Etikett: Theconversation.com

Long before the large-scale Earth Day protests on April 22, 1970 – often credited with spurring significant environmental protection legislation – Native Americans stewarded the environment. As sovereign nations, Native Americans have been able to protect land, water and air, including well beyond their own boundaries.

Their actions laid the groundwork for modern federal law and policy, including national legislation aimed at reducing pollution. Now the Trump administration is seeking to weaken some of those limits and eliminate programs aimed at improving the environments in which marginalized people live and work.

As an environmental historian, I study how Native Americans have shaped environmental management. Tribal nations are the longest stewards of the lands today known as the United States. My work indicates not only that tribal nations contributed to the origins and evolution of modern environmental management on tribal and nontribal lands, but also that they are well poised to continue environmental management and scientific research regardless of U.S. government actions.

Environmental sovereignty

Native peoples stewarded and studied their environments for millennia before European colonization. Today, Native nations continue to use science, technology and Indigenous knowledge to benefit their own people and the broader population.

Their stewardship continues despite repeated and ongoing efforts to dispossess Native peoples. In 1953, Congress reversed centuries of federally recognizing tribal authority, passing a law that terminated tribal nations’ legal and political status and federal obligations under treaties and legal precedents, including requirements to provide education and health care.

This termination policy subjected tribal nations and reservation lands to state jurisdiction and relocated at least 200,000 Native people from tribal lands to urban centers.

A groundswell of Native American resistance captured national attention, including protests and tactics such as “fish-ins,” which involved fishing at traditional grounds guaranteed by treaties but not honored by land use at the time. Their efforts led federal courts to affirm the very rights termination had sought to expunge.

Native nations regained federally recognized rights and political power at the same time as the national environmental awakening. In fact, tribal nations exercised environmental sovereignty in ways that restored federal recognition and influenced broader U.S. environmental law and policy.

Air quality

In the 1960s, air pollution in America posed a serious health threat, with smog killing Americans on occasion and harming their long-term health. Under the 1970 Clean Air Act amendments, the federal government set national standards for air quality and penalties for polluters.

As early as 1974, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in southeastern Montana began monitoring its own air quality. Finding that its air was substantially cleaner than other areas of the country, the tribe used a new approach to push the Environmental Protection Agency to approve enhanced protections beyond the minimum federal standards. The Northern Cheyenne wanted to prevent polluting industries from moving into locations with cleaner air that could be polluted without exceeding the federal limits. That protection was codified in the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments, which established legal protections and a process for communities to claim greater pollution protections nationwide.

In 1978, the Northern Cheyenne used their higher standards to limit pollution sources on private land upwind of tribal lands, temporarily blocking the construction of two additional coal-fired power plants.

Within a decade, the Assiniboine and Sioux nations at Fort Peck and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes also claimed enhanced air protection and developed air quality monitoring programs even before most state governments did. Dozens of tribal nations have taken control of their air quality in the years since.

This September 1941 photo shows Native Americans fishing for salmon at Celilo Falls, Ore.
Russell Lee/Library of Congress via AP

Waterways

Native nations also exercise sovereignty over waterways. In the Pacific Northwest, people whose ancestors have lived in the area for at least 16,000 years have moved to protect themselves and their lands from the effects of massive hydropower projects.

The Columbia River Basin hydropower project, which began in the 1930s, now includes over 250 dams that together generate nearly half of the United States’ hydropower. Its dams and associated development stretch from the Canadian Rockies to Southern California, with effects crossing dozens of Native nations as well as international and state boundaries. The construction of the dams inundated multiple tribal nations’ lands and displaced thousands of Native people.

When four dams were built on the lower Snake River in Idaho in the 1960s, they inundated ancestral lands and fishing grounds of Columbia River Native Americans, including the Nez Perce Tribe. The dams decimated fish populations many tribes have long relied upon for both sustenance and cultural practices and destroyed ancient and culturally significant fishing sites, including Celilo Falls near The Dalles, Oregon, which had been fished for at least 10,000 years.

Nez Perce scientists and environmental managers, working alongside other Northwest tribes, have documented the near extinction of numerous species of salmon and steelhead fish, despite federal, state and tribal agencies investing billions of dollars in hatchery programs to boost fish populations. The Nez Perce Department of Fisheries Resources Management protects and restores aquatic ecosystems. In collaboration with nearby communities, the tribe also restores significant areas of habitat on nontribal lands. That includes decommissioning many miles of logging roads, removing mine tailings and sowing tens of thousands of native plants.

The Nez Perce and other tribes advocate for the removal of those four dams to restore salmon populations. They cite, among other evidence, a 2002 Army Corps of Engineers study that found removal was the most effective way to meet the Endangered Species Act’s requirements to restore decimated fish populations.

