Conclusions: Securitisation of environmental cooperation as a stability-building measure

Post-conflict Western Balkans was not the first context in which environmental cooperation was used as a stability-building measure. Similar initiatives had emerged in Central America, Pakistan and India, and the Jordan River basin among others.²⁶³ It was, in fact, already a relatively established form of institutional cooperation. Yet, there were unique features in the work carried out in the Balkan, in particular in the way it was linked to security at a more conceptual level.

The environment was not only included in post-conflict cooperation from the very beginning but also linked to regional stability. It can be assumed that one of the reasons that the connection was so easily made was the UNEP assessment on the environmental consequences of the Kosovo conflict, which had already directed some attention towards the conflict-linkage of the environment. However, it did not have a particularly large role in the conflict and cooperation discourse, which soon turned towards forward-looking conflict-prevention rather than merely remediating damages that had already occurred. A specific overview of the different elements of the securitisation is presented in table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Securitisation framework of the environmental conflict approach

Agents

Those who contribute to or resist security processes

ES organi-sations

REReP Kept the issue on the agenda; mainly as a by-product of an effort to stabilise the region. Not an active agent.

OSCE Agent; securitisation of environment as a wider process to identify new activities for the organisation;

exploration of new practices and policies.

ENVSEC Agent; securitisation of environment as the main function of the programme; raising the issue on the agenda through high level politicisation; exploration of new practices and policies.

263 E.g. Bruch, C., Muffett, C. & Nichols, S.S.: Governance, Natural Resources, and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding.

Earthscan, London 2016; Weinthal, E. , Troell, J. & Nakayama, M.: Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Earthscan, London 2014.

185 Administrations in WB countries

Audience to security claims, partner in some cases and opponent in some.

Local civil society Audience to security claims; agent in exceptional cases.

International community

Audience to security claims, partner in some cases and opponent in some.

Their power relations ES organisations* – Administrations in WB countries

ES organisations in control of funding and had considerable leverage over topics of cooperation.

However, regional governments as gatekeepers for project implementation.

ES organisations* – Local civil society

Initially low interaction but intensifying over time. ES organisations in power position but relatively little leverage over NGOs.

International

community – ES organisations*

International community in control of the goals of the cooperation; ES organisations could lobby for their cause.

Intra-regional and domestic power relations

Governments in power position but NGOs supported by international funding. Objectives often coinciding, sometimes conflicting.

Their personal identities and social identity

ES organisations* Expert role, diplomatic towards the region.

Administrations in WB countries

Represented national interests, neutral to environmental security.

Local civil society Represented the local people both in their own view and that of the ES organisations.

Environment Framed as the main object although became the centre of attention mostly due to the threats posed to humans (through the environment).

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Regional stability Often the main object seen as threatened, needed to be secured through environmental cooperation.

Actions

Language Meeting documents Records of discussions from official meetings Project plans and

reports

Reports issued by ES organisations

Statements Official statements by ES organisations Media materials Brochures, press releases, website articles Strategies, metaphors,

frames

Environmental security Used by ES organisations as an approach to be adopted into regional environmental cooperation.

Conflict Used by ES organisations as the threat that environmental security measures attempted to prevent.

Cooperation Used by ES organisations as the positive opportunity to come out of the environmental security approach.

Stability Used by ES organisations as the main goal for both environmental cooperation and regional dialogue.

Dispositif, practices, tools

Regional consultations A tool to gain data, engage the regional audience and strengthen commitment to the cooperation.

Regional environmental (security) assessments

A tool to generate data on trans-boundary environmental risks and opportunities in the regional context.

Mapping of

environmental security risks

A tool for visualising environmental risks to facilitate their prevention.

High-level conferences A way of mainstreaming environmental security into high-level political discussion and keep it on the agenda.

187 Policies generated by

securitisation

None Environmental security cooperation adopted and reinforced existing policies rather than coming up with new ones of its own.

Contexts

Proximate Conferences, seminars and meetings

Addressed mainly to the professional audience already familiar with and often supportive of environmental security.

Distal Post-conflict

cooperation

Stability-building as a central goal in most activities, helped to reinforce the conflict framing.

Regional relations Tense relations between countries; reluctance to cooperate.

Post-socialism Influenced attitudes and practices in the Western Balkans; was often undermined by the post-conflict framing by ES organisations.

International cooperation

Wider global trends in international cooperation as a factor.

Post-Cold war Necessity to redefine security; shifting global power relations

The process was almost exclusively maintained by a limited number of international organisations that can also be identified as the securitising agents. They had varied roles and differing degrees of commitment on the topic, but all essentially contributed to the environmental security concept in the regional setting. At the outset, the depth of their engagement grew as the process continued, but after the first surge of interest the intensity of the discourse has varied. However, they all initially relied strongly on the conflict approach to environmental security and only later adopted aspects from the human security perspective.

REReP had an important role in cementing the role of environmental issues as a stability-building tool.

