Videos & podcasts

Podcast #3: Voices of Change - Environmental Activism in Central and Eastern Europe

In recent years, climate and environmental activism has received a lot of attention due to the likes of Greta Thunberg and the climate youth strikes. However, depending on the political and socio-economic context, environmental movements can materialize in different ways and fulfil varying roles in society.

In this episode, Aron Buzogány (assistant professor at BOKU) and Szabina Kerényi (researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences) join us to discuss their research on environmental movements in Central and Eastern Europe and its relationship to democratic evolutions. How did environmental movements in the region come into being? Can they act as force against democratic backsliding?

If you want to learn more about environmental activism in Central and Eastern Europe, check out Aron and Szabina’s article ‘Back to the grassroots? The shrinking space of environmental activism in illiberal Hungary’ in Environmental Politics (co-authored with Gergely Olt).

GDN episode 3

About the guests

Aron Buzogány is an assistant professor for political science at the University of Natural Resources and life sciences. He has worked on the implementation of and compliance with EU environmental law, the role of the European Parliament in the decision-making process, and more recently also on democracy and climate contestation.

Szabina Kerényi is a researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Sociology. With a background in Cultural Anthropology and a M.A. in Political Science from the Central European University, she is finishing her PhD in Sociology at the ELTE University of Budapest. Her dissertation focuses on environmental movements in Hungary in a longitudinal study, since the late era of the authoritarian regime into the illiberalism of today. Besides environmental movements, her research interest includes women's movements, civil society and urban anthropology. She has taught courses on movements and civil society at ELTE, University of Budapest, and the University of Pécs, Hungary.

About the podcast series

Ever since the von der Leyen Commission launched the European Green Deal, European climate policy went into overdrive, and it seems like every week there is a new initiative.

To help you navigate, understand and unpack these complexities, GreenDeal-NET created a podcast in which researcher Jana Gheuens talks with leading climate experts about their work and insights. Topics range from the objectives of the Green Deal to climate adaptation and environmental movements.

Click here to discover all episodes