Another way of saying enough: environmental concern and popular mobilization in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

This article is a foray into the understudied issue of environmental protest politics in Central Asia. Specifically, it uses Kyrgyzstan as a case study to test the argument that environmental concerns mobilized people to engage in protest and in ways different from other kinds of protest. This essay presents the first systematic study of public opinion about the environment in Kyrgyzstan. It includes results from a 2009 nationwide survey, over 100 expert and elite interviews, and newspaper content analysis. Furthermore, it spatially analyzes these results to identify geographical variation in public perception and political event occurrence patterns. Protest engagement is a complex process determined by the interaction of several factors, and is not explained solely by affluence, rationality, or grievances. Eco-mobilization – collective political action about the environment – represents a class of protest events that offers a different view into mass discontent in the former Soviet Union and neo-patrimonial societies. The study finds that these political actions about the environment are not necessarily elite driven; there is a basic foundation of national concern and salience of these issues, and demonstrated environmental beliefs do help to explain protest behavior.

Keywords:

• Kyrgyzstan
• Central Asia
• former Soviet Union
• environmental behavior
• public opinion
• protest
• gold mining
• water resources

Acknowledgements

This research was graciously funded by the 2009 ACTR/ACCELS Special Initiatives Fellowship and Bucknell University. The author especially thanks Sarah Beckham Hooff for her interview work for this article, Nurshat Ababakirov, Morgane Treanton, Reilly Price, and Ulan Sherimbekov for research assistance, and Janine Glather, Chad Lawlis, and Max Stiss for their GIS assistance. My appreciation goes to Regine Spector and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for the invitation to present this work. Thanks to Eric McGlinchey, Laura Henry, John Enyeart, panelists at the International Studies Association 2011 conference, panelists at the Central Eurasian Studies Society 2009 conference, George Breslauer, and the anonymous post-Soviet Affairs reviewers for their helpful comments and critiques. Most importantly, my sincere appreciation to all survey and interview participants who generously shared their time for this research.

Notes

^1. A neo-patrimonial state is an industrial society in which patronage politics dominates at every level of government (see Remmer 1989, 165; McGlinchey 2011, 2). For more on patronage in Kyrgyzstan, see Huskey and Iskakova (2010).

^2. I use Klandermans and Oegena's (1987) general concept of “mobilization potential” applied to environmental activism in neo-patrimonial states, and focus on “non-activist public-sphere behaviors” (Zald 1992; Stern 2000). Thus, I seek to explain high-risk, nonactivist environmental mobilization potential, which I call eco-mobilizeability.

^3. Of course, individual-level analysis does not provide a complete picture of community-level environmental activism, a group activity by definition. However, an evaluation of activism – and the way activists, political entrepreneurs, or elites organize communities – must begin with a baseline understanding of public interest.

^4. For a study contrasting protests and elections as primary forms of popular challenge to authoritarian rule, see Koesel and Bunce (2012).

^5. In March 2002, six protesters – among those gathering in Aksy, Jalalabad province in support of the arrested politician, Azimbek Beknazarov – were killed when interior police forces opened fire. This use of violence in the “Aksy events” stoked dissent and provided a key starting point for a period of “protest politics” in Kyrgyzstan, which saw a steady rise in popular movements and oppositional activity.

^6. Radnitz captures the role of social networks, both horizontal between elites and vertical from elites to the masses, in creating the conditions for mass unrest.

^7. Atambayev has since been elected president of Kyrgyzstan, and took office in 2012.

^8. For example, “Some Kyrgyz experts tend to see controversies surrounding the Jerooy project as a clash of vested interests among government officials. Accordingly, local residents are used in showdowns between competing parties” (Marat 2007). And on a more recent gold mining protest:

“Apparent expressions of public anger may instead be shakedowns by local elites and criminals or connected to political competition, all of which seemed to be the case in Talas, or efforts by national elites to seize control of assets at the behest of the public” (Hamm 2012).

Similar views have been expressed by several Kyrgyzstan experts in international organizations, the US government, and the academic community (e.g., author interviews, Washington, DC, June–July 2007).

