Analysing the Rospuda River controversy in Poland: rhetoric, environmental activism, and the...

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Analysing the Rospuda Rivercontroversy in Poland: rhetoric,environmental activism, and theinfluence of the European UnionJulia Szuleckaab & Kacper Szuleckicd

a Institute of International Forestry and Forest Products, DresdenUniversity of Technology, Tharandt, Germanyb Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry(LEAF), University of Padua, Padua, Italyc Environmental Studies and Policy Research Institute (ESPRi),Wroclaw, Polandd Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, GermanyPublished online: 17 Dec 2013.

To cite this article: Julia Szulecka & Kacper Szulecki (2013) Analysing the Rospuda Rivercontroversy in Poland: rhetoric, environmental activism, and the influence of the European Union,East European Politics, 29:4, 397-419, DOI: 10.1080/21599165.2013.836701

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2013.836701

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Analysing the Rospuda River controversy in Poland: rhetoric,environmental activism, and the influence of the European Union

Julia Szuleckaa,b and Kacper Szuleckic,d*

aInstitute of International Forestry and Forest Products, Dresden University of Technology, Tharandt,Germany; bDepartment of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (LEAF), University of Padua,Padua, Italy; cEnvironmental Studies and Policy Research Institute (ESPRi), Wroclaw, Poland;dHertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany

(Received 12 July 2012; final version received 11 July 2013)

The paper looks at the case of a large and widely publicised environmental controversy inPoland, and asks why the authorities chose the “pro-environmental” option in the end.Taking into account the wider political and social context of the controversy, we also try toshow what the role of the European Union (EU) was in that conflict. We adopt a rhetoricalapproach to show the discursive struggle around the environmental protection norms, aswell as the idea of participation. We engage in a theoretical discussion with constructivistresearch on normative change, arguing for the need to take domestic agency, as well as localideational structures, into account while also questioning the usefulness of the concept of“socialisation” and the notion of “norm diffusion” in the debate on Europeanisation. Instead,normative change could be perceived as the empowerment and legitimisation of certainnorms and values at the cost of a relative de-legitimisation of others. The EU, apart from itslegal impact, can be seen as an important reference point, both as a source of powerfuldiscourses and of legitimacy, while the agency is mostly on the domestic side. We contend,however, that such normative shifts are very context dependent and unstable.

Keywords:Rospuda river; environmental protest; Poland; Europeanisation; normative change;rhetoric; contentious politics; participation

Introduction

The Rospuda River controversy in Poland, which saw its peak in the winter of 2006–2007, is anexample of a larger issue relating to the “Europeanisation” of environmental norms and policies.Before the accession, it is argued that the European Union (EU) possessed a carrot-and-stickmechanism of conditionality, and could thus secure a high degree of compliance, if only onthe legislative level (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004). After the 2004 and 2007 enlarge-ments, it is logical to assume that as far as the new member states (NMS) of Central-EasternEurope (CEE) are concerned, the carrot is gone and the stick is not always a threat. Additionally,although EU-compatible legislation is in place, environmental governance raises the question ofthe actual practices, and this problem overlaps with the issue of democratic participation(Saurugger 2008, 2010). This paper looks at a case of domestic contentious politics in which com-pliance with EU legislation, involvement of civil society in decision-making, and a

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

East European Politics, 2013Vol. 29, No. 4, 397–419, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2013.836701

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mailto:[email protected]

pro-environmental solution was secured in the end, but was not guaranteed at any point in theprocess. The main question we tackle is: why was the pro-environmental solution chosen inthe end? In relation to the wider debate on post-accession EU influence in Europeanisation(which is too often reduced to its institutional and legislative outcome, while the process itselfremains a “black box”), we also ask what the role of the EU was in that particular conflict andin securing the pro-environmental result.1

We suggest that the normative shift that occurred during the conflict and the de-legitimisation ofthe initially proposed policy option account for the pro-environmental outcome. This paper looksinto the process through which norms are transnationally enforced in Europe, emphasising itsdynamic and conflictive character (cf. Saurugger 2010, 472; Szulecki 2011). Our case confirmsBörzel’s and Buzogány’s observation that, as in the NMS, “implementation problems prevail,ENGOs still employ more confrontational strategies” (2010, 711), but we also show that enoughpolitical momentum can be generated to make societal actors have a real say in the policy process.

On the theoretical level, we engage in a discussion with existing social constructivistapproaches to normative change, arguing for the need to take domestic agency as well as local“ideational landscapes” more seriously, while also questioning the usefulness of the concept of“socialisation” and the notion of “norm diffusion” in the literature on Europeanisation. Instead,we propose to look at what, in terms of outcomes, can be described as “normative change” orbetter – normative shift – as context-dependent legitimisation of certain behaviours and value-related statements at the cost of others. Substantively, we seek to contribute to the literature onEU environmental policy diffusion and civil society in CEE with an in-depth case study of animportant controversy.

In the following section, we present the roots of the Rospuda River quarrel and its surprisingoutcome. We then put forth four alternative explanations, none of which can be found fully con-vincing, and so we conclude the section by proposing our own hypothesis formulated around thenotion of normative shift. In the next section, we briefly review the different approaches to nor-mative change in constructivist literature, and then move to the third section, discussing our owntheoretical stance and the dual methodology used in the study. This is followed by an empiricalanalysis of the controversy divided into four phases and a general summary discussion in theconclusion.

The puzzle, alternative explanations and the hypothesis

For years the inhabitants of Augustów, a town in north-eastern Poland, demanded a motorwaybypassing their town, taking the burden of several thousand trucks per day off its streets. Themotorway, part of the strategic EU transport corridor and the Via Baltica – connecting Berlin,Warsaw, and the Baltic states – was supposed to cross the small Rospuda River located in thesuburbs of Augustów. The Rospuda valley in that area, however, was declared an importantenvironmental site, protected under the Natura 2000 programme. After several years of struggle,the advanced construction works were halted, the chosen route cancelled and a new one was pro-posed by environmentalists who avoided the environmentally sensitive area.

Why did the Polish authorities decide to pursue a different project and leave the RospudaRiver valley in its present state? To avoid a confirmation bias, we begin by considering alternativeexplanations of the puzzle (cf. Vennesson 2008). Several alternative explanations are possible. (1)It could be assumed that the elections that took place in Poland while the controversy was at itspeak could be the most important explanatory factor (interestingly, one that is often ignored byscholars analysing normative change and “socialisation”).2 And yet the Civic Platform (PlatformaObywatelska – PO), the party that replaced Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość – PiS) in2007 and formed the new government can hardly be referred to as “green”. A conservative

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government was replaced by a liberal-conservative one.3 The programme of the new authoritiesemphasised the need to build infrastructure and prioritise “cheap” development. The pro-environ-mental option in the Rospuda controversy was not necessarily the cheaper one. And yet, some-thing had to change in the general political discourse in Poland if a liberal party of this kindfinally sided with environmentalists and ignored those (important) societal voices that calledfor the construction of the highway “here and now”.

Three other explanations are possible. One can be termed as “legalistic” (2) and points to thejuridical character of the Rospuda episode, arguing that if the motorway was ultimately declared“illegal” by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and Polish courts, it was illegal from the start,and it was thus only a matter of time before the controversy would end as it did. In fact, as thisexample shows, law is subject to context-dependent interpretation. One needs to bear in mind thatthose same Polish courts that withdrew the construction permit for the Via Baltica had issued it inthe first place. The Natura 2000 network, although portrayed as a powerful preservation mech-anism, leaves much space for interpretation in reality and does not block infrastructure develop-ment, especially if environmental compensation is secured. The illegal “nature” of the motorwaydepended to a great extent on the interpretation of “what the Rospuda really means” – is it “just ariver” or a “treasure of international importance”, and so on – and thus depended on the values andnorms present in the debate. Furthermore, the process of mapping the Natura 2000 network, aswell as the interpretation of the actual level of protection and the degree of the mechanism’s influ-ence was underway throughout the Rospuda episode – was forged by the conflict itself to someextent (cf. Cent, Martens, and Niedziałkowski 2013). Moreover, a different scenario, one in whichthe authorities would push for the construction of the motorway so that it became a fait accompli(the tactics used by the PiS government) was also possible, brushing legal considerations aside.