As part of a collaboration between federal agencies and Native tribes, juvenile coho salmon are released into the Columbia River Basin.
AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus

Taking a long view

Native Americans and tribal nations see environmental sovereignty as essential to their past, present and future.

In 2015, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes became the first Native nation to take over a federal dam when they purchased the Selis Ksanka Qlispe dam, operating on the Flathead River in Montana. Managed by a tribal corporation, the dam produces enough hydropower to supply 100,000 homes, bringing millions of dollars to tribal coffers rather than enriching a corporation in Pennsylvania.

Over the decades, Native nations have partnered with federal agencies and used federal laws and funds to manage their environments. They have also built connections between tribes and nations across the continent.

For instance, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission coordinates and assists Columbia Basin tribes with environmental management and fishing rights. In northern New Mexico, the Indigenous women of Tewa Women United work against the legacy and ongoing effects of nuclear research affecting their homelands and communities from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Across the U.S., the Indian Land Tenure Foundation works with Native peoples to secure control of their homelands through land return and legal reforms, while Honor the Earth organizes Indigenous peoples in North America and globally to advance social change rooted in Indigenous sovereignty through treaty organizing and advocacy.

Tribal governments have been hit hard by the shifts in federal priorities, including Trump administration funding cuts that have slowed scientific research, such as environmental monitoring and management on tribal lands.

Tribal governance takes a long view based in Native peoples’ deep history with these lands. And their legal and political status as sovereign nations – backed by the U.S. Constitution, treaties, more than 120 Supreme Court rulings and the plain text of federal laws – puts Native nations in a strong position to continue their efforts, no matter which ways the federal winds blow. Läs mer…

As gerontologists – social scientists who study aging populations – we envision a future in which older people leave a doctor’s visit with a prescription to go volunteer for something.

Does that sound far-fetched? There’s scientific research backing it up.

Good for your health

While spending more than a dozen years researching what happens when older adults volunteer with nonprofits, including churches, we’ve found that volunteers consider themselves to be in better health than their peers who don’t. In addition, their blood pressure is lower, and they appear to be aging more slowly than other people of the same age.

Other researchers have found that volunteering is associated with a lower risk of having a heart attack.

The mental health benefits are just as striking.

Volunteering is tied to having fewer symptoms of depression and being more satisfied with your life. It often brings an instant boost in mood – along with a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.

Even engaging in what’s known as “informal helping” – lending a hand to friends, neighbors or community members in need, without getting paid or participating in an organized program – can help you in similar ways.

There are also health benefits for those who start volunteering much earlier in life.

Children and teens who volunteer tend to have better health and lower levels of anxiety and fewer behavioral problems than those who don’t volunteer.

Changing demographics

The number of U.S. adults at least 62 years old – the earliest age at which you can claim Social Security retirement benefits – has grown by nearly 35 million since 2000, while the number of children and teens under 18 has fallen by nearly 1.5 million. There are now about 76 million Americans over 62 and 71 million under 18.

This change has been gradual. Following a long-term demographic shift, record numbers of Americans are reaching retirement age.

Benefits for society and the economy

The benefits of volunteering aren’t just for the volunteers themselves.

The total value of the hours of unpaid work volunteers put in totals an estimated US$170 billion each year, according to AmeriCorps, the federal agency focused on national and community service.

And participating in community service programs can lead to better job prospects for volunteers, that same agency has found.

AmeriCorps Seniors, which focuses on engaging volunteers ages 55 and older, runs programs that offer major benefits to their communities. These include the Foster Grandparent program, which connects older adult mentors to children, and the Senior Companion program, which connects volunteers to older adults seeking some help to continue living independently in their own homes.

A current AmeriCorps Seniors pilot program is helping adults 55 and up, who can have more trouble landing new jobs than younger people, gain new job skills through their community service.

People of all ages can get together through volunteering. Some organizations intentionally encourage this kind of intergenerational cooperation, including CoGenerate and Generations United.

Rebuilding communities

Researchers have also found that volunteering may increase trust within a community, especially when it brings together people from different backgrounds.

It can strengthen “social cohesion,” a term researchers use to describe how much people bond and help each other, and reduce prejudice.

Volunteers’ views on social issues may change through their work, too: More than 4 in 5 adults over 55 who tutored public school students to strengthen their reading skills in the national Experience Corps program, for example, stated that their views on public education evolved as a result. Those volunteers expressed more support for public education and said they’d be more likely to vote in favor of spending on schools.

An American pastime

Our findings are backed by science, but they also have roots in American history.

Alexis de Tocqueville – a French philosopher and diplomat who arrived in the United States in 1831 to study the new nation’s penal system – was so impressed by the scale of volunteering in the U.S. that he wrote about it in his 1835 book “Democracy in America.”