^9. Research assistant Sarah Beckham Hoof's interview with a gold-mining company geologist, 27 July 2011, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

^10. Research assistant Sarah Beckham Hoof's interviews with a government commission member, 22 July 2011, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and with a civil society representative, 27 July 2011, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

^11. See also the CEE Bankwatch Network reports on the Kumtor gold mine at http://www.bankwatch.org/our-work/projects/kumtor-gold-mine-kyrgyzstan

^12. These data were collected from the online or electronic versions of 13 newspapers and news sources: five Russian-language Kyrgyzstani newspapers, one Kyrgyz-language Kyrgyzstani paper, and seven English-language international papers and newspaper collections. Those sources are AkiPress (English and Russian versions), Azattyk (Kyrgyz and Russian versions), Central Asian Caucasus Institute, Eurasia Daily Monitor, Eurasianet, International War and Peace Reporting, Major World Newspapers collection, Times of Central Asia, Ferghana.Ru (Russian), MSN (Russian), and 24 kg (Russian). These news sources were collected for two of three periods: 1 December 2003–23 March 2005, the 1.5 years “before” the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan; 24 March 2005–1 December 2007, the 1.5 years “after” the “ Tulip Revolution”; and “recent,” since 1 December 2007. The search was first conducted for the word “protest,” and those containing this word were subsequently searched for environmental terms. Four assistants (two English-language, two Russian-, and Kyrgyz-language) independently searched and coded the newspapers that contained any of the environmental keywords from the definitional codebook the author constructed.

^13. According to Robertson (2011), 1% of Russian protest demands were environmental/NIMBY, and 5% of all demands other than payment of legal obligations were environmental, from 1997 to 2000 (from MVD records of strikes by region). Of all strike participants, 8.7% were categorized as local grassroots or environmental groups, 31% if workers are excluded. Of worker protests, 25% were from the mining sector: “… the prominence of local or environmental groups does suggest some grounds for optimism that by 1997–2000, grassroots political activism was beginning to take root in Russia” (Robertson 2011, 56).

^14. “It is only when elite with political ambitions or the capacity to challenge the regime make communities part of their arsenal of defense that ordinary people, through their everyday social networks, may become involved in extraordinary events” (Radnitz 2010, 52).

^15. “[S]pontaneous, bottom-up or wildcat-style protests do occur, but they tend to be one-off events that are rarely coordinated over time and space”(Robertson 2011, 2).

^16. It is possible that the absence of protest events for some serious environmental issues in Kyrgyzstan is due to failure of environmental organizations to organize, the limited capacity of environmental organization leaders in particular locations, or an absence of effective issue “framing” by political entrepreneurs. Evaluating the strength and limitations of environmental civil society is beyond the scope of this paper. See Kuchukeeva and O'Loughlin (2003) for an evaluation of nongovernmental organizations in Kyrgyzstan.

^17. Javeline (2003a, 2003b), Lichbach (1995) and other political scientists argue that some of the individuals more likely to protest are those who most easily attribute blame. But also these scholars argue that it is group leaders, or “political entrepreneurs,” who frame and attribute blame effectively, and then mobilize others to join in the blaming process.

^18. The theories tested include moral norm-activation model, value-basis or value-belief-norm model, theory of reasoned action, salience hypothesis, and actively caring hypothesis. In terms of divided preferences, for example, Sagoff (1998) argues that individuals act as both consumers and citizens behaving as “political beings guided by the image of a good society.”

^19. From March to July 2009, June to July 2010, and July 2011.

^20. A variety of quality control measures were used by me and the polling agency employed – SIAR Bishkek – including a pilot study conducted in Bishkek allowing for adjustment of the survey; phoning a random sample of respondents to verify answers to selected questions; and surveying of interviewers after completion of their interviewing work to verify consistency in understanding and implementing the surveys.

^21. The surveys from which some questions were replicated or adapted are Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2007; Gallup Voice of People 2007; Yale/Gallup/Clear Vision 2007; American Opinions on Global Warming Gallup World Poll 2008; Gallup World Poll 2007; Olds/IFES_KG 1996; Faranda and Nolle 2011; Javeline 2003a; Flash Biodiversity Eurobarometer; USAID 07-06; DEFRA “Environment in Eurobarometer, 07-08, Your Pocket,” Eurobarometer 2008; and Public Opinion Foundation 2001 Russia 2007 Eco Poll (http://www.bd.english/fom.ru/report/map/d073221).