Another explanation points to the material influence of the EU (3), and suggests that the gov-ernment’s decision was strategic and was only a way to deflect negative consequences and press-ures from “Europe”. EU pressures are undeniable, but as Cruickshank rightly points out, theinfringement procedure launched by the European Commission (EC) “was the culmination ofyears of protest and sophisticated lobbying” on the part of a coalition of civil society actors(2011, 14–15).4 If the hypothesis emphasising normative EU influence was true, the governmentshould be resolving other similar controversies between development and the environment,including ones less publicised and not in the EU spotlight, in favour of economic growth anddevelopment concerns. That was not the case. Between 2007 and 2010, there were severalsimilar situations, though on a smaller scale, all of which were resolved not only in an environ-mentally sound way, but also (mostly) according to different, more participatory governance pro-cedures. Also, a decision to build the motorway as planned was not bound to bring materialpenalties on the Polish government (through EC sanctions). The choice between developmentand the environment necessarily includes a trade-off. If a liberal party consistently chooses toact against its proclaimed ideology, we may hypothesise that some external “circumstances” or“factors” constrain its action. These are, we argue, normative and rhetorical. While the EU insti-tutions played a visible role in the Rospuda conflict, the action, we claim and show in this paper,was largely on the domestic level.

The last explanation (4) proposes that the pro-environmental option was supported by thesociety and chosen by the decision-makers because of a general change in the values dominantin the Polish society. This is related to modernisation, and Inglehart’s hypothesis that with econ-omic development, societies move from materialist to post-materialist values, such as environ-mentalism (1990, 1997). This does not seem to be the case in Poland, at least as far asInglehart’s own research shows. While the Polish society has indeed become wealthier onaverage in the past decades, according to the World Values Survey in 2005–2008, as many as54.4% of Poles believed that economic development had priority over environmental protection,

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as compared to 47.5% in 1997–1999 (World Values Survey 2009). In terms of policy, as one of theimportant figures in the Rospuda episode argues: “since the end of the 1990s, environmental pro-tection, which lacks the backing of any powerful lobby, became an ideal scapegoat” (Wajrak2009b). This suggests that there is no general pro-environmental ideational change or “socialisa-tion”. On the contrary, what we observe in the Rospuda episode is rather a context-dependentshift.

The above explanations do not seem satisfactory; we therefore propose a hypothesis that themain factor accounting for the choice of the pro-environmental option in the Rospuda case was anormative shift which made the other options illegitimate in that context. That normative shift, weargue, was brought about by the rhetorical action of the environmental activists. To test ourhypothesis, we propose a double-track research strategy. On the one hand, we look for evidenceof normative change by probing the level of public discourse at different points in time. On theother hand, we conduct a process tracing analysis of the Rospuda controversy to find out how thenorm empowerment and (de)legitimisation proceeded. The following section provides an over-view of two different approaches to normative change present in constructivist literature – empha-sising either the mechanism of persuasion and socialisation, or rhetorical coercion.

Theoretical approaches to changing norms and practices: dialogue or rhetoric?

Normative change is at the heart of the constructivist research agenda (Finnemore and Sikkink1998), and it is linked to non-state actors and social movements operating across borders(Risse-Kappen 1995; Risse 1999) in relation to the idea of social power (van Ham 2010, 69–90). Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) milestone work in this strand introduces the concept of transna-tional advocacy networks (TANs). The most important action that TANs undertake as collectiveactors is the framing of issues so that they appeal to societies and powerful governmental actors inorder to mobilise them. “Framing”, in its mainstream international relations constructivist version,is very often a strategic action rather than a discursively constituted practice. The book by Risse,Ropp, and Sikkink (1999) is meant to expand the findings of Keck and Sikkink by presenting “acausal argument about the effects of transnational advocacy networks in processes of norm diffu-sion” (Risse and Sikkink 1999). What Risse et al. insist on is the idea of “socialisation” through“persuasion” as a process through which states are made to conform to “international” norms. Thenotion of “socialisation” suggests that norms that previously did not exist are imposed on a certaingroup of actors. We believe that is not always the case, neither with human rights norms and ideasnor with environmental values (Szulecki 2011).

Communicative rationality and the notions of “persuasion”, “argumentation”, and “dialogue”to which Risse et al. refer imply some objective moral superiority of certain norms. The insistenceon persuasion takes the ideal-typical assumptions of Habermasian communicative action into theempirical world. As Sabine Saurugger points out, this theorisation is highly problematic, as itassumes a linear process of internalisation and the notion that socialisation should “homoge-nously lead to appropriate behaviour” while “the process of norm acceptance does not alwayslead to norm internalization as described by the authors” (Saurugger 2010, 473, 483). She pro-poses to bypass the theoretical problems of the socialisation literature by drawing on Erving Goff-man’s concept of dramaturgical action (Saurugger 2010, 489). While accepting the dynamic andconflictive vision of norm emergence, we propose, in turn, to look at political communicationthrough the lens of classical rhetoric – understood as the art of persuading the audience not tothe better argument, but rather to one’s own argument.5 This again resonates with Saurugger’sperspective, as she argues that the emergence and existence of a norm is “based on a powerstruggle among diverse actors competing for influence and legitimacy in the eyes of other insti-tutions as well as the European public” (2008, 176). A similar idea is put forth by Krebs and


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Jackson (2007), who argue for the reintroduction of rhetoric into the analysis of political contesta-tion. They propose a model of “rhetorical coercion”, which makes an analytical division between“frames” and “implications”. In a public debate, it is possible to rhetorically “coerce” theopponent in such a way that she either agrees on the general understanding of the issue (theframe) or also its policy implications. The arguing parties are constrained by the rhetoricalmaterial provided by the discourse they share. The elements of this discourse, which they cancall up and to which they can refer to support their arguments are known as “commonplaces”.6

We draw on Krebs and Jackson in that we substitute persuasion for rhetorical coercion as themost important causal mechanism in the process of political debate. The next section explainsa dual methodology, building on our theoretical approach, adopted for the empirical analysis.

Methodology: tracing norm empowerment at two levels

While such notions as framing, grafting, and norm resonance are already present in the literatureon norms proliferation (Finnemore and Sikkink 2001), we suggest that they be at the centre of theanalysis. And so should the domestic “ideational landscape”which is composed of discourses andvalues and constitutes the rhetorical pool upon which the actors to draw. Whereas socialisationimplies a “change in the heads” of some ill-defined individuals,7 we can understand normativechange through norm empowerment as shifts in legitimacy and show how certain actions takenor statements uttered previously become almost unthinkable, or at least hardly acceptable, afterthe change has occurred. We would argue, however, that actors are far more constrained by thediscursive material that they “work with” than many constructivist scholars would suggest(e.g. Price 1998; cf. Krebs and Jackson 2007, 45). Environmental activists in the case ofRospuda are “norm entrepreneurs” in the sense that they attract attention to certain ideas, andcreatively use existing discursive structures, rather than invent new norms.

For the sake of theoretical clarity, we keep the analysis on two levels, which we investigate atdifferent points in time. The first level is public discourse, in which we observe the shifting pat-terns of rhetorical practices. The other is actual individual behaviour. Our methodological idea isclose to what is known as “temporal sequencing” (Caporaso, Checkel, and Jupille 2003).However, that technique presupposes two completely different theoretical approaches whichare applied to the analysis of one case at different points in time, thus creating many caseswithin (Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999). We try to keep the levels of analysis (structural andagent-centred) separate, but, by adding the temporal dimension, we seek to observe changeand put forth some modest claims regarding the relation between the two levels. The empiricalanalysis provided later employs the method of process tracing (Bennett 2008; Checkel 2008),which is intended to explore the process by which initial conditions are translated into outcomes(Vennesson 2008, 232–236). The remainder of this section discusses the methods chosen for bothlevels of analysis: public discourse and individual behaviour.

Discursive structures

On the “structural” level, we show how the Polish public discourse related to developmental andenvironmental concerns changed overtime. We propose a quadripartite ideal-typical continuum ofvalues associated with nature and corresponding norms (Figure 18) based on the historical andphilosophical literature on Western environmental ideas, as well as our empirical findings(Nedrelid 1991; Boyle and Anderson 1998; Merchant 2003).9

Each of the four values represents a different balance struck between the two mutually exclu-sive extremes of “Development” and “Environment”. The first possible standpoint sees nature asa mere resource for development. Accordingly, the associated norm is that of “non-protection” as


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the ultimate goal is “modernisation”. The second standpoint still treats nature as a resource, butacknowledges its value, and thus prescribes basic (often private) protection of some “most valu-able” elements. The third standpoint perceives nature as a common good, yet it is still anthropo-centric. It calls for public protection of the environment, as well as the compensation ofenvironmental losses. The last and most radically environmentalist standpoint does not perceivedevelopment as a goal, and argues that nature has intrinsic value that does not have to be measuredin any economic or in fact any “human” way. Nature thus has to be protected and alwaysprioritised.

