Preconditions for new environmental governance in Serbia

Abstract

The preconditions for new environmental governance in Serbia, which should be developing with country's accession to EU, are the object of analysis. Relying on regime theory, the paper is focused on the role of state and civil society actors. The analysis is informed by two empirical researches. Firstly, the concept of new governance regime is described as well as different types of civic activism: participative and transactional. Secondly, the legislative and institutional preconditions as well as action capacities of state and civil society actors are analyzed. The concluding part summarizes the basic findings and emphasizes the obstacles to new environmental governance in Serbia: close political opportunities, authoritarian legacy and prevalence of traditional command and control approaches, lacking of important resources for cooperative action, no tradition of institutionalized state-society relations, etc.

Keywords

• environment
• governance
• civil society
• citizens
• state-actors