Tocqueville observed that “Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds” were likely to unite in many kinds of groups or associations.

More recently, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has said that volunteering can strengthen communities, and that “community is a powerful source of life satisfaction and life expectancy.”

If you aren’t volunteering today, here are a few ideas to help you begin.

Start small. Try joining an organization or association in your community, taking part in neighborhood cleanups or volunteering at your local senior center, animal shelter or museum. Love gardening? You can take care of local parks, conservation areas, community gardens and more.

Once you’re ready for a bigger commitment, consider becoming a mentor through programs such as OASIS Intergenerational Tutoring or Big Brothers Big Sisters.

And consider a more extensive level of commitment to organizations or causes you care deeply about. This might include joining a nonprofit board of directors, volunteering more hours, or taking on a volunteer leadership role.

At a time when trust is eroding and divisions seem insurmountable, volunteering offers something rare: an evidence-backed way to reconnect with communities, institutions and each other.

Reach out to your favorite nonprofit, visit Volunteer.gov or VolunteerMatch.org, or connect with a nonprofit resource center, a regional United Way or a community foundation to find volunteer opportunities near you. Läs mer…

In 2020, American businesses responded to an unprecedented wave of racial justice protests with an equally unprecedented surge in corporate commitments. Even as President Donald Trump was calling protesters “terrorists,” companies in industries across the U.S. pledged donations, launched diversity initiatives and issued statements in support of equity and inclusion.

As social scientists who study corporate political behavior, we, like many others, wondered whether this wave of corporate statements signaled a true commitment to racial justice or whether it was just symbolic. Some skeptics suggested that corporate statements about racial justice were just window dressing. Still others worried that corporations were becoming “woke” and distracted from making profits.

These concerns have taken on new meaning as the attack on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, has become a cornerstone of the new administration. When Donald Trump returned to office, two of his first acts were to ban DEI in federal government employment and overturning 60 years of affirmative action mandates on firms that do business with the government.

This made us wonder: Were the DEI efforts of recent years actually associated with greater corporate commitments to racial justice? Or was it just more political theater?

To try to better understand what was happening in corporate America, we collected every racial justice statement made by a Fortune 500 firm in response to the 2020 murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests.

We found that most firms stayed silent, while others made only weak symbolic responses. Just 1 in 5 made strong commitments, pledging resources and structural changes to their business practices, such as revamping hiring policies or funding racial justice organizations.

For that 20%, however, commitments could be substantial.

Take Microsoft, for example. Just 10 days after Floyd’s murder, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent an internal memo condemning police brutality and urging employees to take action. He also announced that Microsoft would donate $1.5 million to racial justice organizations. Microsoft then pledged to invest US$150 million in diversity and inclusion efforts and to establish a $50 million fund to support Black-owned business partners. Microsoft also committed to doubling its Black-owned suppliers by 2023 and Black senior executives by 2025.

The impact of the DEI professional network

DEI professionals help companies manage the diversity of their workforces by promoting fairness in treatment and social inclusion. Their basic job is to ensure that workplaces are respectful to all employees. The rise of this job title signals a managerial shift from tolerating cultural diversity to promoting broad inclusion. Some DEI practices – for example, diversity training focused on discrimination – can lead to backlash, research has shown. But inclusive practices, such as ensuring mentoring for everyone, simply tend to foster better workplaces.

This made us wonder what distinguished the minority of firms that made more robust commitments to racial justice from the others. Our hunch was that when firm leadership discussed how to react to the Black Lives Matter protests, companies that already had DEI professionals with influential voices took stronger action.

To test our hypothesis, we first searched globally for all DEI job titles in all large firms in LinkedIn. LinkedIn profiles provide the most recent 10 jobs a person holds, so we can identify when and at what firm people had DEI jobs. LinkedIn has proven to be a reliable source of career data for corporate professionals and is especially appropriate for a new and growing job title such as DEI.

The general picture is clear.

There was a rapid rise in DEI positions in the U.S., with a big jump in 2020, followed by declines in 2022, when our data ends. Among Fortune 500 companies, however, only about half had any DEI professionals. DEI roles were growing rapidly, but they were far from universal in the largest corporations.

We also discovered that there was a set of firms central to the global DEI professional network. These firms were a source of future DEI staff for other companies. We measured centrality within the DEI network as the number of people in a firm’s DEI workforce that once worked in other prominent firms in the DEI network. Network centrality is a common way social scientists measure influence in groups.

To be clear, these weren’t companies that specialize in DEI, but rather had hired DEI staff to help run their core business. The most central firms to the DEI professional network included some of the country’s largest banks, consulting firms and corporations, such as IBM, Johnson & Johnson and General Electric. These firms are also more likely to have made longer and larger investments in DEI staff than other firms.

