation.  Yet, a 
final caution remains in these discussions of complex, multilayered regionalisms across Europe.  Namely, that 
regional politics remains highly contested and that, despite significant transnational influence, much local, 
state/national and regional level difference remains.  Our focus on the “regional” cannot be mistaken for a claim of 
consistent or symmetrical institutional or policy convergence in each region, or across regions.   
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