Externally sponsored contention: the channelling of environmental movement organisations in the Czech Republic after the fall of Communism

Abstract

From an examination of the impact of international civil-society-building programmes on Czech environmental movement organisations (EMOs), it is clear that international influence left a deep imprint on eastern European civil societies. It did not however curb opportunities for environmental political activism, as supposed by an important part of the traditional scholarship, but instead helped create a particular form of activism based on advocacy organisations capable of staging political protest when necessary. While international donors have clearly channelled activist organisations towards professionalisation, this process has not necessarily been accompanied by de-politicisation and de-radicalisation of activist organisations. In fact, drawing on quantitative as well as qualitative data, employing protest event analysis and the small-N comparative method, it appears that activists dependent on foreign funding have often displayed a more assertive stance in political conflicts than their domestically embedded counterparts.

Keywords:

• environmental movement
• Czech Republic
• international assistance
• political activism
• cooptation
• channelling

Notes

 1. This work has been prepared as part of the research project Political Parties and Representation of Interests in Contemporary European Democracies funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Republic (code MSM0021622407).

 2. Patronage describes ‘the bestowal of resources upon an SMO by an individual or an organisation that often specialises in patronage … Government contracts, foundation grants, and large private donations are the most common forms of financial patronage …’ (Edwards and McCarthy 2004, p. 135).

 3. Interview with the director of the Greenpeace European Unit, Brussels, 19 July 2006.

 4. Further details of the methodology applied is available from the author.

 5. Self-organisation is based on ‘individual’ organisational effort, i.e. protest in this category is not sponsored by any formal organisation or informal group.

 6. This considerable proportion of environmental claims expressed by self-organisations seems to reflect the strategy of localisation as identified by Sarre and Jehlička (2007: p. 354), and even the process of collaboration between local protestors and national EMOs analysed in the same paper. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this to me.

 7. In this, the Czech experience was not extraordinary by western European standards. As Rootes (2003) and his collaborators found, during the 1990s – the decade in which the consolidation of western European environmentalism occurred – there was no monotonic decline in environmental protest.

 8. Why a small-N comparative study? As regards funding, there is not enough variation within the sector of environmental activism in the Czech Republic, with only one advocacy organisation independent of external funding. Therefore, a small-N comparative study proves to be a better option than statistical analysis in demonstrating the effects funding has had on local EMOs.

 9. Greenpeace received 82% of its funding from individual contributions in 2002. The same year, 75% of RM's revenues were covered by external grants (Greenpeace 2003, RM 2003). Although RM has managed to increase the proportion of individual contributions since that time, external patronage still continues to play a dominant role in its budget (61% in 2008; see RM 2009). Greenpeace was able to generate 92% of its revenues from individuals in 2007 (Greenpeace 2008).

10. Interview with the director of Greenpeace Czech Republic, Prague, 9 May 2006.

11. Interview with the campaign coordinator, Brno, 14 December 2001.

12. The first decision in favour of completing the plant was made as early as 1993.

13. Interview with the director of Greenpeace Czech Republic, Prague, 9 May 2006.

14. Similar to RM's situation and the Temelín case, the provision of funding and agenda setting by international donors freed certain human rights organisations from the need to abide by the prevailing consensus within the country. For example, the Counselling Centre for Citizenship, Civil and Human Rights organisation was, through dependency on foreign donors, able to employ strategies that directly challenged the discriminatory practices and attitudes of the majority population regarding the Roma minority. In general, international dependency has not translated into moderation by the human rights organisations. Instead, the opposite trend has defined the development of the human rights sector since the end of the 1990s (Císař 2008).

15. Interview with the director of RM, Brno, 17 March 2006.

16. Interview with the director of the Greenpeace European Unit, Brussels, 19 July 2006.