Based on prior studies of influence in social networks, we suspected that when a firm’s DEI staff were recruited from these prominent firms in the DEI network, they would have more influence over corporate decisions on how to respond to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. We found that the 20% of firms that made strong racial justice comments had much more prominent DEI staff than those that remained silent or made only symbolic statements. This finding has held up in multiple statistical models, where we have controlled for other factors that might be of relevance to making strong racial justice commitments.

DEI staff, it appears, were influential when the national conversation turned to racial justice. Conversely, we also found that firms with politically conservative CEOs were much more likely to remain silent in the face of Black Lives Matter protests.

The future of DEI?

We wondered whether the association of DEI professionals and stronger racial justice commitments was stable, or perhaps just a fleeting result of strong mass protest in 2020. So we examined a second instance of corporations taking a stance. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court was considering the constitutional status of affirmative action practices in college admissions. Before the Supreme Court made its ruling, many firms sought to weigh in to influence the result by submitting legal briefs documenting the reasons why they thought the court should rule in favor of affirmative action.

We found the same kinds of patterns of corporate support for affirmative action in 2022 as we did from the earlier protests in 2020. A total of 46 firms in the Fortune 500 publicly supported affirmative action. Once again, there is a strong relationship between the prominence of DEI professionals and taking action on racial justice policy. Those firms with greater prominence in the DEI network in 2020 were significantly more likely to sign onto a friend-of-the-court briefing in 2022.

When firms make stronger investments in DEI work, and their DEI professionals are more central to the national DEI network, those DEI professionals were more influential in producing stronger racial justice commitments. This reflects long-term firm investments and the development of a robust, influential DEI staff.

But only 20% of firms made strong commitments, while the vast majority were pretty silent in the face of national calls for racial justice. DEI roles had begun to drop after 2021, even before Trump’s election, and the current political attack on DEI will be chilling. There was already evidence in 2023 that some major firms were hiring fewer minority employees across their workforces. The influence of DEI professionals was never widespread and is likely now in decline. But we suspect that this decline will be fastest among the firms that were never really committed to racial justice and have particularly conservative CEOs.

What about responses to the new political environment? As of March 2025, only 31 of the Fortune 500 signaled that they planned to roll back their DEI efforts or eliminate them altogether. Eleven firms publicly defended their DEI efforts, nine of which were among the strong racial justice responders in 2020. None of the firms that were silent in 2020 have defended DEI so far this year.

So far among the Fortune 500, 92% of firms have remained largely silent about their DEI intentions. Perhaps the most interesting are Amazon, Meta, Google, Target, Ford and Walmart – all firms that made strong racial justice pledges in 2020 but have joined the DEI backlash this year. However, other firms have resisted these trends. The future of equal opportunity in U.S. employment will likely depend, at least in part, on how these silences and defenses are worked out in firms’ internal human resource practices and public commitments. Läs mer…

While the United States talked military assistance and minerals with Ukraine, Russia did the same with one of its few remaining allies: Myanmar.

On March 4, 2025, the commander in chief and leader of Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing, visited Russia. It was his fourth official visit since a coup in 2021 saw the military seize power.

That coup ended a decade-long power-sharing arrangement between the army and the democratically elected government in Myanmar, sparking peaceful protests that soon developed into a nationwide armed resistance known as the Spring Revolution and an ensuing government crackdown.

The resulting civil war – now into its fourth year – has seen 6,000-plus people killed, 29,000 arrested and more than 3.3 million displaced, according to estimates from the human rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The conflict pits the country’s military, which has had a stranglehold on Myanmar’s politics for much of the past six decades, against a broad-based opposition that includes ethnic minority groups like the Karen National Union, Kachin Independence Army, Arakan Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, People’s Defense Force and Bamar People’s Liberation Army.

With seemingly no immediate end to the fighting in sight, all sides are becoming increasingly reliant on foreign suppliers of weapons and fuel.

And this prompts an important question: Could the shifting policies and alignments of global powers – notably China, Russia and the U.S. – tip the balance of Myanmar’s civil war?

Russia: Myanmar’s ‘forever friend’

Throughout the civil war, Myanmar’s generals have turned to Russia for support. Both nations are heavily sanctioned and seen as “pariah states,” so it is, in many ways, a convenient alignment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Myanmar Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing on March 4, 2025, in Moscow, Russia.
Getty Images

In his latest visit to Moscow, Min Aung Hlaing granted Russia rights to extract minerals in Myanmar’s conflict zones and build an oil refinery and a port in the coastal city Dawei.

Russia has exported oil to Myanmar for many decades. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has been using the Southeast Asian country as a route to transport oil to China in an attempt to mitigate the impact of Western sanctions on energy exports. Myanmar has also agreed to supply skilled workers to Russia in a deal to alleviate the country’s labor shortages.

