In this interview with Niak Sian Koh, we discuss the research and findings of her recent article in Environmental Politics: ‘Radical incrementalism: hydropolitics and environmental discourses in Laos’, co-authored with Grace Y. Wong and Thomas Hahn.
Congratulations on your new article! What is the key message that you hope people take from this work?
Thank you very much! We hope readers pick up on the importance of understanding how different discourses can frame an issue, as stakeholders often construct narratives that align with their own interests. For example, in our study, we examine how hydropower policy can be framed in various ways:
- to legitimize hydropower as a source of economic growth through electricity generation;
- to operationalize hydropower as a means to fund biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation initiatives;
- to criticize hydropower for causing long-term environmental and socio-cultural losses;
- to repurpose hydropower by prioritizing ecological flows and the health of the river basin.
We demonstrate that by paying attention to the discourse being used, one can better understand the speaker’s intentions. In today’s political climate, it is especially important to critically assess the intentions behind a policy and its intended outcomes. We encourage readers to ask, ‘Whose interests are driving this policy? Who benefits, and who bears the costs?’
Your research context is Laos, what was important about this example?
The paper uses Laos as a case study because it shares characteristics with many countries experiencing rapid economic growth driven by natural resource extraction. This allows us to generalize our findings to other contexts where capital-intensive infrastructure development projects are prevalent. Analyzing the discourses used to frame policy interventions is relevant in any country.
One significant aspect of Laos is that it is classified as a closed autocracy. Several of our interviewees acknowledged that the political context in Laos leaves little space for critical voices opposing development. They also noted the dangers of speaking out, as civil society actors have disappeared. This underscores the importance of empowering communities, advocating for civil society rights, and supporting environmental human rights defenders who work to protect environmental rights.
This article looked to identify discourses that framed hydropower development and their social-environmental impacts. What did you find?
We show that discourses can be used for different purposes: to legitimize, operationalize, criticize, or repurpose hydropower. From this, we have two main findings.
First, Green Radicalism is a well-established discourse that advocates for changing dominant political-economic systems to address social and ecological inequalities. Green Radicalism is often applied in high-income countries in the context of challenging over-consumption. However, we found that in low-income countries, Green Radicalism is used to highlight environmental justice and the flaws in conventional development models focused on economic growth. These models often lead to significant environmental and social costs for local communities.
In our study, Green Radicalism is closely tied to social-environmental justice, particularly in addressing the displacement of local communities and their loss of livelihoods. Many of our interviewees noted the highly unequal distribution of benefits from hydropower in Laos, where vulnerable people have been made worse off, receiving inadequate land and unsuitable alternative livelihoods, while their participation in resettlement decisions has been marginalized.
Second, we found that the political context significantly influences the perception of change, as to whether they are perceived as more radical or reformist. Reformist strategies can be perceived as radical in certain contexts, particularly under authoritarian regimes. For example, in Myanmar, which has endured decades of military rule, resistance to hydropower often involves careful, sustained actions over time, even across generations.
These strategic acts of slow resistance can gradually shift policy and power structures, reflecting the realities of operating within a closed autocracy. We suggest a broader understanding of critical environmental discourses, including Radical Incrementalism as a pragmatic strategy for change—where purposeful actions accumulate over time to achieve significant shifts.
What implications does your research have for environmental justice?
Our paper shows that while hydropower is often considered a clean energy source, its overall benefits are questionable when long-term costs are not fully accounted for—especially since the highest costs often fall on the most vulnerable communities. The construction of the dam resulted in the resettlement of nearly 7,000 people into housing that did not meet their cultural or social needs. One-time compensation is insufficient to replace a lifetime of lost income and food sources. Additionally, over 150,000 people downstream faced losses in livelihoods, agriculture, water quality, and food security.
One of our interviewees shared a story that left a lasting impact on me. We spoke with a project developer who clearly empathized with the local community that had lost their home and paddy fields when the dam flooded the plains they lived on. The interviewee described:
“In 2018, I visited their [project-affected people’s] rice fields and it was flooded. We compensated them but they laboured and cared for their garden with their hearts. This grandma and grandpa, when I took them to visit their flooded garden, they were very sad.”
For hydropower development to truly generate socio-economic benefits for all, it is essential to adopt a justice framework that includes inclusive and meaningful public participation, recognition of customary rights, and fair compensation. This is vital if hydropower is to contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.
Finally, are you planning any more research on this topic? What’s your next direction?
My current research is with ‘GoNaturePositive!,’ an EU Horizon 2020-funded project, which aims to facilitate transformative action towards a nature-positive economy among policymakers, businesses, and society at large. The research project conceptualises the Nature-Positive Economy from a multi-stakeholder perspective and operationalises it through partnerships with businesses across five industry sectors (agri-food, blue economy, forestry, built environment, and tourism) to demonstrate how nature-positive practices can generate multiple benefits for both people and the planet.
I plan to take these learnings on social and environmental justice into our new project as we explore equitable pathways for a nature-positive future.
Bio: Niak is an interdisciplinary researcher in sustainability science, focusing on global environmental governance, climate and biodiversity policy, biodiversity finance, biodiversity offsets, and human rights. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. Her research interests are centred around achieving global biodiversity goals through a rights-based approach, an equity lens, and a recognition of indigenous and local knowledge. She holds a PhD in Sustainability Science from the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University.