^22. The elite and experts interviewed can be assigned to five groups: local and national officials, environmental NGO leaders, academics, environmental journalists, and business leaders. The goal, mostly attained, was to interview representatives of each of these groups at the national, provincial, and local levels (city, town, and village) in each of the country's seven provinces and in environmental “hot-spot” communities. Business leaders were those in sectors directly affecting the environment or those recognized as environmentally aware. Questionnaires for each of the elite–expert groups – with questions parallel or comparable to the national public survey – included qualitative (open-ended) questions targeted for each group.

^23. The six multivariate model results shown include at most one variable measuring the concept listed in the theoretical model, in order to avoid multicollinearity. Diagnostics were conducted to assure this, including evaluation of bivariate correlation. All explanatory variables included in any single model are not more than weakly correlated, that is, not above 0.40.

^24. Interestingly for future analysis of exit versus voice expressed in responses, Table A4 shows the large percentage of respondents who have lived or worked abroad recently – 14.87%.

^25. Of the participants, 90.6% did not attend or participate in any political gatherings, rallies, demonstrations, protests, or strikes; 0.53% did not answer/did not know.

^26. Interestingly, the first time a similar question about environmental protests was asked, 2% fewer respondents responded in the affirmative, that is, when asked a second time (to check for consistency and discourage underreporting) if respondents had participated in environmental protests, more answered that they did. This requires further study to see how respondents are affected in underreporting or over reporting given question order (the purpose of asking twice is to confirm and evaluate social pressures on and consistency in responding).

^27. For comparison, a survey about environmental activism conducted in the USA found protest levels of around 7% (Stern et al. 1999, 88).

The one item in our survey that taps a more committed and higher risk form of activism, participation in demonstrations and protests, is rare in self-reports with only 7% of respondents reporting having done so in the last 12 months.

^28. The Manas air base (previously referred to as the American base Ganci, officially called the Manas Transit Center) is the main NATO air base operating flights in and out of Afghanistan. Villagers and activists protested against base aircraft jettisoning fuel in flight and the suspicion of fuel dumping near the base, among other issues. One of the slogans of anti-Manas air base protests was, “Nam nuzhen chistyy vozdukh (We need clean air).” These protests and coverage of these issues have occurred regularly since 2005, before and during American negotiations with Kyrgyzstan's government (see Radio Free Europe 2005; Kucera 2007; Regnum 2007; Ferghana News Agency 2012; New Europe Online 2012; Umaraliev 2012).

^29. See the Pew Global Attitudes Project, including regular environmental concern survey results and specifically the 27 June 2007 report entitled “Rising Environmental Concern in 47-Nation Survey” (http://www.pewglobal.org/2007/06/27/global-unease-with-major-world-powers/); the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) environmental surveys in 2010 (ISSP 2010 – “Environment III”), 2000 and 1993 (http://www.gesis.org/en/issp/issp-modules-profiles/environment/); Gallup environmental polls (http://www.gallup.com/tag/Environment.aspx); and World Public Opinion climate change surveys (http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btenvironmentra/index.php?nid = &id = &lb = bte).

^30. A majority of Kyrgyzstani citizens identified protecting the environment as personally either very important (27.7%), important (35.4%), or fairly important (24.9%). The survey question is, “How important is protecting the environment to you personally?”

^31. This is measured by cross-tabulating responses to the question, “How important is protecting the environment to you personally?” by major city and oblast.

^32. This lack of environmental concern may also just be the result of a randomized survey selection, in which localized environmental issues are not captured because those concerned locales were not selected.

^33. These responses are in answer to the question, “From the following list, please pick and rank the main environmental/ecological issues that you are worried about.”

^34. The large percentage of people identifying water pollution problems as their chief concern is a surprising response to a previously important but hidden issue, and one that respondents across the country note as most important. In addition, many other issues about which people protest and mention in open-ended answers, but which were not ranked first in a list of problems (such as mineral resource exploitation), are primarily linked to fears about water pollution. Also, given the regular occurrence of small-scale neighborhood and household mobilizations over the waste/garbage disposal issue, it makes sense that it would be among the top four concerns.

^35. The interviewer did not read possible categories for the question.