This mutual arrangement also extends to defense and security matters. Myanmar and Russia engage in joint naval exercises, and Moscow is a top supplier of weapons to Myanmar’s generals and trains personnel for the military government.

But any diplomatic benefit from having Russia as a sponsor has been blunted due to Moscow’s loss of international support over the war in Ukraine. Should that change, as the new U.S. administration seems keen on, then it could benefit Myanmar’s military by giving the generals a stronger ally on the international stage.

As such, warming relations between Russia and the U.S. could be to the detriment of Myanmar’s myriad opposition groups. Already, the Trump administration’s policies mean that the resistance can no longer rely on the same level of support from Washington, and it’s no guarantee that European Union countries – already facing the prospect of withdrawn U.S. support for Ukraine – would step in to fill the gap.

US pivots away from Myanmar

Washington has nominally supported the Spring Revolution.

The U.S. provides shelter to Myanmar dissidents, including exiled leaders of the National Unity Government, or NUG, and has pushed for sanctions against the army.

But that support has been largely symbolic. The U.S. still has not officially recognized the NUG as the legitimate government of Myanmar – a decision that prevents Washington from releasing US$1 billion held at the Federal Reserve to the democratic representatives. That money could be used both to bolster the resistance and deliver much-needed aid to the country’s people.

U.S. foreign policy as it evolves under the Trump administration is having further ripples in Myanmar.

The Trump White House has gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development, the department tasked with funding Myanmar through 2023’s Burma Act, which authorized sanctions on the military, support for those opposing the junta and assistance for Myanmar’s people.

Services such as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia have been suspended amid the recent U.S. cutbacks. As a result, people in Myanmar have more-limited access to reliable information and, more importantly, fewer media to represent and amplify their voices.

Whether the U.S. chooses to continue to support the opposition or engage with the military government and endorse Myanmar elections expected for later this year could have wide implications for the future of democracy in the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama encouraged Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to take part in elections.
Soe Than Win/AFP via Getty Images

Myanmar has witnessed such a U.S. reversal before.

For a long period, Washington supported the opposition’s boycott of elections that guaranteed the power to the military. But in 2009, the U.S. administration under Barack Obama sent a message to the National League for Democracy (NLD), which at the time was under the leadership of now-imprisoned Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, that Washington would recognize the military’s elections as part of a policy of “pragmatic engagement” with the then-ruling junta.

It forced the recalcitrant NLD to cooperate by entering the 2012 by-elections – the first time it had taken part in elections since 1990.

Although the NLD won a sweeping victory – and went on to win the 2015 national vote – it meant giving legitimacy to a system rigged in favor of the military, with a quarter of parliamentary seats reserved for officers. Given that 75% approval was needed for any constitutional reform, it meant that the NLD could form a government but could only make decisions with the consent of the still-powerful generals.

The political situation now is different from 2012. The yearslong resistance has weakened the military significantly. And even if the NUG, which consists of member of the NLD and other political parties, does feel compelled to participate in elections, the various other resistance groups and ethnic armies will likely choose otherwise. Regional autonomy has become a reality as a result of the decentralized nature of the resistance movement; elections will not satisfy the various demands for autonomy.

Chinese push for stability

The U.S. administration’s reduction in aid and, potentially, support for Myanmar’s opposition could lead the way to China taking a greater role in shaping the course of the civil war.

Beijing, like Washington, had traditionally had a close relationship with the opposition NLD. President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar in 2020 and signed a series of infrastructure deals as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

After the 2021 coup, China initially drew back from supporting Myanmar. But Beijing has since attempted to revive stalled or canceled bilateral projects while supporting reconciliation efforts and positioning itself as a neutral mediator.

China’s main concern is spillover from the war. For that reason, Beijing became concerned when an alliance of armed ethnic groups launched a major anti-military push in October 2023, fearing the spread of instability across the China-Myanmar border.

Since the civil war broke out, Chinese investments in Myanmar have stalled. Meanwhile, lawlessness inside Myanmar has led to the growth of mostly Chinese-run online scam centers – victims of which include Chinese citizens who have been kidnapped, trafficked and forced to work as scammers.

What China wants most is a stable Myanmar. Yet its chosen strategy to try to bring this about – forcing warring parties to sign ceasefire agreements – hasn’t worked so far.

This could change. The reduction of U.S. aid in Myanmar places an additional burden on ethnic resistance groups – they now have to shoulder more of the burden of providing for the people while fighting for autonomy. As such, resistance groups might be under greater urgency to accept China’s role as a mediator. And with that changed calculus, the imperative to find a negotiated solution may increase.

But a rushed ceasefire born of necessity does not equate to a lasting solution. As such, the shifting geopolitics of Russia, the U.S. and China may impact Myanmar’s civil war – but it will do little to encourage democracy in the country, nor put it on a path to lasting peace. Läs mer…

Autocracy is on the move worldwide and becoming more resilient.

