A Long, Brown Shadow? The Impact of Non-Democratic Legacies on the Environment in Portugal and Bulgaria

Legacies of non-democratic rule influence and direct many decisions and actions within democratising political systems as institutions, procedures and policies are reformed. This article is concerned with the effect of legacies on environmental politics in democratising states. Democratic political systems are better equipped to address environmental concerns than their non-democratic counterparts; democratisation is therefore expected to lead to improvements. To assess the effect of non-democratic legacies the cases of Portugal and Bulgaria have been selected, as they experienced different forms of non-democratic rule, identifying general outcomes. The results indicate that democratisation does lead to improvements in environmental politics, with the extent and course of change being mediated by the legacy of the preceding political system.