Irina Alexandrovna Sosunova
Institute of Social-Political Research, Russian Academy of Sciences
Moscow, Leninsky prospect, 32a
RUSSIA
TEL: (095) 290-5098 FAX: (095) 938-00-76
The unsafe ecological situation continues to remain one of the most important factors in the formation of the social-political scene in the Russian Federation. The closest interconnection of processes, between the social-political sphere and ecological problems shows up at the regional level. Confirming this is the anxiety of every other deputy administrator at the Federation level and the directors of the regional environmental offices, in the annual expert survey, conducted by the Institute of Social-Political Research, Russian Academy of Sciences at the all-Russian conference of Environment Ministers of the Russian Federation.
Results of sociological research in the last years show that in the widest strata of the population, and especially among women, there is an increasing feeling of dissatisfaction about the worsening ecological situation. In a number of regions, first of all in the most ecologically unsafe, this already became one of the most important factors in the rise of social tension.
With the exception of a limited number of the most politicized regions, (Moscow, for example) the condition of the environment is, as a rule, the third most significant reason for the insecurity of women. The effectiveness of environmental activities is frequently one of the first sacrifices to the complicated economic situation, which was named in the 1993 statistics, testifying on the tendency of enterprises to the economy and the scanty financing of environmental technologies.
In these conditions it is more dangerous to imagine the rise of a new factor in the worsening ecological situation: the tendency toward a transformation of Russia into a dump for dangerous wastes from Western European industries. The crisis of the Russian economy creates objective preconditions toward the intensification of this process. The inadequate perception of ecological problems is fixed in the consciousness of the masses, especially women. Aspects of the current social-political situation in Russia make the ecological factor of politics particularly significant for the development of conflicts along the lines of Center-Subjects of the Federation, and at the same time native Greens as distinct from their western analogs, remain on the sidelines of political life.
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