One of the driving forces behind this phenomenon is something scholars call “authoritarian learning,” a process by which autocratic leaders study each other and adapt tactics based on what appears to work, and how to proceed when they encounter resistance.

Take Georgia. The ruling Georgian Dream party has steered the Caucasus nation from a path toward democracy back to autocracy – and it has done so by learning from Russia. In particular, it adopted a “foreign agent” law in May 2024 – legislation that came straight from Vladimir Putin’s playbook.

Sold to the public as increasing transparency, the legislation has been utilized to persecute Georgia’s opposition and arrest dissidents with impunity.

As researchers examining the structure and effects of autocratic regimes, we view Georgia’s first year of its foreign agent law as an example of how politicians are not only learning the tactics of Russian authoritarianism but improving on them in a shorter time frame.

Bouncing from Europe to Russia

Georgia’s current ruling party came to power after then-President Mikheil Saakashvili enacted a major series of reforms in the 2000s. Saakashvili, who was jailed in 2021 under highly contested charges, inherited a Georgia seen as a failing and corrupt state tethered to Russia.

The reform-minded politicians of Saakashvili’s government set the country on a pro-Western path. But after Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, a socially conservative coalition under the banner Georgian Dream won the parliamentary elections in 2012.

Georgian Dream was buoyed by the fortune of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Russian citizen until 2011. The party capitalized on the public’s fatigue after a decade of Saakashvili’s necessary but intense reforms. The new coalition married a promise for continuing the pro-Western reforms, but with a more traditional, conservative approach to social issues.

This appeal to traditional Georgian values won support in rural communities and carried the coalition to an absolute majority in Parliament in 2016. Since then, Georgian Dream has adopted pro-Russian rhetoric, accusing a “global war party” of running the West. Increasing attacks on the European Union, in particular, have been a part of a broader strategy to bring Georgia back into Russia’s orbit.

The Georgian Dream progression in power has mirrored that of Putin in Russia. In 2012, Putin signed a “foreign agents” law that originally targeted NGOs receiving foreign funding and alleged to be engaged in political activity.

The Kremlin equated this law to the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, in the United States, and justified it as a means to increase transparency around foreign involvement in Russia’s internal affairs.

Unlike FARA, however, Russia’s version of the law neither required establishing a connection between foreign funding and political activity nor provided a clear definition of political activity.

This vagueness allowed for a wide range of NGOs deemed undesirable by the Kremlin to be labeled as “foreign agents.” The result was the suppression of NGO activities through financial, administrative and legal burdens that led to their liquidation or departure from the country.

Over the years, this law has reduced Russian civil society’s ability to independently voice and address issues that its population faces.

Yearlong slide into autocracy

Georgian Dream passed a very similar foreign agent law on May 28, 2024, after overcoming a presidential veto. It forced NGOs receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register with the Ministry of Justice as “serving the interests of a foreign power.”

Activists opposing the law have been physically assaulted, and the law has been utilized against what the ruling party has described as “LGBT propaganda.”

The law fits a wider political landscape in which the ruling party has moved to restrict freedom of the press, prosecuted political opponents and postponed Georgia’s European Union candidate status despite the overwhelming majority of Georgians being pro-EU.

Protestors take part in a pro-European rally in Warsaw, Poland, on April 30, 2024.
Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Improving on Russian authoritarians

Three critical factors played a role in allowing for the foreign agent law in Russia to expand its reach: the power imbalance between the Russian government and NGOs, limited action by international authorities, and delayed media attention to the issue.

At the time the law was passed, civil society inside Russia itself was split. Some foresaw the dangers of the law and engaged in collective action to oppose it, while others chose to wait and see.

As it happened, the law and the accompanying repressive apparatus spread to a broader range of targets. In 2015, Putin signed a law that designated an “undesirable” status to foreign organizations “on national security grounds”; in 2017, an amendment expanded the targets of the law from NGOs to mass media outlets; and at the end of 2019, the law allowed the classification of individuals and unregistered public associations – that is, groups of individuals – as mass media acting as foreign agents. By July 2022, the foreign funding criterion was excluded and a status of a foreign agent could be designated to anyone whom the Russian authorities deemed to be “under foreign influence.”

Russia’s experience highlights the process of early stages of authoritarian consolidation, when state power quashes independent sources of power, and political groups and citizens either rally around the government or go silent. The foreign agent law in Russia was passed only after the protests that accompanied the 2012 elections, which returned Putin to the presidency for the third term.

In Georgia, the ruling government borrowed from Russia’s lead – after backing down from its first attempt to pass a foreign agent law in the face of massive protests, it pushed it through before the elections.

