Environmentalism in Today’s Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT

Civic control in environmental matters is an existential need of a well-functioning democracy. Green parties often emerge from civil society movements, though they lose their civic nature on entering parliament. Axiologically, objective environmental values should be protected by political parties, whilst both objective and subjective environmental values are represented by civil society organizations. The evolution of green movements in Western Europe and Northern America differs considerably from that of environmentalism in European communist and post-communist countries.

Keywords:

Environmental law, environmental sociology, environmental civil activity, partaking democracy, social changes.