^36. At first, the high percentage of respondents who indicated concern about environmental problems raises questions about the influence of the survey topic on respondents – they thought they were being asked about ecological issues. A follow-up survey conducted with the interviewers does not indicate a trend in misunderstanding and several interviewers reported correcting this misunderstanding when it emerged.

^37. Elites–experts had markedly different views: 42.86% identified economic problems as most pressing, second was ecology/environmental issues at 15.71%, followed by political crisis and corruption at 8.57% each. The energy crisis was only identified as the most important problem by 2.86% of elites–experts interviewed. Even more striking was the perception of the public elites–experts demonstrated. When asked, “What does the average Kyrgyzstani citizen believe is the single most serious problem that Kyergyzstan faces right now?” an overwhelming 77.14% said economic problems, 7.14% said ecology or environmental problems, and only 1.43% identified the energy crisis or corruption. While this result means that 77% of elites correctly identified the most serious problem average citizens are concerned with, much of the qualitative results and discussion of this answer point to dismissal of the energy crisis as the most important problem for a large portion of the citizenry. That is, many commented that for the average citizen, employment mattered most, hands down. In order to more directly test whether or not elites correctly understand the importance of this issue would require more study, yet this result is a good indicator that most elites–experts studied did not have a full grasp of the importance of popular concern about the hydroelectricity crisis in 2009. Given the role public concern about the hydroelectricity crisis played in the overthrow of the Bakieyv regime, this elite-public opinion gap is insightful.

^38. IRI, Baltic Surveys/The Gallup Organization Kyrgyzstan National Opinion Poll, October 2008; IRI, Baltic Surveys/The Gallup Organization Kyrgyzstan National Opinion Poll, April–May 2009; IRI, Baltic Surveys/The Gallup Organization Kyrgyzstan National Opinion Poll, October 2006; IRI, Baltic Surveys/The Gallup Organization Kyrgyzstan National Opinion Poll, May 2007. All are available at: http://www.iri.org/news-events-press-center/news-iri/show_for_country/1166

^39. Although response option order may have an effect on respondents, the most often selected response – by a significant margin of 16% – was the second option listed.

^40. Interestingly, the conflict and instability questions do not rank high as reasons to protect the environment for the general population but do rank higher in elite responses.

^41. It is important to bear in mind that the positive responses to this question may be somewhat underreported, as it is a sensitive question, for example, those who took compensation would likely be hesitant to say so. However, only 0.47% did not answer. For other sensitive questions in the survey, such as ethnic relations, up to 20% did not answer.

^42. The exact question wording is, “Please tell me, do you believe the following actions are effective or not effective?… Protests.” The responses were 20.13%, yes and 74.4%, no.

^43. “Q15:

Please select the party or parties you hold responsible for the ecological situation in the city/town/village, where you live. [Order of options was systematically rotated for each respondent.] From the following list, identify the 3 most meaningful options for you and number them in the order of importance. That is, the most important answer/option for you will receive a 1. The second most important will receive a 2, and so forth, until 3.

^44. A majority of those who protested, 62%, were able to specifically and consistently attribute blame. An overwhelming majority of those who protested, 98%, were able to attribute blame according to the liberal criterion, so not as consistently or specifically. However, a majority of those who did not protest were also able to attribute blame according to the liberal criterion (97%) and the more restrictive criterion (76%). In other words, an overwhelming majority of respondents in Kyrgyzstan were able to attribute blame for environmental problems, even specifically and consistently. The results for this measure are unlikely to be significant and unlikely to explain the difference between protesting and not protesting. But what this result does tell us is that Kyrgyzstan may be an unusually blaming society at the time the survey was conducted, a good indicator of mass displeasure.

^45. One important caveat: these are obviously self-reported measures of compensation. However, I strengthen the likelihood of honesty by asking if offers to compensate were made to the respondent, and I do not ask if these offers were accepted.

^46. Ignatow (2006) discusses the multidimensionality of environmental concern and environmental politics. “This recognition is valuable and suggests the possibility that people may not have coherent beliefs about environmental issues generally but may instead pick and choose environmental problems to care about, more or less, one at a time” (443). He calls into question the usefulness of surveys because of this variability.

^47. For simplicity's sake, the measure used here is capturing not whom is blamed but rather if a respondent names someone specifically, especially national or local authorities, and if they do so consistently.