The law was then used to raid NGOs sympathetic to the opposition days before the October 2024 parliamentary election. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said before the elections that in the event of Georgian Dream’s victory, it would look to outlaw the pro-Western opposition, naming them “criminal political forces.”

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s suspension of USAID assistance in February 2025, Georgian Dream has seized the opportunity to expand its war on civil society, echoing Russian, Chinese and American far-right conspiracy rhetoric that foreign-funded NGOs were fomenting revolution. To combat such phantoms, Georgian Dream has passed new legislation that criminalizes assembly and protest.

A springboard for repression

The foreign agent law has been a springboard for repressive activities in both Russia and Georgia, but while it took Russia a decade to effectively use the law to crush any opposition, Georgian Dream is working on an expedited timetable.

Although the EU has suspended direct assistance and closed off visa-free travel for Georgian officials as a result of the law, Trump’s turn toward pro-Russian policies has made it more difficult to obtain Western consensus in dislodging the Georgian government from its authoritarian drift.

Georgia’s experience, following the Russian playbook, illustrates how authoritarians are learning from each other, utilizing the rule of law itself against democracy. Läs mer…

After months of speculation, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dissolved parliament and called a federal election for May 3. Michelle Grattan speaks with political editor Amanda Dunn about the close polls (and the possibility of a hung parliament), the key policies announced so far and why the “small target” strategy seems to be the preferred campaign approach these days.

It’s on: tracking policies and truth in advertising. Election special episode with Michelle Grattan and Amanda Dunn.
CC BY20.9 MB (download) Läs mer…

Tuesday night’s federal budget revealed a sharp drop in what was once a major source of revenue for the government – the tobacco excise.

This financial year, the government expects to earn revenue from the tobacco excise of A$7.4 billion. That’s down sharply from $12.6 billion in 2022–23, and an earlier peak of $16.3 billion in 2019–20.

The government expects this downward trend to continue. Australia’s heavy tobacco taxation has driven many consumers towards illicit cigarettes.

But this is more than just a problem for government coffers accustomed to revenue from the tobacco tax.

It presents a major challenge for a public health policy that has long relied on increasing tobacco excise duty as its primary tool to reduce smoking.

Read more:
The 2025 budget has few savings and surprises but it also ignores climate change

Climbing tax rates, falling revenue

If government revenue from tobacco is falling, it isn’t because we aren’t trying to tax it. Cigarette prices in Australia are among the highest in the world, with taxes making up a substantial chunk of the price.

Australia’s cigarette prices are among the highest in the world.
Dean Lewin/AAP

About $1.40 of the cost of each cigarette represents excise duty. GST is payable on top of that.

Australia’s tobacco excise is indexed every March and September, in line with average weekly ordinary-time earnings.

On top of indexation, the excise rate is currently being increased by
an additional 5% each year, for a period of three years that began in September 2023.

This policy is grounded in the principle that higher costs deter smoking.
And smoking rates have fallen in recent decades. About 8% of Australians aged 14 and over still smoke daily, down from almost 20% in 2001.

Some of that fall has been offset by the rapid ascent of vaping. About 7% of Australians use e-cigarettes – about half of whom vape daily.

But while legal cigarette prices are prohibitively high for some, illegal alternatives are widely available and significantly cheaper. That’s because these unregulated products bypass excise and GST entirely.

Vaping has soared in popularity as an alternative to smoking.
Natali Brillianata/Shutterstock

Unintended consequences

The estimated value of illicit tobacco entering the Australian market has soared, from $980 million in 2016–17 to more than $6 billion in 2022–23. Of this $6 billion, almost $3 billion entered the market undetected.

The actual decline in tobacco excise revenue, as exposed in the latest budget papers, has been much more significant than previously forecast.

To make things worse, the cost of enforcement is rising. The 2025–26 federal budget allocates an additional $156 million over the next two years to combat illicit tobacco — on top of the $188 million committed in the previous budget.

There are other broader impacts on overall tax revenue. Convenience stores lose legitimate sales to illegal tobacco vendors, resulting in less corporate tax income.

Holding back broader public health efforts

On other measures, Australia has long been a global leader in tobacco control. The first health warnings on cigarette packets appeared in 1973.

In 2006, graphic health warnings were introduced. And in 2011, Australia pioneered plain packaging laws.

Australia has often led the world in efforts to curb smoking – such as through mandatory plain packaging.
Alan Porritt/AAP

Such public health measures are set to get even stronger this year, with new requirements for every individual cigarette sold to have an “on-product” health warning such as “causes 16 cancers” or “shortens your life”.

These new regulations come into effect on April 1 2025, but retailers will have a three-month transition period to phase out existing stock.

The tight transition period may prove challenging for the legitimate cigarette trade.

But it is unlikely those who ply the unlawful trade in illegal tobacco – or their customers – will be particularly bothered by this latest attempt to wean the public off the habit.