Norms are conceptualised as behavioural prescriptions linked to respective values. And thus itis possible to hypothesise about the values held by individuals and groups on the basis of theiractions and statements in which norms are called up. We focus on rhetoric and political narratives,as by observing those we can “come close to observing the construction of political norms bywhich an actor publicizes and affirms his or her own interest” (Saurugger 2010, 473). Thisapproach assumes that human behaviour is not only instrumentally rational, but is driven moreoften by a form of bounded rationality, also described as logic of appropriateness in the literature(Fearon and Wendt 2002). Interests are constituted by identities and norms to which individualsand groups adhere (Checkel 1998). An approximated way to know of one’s norms and values isthrough an analysis of communication – the speech acts and texts that she or he produces. That iswhy we chose a discourse analytic approach for the purpose of this study.10

A normative shift is not understood in the deeper sense of norm internalisation, but rather asthe change in public discourse, in which values and norms are present and which they can dom-inate. To investigate normative change, we probe public discourse in Poland, represented by thenational, regional, and local media for the expression of certain norms at different points in time.This is based on the assumption that the media, and especially the press, can be treated as a sphereof public debate in which ideas, values, and discourses are called up, challenged, and reformed.Press articles are in some sense “merely” the expression of the opinions of their authors or editors.However, by the fact of being published, these texts add to the general public discourse. On theother hand, authors, as all those enmeshed in a certain public discourse, are not taking their ideasex nihilo. Previous texts, existing traditions, and established ideas constrain possible standpoints,but also constitute the range of choices.

To organise the interpretive analysis of texts, we use the method of semantic field analysis andits particular genre, the tool of multi-aspect definitions (Kłosiński 1994), borrowed from the fieldof media studies. To grasp the full meaning of a term analysed it is necessary, according to Robin(1973), to seemingly divide and apportion the sequence of an enunciation and recompose it againwith meaningful readability. In other words, to depict the semantic field of a term, we have tostudy its connotations, contexts, distributions, and linkages. Having established the semanticnetwork by accumulating the characteristics of the object, we can proceed to grasp its meanings.

Figure 1. Development/environment values and norms.


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When the corpus of texts creating the semantic field is broad (as in this case), a set of hidden defi-nitions of the object can be reconstructed.

According to our conceptualisation, definitions can serve as indicators of norms to which acertain group adheres. Definitions contain utterances of both attitudes towards the object (theRospuda River) and expressions of actions that need to be taken. The expression of attitudecan be treated as an indicator of values – i.e. “Rospuda is a natural treasure” suggests thebelief that nature has intrinsic value, and it is matched with “which needs to be protected at allcosts” – an indicator of the norm or environmental preservation. An inductive reading of thewide sample of media texts resulted in distinguishing 12 definitions of “what the Rospudais”.11 To perform the analysis, we chose only those that can logically be linked to the fourvalues and norms discussed (Table 1).

Tracing the process at the level of agency

While it is difficult to speak about the causes that brought about normative change on the struc-tural level, even if that change is visible, the individual agency level can be investigated in moredetail. We seek to provide a narrative explanation of the process, which leads from the initiallyanti-environmental conditions to a pro-environmental result. What we call normative shift is con-ceptualised as norm empowerment, that is – certain norms become (re)affirmed in the domesticcontext, while others are marginalised. We, therefore, seek to uncover the practices throughwhich some behaviours and statements (and thus norms and values) become de-legitimised,while others gain legitimacy. The outcome of this, however, is not set in stone, and can itselfbe subject to contestation if a different conflict arises, for “the establishment of a constitutionalnorm […] does not automatically lead to its internalization as a legitimate and socially acceptedbehaviour” (Saurugger 2010, 472). The stability of certain norms and the instability of others canbe enforced, we argue, by the transnational context of the EU.

Process tracing helps to “reconstitute the actors” beliefs and perspectives and to regroup themin a limited number of categories (Vennesson 2008, 234). Our typology of definitions, whichserves as indicators of norms and values, is also used in this part of the research. Retrospectively,we have divided the process of normative change around the Rospuda conflict into four stages,which are a logical outcome of the theorisation of the mechanism of rhetorical coercion.

The initial phase is described as Norm Hegemony, characterised by the unquestioned domina-tion of one value–norm tandem over others. This is reflected in public discourse, where the normhas a strong position. From this initial stage, the process takes off, driven by the advocates of acompeting norm. The key advocacy groups can already be identified, and the initial attempts todestabilise the dominant position of one norm are undertaken. These are countered by activedenial of the legitimacy of these claims, based on the dominant value–norm. Once the strugglebecomes visible in the domestic media, and thus enters the space of public debate and it is imposs-ible for those in power to ignore it, the process reaches the second phase.

Table 1. Four norms and corresponding definitions.

Norm 1. No protection 2. Basic protection3. Conservation/compensation

4. Environmentalpreservation

Definitions “Negative Christian”definition – thetypicallyconservative one

“Eco-terrorism” and“Radical Local”definitions ofRospuda

“Rational/liberal”definition

“Green modernisation”,“Green Radical”, and“Positive Christian”


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The next stage, Framing Struggle, is a discursive battle over the “turf” in public debate, thedefinition of the issue, the “taking over” of important traditions and notions with which the valuesargued can be reinforced and mobilising wider social circles as well as important political andcultural figures. It is also the moment when the advocates of either norm can be heard beyondborders, if only they succeed in framing their issue in a way that it becomes understandableand worthwhile for a wider, transnational audience. The key concepts at this stage are thenframing, grafting, and mobilisation. The frames that compete in the dispute are developed atthis stage, and the actors make attempts to graft them into the “ideational landscape”, performingnot only what Keck and Sikkink (1998, 22–23) call “symbolic politics”, but also “politics ofmeaning”. At this point, rhetorical coercion becomes visible,12 but actors concentrate on attemptsto be heard and to mobilise vast support (but not yet to convince those who are against the ideasthey advocate).

Once one side starts to clearly dominate in the conflict and its mobilising efforts bear fruit, wecan observe the transition to a next stage, namely Relative Superiority of one of the advocatedvalues. Here, the mechanism of rhetorical coercion becomes the key driving force. As previouslysuggested, it is not the better argument that wins, but the one which is more convincing in aspecific discursive context. At this stage, one frame of the issue becomes dominant and graduallymarginalises the other one, while the contest moves from the frame (already accepted) to the argu-ment over its policy implications (implication contest). This is done with the help of the media, aswell as external and domestic pressures. Key figures at this stage can become “entrapped” in thediscourse of the dominant side, even if they were not willing to support it initially. However,because one side starts to make claims of political legitimacy, the “mobilisation of shame”(Keck and Sikkink 1998, 23; cf. Krebs and Jackson 2007, 40), also transnational, can becomemore evident. The side losing the “discursive battle” can resort to non-discursive measures in des-perate attempts to reverse the situation.

In her analysis of the emergence of the participation norm in the EU, Saurugger reconstructsthe process through which a certain group of actors “created a hegemonic discourse on participa-tory democracy that brought the actors concerned to accept this norm” (2010, 417). The longersuch hegemony – (or relative superiority as we call it, emphasising its inherent conflictive andinstable character) – of one norm lasts, the more stable and firm the context becomes (hereagain, the stability provided by external actors if they side with one of the groups). In the end,the value reaches a Stable Position, and either the challenging value is again marginalised orthe previously hegemonic one becomes the challenger. If the latter happens, we can expectpolicy change.

Green empowerment: a process tracing of the Rospuda conflict

Phase I: norm hegemony – the conflict breaks out

“The Tatra Mountains should be for the Poles, not for marmots”, Antoni Tokarczuk, then Ministerof the Environment, famously declared in 2001, pointing to the apparent need to open Poland’smajor national park for mass tourism and investment – and firing the director of the Park who wasnot willing to sacrifice its integrity (Fiałkowski 2001). This statement is a good illustration of theperspective on environmental issues that dominated the Polish political discourse at the turn of thecentury. Nature – yes, but mostly as a decoration. Environmentalism was considered a radical nui-sance and a Western fad (Wajrak 2009a). “Environmental protection is replaced by the cult of theenvironment and becomes an aim in itself. Instead of serving a common purpose, protected areasare less and less available to the general public”, noted a Catholic ethics professor in the topopinion daily Rzeczpospolita (Wojciechowski 2004). At the outset of the Rospuda “campaign”,


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33% of the media articles analysed expressed the view of nature as a resource requiring only themost basic protection, and an additional 30% supported public protection and conservation withan emphasis on modernisation.13 The calls for taking nature into account were most often dis-missed with the rhetoric of modernisation and the notion of “keeping up” with the EU. AsPrime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński put it: “This Natura has expanded so much that we canhardly build anything now. […] We have to protect nature in a rational way”, he added, claimingthat Poland has “too many” protected areas (Wajrak 2006).

