In this PhD thesis, I study the dynamics of environmental regime-building between Russia and Europe. I examine the processes through which the regime is constructed. I focus on the definitions of problems and their possible solutions in these processes and the reflections of the definitions on the practices of environmental cooperation. Moreover, I examine how different definitions and practices of cooperation condition social learning. My methodological approach derives from a problem and process-oriented approach to policy analysis that focuses on the examination of political processes and definitional struggles as the basis of these processes. In accordance with this methodology, I chose an idea-based perspective on cooperation that underlines the importance of shared meanings and identities as conditions for learning. While all separate studies follow the basic logic of this methodology with slightly differing methods of analysis, in the overall thesis I synthesise them by applying a method that builds on framing as a way to distinguish between different problem definitions and to analyse the interplay of these definitions with practice.

I examine the process of regime-building with the use of six separate studies. These focus on environmental aspects of the energy cooperation problematic; environmental non-governmental organisations in St Petersburg; multilateral cooperation aimed at the institutional development of the St Petersburg water sector; policy networks in environmental cooperation in the St Petersburg water sector and Kola Peninsula mining industry; the implications of a nuclear submarine accident, the Kursk case, for environmental cooperation; and on framing climate change as an international policy problem in Russian public discussion. As a context to these cases, I map the evolution of the Russian­European environmental regime from the early 1970s to the present.

As a result, I distinguish between five frames that have shaped Russian­European environmental regime-building from its early days to the present. This has involved the evolution of the environmental regime between Russia and Europe from one shaped mainly by a “common problems” frame, emphasising high-level diplomacy as the basic form of cooperation, to one of “environmental partnership” that, in turn, emphasises practical cooperation based on principles of reciprocity and shared responsibility. Currently, interdependencies based on the use of raw materials, trade and markets heavily affect the economic and political context of environmental cooperation between Russia and Europe. Russia has increased its power in the definition of issues, as the popularity of a frame I name “great ecological power” indicates.

The examination of the framings of cooperation reveals that definitions of problems and their possible solutions have often drawn on dichotomies such as “fall guys” and “do-gooders”, “donors” and “recipients”, or “teachers” and “learners”. These dichotomies have not shaped actors’ identities in a way that would have produced shared meanings and identities. They have not encouraged cooperational practices that would have promoted social learning. Moreover, the results of the thesis indicate that the definitions of problems and the required solutions that the cooperation has been based on have been extensive. Russian­European environmental regime-building has been driven towards ever-wider practices that ultimately aim at the unification of environmental policy throughout Europe and Russia. As a conclusion of the study, I argue that the broadness of definitions on which large-scale projects are built adds to the complicated character of issues and politicises them, possibly creating and enhancing diverse dichotomies. The broadness of definitions and practices thus makes the achievement of problem closure, needed for the effective solution of problems, more difficult and hampers social learning. As a result of too-large scales of projects, the enforcement of “participatory methods” does not work, even though heavily stressed.

Consequently, the results of the thesis indicate that Russian­European environmental regime-building has largely been based on top-down thinking, which takes as its frame an analysis of the whole system. In this kind of thinking, the task has been to identify the worst threats and tackle them. I argue that this kind of thinking misses sensitivity to the spatial context and to the social and political situation. Neglecting the question of scale in defining the foci and forms of the cooperation can be said to have been the most significant constraint for social learning in Russian­European environmental cooperation. As an alternative, I propose a pragmatic bottom-up approach to cooperation that cuts up problems into more manageable pieces, focuses on specific situations, differentiates management practices and involves the relevant stakeholders by taking their practical experience into consideration, to be applied as a basis for environmental regime-building. In institutional terms, a pragmatic bottom-up approach implies stressing institutional pluralism: many different sorts of structures with different scale preoccupations.