No easy solution

The increasing heavy tobacco excise and the new law requiring warning messages on individual cigarettes have the potential to reduce tobacco consumption among those who purchase the product legally.

However, suppliers of black-market cigarettes – who now comprise an estimated 18% of market share – are unlikely to allow this initiative to affect their illegal trade.

The widespread move to vaping, with poor regulation, has further fuelled the black market for both products.

It is going too far to draw parallels with the prohibition era in the United States, when the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol was illegal. This was a brief but disastrous experiment in social engineering with unfortunate and, in retrospect, arguably predictable consequences.

But there are some unfortunate similarities when it comes to Australia’s tobacco tax policy, which has inadvertently encouraged black markets, criminality and organised crime.

Yet for the government, lowering the excise tax to encourage smokers back to legal cigarettes would be completely out of step with its public health objectives. Legal or illegal, black-market cigarettes and vapes still contribute to health risks, undermining the public health goals behind regulatory controls. Läs mer…

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has promised a Coalition government would spend an extra A$400 million on youth mental health services.

This is in addition to raising the number of subsidised psychology sessions from ten to 20, which had been previously announced.

While extra funding for youth mental health is welcome, it’s important to target this in ways that will make a real difference to young people.

In our recent research, we asked young people about their experiences of waiting for mental health support, how they coped in the meantime, and what would really make a difference while they waited.

Rates of mental illness rising

An estimated one in seven Australian children and adolescents had a mental illness in the past 12 months. Rates of mental illness have also increased over time, particularly among younger generations.

The COVID pandemic led to a rapid rise in the number of children and young people seeing their GP for mental health problems. Visits for depression rose by 61% and eating disorders by 56% compared with before the pandemic.

The number of visits to the emergency department in New South Wales for self-harm, or plans or thoughts about suicide, have also increased since COVID.

The annual Mission Australia Survey reveals young Australians see mental health as one of their biggest challenges, with thousands calling for more support.

But there are long waits for care

Despite the greater demand for mental health treatment in Australia, there is very little information on how long young people wait to access it.

The Australian Psychological Society reported that during the pandemic, 88% of psychologists increased their wait times and one in five were not taking on new clients. This meant about half of people waited more than three months to begin psychological treatment. But this is for clients of all ages.

There is also little information on how young people experience the wait for treatment.

We asked young people about the wait for care

We recently published research on the wait times for mental health treatment for Australian teens.

We asked 375 young people aged 13–17 about the mental health care they have tried to access for their anxiety and depression and how long they waited to start treatment. We also asked them about their mental health while they waited, what helped them cope, and the types of support they received.

We found that on average, teens were waiting more than three months for their first session of treatment. Most teens waited to access psychologists and psychiatrists after a GP referral.

While their wait times varied, nearly all teens felt they waited “too long”.

Longer wait times were linked to poorer mental health, with more than 90% of teens reporting high distress while they waited. Many of the teens felt their feelings of worry and sadness had worsened and they had used risky and unhealthy ways to cope, such as spending more time alone, sleeping more, self-harming, and using alcohol and other drugs.

Most teens did not receive any support from their health-care providers during the wait time, despite wanting it.

One female 17-year-old had waited six months for treatment and told us:

It felt like I was hanging over a cliff and was just told to hold on.

Teens also felt their parents would benefit from greater support during the wait time. But we need more research to better understand how to help families.

Together, these findings show we desperately need to address wait times for young people’s mental health treatment.

Teens know the support they need

If teens are to wait for mental health treatment, they told us they need support while they do so.

Young people wanted more regular contact and “check-ins” from their service providers, someone to talk to during the wait, as well as more useful information on positive ways to cope.

Most teens in our study used digital mental health tools – such as mental health websites, online mental health checks, mobile apps, online chat services and forums – while they waited.

We’re developing digital mental health tools, in consultation with young people and GPs, to support doctors to care for their teen patients when treatment isn’t available right away. We’re testing the system of short digital mental health programs, supportive text messages and peer support in NSW this year.

But not all teens we surveyed found digital mental health tools helpful. So we need to offer teens a range of supports – from their family, their GP, and from their referred service provider – to help them cope while they wait for treatment.

What can governments do?

We must carefully consider when, where and how mental health funds are invested. If governments wish to see more young people treated for their mental health problems, then we need to look at how our health-care system will cope with the growing demand.

We also need national, transparent benchmarks for how long young Australians wait for mental health treatment. Only some health services in Australia have this. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, have something similar to minimise the health risks of young people waiting too long for care.

Ultimately, though, we need to prevent mental health issues from starting in the first place. That would reduce the need for treatment, the very type young Australians are waiting too long for.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 or Lifeline on 13 11 14. Läs mer…