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This paper investigates the development of the environmental movement in post-Soviet Russia, and in particular examines the dynamic interaction between Russian green activists and Western aid donors attempting to foster civil society development in the former Soviet Union. Focusing on three explanatory factors -- material resources, issue framing, and political opportunities, the paper concludes that while donors have succeeded in promoting the survival and growth of environmental NGOs in Russia, it has been difficult for these NGOs to form links with their local communities and to influence environmental policy.

Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian government was taking modest but meaningful steps to develop its domestic climate policy, prompted in part by incentives and pressures from the international market. Since then, however, Russia's war in Ukraine has heightened obstacles to addressing climate change: it has reinforced the importance of fossil fuel exports, further stifled climate activism at home, and increased impediments to international cooperation. The war's longer-term impact on decarbonization remains uncertain.

Digital authoritarianism threatens the privacy and rights of Internet users worldwide, yet scholarship on this topic remains limited in analytical power and case selection. In this article, we introduce a comprehensive analytical framework to the field of Internet governance and apply it first, briefly, to the well-known case of China and then, in more depth, to the still-understudied Russian case. We identify the extent and relative centralization of Internet governance as well as proactive versus reactive approaches to governance as notable differences between the cases, highlighting variation among digital authoritarians' governance strategies. We conclude that Russia's Internet governance model is less comprehensive and consistent than China's, but its components may be more easily exported to other political systems. We then consider whether recent changes to Russia's Internet governance suggest that it could converge with the Chinese model over time.

"This work identifies and explains significant variation in the extent and forms of NGO engagement with global governance institutions and how effective NGOs are in bringing the norms and policy recommendations from the global level to domestic arenas. We combine insights from international relations with the lens of comparative politics to understand NGO participation and mediation. We argue that "going global" in whatever form creates some common challenges for NGOs. If they go global to expand their influence - whether through funding, information, or stricter standards - they become caught between two institutional frameworks and sets of norms. There are challenges inherent to that multi-level activism regardless of the particular form of participation. At the same time, the specific nature of the challenges faced by NGOs depends on domestic political arrangements"--

Under what conditions do private forest governance standards influence state policy and behavior to become more oriented toward sustainability? We argue that governance schemes targeting firms may indirectly shape state behavior, even when designed to bypass state regulation. Through an examination of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Russia and Brazil, we find that the FSC has influenced domestic rhetoric, laws, and enforcement practices. FSC has had a more disruptive and consequential impact on Russia's domestic forest governance; in Brazil, earlier transnational environmental campaigns had already begun to shift domestic institutions toward sustainability. Based on interview data and textual analysis of FSC and government documents, we identify the mechanisms of indirect FSC influence on states—professionalization, civil society mobilization, firm lobbying, and international market pressure, and argue that they are likely to be activated under conditions of poor and decentralized governance, overlapping and competing regulations and high foreign market demand for exports. ; Arts, Faculty of ; Non UBC ; Political Science, Department of ; Reviewed ; Faculty