Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T08:19:15.787Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Post-Socialist Transition and Environmental Protection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

WenFang Tang
WenFang Tang
Affiliation:
Political Science, University of Pittsburgh*
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the institutional characteristics of market and centrally planned economies and their impact on the environment. It argues that while the planned economies are utilising market mechanisms in environmental protection, their market counterparts are facing more and more environmental problems that require governmental intervention. Using the latest statistical information, the records of sulphur dioxide emission under market and planning over the past twenty years are compared. The findings show that while planned economies generated more pollution due to energy inefficiency, they were nevertheless quite effective in reducing pollution under centralised coordination. This is particularly true at the initial stage of pollution control. Although the industrialised market economies were capable of diverting resources into pollution control, they were equally capable of causing environmental disruption, especially at their early stages of industrialisation. Finally, it is argued that environmental protection in post-socialist societies is likely to experience a downturn in the near future. This is due to the decreasing role of government coordination, the lack of a legal system, and the difficulty of developing a well-functioning market.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 89 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Chandler, William U., Makarov, Alexei A. and Zhou, Dadi, ‘Energy for the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China’. Scientific American, September 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crouch, Martin (1989) Revolution and Evolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Politics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
DeBardeleben, Joan (1991) To Breathe Free: Eastern Europe's Environmental Crisis. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Feshbach, Murray and Friendly, Alfred Jr. (1992) Ecocide in the USSR. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
French, Hilary F. (1990) ‘Green revolutions: environmental reconstruction in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union’. WorldWatch paper 99 (November).Google Scholar
Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Health Organization (WHO) (1988) Assessment of Urban Air Quality.Google Scholar
Kapp, Karl William (1974) Environmental Policies and Development Planning in Contemporary China and Other Essays. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinzelbach, Wolfgang (1987) ‘Energy and environment in China’, in Glaeser, Bernhard, ed., Learning from China? Development and Environment in Third World Countries. London: Allen & Unwin, pp. 173–184.Google Scholar
Kornai, Janos (1992) The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kornai, Janos (1989) ‘The Hungarian reform process: visions, hopes, and reality’, in Nee, Victor and Stark, David, eds., Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism: Chinal and Eastern Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, John M. (1983) ‘The environmental crisis in Eastern Europe: The price for progress’. Slavic Review, vol. 42, no. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristof, Nicholas D. (1993) ‘China breaks ground for World Largest Dam’, New York Times, June 22.Google Scholar
Lardy, Nicholas (1989) ‘Dilemmas in the pattern of resource allocation in China, 1978–1985’, in Nee, Victor and Stark, David, eds., Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism: China and Eastern Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lester, James P., ed. (1989) Environmental Politics and Policy: Theories and Evidence. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Lieberthal, Kenneth and Oksenberg, Michel (1988) Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, C. (1977) Politics and Markets. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Marer, Paul, Arvay, Janos, O'Connor, John, Schrenk, Martin and Swanson, Danial (1992) Historically Planned Economies: A Guide to the Data. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl (1974) Kritik des Gothaer Programms, quoted by Kapp, Karl William. Environmental Policies and Development Planning in Contemporary China and Other Essays. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and Mouton, p. 37, note 80.Google Scholar
Montgomery, William David III (1971) Market Systems for the Control of Air Pollution, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Economics, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Nasar, Sylvia (1992) ‘Can capitalism save the ozone?’ New York Times, 02 7, p. C2.Google Scholar
Nove, Alec (1983) Economics of Feasible Socialism. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
OECD (1991) OECD Environmental Data Report 1991. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Pigou, A.C. (1962) The Economics of Welfare, 4th ed.London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Pucher, John (1990) ‘Capitalism, socialism and urban transportation’, Journal of the American Planning Association, quoted by French, Summer 1990, ‘Green revolutions’, p. 43.Google Scholar
Qu, Geping and Li, Jinchang (1984) ‘Environmental management’, in Geping, Qu and Lee, Woyen, eds., Managing the Environment in China. Dublin: Tycooly International.Google Scholar
Schneider, Keith (1992) ‘Environment laws face a stiff test from landowners’, New York Times, January 20, p. A1.Google Scholar
Fred, Singleton, ed. (1987) Environmental Problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Slama, Jiri (1986) ‘An international comparison of sulphur dioxide emissions’, Journal of Comparative Economics, 10, pp. 277–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobell, Vlad (1990) ‘The systemic roots of the East European ecological crisis’, Environmental Policy Review: Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, January, pp. 47–52.Google Scholar
Stavins, Robert (1989) ‘Harnessing market forces to protect the environment’, Environment, vol. 31, no. 1 (Jan/Feb).Google Scholar
UNEP (1992) UNEP Environmental Data Report 1991–1992. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
United Nations United Nations Statistical Yearbook, various years.Google Scholar
USSR State Committee for the Protection of Nature (1989) Report on the State of the Environment in the USSR, 1988 (Moscow).Google Scholar
Ivan, Volgyes, ed. (1974) Environmental Deterioration in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
World Resources Report 1992–1993.Google Scholar
World Bank (1991) World Tables 1991.Google Scholar
World Bank. World Development Report, 1989, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu Dunn, Sheryl (1989) ‘In China, dam's delay spares a valley for now’, New York Times, April 4.Google Scholar
Yaroshinskaya, Alla (1992) ‘Chernobyl: how leaders covered up the facts’, Current Digest of Post-Soviet Periodicals, 44; pp. 5–7, May 27.Google Scholar
Ziegler, Charles (1987) Environmental Policy in the USSR. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar