Laura A. Henry

Affiliation: Government and Legal Studies, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Professor of Government, on leave for the 2023–2024 academic year

Laura Henry teaches courses on contemporary Russian politics, Eastern Europe, the European Union, environmental politics, and social movements and civil society. Her research investigates Russia’s post-Soviet transformation, state-society relations, and environmental politics in Russia. Her recent research investigates BRICS states' participation in global governance on issues ranging from climate to HIV/AIDS. She is currently working on several projects related to natural resource extraction in the Arctic.

Henry is the co-author of Bringing Global Governance Home: NGO Mediation in BRICS States (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, Oxford University Press, 2021), the author of Red to Green: Environmental Activism in Post-Soviet Russia (Cornell University Press, 2010) and the co-editor of Russian Civil Society: A Critical Assessment (M.E. Sharpe, 2006). Her work has appeared in Post-Soviet Affairs, Europe-Asia Studies, Environmental Politics, and Global Environmental Politics, among other journals. She has been a Watson Foundation fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. Her research has received support from the National Security Education Program, the Social Science Research Council, and the International Research and Exchange Board.

Curriculum Vitae

Red to Green book cover

Bringing Global Governance Home: NGO Mediation in BRICS States, (co-authored with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), Oxford University Press, 2021.

Red to Green: Environmental Activism in Post-Soviet Russia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010.

“Liberal Spaces in an Illiberal Regime: Environmental NGOs, State Sovereignty, and the Struggle for Nature,” (with Maria Tysiachniouk, Juha Kotilainen, and Svetlana Tulaeva), Territory, Politics, Governance, forthcoming.

“The Evolution of Civic Activism in Contemporary Russia,” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom and Valerie Sperling), East European Politics and Societies 36, 4 (2022): 1377–1399.

“Activism in Exile: How Russian Environmentalists Maintain Voice After Exit,” (with Elizabeth Plantan), Post-Soviet Affairs 38, 4 (2022): 274-292.

“Global Standards, Corporate Diagrams, and Indigenous Agency: ExxonMobil in Russia and Alaska,” (with Maria Tysiachniouk and Leah S. Horowitz), Arctic Review on Law and Politics 13 (2022): 1-31.

“The Politics of the Environment in Russia: Extraction, Climate Change, and Indigenous Rights in the Russian Arctic.” In Susanne Wengle, ed., Russian Politics Today, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

“Changing Climates in Russia and China: NGOs and Transcalar Climate Advocacy in Authoritarian States” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), pp. 159-173. In Christopher L. Pallas and Elizabeth Bloodgood, eds., Beyond the Boomerang: From Transnational Advocacy Networks to Transcalar Advocacy in International Politics, University of Alabama Press, 2022.

“The Comparative Politics of Environmental Activism in Russia: Strategic Adaptation to Authoritarianism.” In Jeannie Sowers, Stacy D. VanDeveer, and Erika Weinthal, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics, New York, Oxford University Press, forthcoming. [Online version available here.]

“Varieties of Digital Authoritarianism: Analyzing Russia’s Approach to Internet Governance,” (with Laura H. Howells), Communist and Post-Communist Studies 54, 4 (2021): 1-27.

“People Power in Putin’s Russia: Social vs. Political Protests.” In Nathan Stoltzfus and Christopher Osmar, eds., The Power of Populism and People: Resistance and Protest in the Modern World, New York: Bloomsbury, 2021.

“Who Benefits? How Interest Convergence Shapes Benefit-Sharing and Indigenous Rights in Russia” (with Maria Tysiachniouk, Svetlana Tulaeva, and Leah S. Horowitz), Sustainability, 12, 21 (2020).

“Globalizing extraction and Indigenous rights in the Russian Arctic: The enduring role of the state in natural resource governance” (with Svetlana Tulaeva, Maria Tysiachniouk, and Leah Horowitz), Resources 8, 4 (2019), 179.

“NGO Participation in Global Governance Institutions: International and Domestic Drivers of Engagement” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, Carla Winston, and Priya Bala-Miller), Interest Groups and Advocacy 8, 3 (2019): 291–332.

“Benefit-Sharing in Russia’s Resource Extractive Industries: When Global Standards Meet Local Communities” (with Maria Tysiachniouk), Liikejuridiika: The Finnish Business Law Journal 2 (2019): 137-165.

“Civil Society under the Law ‘On Foreign Agents’: NGO Strategies and Network Transformation” (with Maria Tysiachniouk and Svetlana Tulaeva), Europe-Asia Studies 70, 4 (2018): 615-637. [A Russian language article based on the same data appears as “Стратегии экологических НПО в контексте принятия закона об иностранных агентах: игры с формальностью” in Laboratorium 3 (2017): 18-43.]

“Oil Extraction and Benefit Sharing in an Illiberal Context: The Nenets and Komi-Izhemtsi Indigenous Peoples in the Russian Arctic” (with Maria Tysiachniouk, Machiel Lamers, and Jan P.M. van Tatenhove), Society and Natural Resources 31, 5 (2018): 556-579.

“Russia's Environment and Environmental Movement,” pp. 275-301. In Michael L. Bressler, Understanding Contemporary Russia, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2018.

“The Uneven Response to Global Environmental Governance: Russia’s Contentious Politics of Forest Certification” (with Maria Tysiachniouk), Forest Policy and Economics 90 (May 2018): 97–105.

“Oil and indigenous people in sub-Arctic Russia: Rethinking equity and governance in benefit sharing agreements” (with Maria Tysiachniouk, Machiel Lamers, and Jan P.M. van Tatenhove), Energy Research and Social Science 37 (March 2018): 140-152.

“Private Forest Governance, Public Policy Impacts: The Forest Stewardship Council in Russia and Brazil” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), Forests 8, 11 (2017): 445.

“The State of Environmental Protection in the Russian Federation: A Review of the Post-Soviet Era” (with Joshua P. Newell), Eurasian Geography and Economics 57, 6 (2016): 779-801.

“Corporate Social Responsibility and the Oil Industry in the Russian Arctic: Global Norms and Neo-Paternalism” (with Soili Nysten-Haarala, Svetlana Tulaeva, and Maria Tysiachniouk), Europe-Asia Studies 68, 8 (2016): 1340-1368.

“Social Mobilization and the Strong State from the Soviets to Putin: Social Movements in Russia” (with Alfred B. Evans). In Guya Accornero and Olivier Fillieule, eds. Social Movement Studies in Europe: The State of the Art, Oxford: Berghan Books, 2016.

“Managed Citizenship: Global Forest Governance and Democracy in Russian Communities” (with Maria Tysiachniouk), International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 22, 6 (November 2015): 476-489.

“Climate Change Policies in the Post-Socialist World” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), Current History 113, 765 (October 2014): 278-283.

“Complaint-Making as Political Participation in Contemporary Russia,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45, 3–4 (September–December 2012): 243–254.

“Russia’s Climate Policy: International Bargaining and Domestic Modernization” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), Europe-Asia Studies 64, 7 (September 2012): 1297-1322.

“Between Transnationalism and State Power: The Development of Russia’s Post-Soviet Environmental Movement,” Environmental Politics 19, 5 (2010): 756-781.

“Russia and the Kyoto Protocol: From Hot Air to Implementation?” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), pp. 105-137. In Kathryn Harrison and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, Global Commons, Domestic Decisions: The Comparative Politics of Climate Change, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010.

“Redefining Citizenship in Russia: Political and Social Rights,” Problems of Post-Communism 56, 6 (November-December 2009): 51-65.

“Thinking Globally, Limited Locally: The Russian Environmental Movement and Sustainable Development.” In Julian Agyeman and Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, eds., Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.

“Environmental Issues in Russia” (co-authored with Vladimir Douhovnikoff), Annual Review of Environment and Resources 33 (November 2008): 437-460.

“Russia and the Kyoto Protocol: Seeking an Alignment of Interests and Image” (co-authored with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), Global Environmental Politics 7, 4 (2007): 47-69.

Russian Civil Society: A Critical Assessment (co-edited with Alfred B. Evans, Jr. and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006.

“Shaping Social Activism in Post-Soviet Russia: Leadership, Organizational Diversity, and Innovation,” Post-Soviet Affairs, 22, 2 (2006): 99-124.

“Environmental Activism in Hard Times: Authoritarianism, War, and Environmentalism in Russia,” Conference on Environmental Politics under Authoritarian Rule: Activism, Policy, and Governance Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia (virtual) December 8-9, 2022.

“Empower Scholars, Benefit Activists, and Act Ethically,” Political Ecology and the New Political Environments in Eastern Europe and Central Asia: A Collective Search for Strategies,” Bern, Switzerland, (remote participation) September 1, 2022.

“Environmentalism in Russia, from Everyday to Exile: The strategic adaptation of environmental activists in Russia,” Workshop on Everyday Activism in Central and Eastern Europe, University of British Columbia, May 12-13, 2022.

“Global/Local Interplay of Environmental Actors in Russia: NGOs, state control, and creation of liberal spaces within an illiberal regime,” (with Maria Tysiachniouk, Juha Kotilainen, Svetlana Tulaeva), presented at the workshop “Hybrid Sovereignty Assemblages: From Liberal to Illiberal and Beyond,” Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, (virtual) March 25, 2022.

"Global Standards and Local Policies in Extractive Industries: ExxonMobil and Indigenous Communities in Russia and Alaska” (with Maria Tysiachniouk), International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS X), Arkhangelsk, Russia, (virtual) June 15-20, 2021.

“Russia’s Climate Policy Outlook in a Post-COVID World: Weakening an Already Lacklustre Effort” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), International Studies Association (virtual), April 6-9, 2021.

“Sustainable Private Governance? The Forest Stewardship Council in Russia and Brazil” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), International Studies Association (virtual), April 6-9, 2021.

“The Politics of Waste in Russia: Everyday Environmentalism and Shifting State-Society Relations,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (virtual), November 6-8, 2020.

“Everyday Environmentalism in Russia,” American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August 28-31, 2019.

“People Power in Putin’s Russia: The Ambiguous Role of Popular Mobilization,” The People and the Power conference, Florida State University, Tallahassee, February 20-22, 2019.

“Voice after Exit: How Russian Environmentalists Mobilize Support in Exile” (with Elizabeth Plantan), Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Boston, December 6-9, 2018.

“NGO Participation in Global Governance: Patterns of Participation in the BRICS and Beyond” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), International Workshop “Interest groups, international organizations, and global problem-solving capacity,” June 11-12, 2018, Stockholm University, sponsored by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences.

“Russian Environmentalism after the Foreign Agent Law,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Chicago, November 9-12, 2017.

“Who Benefits? Who Has Rights? Indigenous Peoples and the Oil Industry in the Russian Arctic,” Workshop on Global Rights and Democracy, University of British Columbia, May 16, 2017.

“Global Climate Governance in Russia and China: The Paradoxical Role of NGOs” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), International Studies Association Annual Conference, Baltimore, MD, February 22-25, 2017. A version of the paper was also presented at “Beyond the Boomerang,” ISA Catalyst Working Group, February 21, 2017.

“Russian Civil Society and the Foreign Agent Law: NGO Survival Strategies” (with Maria Tysiachniouk and Svetlana Tulaeva), International Studies Association Annual Conference, Baltimore, MD, February 22-25, 2017.

“The Politics of Combatting HIV/AIDS in Russia: Global Norms and Domestic Preferences” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Washington, DC, November 17-20, 2016.

“Assessing Private Actors, Changing State Behavior: The Case of the Forest Stewardship Council” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), Assessment Power in World Politics Conference, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, May 6-7, 2016.

“Corporate Social Responsibility in Russia: Incentives and Obstacles to Norm Diffusion,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Philadelphia, PA, November 19-22, 2015.

“BRICS NGOs and Global Governance: Ascendance or Absence?” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom and Priya Bala Miller), American Political Science Association, San Francisco, September 3‐6, 2015.

“Global Governance at Home: NGOs as Governance Promoters in Russia and the other BRIC States” (with Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom), International Studies Association, New Orleans, LA, February 18-21, 2015.

Education

PhD, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
MA, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
BA, Magna cum laude, Political Science/History, Wellesley College

Government and Legal Studies

Laura A. Henry

Selected Publications

Selected Conference Presentations

Awards and Grants

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Education