The Natura 2000 network, which would later become the institution around which claimsagainst the planned routeing of Via Baltica were cast, began to emerge after 2004, when a newenvironmental protection bill was introduced (Cent, Martens, and Niedziałkowski 2013, 119).Infrastructure development, especially in areas where social and economic needs were strategi-cally important and no alternatives were available, was permitted under the seemingly weak con-servation mechanism. The conflict, especially its scale and European reach, was difficult toanticipate. Even if a challenge from abroad could be imagined, the Kaczynski governmentwith its strongly Eurosceptic rhetoric was eager to challenge all claims that it saw as breachingdomestic sovereignty.

The Rospuda controversy was hanging in the air for a long time before the actual conflictstarted. In the 1990s, journalists and scientists drew attention to the disturbing projects to builda motorway through the valley of Rospuda several times, but the issue was not considered a“national” problem. An early “Coalition to Save the Rospuda Valley”14 already tried to influencethe decision-making process in 2004 and challenge the scope of the environmental impact assess-ment. When that proved futile, the first memos to European institutions were issued, pointing outthe possible breaches of the Council of Europe “Bern Convention” by the intended routeing of ViaBaltica (not only at Rospuda) (Bohdan 2005). In June 2006, it turned out that the motorwaywould definitely cross the river, and larger initiatives were started to protect it. The initial envir-onmentalist network that can be discerned early in this phase was a diverse group consisting ofPolish organisations and Polish branches of international activist associations.15 While the natureof their engagement was diverse, there seem to be no clear patterns regarding the effectiveness orroles and types of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (that is local, national, or inter-national).16 They all called for a civic protest against the motorway and sided with the majornewspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. The potential power of these societal actors lay in the ability toprovide alternative reports and expertise (dominating the “epistemic community”),17 as well asthe claims to legitimacy based on certain morally derived values rather than political “ideologies”.

But before the end of 2007, the NGOs could hardly enter the decision-making process. Theirviews were ignored by the local authorities in Augustów and by the government. Their standpointwas denied any reasonability, and their “anarchic” demands were dismissed as “eco-terrorism”.18

The legal arguments at that point were on the side of the supporters of the motorway throughRospuda. In 2005, the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways presented anenvironmental impact assessment of the planned bridge over the mire and the river, whichsuggested that the investment’s impact would be minor (EFORT, Europejska FundacjaOdnowy i Rozwoju Terytorialnego 2012). Although Rospuda was protected as a “quite zone”and a “landscape conservation area” since the early 1990s, and partially covered by a Bird Direc-tive site, the valley was initially denied special status under the Habitat Directive – which was thelegal justification for the planned construction (Bohdan 2005). At this stage, the government’spractices of denial in the face of environmental protest were not followed by any concrete argu-ments, apart from the calling-up of the value of development and the idea of modernisation. PMKaczyński said that “giving in to their [environmentalists’] demands can block the construction ofhighways and the use of EU money in Poland” and emphasised, that while he is in favour of “theenvironment”, development has to be given priority. Whereas the environmentalists were already


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trying to redefine Rospuda as a “natural treasure”, the government avoided any discussions of theriver itself, concentrating on the “long belated infrastructural improvement” and the legal aspectof the project, thus marginalising the competing frame.

When the media campaign launched by Gazeta Wyborcza gained momentum, new actorsbegan to side with the environmentalists. The activists alone would not be able to enter the nego-tiations, especially since the construction works had already started. At this point, the EC hadalready begun contacting the Polish authorities and demanded an “explanation”. It also hired aPolish-speaking lawyer to negotiate a solution through informal channels (Börzel and Buzogány2010, 723). Without the strong media support, the NGOs groups could not gain any significantattention, although they possessed some resources that would later prove invaluable in the cam-paign. As a major nationwide daily, Gazeta Wyborcza was able to create the space for debatealmost instantly, and acted not only as a facilitator but also as an important agent. However,only in early 2007, when the controversy was widely discussed in all Polish media, did the con-flict reach its second phase – the authorities could no longer ignore the issue, and had to defendtheir framing of the problem.

Phase II: framing struggle – the conflict escalates

In the summer of 2006 Gazeta Wyborcza had already called for civic protests against the motor-way. The daily newspaper gathered 160,000 signatures under an appeal entitled “Saving RospudaValley”, which was sent to President Lech Kaczyński. The document suggested that the RospudaRiver valley “belongs not only to the Polish but to the European heritage”.19 The definition ofRospuda as a “unique natural treasure of European importance” which brings onto Poland themoral duty of “preserving it for the future generations in an untouched state” was a keyelement of the way this issue was framed by the environmentalists. In their view, the valleywas priceless, and it was not possible to construct any motorway through that area. Thus, theenvironmentalists challenged not only the “issue implications”, but also the frame itself.The advocates of the motorway framed the issue in terms of (1) development and (2) risk forthe local population. They were presenting the whole “row” as “media manipulation” over “aswamp, the protection of which brings 150,000 trucks to the town each month, taking the livesof local people and their children, making them suffer from lung diseases, exposing the townto noise, smog, and cracking ceilings”.

The environmentalist side needed to achieve three things. First, to attract attention and even-tually gain support of a large part of the society. Second, to make the authorities engage in any sortof dialogue. Finally, to make them engage in the dialogue on favourable terms – that is, framed asa question of environmental damage. The “greens” organised a “green ribbon” campaign to attractfurther attention and create a visual symbol of the conflict. At the same time, the issue was pre-sented as a case of “bad governance” and “Europe-wide shame”. The campaign was soon to bedescribed as the largest societal action in the country: “Poland has not yet seen such an enormouscivic campaign for the sake of environmental protection, evoking European values” (SISKOM2007), a formulation that points to the symbolic role of “Europe” as a rhetorical resource. Thedevelopment side lost its monopoly in the public sphere, but it still had the last say on policies.

Despite the media campaign, environment minister Jan Szyszko refused to change the route ofthe motorway, and the government was still using the rhetoric of modernisation. Via Baltica wasdepicted as a key infrastructural investment, and the people of Augustów as victims of any delayin construction works (which could result from a change in the project). Since the issue wasalready publicised, but the authorities still refused to negotiate with the environmentalists, thelatter started taking desperate measures in early 2007, when the construction works in thevalley were just about to start.20


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Denial and the strategy of ignoring societal voices of dissent reached its peak in February2007, and the activists had no choice but to resolve to “non-rhetorical” action – civil disobe-dience. When bulldozers were ready to enter the site on St Valentine’s Day, Greenpeace, andother groups organised a camp (“The Green Town”) on the route of the works, and numerous acti-vists occupied the site. The camp was effectively blocking the construction works, in an attempt todelay them until 1 March 2007, when a strict bird-protection period would start, not allowing forany works on site.

Shortly before that the ombudsman Janusz Kochanowski supported the protestors’ claim thatthe decision in favour of the investment was breaking the law, and later that it was also against theConstitution. This was the first important “crack” in the previously monolithic stance of the PiSgovernment. It also created another aspect of the controversy, which was now not only aboutenvironment versus development, but also the rule of law, human rights, and participatorygovernance. As such, it became an issue that was impossible to be ignored any longer, and thegovernment was forced to engage in dialogue. What is more, in December 2006, the EC andthe Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas accused Poland of breaking Communitylaw by planning motorway investments through areas protected under the Natura 2000 pro-gramme. Again, this was about more than just the environment. As Saurugger’s analysis suggests,that particular time was a crucial period for the emergence of the participation norm within theEU. The Rospuda conflict received additional attention as a case of contentious politics inwhich civil society (the environmental network) tried to affirm its influence on policy-making(Saurugger 2008).

The struggle around the issue of Rospuda conquered the Polish media in the months when theconstruction was supposed to take place. Between February and May 2007, the two major dailiesalone published 195 pieces on Rospuda. At this point, the authorities were forced to engage in aninformed dialogue, at least with the European institutions. With that came the acceptance of the“environmental” frame of the Rospuda issue. Minister Szyszko denied any “value” of the valley,stating that “Rospuda is a human creation and nothing will happen, when the motorway will cutacross it”.21 Such statements were constantly questioned by the media, especially GazetaWyborcza, which was finally able to comprehensively argue with officials. When the issue wasframed as a trade-off between “preserving pure and untouched nature” and “developmentabove all”, it was possible to measure the degree of public support. In a survey conducted atthe peak of the conflict, 41% of Poles declared that “preserving nature is more important thanmodernization”, while 24% opted for development (industrialisation and modernisation).Sixty-two per cent of respondents were against the motorway cutting through Rospuda, and19% were in favour of that project (Feliksiak 2007).

In Podlasie, the region where Augustów lies, the figures were almost reversed, with 52% sup-porting the motorway, and there were still many who favoured the project with possible compen-sation for the environment. The activities and strategies of the motorway supporters were quitesimilar (in fact, emulated those of environmentalists) and had a parallel timeframe. The local auth-orities started an “orange ribbon” campaign as a direct reply to the “green ribbons”, and there wasa website established to support the motorway. The town of Augustów was backed by its partnercity in south-western Poland, Szklarska Poręba. Its inhabitants gathered signatures for a counter-appeal to the president, but as their action did not have a nationwide character, they managed tocollect only a couple of thousand. As the environmental activists later pointed out, the key interestthat pushed a majority of the local populace to support the project was to relieve the town from theburden of trucks as soon as possible. The local and national authorities, in their communicationwith the Augustowians, presented the routeing as the only option – the alternative, for which theyblamed the environmentalists and then the EU, was no road at all. In grassroots meetings con-ducted by one of the environmental groups, it turned out that the proposed alternative routeings


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were often seen as more favourable and the general level of environmental values (among peoplewho often made a living on eco-tourism) quite high (Bohdan 2005).

Despite the failure of their orange ribbon campaign, the supporters of the motorway still hadthe government on their side, along with the General Directorate for National Roads and Motor-ways, and the company that won the tender to build the motorway. They also gained attention inthe media and were supported by Fakt, which is the only Polish newspaper with circulation andreadership higher than Gazeta Wyborcza. The tabloid portrayed the eco-activists as “stupefiedwith the smell of rare flowers” unrealistic and irrational people “who are never content” andalways prioritise “birdies, frogs, and flowers” over the life and well-being of local people(Kubrak 2009). Transnationally, the development side was bolstered by the Lithuanian govern-ment, since much of that country’s import and export passes through Augustów.

It is important to note that the environmentalists began framing the Rospuda case in “transna-tional” terms early on. While the “transnational” dimension of the motorway was purely material,the vision of a “treasure of European heritage” that was about to be destroyed seemed very appeal-ing. European legislation provided an additional anchoring point in this respect, as did the symbol ofEurope – powerful in the Central European discourses as a positive reference point. Foreign news-papers picked up the “green” interpretation of the conflict and thus added to the general pressure onPolish authorities. German Die Welt published many articles regarding the Rospuda describing it as“a valley belonging to primeval forests, which is an asylum for eagles, lynxes, wolves” and otherrare species (Die Welt 2007b); and “the picturesque valley with protected moors” (Gnauck 2007).The paper reported on the “Green Town” where “around 70 foreign activists, among them manyGermans” showed up (Die Welt 2007a). A similar attitude was represented by the Norwegianand Swedish media, which attributed to the area the uniqueness in European and global terms.According to The Observer, Rospuda is “the magical land that time forgot” and “a valley that har-bours Europe’s rarest wildlife” (Jowit 2007).

Polish environmental scientists, who voiced their solidarity with the “Green Town” and thewhole campaign in February, called their Western colleagues for help, establishing an ad hoctransnational “epistemic community”. They became a source of many authoritative (not merelyscientific, but also foreign) statements. According to German and Dutch scholars, Rospuda isthe best-conserved moor west of the Ural Mountains, which implies that protecting it is not alocal, but a serious European task. Academics also helped in shaming the General Directoratewhen they pointed out numerous mistakes in all policy reports relating to motorway construction,e.g. inventing non-existent species of birds. With the scientists came politicians: a Spanishmember of the European Parliament offered to tie himself to a tree to save the Rospuda Valley.Commissioner Dimas issued numerous statements that the Polish government was behaving inap-propriately in the Rospuda case.

The spreading political contestation and the controversy over Rospuda were effectivelygrafted onto some well-established traditions and symbols of the Polish “ideational landscape”.One such grafting strategy, which was also at the heart of the Polish environmental movementin the 1980s, was to link preservationist arguments with the Christian conceptions of natureand the teachings of John Paul II (cf. Szulecki 2011, 288–290). The supporters of the motorway,on the other hand, sided with the more conservative factions of the Catholic Church and attemptedto reframe the issue as “Catholic values of life” versus a “civilisation of death” (personified by theleft-wing activists). However, the power of the Pope as a unifying symbol was greater and by defi-nition more inclusive, and helped the environmentalists to keep their “ecological” frame and theidea of “protecting pristine nature” in place.

By deploying practices that can be called the “politics of meaning”, the “greens” were able totake over symbolic strongholds that affirmed their perspective and allowed their values to dom-inate in the debate. When the “Green Town” was set up, clear parallels were made to


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anti-communist dissent, and Rospuda was labelled “the new Solidarity”. This was additionallystrengthened by the presence of former Solidarity activists in the camp. In this “symbolicwarfare”, everything from high- to pop-culture became a contested issue, and the “pro-ecological”message of everything, from Romanticist Polish poetry to popular Czechoslovak cartoons, wasclaimed. The involvement of “higher” forms of culture came after the large media campaign.Actors and artists issued an open letter to Szyszko, calling for the preservation of the Valley.

Visits by the EU directorate were used to hold ecological gatherings and protests. “Mire Day”was organised in Poland in February 2007. While numerous people took to the streets in majorcities (Kraków, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Warsaw) to support the environmentalists, demonstrationsagainst the eco-activists were held in Augustów. Throughout this phase of the conflict, the mediaon all levels were flooded with information and opinions on the Rospuda case. The advocates ofthe motorway were still in a dominant position, and one-third of the articles (in papers apart fromGazeta) argued from the perspective of “basic protection”, another third part postulated “conser-vation”, while 32% of texts presented the hard-line environmental preservation point of view(Figure 2).

When the EU officials started to monitor the process and threatened Poland with “severe con-sequences”, the Polish government responded with a bargaining tactic, based on the norm ofenvironmental conservation rather than the advocated preservation. The government and localauthorities, conforming to the conservationist norm, acknowledged the value of nature, butdenied Rospuda a special, unique status. Szyszko and the transportation minister Polaczekwere mentioning that many square kilometres of trees will be planted to compensate for theenvironmental losses in the Valley. They were thus emphasising the possibility of compensatingfor environmental damage, which is included in the Natura 2000 regulations in Poland.22 Thiswas meant as a tactical concession to tone down the dispute, acknowledging the environmentalframing, but pointing to different policy implications than those argued by green activists. Thissituation brings us to the next “step” postulated in the model, as both the “environmental”frame, and the advocated norm of environmental preservation have achieved some relative super-iority in the debate by this point (late spring 2007). Through successful mobilisation and an

Figure 2. Representation of values/norms in the media.


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effective media campaign, reinforced with “difficult questions” from the representatives of Euro-pean institutions, the government was rhetorically trapped and, with time, started to accept moreand more implicit assumptions of the environmental discourse – and “talking the talk”.

Phase III: relative superiority – from “cheap talk” to “entrapment”

Apart from the symbolic “ribbon campaigns” and collection of signatures, both sides started“blaming and shaming” the rivals. Among the pointless insults, there were some smart “traps”used by the environmentalist side. These concentrated on the President, and pressed him andhis wife to side with the Rospuda supporters. Polish NGOs and Gazeta Wyborcza forced the Pre-sident’s spokeswoman to comment on the conflict. As she replied automatically that the environ-ment “has always been important for President Kaczyński” (Medek and Wajrak 2006), thestatement became a crucial instrument to pressure the head of state. It was used to portray the Pre-sident as closer to the environmentalists. Furthermore, careful statements made by the presidentialcouple were later used to label them as Rospuda’s defenders. During an interview for Gazeta, theFirst Lady was asked if she wore a green ribbon. She replied that she would, but did not have one.When she was presented with a ribbon by the journalist, she had no choice but to put it on, andthus a picture of the President’s wife siding with Greenpeace was spread by the media (Uhlig2007). The presidential couple was contrasted with the PM Kaczyński, who was stronglyshamed for being the “worse” of the Kaczyński twins. One of the journalists noted:

The premier says we have to modernize quickly and cheaply. But the civilized world has stoppedmodernizing like that long ago. You cannot rebuild damaged environment, once you get richer,and the costs of those damages are many times higher than the gains from quick and cheap develop-ment. (Gazeta Wyborcza 2007)

While such “symbolic” cases of what could be called situational entrapment helped to strengthenthe position of the environmental side in the struggle, they were only later followed (once the eco-logical frame became clearly dominant) by instances of real, discursive entrapment, in which aparty has no choice but to formulate its arguments within the boundaries set by the oppositionand accept some of its assumptions – a visible sign of rhetorical coercion. The Presidentindeed started to diverge from his brother’s party standpoint, and explicitly “disapproved” ofthe construction works at Rospuda in late February, putting the PM in a very difficult position.From then on, the government’s standpoint began to show even more “cracks” – a PiS spokesmandeclared that “the Prime Minister is more and more open to the arguments of the environmental-ists and the perspective of the EC” (Medek and Domanowska 2007). What is important is thatthere was no such mechanism in the opposite direction. There was no successful blaming strategyon behalf of the motorway supporters. No important actor was persuaded from the “green” to thedevelopment side. The public sphere of debate was already dominated by the environmentalframing, and it was important for every participant to relate to their arguments.

But Minister Szyszko was far from being convinced by the ecologists. He kept his permissionfor a trestle bridge above the RospudaValley, close to themost valuable and protected sites, signingthe decision precisely on “Mire Day”. The second “peak” of the conflict came in the summer of2007 when the “Green Town” was established again with the end of the bird-protection period.

The environmental side, having mobilised thousands in support of their cause already,launched a series of new campaigns (e.g. tree “adoption” and passports of the “Republic ofRospuda”). The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) managed to gather 10,000 signatures fora petition to Poland’s president. Most of the signatories were British, Belgian, and Spanish.Environmental activists led by Gazeta’s journalist Adam Wajrak begun to buy small pieces of


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land on the planned route through the valley and refused to sell them to the state. More celebritiesand prominent cultural figures expressed their support for the “greens” – “Requiem for Rospuda”was part of the season’s popular theatrical play, and the “Przystanek Woodstock” rock festival,which brought together over 100,000 young people, was almost entirely dedicated to the issue.

By late spring 2007, the EC started blaming Poland for breaking Article 10 of the EU’s Treatyas well as the Habitat Directive. A reasoned opinion was issued, followed by a case broughtbefore the ECJ. Additionally, the Commission issued a petition to the Court for an immediate sus-pension of construction works. Starting the hearings in April, ECJ did not ultimately have topropose any sanctions, since the Polish government suddenly changed its tone.23

The electoral struggle which reached its peak in the summer blurs the situation to some extent,as the opposition, by definition, was ready to question the validity of judgement of the govern-ment about to leave office. And yet, by looking at the way the four norms/values were representedin the media, we notice a considerable change in public discourse. The relative superiority of the“environmental preservation” norm becomes visible – being expressed in 59% of the pieces pub-lished from May until December 2007 (Figure 2).

Despite the observable dominance of the environmental perspective and preservation normsin the nationwide discourse, the regional ambiguity and local dissatisfaction with the campaignagainst the motorway had to be dealt with. The ecological frame had little resonance with theway the issue was perceived by the people of Augustów. To bridge this cleavage, the “greens”defined the Rospuda controversy as an instance of “bad governance”, which led to a situationwhere all the stakeholders were unhappy with the way problems were first created and thenresolved. This definition dominated the pre-electoral period (46% of all articles about Rospudareferred to governance malpractices at the peak of the conflict and 30% right before the elections),and became a common platform of constructive critique for all media (Fakt, Gazeta, and Rzecz-pospolita), as well as for both sides of the conflict. We argue that this realisation is constitutive forthe change in governance patterns that could be discerned in Poland as a result of the controversy.

In April 2007, the Regional Administrative Court in Białystok revoked the environmentalpermit, which was required to conduct construction works in Rospuda. In the summer, the PMKaczyński ordered to stop the works until the ECJ delivered its judgement. The environmentalNGO coalition was quick to applaud the decision and twist the arm of the government further.In a joint announcement, they expressed the need for an alternative routeing, emphasising notthe environmental preservation frame (which was already holding), but that Rospuda has beenan example of bad governance: “We care for the safety of both the environment and thepeople”, and no more time and money should be lost on pointless construction work and rows– they went on, creating a much more inclusive framing, appealing to the supporters of the motor-way and the population of Augustów.24 Later that summer, the public was shocked by the news-papers announcing that the General Directorate had concealed the true results of an advisoryreport it had commissioned, where an independent consultancy rated the motorway through theRospuda Valley as the worst possible solution (Marczak 2007). This moment coincided with par-liamentary elections, where the factor of international “shame” in which the Rospuda case playedan important part, constructed in reference to a symbolic Europe, brought about a serious changeon the political scene. Kaczyński’s PiS lost the elections, and a coalition government of the liberalCivic Platform (PO) and the agrarian Polish People’s Party was established. In his exposé, the newPMDonald Tusk claimed that “Natura 2000 […] is not bound to cause conflicts between the tasksof environmental protection and the economic development of the country”. Despite his clearlyliberal and utilitarian views, he emphasised “respect for nature” and “dialogue” as the necessaryelements of Poland’s sustainable development, simultaneously referring to the “green” mobilis-ation of the Rospuda campaign and “bad governance”.25 In early December 2007, the newEnvironment Minister Maciej Nowicki commented on the conflict: “I have just recently read


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the opinion by the National Council for Nature Protection, and I realized how valuable this area is.It’s the only soligenous peatland in Poland, which is a post-glacial relic” (Niklewicz 2007).Leaving the question of true intentions aside, it seems that this was the legitimate thing to sayat that point.

Phase IV: stable position

From December 2007 onwards, the debate radically changed. The authorities gave up their pos-ition of power and started an “egalitarian” debate with the “civil society representatives”, in aneffort to, as the PM Tusk suggested, “put the debate back on its feet, as it was standing on itshead until now” (Czerny 2007). They established a Round Table, which, especially in thepost-communist Polish context, symbolises the equality among actors in search for the best sol-ution.26 According to the Ministry of Infrastructure spokesman, the Round Table was “an inde-pendent decision of the government, not enforced by any societal pressures”.27 Round This is adebateable statement, but the decision did come from the new Environment Minister.28 TheRound Table met for the first time in January and agreed that only three variants of the motorwaywould be considered29: the controversial bypass of Augustów through the Rospuda, withadditional versions (tunnel, suspension bridge); the environmentalists’ proposal passing nearthe village of Chodorki; and a new governmental proposal through the village of Raczki. TheGeneral Directorate representative spoke in favour of the first variant, but noted that although“it is a proposal we worked on for 15 years, it has all the documentation, it does not meanthat we are digging trenches and not willing to let go. We are here to find a compromise”.Even though the Round Table was meeting on an irregular basis and lost a significant amountof time waiting for the results of additional expert analyses, as well as a large-scale round ofsocietal consultations on the grassroots level, it soon became clear that only one of the alternativeprojects had a chance of being chosen.

In the meantime, several similar potential conflicts between modernisation and the environ-ment emerged, but they were either automatically resolved in favour of the environment, or con-ciliatory policy networks were called up involving environmental activist groups, localpopulations, the authorities, and the private sector. A good example is the conflict between themodernisation of an airport near Świdnik in Central-Eastern Poland and the protection of endan-gered gophers that inhabit nearby fields. “The Rospuda case turned out to be a revolution in thefashion in which decisions are made. In Świdnik, dialogue was established from the start, recon-ciling the locals and the environmentalists without unnecessary costs and conflicts” (Nieśpiał2007). This shift in governance procedures led to a quick resolution, leading to both theplanned renovation of the airport and preservation of the gophers’ habitats. A less publicisedcase is that of the S16 motorway (also part of the Via Baltica) near Białystok, which was supposedto cut through the protected areas of Puszcza Knyszyńska. The construction permit for that sectionof the motorway was cancelled by the regional administrative court on the same day as the verdictover Rospuda was made, and clearly on the same basis (PAP 2008). More importantly, the gov-ernment announced that it is finally going to prepare the long overdue list of Natura 2000 pro-tected areas through consultations with NGO experts and activists. “This is a breakthrough”,said Przemysław Chylarecki of the Polish Bird-Protection Society (Niklewicz 2008).