While it primarily worked on traditional remediation work, its programme also strongly linked the environment to generating regional cooperation and was acknowledged as one of the first co-ordinated environmental responses to a conflict. However, REReP was not a securitising agent in the sense that it

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would have made a deliberate effort to integrate the environment into the security sector. Instead, it provided a context for the discourse to evolve. This makes it difficult to classify it as a subject in the securitisation process. However, it contributed to and was in interaction with the work of other international environmental security actors, thus essentially setting it in the same group as them.

The OSCE played a significant part as it first provided the Economic and Environmental Forums as a significant platform for the evolving environmental security discussion and later became an important partner in ENVSEC. The Forums already demonstrate a deliberate effort by the OSCE to firmly introduce the environment into the security discourse and to develop its own approach to environmental security.

Unlike almost any other actor analysed here, they also attempted to define environmental security as a concept. The relevance of the Forums was multiplied as they significantly influenced the emergence of ENVSEC. The E & E Forums ended up focusing on the conflict and cooperation approach, as opposed to human security. The central role of the OSCE is visible here, as it represented a traditional security sector perspective. It also followed a more general pattern where environmental conflict has been regarded as a more limited and therefore more distinct form of environmental security. On the basis of the E & E Forums, the emphasis on conflict was to some extent passed onto ENVSEC.

ENVSEC was the single most important environmental security actor in the Balkans by far, and in many ways came to dominate the field. Although it consisted of individual organisations, they were environmental security actors only through their work within ENVSEC. Therefore, it is appropriate to regard the initiative rather than the partner organisations as a securitising. Either way, ENVSEC had a distinct programme and objectives, among which it explicitly stated that it aimed to promote environmental security knowledge in decision-making. This constitutes a clear securitising move, regardless of whether it was accepted by its designated audience.

Regional or local actors in the Western Balkans did not take up the role of securitising actor, with exception to the Serbian organisation Environmental Ambassadors for Sustainable Development (EASD). Although it was considerably inspired by and well connected with other international environmental security actors, it was independent in terms of setting its own agenda and working on its own initiative. It was originally motivated by the goal of regional cooperation in particular, and therefore had the potential to reinforce the conflict and cooperation dimension in the regional discourse. It was, however, soon obliged to move towards sustainable development and away from security due to the thematic positioning of the funding that was available to it. A general lack of funding is also the main reason why EASD never grew to gain a significant role in the regional environmental security discourse.

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The audience consisted of the governments and administrations in the regional countries, local civil society and the international community. None of these can be said to have deliberately legitimised securitisation, apart from small sections of each group. Among the different levels of administration in the regional countries, the environmental security discourse managed to engage some of those who were directly involved with the topic, such as ENVSEC national focal points. Otherwise, however, there was hardly any response. The linkage of the environment to security was not outright rejected but neither was it recognised or picked up for further action. The same applies to the civil society. In neither case did the idea of promoting regional cooperation and stability particularly help to promote securitisation. Cooperation, at least in the regional sense, was not interesting enough to inspire action among the Western Balkan countries even later on, after many of the major resentments dating from the conflict had been overcome.

However, over time the environmental security organisations began targeting other audiences . Initially, the focus was on involving national governments and other actors at the higher political levels, who were considered necessary for agenda-setting and for the politicisation of environment. As the process moved towards implementation, however, it became at least as important to involve the local level and a wide range of actors from various sectors. In other words, it was observed by the environmental security actors that they needed to engage all relevant actors in order to have an impact.

All the environmental security agents also targeted the international community as an audience.

Although it was, in effect, addressing the members of its own class, the reaction at the international level was not much more forthcoming. International actors supported and recognised the need for regional cooperation but did not necessarily see the environment as having a key role in this. Again, only a small fraction of international actors became engaged in the topic; mostly those that were already active in it otherwise.

On the other hand, there were no significant actors explicitly opposing the securitisation either. In background discussions for example at the OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum individual countries or organisations sometimes took the stand that linking regional stability to environment was harmful or inappropriate. Yet these voices usually did not have a major role in the discussion and did not take it upon themselves to actively try to reject securitisation. The reaction was one of indifference rather than opposition.

With regard to the power relations among the actors, it is clear that the international organisations could not merely dictate the themes of cooperation to the regional stakeholders. This applies to both the public sector and civil society counterparts. Although international organisations were mostly in control

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of funding decisions and political support and therefore were in a position of power, the local and regional stakeholders had to be convinced to be involved in the implementation. Actors from the region therefore had some leverage and their wishes and motivations had to be considered even if they could not control the agenda.

Meanwhile, environmental security organisations were also influenced by the international community as a whole. Their work was directly conditioned by the aims and motivations of their own member states, which sometimes considerably conflicted one another. These, in turn, were shaped by discourses and tendencies within the wider international community. The emergence of new themes and the disappearance of others were also visible in financing decisions for projects and political preferences for favouring some topics over others. For example, as the tendency to consider the Western Balkans primarily as a post-conflict region weakened over time, the enthusiasm to link all projects to stability-building and security also decreased.

In addition, there were power structures associated with the relations between the regional countries and with the internal relations between authorities and civil society within their domestic politics.

Mutual interactions affected the potential for cooperation, and environmental security usually aimed to facilitate better contacts at all levels. These usually had a relatively small impact on the securitisation process itself, however. Environmental security cooperation may even have maintained power differentials within the target countries as it tended to be focused on high political levels, and, especially in the beginning, neglected civil society actors.

The identities that the various actors took up were to some extent shaped by the underlying power structures. In many ways, the whole securitisation process depended on the perception of the environmental security organisations concerning their capacity to effect action. They saw themselves in a position of experts and mediators who took a diplomatic approach to the region. Apart from the organisational level, this also extended to the level of individuals, whose personal contribution and commitment in some cases turned out to be crucial for the advancement of the process. Meanwhile, the administrations and civil society in the region represented their national interest or the grassroots level, respectively. These were usually not opposed to environmental security but remained neutral on the issue rather than actively participate in its promotion.

The most obvious referent object of securitisation was the environment. In fact, the conflict and cooperation projects focused on the ecological environment in itself more prominently than was case with the previously discussed discourse on the consequences of the Kosovo conflict, which tended to emphasise human well-being over all. The trans-boundary projects have usually aimed for natural

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protection and safeguarding specific natural resources. They did always also include the promotion of regional cooperation as a major objective, but the crucial issue is that they presented environmental protection as a value in of its own, not merely as a factor of human well-being.

The importance of the environment as an object was tied to the fact that it was often perceived as a

‘neutral’ topic that enabled even conflicting parties to find common ground to work upon. The argument was initially used by REReP and regularly came up in justifications for environmental security cooperation. Yet the proposition has run into trouble even among environmental security actors themselves, for example when some OSCE member states strongly opposed the environmental security linkage for their own political reasons. In fact, environmental issues tend to concern such a variety of sectors and topics that they almost inevitably bring in political issues from other fields. A simple presupposition of the neutrality of the environment is therefore likely to only make it more difficult to foresee and prevent potential problems rather than facilitate cooperation.

The idea of the environment as a neutral topic was not thoroughly shared by all actors, however, and it was sometimes perceived in contradicting ways in different contexts even within a single programme.

ENVSEC, for instance, emphasised the neutral role of environment as a common denominator in its projects on cross-border natural resources, but at the same time implemented a strategy of politicising environmental issues at a high level in order to draw attention to them. To some extent, the inconsistency reflects the lack of a strict definition for environmental security, which left ENVSEC partners to give specific objectives and outcomes for each project separately. The discrepancy concerning the perception of environment as an object complicated its utilisation in cooperation.

Human well-being was also included as an object ,although less prominently and less directly.

Meanwhile, it is possible to discern regional stability as an object of securitisation in its own right. In trans-boundary environmental projects, regional stability was equally threatened and its maintenance was considered an objective equal to natural resources. In early work such as that of the REReP, it even was presented as the main goal for which environmental cooperation only served as a tool.

Environmental security was shaped through meeting documents, generated at the various conferences and events where the topic was discussed. They generally were accessible to the public but not intended for communication purposes. This make them an interesting source as they simultaneously present a part of the securitisation process and elements of the discussion about it. The fact in itself that environmental security was generally not produced in secret set it apart from most of traditional security policy. In addition, environmental security was developed through various documents that were specifically intended to describe its implementation to the public. These include communications

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materials like brochures that aimed to present the achievements of environmental security cooperation in the best possible light, but also project reports that could be self-reflective.

Predictably, environmental security also worked as a strategic frame in the discourse. However, it wasn’t as central as might be expected. As a concept, it was quite rarely explicitly mentioned. Moreover, at least ENVSEC refrained from even defining environmental security. While this was a deliberate choice aimed to widen the range of potential activities, it reduced the efficiency of the concept as a strategic frame. When even the agents themselves were not able to crystallise environmental security into a concise definition, it was difficult to use it as a motive to gain approval or inspire action among the audience.

Instead, the securitising agents would far more often refer to conflict as the negative scenario that could be avoided through environmental security. In other words, it was a threat that securitisation could prevent. However, in the political reality of the Western Balkans, conflict was not considered concrete or probable to the extent that it would have constituted an existential threat. It therefore did not function very well as a strategic frame for the discourse.

On the other hand, environmental security agents also used the strongly positive frame of cooperation, which served as a potential beneficial outcome and therefore a motivation for securitisation. It wasn’t limited to cooperation between the regional countries, but in effect traversed all environmental security activities, incorporating also the cooperation of international actors with regional stakeholders and

On the other hand, environmental security agents also used the strongly positive frame of cooperation, which served as a potential beneficial outcome and therefore a motivation for securitisation. It wasn’t limited to cooperation between the regional countries, but in effect traversed all environmental security activities, incorporating also the cooperation of international actors with regional stakeholders and

In document International Organisations and the Securitisation of the Environment in Post-Conflict Western Balkans (sivua 192-0)