Corruption and Cognitive Liberation in Russian Environmentalism: A Political Process Approach to Social Movement Decline

Abstract

Following reforms in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, a large environmental movement erupted across the nation. At the time, it was the largest and most powerful critical group in the repressive regime. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the environmental movement fell back into abeyance. This paper investigates the reasons for the collapse of the Russian environmental movement using a revised political process model that emphasizes cognitive liberation as a principle variable. I suggest that cognitive liberation is based upon grounded knowledge and social trust: as corruption and lawlessness increased in the post-transition years, people’s sense of efficacy decreased. Moreover, I argue that the political opportunity structure operates dialogically with cognitive liberation. Elites were able to close political opportunities in the 2000s because cognitive liberation among the general population had already been demoralized in the 1990s.