Transnational Expertise and Experience Networks and Russia's Environmental Policies

This article offers an analysis of why Russia has been struggling to implement the environmental policies adopted by the government. While Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs), much  discussed in the Constructivist scholarship and concerned with forces behind normative and behavioral change, do indeed have an independent effect on the adoption of environmental laws, they act predominantly through inter-governmental channels, not necessarily impacting on society itself. This partly explains why norms get adopted but may end up not getting implemented. Based on the existing literature on TANs, the authors’ inquiry establishes the fact that, to be successful in facilitating implementation, transnational networks can operate not only in the capacity of Advocacy Networks for the adoption of norms, but also as what the authors of this article previously chose to refer to as Expertise and Experience Networks, primarily aiming to aid norm implementation. Countries can be affected by TANs but not by TEENs, which might account for the paradoxical situation in Russia regarding norm implementation. The difference between the two only becomes apparent in cases when they do not operate simultaneously.

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