FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE AND THE RUSSIAN NORTH

The paper explores Russia's environmental politics at the federal level, with a particular view to the consequences for the country's northerly regions. It investigates the goals of the federal authorities in the field of environmental protection, and their ability to translate these into political action at the regional level in the Russian North. After a brief outline of Soviet environmental politics, the "green wave" of the 1980s and the setbacks of the 1990s are described. The general reorganization of the federal Russian bureaucracy of 2004 is treated separately, followed by a discussion of developments at the regional level in the Russian North.