While the government sustained its point of view on the conflict and emphasised the need fora societal debate and dialogue at the Round Table, the lower-level administration made an attemptto continue the motorway through Rospuda as a fait accompli. An environmentalist producedphotographic evidence of continued construction works just 400 metres from the border of theNatura 2000 protected area. A bridge over a local road would be completely useless and a sig-nificant waste of money, should the route of the motorway be changed.30 This was meant as


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an argument for the rapid continuation of the existing variant of the road. The environmentalistparticipants of the Round Table were furious at the news, and suggested that the General Direc-torate’s local branch was “breaking the consensus it helped negotiate”, and that “it is unclear if theroad builders are governed by the government or the other way round” (Gazeta Wyborcza 2008).The Ministry of the Environment demanded explanations from the local authorities and the Direc-torate, which claimed that while the courts have obliged them to stop any works within the pro-tected Natura 2000 areas, construction outside these zones was still legal. After the governmentalintervention, these were also put on hold. This case of a “non-discursive” way to influence thedebate can be seen as the exact opposite of the way environmentalists acted at the early stageof the controversy, especially when the “Green Town” was established. It, therefore, shows theway empowerment of the competing positions was reversed, and the supporters of the motorwaywere forced to use “guerrilla” tactics to counter the dominant norm.

It took the courts longer to officially question the legality of the Via Baltica through theRospuda Valley. While the regional prosecutor acted immediately after the Ombudsman tookup the issue, and the regional administrative court suspended the construction permit alreadyin April 2007, the higher instances were slower. The High Administrative Court gave its finalverdict on 16 September 2008, dismissing the General Directorate’s appeal, and thus effectivelystopping the construction works.31 In December, the administrative court in Warsaw revoked thelast remaining permit, and the General Directorate was forced to rescind the contract with the con-struction company. A report commissioned by the Round Table was made public in February2009, suggesting that the motorway could not in any form run through the Rospuda marsheswithout breaking the EU law and damaging the natural site (Medek 2009a). Finally, after yearsof struggling, the Interior Minister and deputy-PM Grzegorz Schetyna arrived in Augustów on24 March 2009 to announce (after consulting the local authorities of the communities throughwhich the road would pass) that the motorway would be built through Raczki (thus detouringthe protected areas) “or not built at all” (Medek 2009b). This decision was followed byanother series of consultations with the local councils conducted by the head of the Podlaskie voi-vodship, who explained: “I want to build a partnership for the construction of this road; therefore Idecided to have such meetings, even though they are not my duty” (Medek 2009c). In mid-April2009, the EC withdrew the Rospuda case from the ECJ, thus putting an end to this conflict (Euro-pean Commission 2009).

Conclusion: norm empowerment in the new-EU

As the analysis of discursive structures in time has shown, a change appears to be visible in theway different norms are expressed in public discourse. With time, as the conflict became fiercerand the mobilisation of the environmentalists grew, the environmental protection norms domi-nated. The process tracing showed the strategies used by both sides of the conflict, but especiallythe effective rhetorical coercion on the environmentalist side, led to the choice of the pro-environ-mental option in the end.

But what was the role of the EU in the process? What would be the result of the conflict if theenvironmental activists were to act alone? Or if the issue were left only to elite bargainingbetween the EC and the government? It is difficult to conduct such counterfactual analyses,but a brief comparison with a similar case in Ireland can perhaps give a hint as to the possibleoutcome. In 2006, a project was confirmed to build a motorway through the legendary TaraValley, perhaps the most important site for Irish historical and cultural heritage (Battersby2008). The advocacy networks in both cases developed in a similar manner, emphasising heritageand “intangible values” against material concerns and “cheap modernisation”. However, the Irishactivists were not able (or willing) to frame the issue in wider, European terms. The Tara


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controversy remained a domestic problem, and effectively ended when a number of activists (liketheir Polish counterparts) attempted to use non-violent civic disobedience and block the construc-tion works. They were arrested, and the works continued (Ziemińska 2008). This shows thecrucial role of framing in both domestic and transnational mobilisation – a factor that canbring either failure or eventual success. It also seems to illustrate a deeper cleavage between“Western” and “Eastern” European societies, regarding their political cultures and the politicalpower of the symbol of “Europe”, which dates back to the political struggles of the authoritiesand the dissident movements (Szulecki 2010). However, the role of the EU can be ambiguous.It is possible to imagine scenarios where the activists are advocating a norm which is not acceptedby the EU (e.g. exclusive nationalism), and the external actors side with the government. The roleof the EU as a stabiliser of the norm (if it is shared by the EU itself) is more important and clearer,once it reaches relative superiority over competing norms. The directions taken by EU institutionsare also changing, and the EU as an actor needs to be perceived in dynamic terms. As Baga andBuzogany point out, the change in the EC’s Environment Directorate-General standpoint, shiftingtowards support for development and away from strict environmental preservation, was visibleafter Dimas was replaced by Janez Potočnik (2012, 10).

The continuous references made by different actors to the legal system, and finally the invol-vement of the ECJ, give the episode a striking legal character, which seems to be characteristic ofEuropeanisation in the area of environmental politics. We argue, however, that legal institutionshave to be seen as one of the available (albeit important) resources, but not as the causal factor.The EU supplemented domestic rhetorical coercion with external material coercion, but it was notthe Commission that framed the issue “on the ground” and mobilised societal groups. Europeaninvolvement was necessary in this case, but is not sufficient for the conflict to play out either way.The analysis seems to confirm the observation that domestic and international environmentalNGOs in Central and Eastern Europe maintain the ability to conduct contentious politics(Císař 2010). All in all, however, we found it difficult to differentiate between “local”, “national”,and “international” NGOs in the case of Rospuda, as there was both much movement across gov-ernance “scales”, and far less internationalisation than could seem from media coverage. Whilethe image of a “highly professional yet thinly populated third sector” (Cruickshank 2011, 5) isgenerally plausible in the post-communist context, the Rospuda conflict was a display of thepotential of wider societal mobilisation. This also shows how important (and complex) the dom-estic level is, and how fluctuant rhetorical battles can become. It is crucial to conduct meticulousinductive research on domestic discourses; without that, important definitions, frames or elementsof “ideational landscapes” with which they resonate can be overlooked. Domestic agency is alsothe main element of political contestation, one that can be enforced from the outside, but cannever be substituted with mere transnational action.

As a result of the controversy, Rospuda itself became a symbol within Polish political dis-course. The idea of “Rospuda” as an instance of a larger phenomenon already appeared in 38articles in 2007.32 When environmentalists and “ordinary citizens” were defending Warsaw’slargest park from partition and urbanisation, they named their initiative “Our Rospuda”. Thisshows how an actual issue can become an object of symbolic politics in a matter of monthsand can thus be used in future rhetorical coercion.

As we have shown, a resonant frame can unite actors with very different identities over asingle value/norm (e.g. the greens, the Church, neo-liberals, leftists, and anarchist at the “Przys-tanek Woodstock” festival). Thus, identities become analytically irrelevant in the analysis ofsuch conflicts; what matters are rhetoric and the declared attitudes towards policies. On theother hand, frames cannot explain everything. As heuristics, they organise indirect experiences.Figures from Augustów and the neighbouring areas show that people with a first-hand experi-ence of the problem, whom the issue touches “directly”, will not enter any frame contest. The


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unifying frame of “bad governance” was present in their definitions of the issue all along, and itwas part of a larger, critical strand of Polish political discourse. The largest shift in perspectivewas observed in the regional (not local and not national) media – close enough for the issue tomatter, but detached enough to abstract from it. On the national level, it was much more mobil-isation and rhetorical coercion than actual “conversion” that mattered. In this sense, we suggestto look at such normative struggles and societal campaigns of political contestation rather assomething resembling an electoral campaign than “learning”, “socialisation”, or “norm diffu-sion”. On a more pessimist note, however, the pro-environmental and pro-participatory shiftsdo not seem to be lasting, as the PO government already embarked on a widely criticisedproject of constructing a nuclear power plant in Northern Poland in 2010, limiting civilsociety involvement in the decision-making process framed as relating to “energy security”and not the “environment”.

AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as the participants of the research seminar “Euro-pean Integration and Governance” at the Centre for Comparative and International Studies, ETH/Universityof Zurich, May 2009, for their comments and the different alternative hypotheses they proposed. An earlierversion was also presented and received critical feedback at the 2011 ECPR General Conference inReykjavik.

