Social Movements in Hungary and Russia: The Case of Environmental Movements

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Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of environmental movements in two Eastern European societies: Hungary and Russia, based on a recently completed research project.1 The analysis of the movements will also give us an opportunity to examine the extent of the development of democratic institutions in two post-socialist societies. The comparison of these two cases will also reveal the extent of diversity within the so called former ‘Soviet bloc’ and demonstrate that generalizing about them is misleading. After a brief review of nine different movements they are compared in terms of their structure and goals, the characteristics of their participants and leaders, the extent of internal and external conflicts, and the role of the media. The difiierent degrees of public resonance and success of the movements in both countries are a focus of the paper. The paper has several aims: apart from analysing and comparing Russian and Hungarian environmental movements and examining the extent of development of democratic institutions in these two recently ‘democratized’ societies, it will also consider the relevance of existing western literature in the Eastern European context.

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