“Green Carrots?” Distribution of Presidential Grants for Environmental Initiatives in 2017-23 as an Element of Regional Environmental Politics

This article aims to identify factors associated with the distribution of Presidential grants for environmental initiatives in 2017-23. The main objective is to check if there is a presence of political logic in supporting regional eco-initiatives. While previous studies considered environmental conflicts, as a rule, on the part of eco-activists, in this paper we focus to a greater extent on studying the strategy of the authorities. For this purpose, we propose using the concept of regional environmental politics. Assuming that the key point for the authorities is an attempt to reduce eco-protest activity, we proceed from the fact that the authorities seek to use not only the “stick”, meaning forceful strategies for combating protests, but also the “carrot”, or strategies for co-opting eco-activists. In this model, the distribution of grants to support environmental initiatives is considered as a reaction to the nature of environmental problems and conflicts. We test three main hypotheses about the logic of project support: a reaction to the deterioration of the environmental situation in the region, a reaction to the frequency of eco-protests, and a reaction to inequality, which contributes to protest sentiments in general. We rely on several sources of empirical data. First, we use data on the distribution of Presidential grants to eco-NGOs. Second, we use a large-scale database on eco-protests. Third, we use data from the National Ecological Rating of Russian regions. Fixed-effects models show that the distribution of presidential grants follows both eco-protests and the deterioration of the environmental situation in the regions. In addition, the distribution of grants is affected by low inequality, which in Russia is typically characteristic of poor regions. We also illustrate our arguments through the example of the Sverdlovsk region, which indicates a “gross” rather than individually based nature of support for environmental initiatives.