Constructing a new understanding of the environment under postsocialism

This paper introduces a special grouping of papers on the theme of the envi ronment and postsocialism. After the collapse of state socialism in Europe between 1989 and 1991, many immediate approaches to environmental reconstru ction assumed that economic liberalisation and democratisation would allevi ate problems. Since then, critics have argued that these proposed solutions were themselves problematic, and too closely reflected Western European an d North American conceptions of environmental quality and democracy. The re sult has been a counterreaction focusing on detail and specificity at natio nal levels and below. In this paper, we summarise debates about the environ ment and postsocialism since the period 1989-91. In particular, we examine whether an essentialistic link can be made between state socialism and envi ronmental problems, and how far civil society-or environmentalism-may resul t in an improvement in perceived environmental quality. Finally, we conside r the possibility for developing an approach to the environment and postsoc ialism that lies between crude generalisation and microscale studies.