From Local Streams to Regional Dreams: Envisioning a Just Green Transition in the Western Balkans

The implementation of the EU Green Agenda for the Western Balkans has led to a surge in hydropower projects in the region. These initiatives faced the opposition of peripheral rural communities, resulting in local conflicts that scaled to the regional level with the support of environmental organizations and experts. These conflicts represent a new form of environmental mobilization in the region, engaging local communities marginalized from civil society activism. Through a case study of the regional network “Let’s Defend the Balkan Rivers,” this paper explores the key issues driving mobilization for river protection and the mechanisms that enabled local struggles to scale to the regional level. It employs frame analysis of media content, movement documents, and semi-structured interviews with activists to examine the movement’s cultural repertoires of collective action. It argues that grassroots opposition to hydropower projects has unveiled interconnected issues of environmental threats and democracy. Furthermore, it highlights how a deep emotional attachment to rivers motivated local communities to engage in collective action, fostering solidarity that bridged local rootedness with transnational cooperation. Drawing on environmental sociology, political ecology, and social movement studies, the research aligns with emerging scholarship from post-socialist Eastern Europe, which seeks to situate locally embedded forms of environmentalism within broader academic debates and global trends.