Notes1. Della Porta and Caiani (2007) introduce the notion of “Europeanisation from Below”, referring to the

1980s’ pan-European activist idea of “détente from below” (aka “Helsinki from below”), in whichCentral European societal groups also took part. Their focus is, however, only on “Europeanisation”understood as societal influence on EU politics, and not on the process in which civil society and theEU institutions can interact to promote and homogenise certain norms or governance patternsdescribed as “European” (which is our understanding of “Europeanisation”).

2. This explanation, along with an emphasis on EU legislation, seems to dominate the analysis of theRospuda conflict as found in Börzel and Buzogány (2010, 722–724).

3. A political commentary written well before the elections (Medeksza 2007), when the Rospuda contro-versy was only beginning, noticed the problem the opposition (then PO and the social democrats)could have with taking a stance. While the left was a natural “friend” of the environmentalists, POwas expected to opt for highways and modernisation or to avoid the issue.

4. Cruickshank’s own analysis of the Rospuda episode is in fact strongly EU-centric, though it pays a lotof attention to NGOs as well, especially international ones. He argues that the EC believed it “couldoverrule Poland” while the Polish government and local authorities were supposedly “defending directdemocracy, local sovereignty and subsidiarity” (2011, 1–2).

5. The moral implications of this understanding of rhetoric are famously discussed in Plato’s dialogueGorgias. See Plato (1994).

6. This is a variation of the classical rhetorical notion of loci communes or topoi, which is the element ofthe “ideational landscape” in our theoretical discussion.

7. We also believe that the metaphor of “norm diffusion” and the idea of socialisation is faulty on nor-mative grounds; it suggests the “movement” of norms from the outside-in, and into contexts wherethey were previously absent. That is not only EU-centric, but also distorts reality by overemphasisingthe inter- or transnational “source” and often turning attention away from domestic debates and beha-viours. Norms of environmental protection were not introduced in Poland through EU pressure, butrather existed in the “ideational landscape” for decades, and so, the idea of norm empowerment isbetter suited to explain that situation.

8. Risse and Sikkink (1999, 7) link norms to ideas, as the individual “cognitive commitments”. We choseto look at values as social rather than individual, and thus graspable in discourse analysis.

9. Values could also be formulated from the perspective of development; however, it is more important tofocus on the environmental side in this analysis. An introduction to how the selected values translate toactual legislation are discussed in Usui (2003) and Hellmund and Smith (2006).


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10. “Discourse analysis” in our paper should be understood as an approach remaining close to text, takingthe actual utterance as an object of analysis, drawing on Norman Fairclough rather than on the “dis-course theoretic” tradition in the sense of Michel Foucault. See Fairclough (2003).

11. The reading technique involved was quite demanding. We first selected a set of media outlets (the twolargest national opinion dailies – the left-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza and the conservative Rzeczpospolita,a regional opinion daily – Kurier Poranny – and a local communication platform in Augustów). Thechoice at the national level was a conscious case selection, while on the regional and local – we lookedat the only available opinion-making forums. This allowed us to get comparable definitions from threedifferent levels, and on the national level – to account for a major part of the debate across the politicalspectrum. We then looked for articles or notes mentioning Rospuda. All 546 articles found (fromnational, regional, and local media) were analysed, and all possible multi-aspect definitions werecreated. These were then clustered according to the previously presented conceptualisation ofvalues in a deductive and theoretically informed manner. Definitions are thus signals of values andnorms. It is possible to see them rather as visible indicators of certain discourses, in a discourse the-oretic sense. Such a conceptualisation, however, would make it difficult to engage in dialogue withmore mainstream social constructivist writings on norms. The full 12 definitions, as well as the detaileddescription of coding and the full coding tables, are available with the authors.

12. This phase represents the situation of a framing contest in Krebs and Jackson’s (2007) model of rhe-torical coercion. Both sides of the conflict compete over the definition – or frame – of the issue.

13. These figures represent three outlets analysed until December 2006 – the nationwide daily Rzeczpos-polita, regional (Podlaskie voivodship) Kurier Poranny, and the local Internet forum. GazetaWyborcza is excluded, because the paper was already launching a wider campaign at that point insupport of the environmentalists.

14. Consisting of the then “Let’s Protect Marshlands!” (Chrońmy Mokradła!) group, the Polish branch ofGreenpeace, the regional branch of the deep-ecological Pracownia na Rzecz Wszystkich Istot (Work-shop for the Cause of All Beings) as well as the Civil Affairs Institute (INSPRO), and the local civicassociation H&G Dowspuda.

15. The network consisted of the following member organisations: Centrum Ochrony Mokradeł (Centrefor Marshlands Protection), Polskie Towarzystwo Ochrony Ptaków (Polish Bird-protection Society),Polska Zielona Sieć (Polish Green Network), Workshop for the Cause of All Beings, StowarzyszenieIntegracji Stołecznej Komunikacji (Society for the Integration of the Capital’s Communication), andthe Polish branches of Bankwatch, Greenpeace, Birdlife, and WWF. The International Mire Conserva-tion Group also played an important role.

16. For example, local awareness-raising among the Augustowians was conducted by the nationwideWorkshop for the Cause of All Beings, while the supposedly international Greenpeace was themain driving force of the monkey-wrenched “Green Town”, and theWWF branch organised a country-wide petition together with Gazeta Wyborcza. The question of scales and the problem of identifying“transnational” agency on the ground is raised in: Walgrave and van Laer (2010).

17. The epistemic impact of the Centre for Marshlands Protection, which already conducted preliminaryresearch in 2003 and mobilised the scientific community, needs to be emphasised.

18. The Prime Minister himself suggested that many environmentalists are only interested in (possiblyforeign) “grants” and are not “people of goodwill”. See Onet (2007).

19. The letter can be found at: http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/0,74178,3491896.html (18 June2012).

20. The regional governmental administration confirmed the route through Rospuda on 9 February.21. Gazeta Wyborcza, “List Otwarty w Obronie Rospudy” 11 February 2006.22. Ustawa o Ochronie Przyrody, 16 April 2004, Artykuł 34, ust. 1.23. The ECJ also refused to use the faster procedure in the Rospuda case, which meant that the verdict

could have taken up to two years, and suggested that the ECJ ceded the whole responsibility ontothe Polish judiciary. That illustrates well the weakness of the EU “stick”, as noted in the introductionof this paper.

24. Oświadczenie w związku z deklaracją Premiera RP o nie rozpoczynaniu prac przy obwodnicy Augus-towa na terenach objętych ochroną w ramach sieci Natura 2000 – w Dolinie Rospudy, available athttp://siskom.waw.pl/rospuda/rospuda-oswiadczenie.htm (27 November 2012).

25. The full text of the expose is available at: http://www.rp.pl/artykul/71439.html (18 June 2012).26. The participants of the Round Table were: the General Directorate, regional and local authorities, NGO

representatives, and invited experts. Among the observers were representatives of several ministriesand parliamentary committees, as well as the EC.


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http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/0,74178,3491896.html

http://siskom.waw.pl/rospuda/rospuda-oswiadczenie.htm

http://www.rp.pl/artykul/71439.html

27. Employee of the Biuro Informacji i Promocji, Ministerstwo Infrastruktury. Interview, 12 June 2008.28. The same suggestion is made by a representative of the local authorities, who says that the decision was

made “solely by the Minister. Urząd Gminy Augustów”. Interview, 6 June 2008.29. The Round Table met only twice after this: on 19 January and 4 February 2008.30. Expenditures rose from PLN 80 million in January to PLN 180 million in July 2008, even though the

works were officially on hold.31. Wyrok Naczelnego Sądu Administracyjnego z dnia 16 September 2008, Sygn. akt. II OSK 821/08.32. From April until December 2007 in all four outlets analysed.

Notes on contributorsJulia Szulecka is a PhD candidate at TU Dresden and University of Padua. She holds an MSc degree in inter-national relations from VUUniversity Amsterdam. Her research interests include environmental governance,tropical forestry and global forest policies. She has worked for several environmental NGOs, and was a vis-iting researcher at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Indonesia and at UniversidadNacional de Asunción (UNA) in Paraguay.

Kacper Szulecki is Dahrendorf Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin andresearch coordinator at the Environmental Studies and Policy Research Institute (ESPRi), Wroclaw. Hestudied international relations and sociology in Warsaw, Oslo and Amsterdam (MSc 2008), and receiveda doctoral degree in political sociology from the University of Konstanz (2012). He was an intern at the Insti-tute for Environmental Studies (IVM) in Amsterdam, a fellow at the Cluster of Excellence “Cultural Foun-dations of Integration” in Konstanz and a guest researcher at the Department of Climate Policy, GermanInstitute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). His work focuses on environmental, climate and energypolicy, social movements and dissent.

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